Southampton, NY Landscaping Rules: Tree Trimming (2026)

The Property Maintenance chapter treats untrimmed, overgrown landscaping as a form of blight. Section 261-1B(3) requires every improved property's lawns, hedges, bushes and trees to be kept trimmed so they do not become overgrown, unsightly, or an unsafe condition, and separately requires leaves and brush to be kept out of the adjoining Town right-of-way except through the Highway Department's spring and fall cleanup program. Section 261-1B(12), added in 2009, ties tree trimming directly to emergency access: for any improved property where the dwelling sits 150 feet or more from the edge of the road, landscaping, shrubs, bushes and trees must be maintained to provide a minimum unobstructed clearance of 14 feet in both width and height, cross-referencing the same 14-foot standard for accessory driveway structures at § 330-362A(2).

Section 261-1B(13) adds that on those same long-driveway lots, vegetation next to the driveway cannot come closer than 20 feet to the road edge, so fire apparatus and other emergency vehicles have room to turn in. Corner-lot sight triangles carry their own trimming rule at § 330-361: trees within the triangle must have branches trimmed to at least 10 feet above curb or pavement level, and no hedge, shrub or growth in the triangle may exceed two feet.