St. Peters, MO Tree Protection: Parkway Planting (2026)

Section 535.100 of the Tree and Landscape Chapter ties street tree planting to the City's development approval process. Commercial and industrial developers must plant trees along every street their property fronts, spaced no more than sixty feet apart and located in or parallel to the right-of-way, no more than ten feet back from the property line, with the City approving exact placement. Residential subdivision developers face a frontage-based formula: one tree in front of each lot with seventy-nine feet or less of road frontage, and one tree for every forty feet of frontage on lots of eighty feet or more, all placed in the right-of-way and detailed on a street tree plan the City must approve before construction.

Species, planting method, and exact placement must conform to the City's Arboricultural Specifications Manual, and exceptions to the planting count are limited to those the Manual lists. Developers may post an escrow instead of installing the trees before final occupancy, guaranteeing the cost and labor of the plantings; the escrow must be on City-furnished forms, approved by the City Administrator's agent, and is subject to audit by the agent or the Board of Aldermen. If the required trees are not satisfactorily installed within one year of the occupancy permit, the City can draw on the escrow to complete the planting itself unless it grants a time extension.

On tracts larger than three acres, no more than fifty percent of existing woodland may be cleared, and any additional clearing needs a separate hardship permit from the City Administrator with a replacement woodland one and one-half times the cleared canopy.