Plymouth County designates no heritage trees. The strongest state protection is the Scenic Roads Act, MGL c.40 §15C: on a town-designated scenic road, no tree may be cut and no stone wall torn down without planning board consent.
No county heritage-tree list exists, because Plymouth County cannot legislate. The closest Massachusetts equivalent is the Scenic Roads Act. Under MGL chapter 40, section 15C, once town meeting designates a road as a scenic road, any repair or construction work along it may not cut or remove trees or tear down stone walls without the prior written consent of the planning board, given only after an advertised public hearing. Many Plymouth County towns, including Duxbury, Marshfield, and Middleborough, have designated scenic roads that shield their canopy of old roadside trees and the region's characteristic fieldstone walls. Public shade trees everywhere also carry protection under MGL c.87 §3, and towns may adopt their own specimen-tree bylaws.
Cutting a tree or removing a stone wall on a designated scenic road without planning board consent violates MGL c.40 §15C and the town's scenic road bylaw, drawing a stop order and restoration or fines set by the municipality.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Plymouth County, MA
No Plymouth County or state law limits holiday lights, inflatables, or yard displays. Towns rarely regulate seasonal decorations at all, and where a bylaw to...
Plymouth County, MA
No Plymouth County rule governs garage-sale signs; towns handle them through local sign bylaws. On your own lawn a yard-sale sign is generally fine, but a si...
Plymouth County, MA
Towns, not Plymouth County, regulate signs, through zoning bylaws authorized by MGL c.40A. Those bylaws must stay content-neutral: after Reed v. Town of Gilb...
Plymouth County, MA
Rental registration and inspection are local powers, not county ones. The State Sanitary Code under MGL c.111 §127A lets each town's board of health enforce ...
Plymouth County, MA
Massachusetts has no statewide just-cause eviction law, and no Plymouth County town can add one. A landlord ends a tenancy at will with 30 days' written noti...
Plymouth County, MA
Rent control is illegal across every Plymouth County community. Massachusetts voters banned it in 1994 through Question 9, now codified as MGL c.40P §4: no c...
See how Plymouth County's heritage & protected trees rules stack up against other locations.
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