Hackensack, NJ Tree Protection: Parkway Planting (2026)

Chapter 162, Article I, Shade Trees, adopted April 18, 1988 by Ordinance No. " Section 162-2A lists seven acts that require prior permission from the City Manager: cutting, removing, defacing or attaching wires or signs to a shade tree; excavating around its base in a way that damages a main root; closing off or obstructing the open space around its base that lets water reach the roots; trimming limbs or removing supporting posts, braces or wire harnesses; and planting a new shade tree. Climbing a shade tree is flatly prohibited with no permission process, as is piling cement, mortar, petroleum by-product or other caustic substance within six feet of a shade tree's base, and interfering with city crews who are planting, pruning, spraying or removing a tree.

A 1990 amendment, Section 162-2B, puts day-to-day maintenance of the shade tree itself on the owner of the adjacent property even though the City Manager controls what can be done to it. Section 162-3, amended September 6, 2022, separately bars planting poplar, catalpa or willow trees in any public street or place, or within 50 feet of one, or of a sewer running through private property. Since Article I carries no penalty section of its own, a violation defaults to the Code's general penalty provision, Section 1-15, administered through the Building, Housing and Land Use Department.