Commerce City, CO Tree Protection: Heritage & Protected Trees (2026)

Every landscape plan submitted for development review must identify each significant tree, meaning any existing tree measuring more than eight inches in caliper, six inches above its base, by species, size, location and condition, and must show whether the applicant intends to remove, transplant or protect it. Streets, buildings and lot layouts have to be designed to minimize disturbance to these trees. Before and during construction, protected trees need a barrier of orange fencing at least four feet high on metal T-posts no closer than six feet from the trunk or half the drip line, whichever is farther; storing equipment, material, debris or fill inside that zone is not allowed, and dumping paint, oil, solvent, asphalt, concrete or motor oil within the drip line is prohibited outright.

Utility or irrigation trenching deeper than six inches has to bore under the root system at a minimum 24-inch depth, with the auger set back from the trunk anywhere from one foot for a tree under two inches in diameter up to fifteen feet for anything over nineteen inches, per the auger-distance table in § 21-7514(b)(vi). Dead, diseased or hazardous trees, trees blocking sightlines at driveways and intersections, and nuisance species such as cotton-bearing cottonwood, Siberian or Chinese elm, Russian olive and female box-elder fall outside the protection, though native cottonwoods and female box-elders growing in a natural buffer zone keep it.

Community Development enforces these landscape standards through the development review process under Land Development Code Article X, which lets the city manager issue stop-work orders, deny or revoke permits, and pursue injunctive relief.