Honolulu County, HI Tree Protection: Parkway Planting (2026)

Chapter 10, Article 1 of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu covers the city's public parks, beaches, and public rights-of-way, and § 10-1.4 puts street trees, hedges, and shrubs squarely under the Department of Parks and Recreation's control rather than the abutting property owner's. The section directs that 'the director shall adopt rules pursuant to HRS Chapter 91, relative to the planting, trimming, and maintenance of all shade trees, hedges, and shrubs within the public right-of-way on public streets of the city, and relative to the issuance of permits for the replacement, removal, planting, spraying, trimming, or pruning of street trees by private citizens.' Article 1's definitions section, § 10-1.1, identifies that 'director' as 'the director of parks and recreation or the director's designated representative,' so the rulemaking and permitting authority over parkway trees sits with Parks and Recreation, not the Department of Planning and Permitting that handles most other Oahu land-use permits. Because HRS Chapter 91 is Hawaii's administrative procedure act, any rule the director adopts under § 10-1.4 has to go through formal public notice and a hearing before it takes effect, the same process required for any other state or county administrative rule.

The practical effect is that a homeowner or business fronting a public street can't unilaterally plant, remove, or heavily prune the tree, hedge, or shrub growing in the parkway strip between the sidewalk and the curb; doing so without the required permit is a violation of Article 1. Chapter 10's general penalty provision, § 10-1.6(d)(1), applies because street tree work isn't among the small set of parking- and vehicle-related violations carrying the article's separate $25-to-$500 fine schedule: 'any person convicted of a violation of this article will be punished by a fine of not more than $500 or by imprisonment for not more than 30 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.' Police officers and other authorized officers can issue citations for a street-tree violation under § 10-1.6(a), the same citation process used for other park-related violations.