Montgomery County, VA Tree Protection: Parkway Planting (2026)

Montgomery County Code Section 10-32 requires canopy street trees on both sides of the street throughout a PUD-TND (Planned Unit Development-Traditional Neighborhood Development), with spacing keyed to species and to the standards set out in the county's landscape section, Section 10-43. Where the street layout allows, developers must place street trees within the roadway median under those same Section 10-43 standards, unless VDOT prohibits it on a given road. The ordinance specifically bars understory trees from serving as street trees, since they lack the canopy height a parkway planting needs.

It requires a consistent variety and species along any one street, but pushes developers to diversify species street-to-street across the development as a defense against pest or disease blight wiping out the whole tree canopy at once. In the Neighborhood Center subarea and other zones with heavy foot traffic, street trees must be protected with design measures such as tree grates so pedestrian traffic and paving do not damage the root system. Spacing itself is not a single fixed number; the code ties it to the mature spread of the particular species chosen, so a wide-canopy species is planted farther apart than a narrow one, still averaged center-to-center along the street.