Santa Rosa, CA Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

Section 13-32.010 of the Santa Rosa City Code puts street-tree maintenance squarely on the shoulders of the adjoining property owner. Any owner of a lot fronting or adjacent to a street must keep trees, shrubs, hedges, and other landscaping along that street, or within the right-of-way next to the lot, in a nondangerous condition that will not interfere with the public's use of the street or sidewalk. The ordinance sets hard numbers: a minimum eight-foot vertical clearance measured from the top of the sidewalk for pedestrians, and a minimum 13-foot vertical clearance measured from the top of the curb for vehicles, to any part of the tree.

Subsection (B) spells out what "maintenance" covers so owners cannot argue the duty is limited to pruning: deep-root watering, root pruning, installing root barriers, clearance and structural trimming, fertilizing, pest control, and removing fallen branches, leaves, and other debris. Subsection (C) converts that maintenance duty into an actual legal duty owed to the public, meaning a pedestrian or driver hurt by an untrimmed limb, or a root that heaved the sidewalk, is not just relying on City goodwill, they have a code-created right. Subsection (D) makes that concrete: if an owner fails to keep adjacent trees, shrubs, hedges, or landscaping nondangerous, and someone is hurt or property is damaged as a result, the owner is liable for the resulting damages. The section, added by Ordinance 3886 in 2008, sits in Chapter 13-32, Property Owner Sidewalk Responsibility, alongside the companion sidewalk-repair duty in Section 13-32.020, which covers the pavement itself rather than the vegetation growing next to it.