Columbia, SC Tree Protection: Parkway Planting (2026)

The street tree requirement sits in Article 6's subdivision design standards and applies to every proposed subdivision unless the narrower prohibition in subsection (b) applies. The planting rate is one tree per 40 linear feet of proposed lot frontage, measured continuously along the frontage but excluding any stretch where a driveway crosses it, and each tree must otherwise comply with the general landscaping standards in Sec. 3(c) unless this street-tree subsection says otherwise. Trees go in a planting strip that has to be at least five feet wide and sits between the street and any sidewalk the subdivision is required to install, keeping root zones and canopies clear of both the roadway and pedestrian path.

Long-term upkeep is not the city's job: maintenance of street trees falls to a homeowners' association or a comparable legal entity created for the subdivision. The ordinance also builds in an escape valve for genuinely difficult sites: where streams, rock formations, topography, lot layout, or utility easements make full compliance impossible, a subdivision can still be approved if it meets the requirement to the extent practicable and pays 125 percent of the estimated cost of the unmet plant materials and installation into the Columbia Landscaping and Tree Fund, using a cost estimate no more than 90 days old at the time of application.

Conversely, subsection (b) bars planting street trees at all within a right-of-way narrower than 60 feet unless the applicant can conclusively show there will be no future conflict with vehicles or with above- or below-ground utility lines.