Highlands County, FL Tree Protection: Parkway Planting (2026)

128 sets the design standards for the county's Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) zoning district, an optional pattern for master-planned, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods built on land carrying the Mixed Use future land use designation. Subsection K, Landscape and Screening Standards, requires a minimum of one broad leaf evergreen canopy tree every 30 feet of street frontage, or one palm every 15 feet, along every street in a TND. The same species must run the full length of a given street, though a different street within the same development may use a different species; the ordinance is explicit that deciduous trees are barred because they lack the shading advantage of broad leaf evergreens in south central Florida's climate.

Trees are to sit between the sidewalk and the curb or pavement edge where the street cross-section allows; where a median separates travel lanes the trees move into the median, and where overhead utility lines have not yet been relocated underground during redevelopment, trees may instead be planted in the front yard setback next to the sidewalk. The section's tree list is dominated by Florida natives and durable ornamentals such as live oak, laurel oak, East Palatka holly, southern magnolia, sabal palm and queen palm.

Because this standard lives inside the TND article of chapter 12 (the county's Land Development Regulations), it binds only development approved under the TND district, not the county's standard residential subdivisions, which carry no parkway or street tree mandate under this code.