A homeowner who removes a yard tree owes no replacement. Replacement and mitigation duties ride on land development in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, where trees removed under review must be replaced or mitigated to protect the canopy, and on the town street trees the towns replant themselves.
Take a tree down in your own established yard and no Orange County rule makes you plant a new one. Replacement obligations attach to development. Chapel Hill's Land Use Management Ordinance ties removals to tree replacement and mitigation standards through the Landscape Protection Plan, and Carrboro's Land Use Ordinance sets landscaping and tree-protection conditions at site review. When protected trees are lost during a project, the applicant must replant to required ratios or meet mitigation terms. The towns, both Tree City USA members, also replant and maintain their own street and park trees. In the unincorporated county, replanting duties appear mainly through buffer and development landscaping standards.
No replacement duty, and no penalty, for a homeowner removing a private yard tree. A developer who fails to replace protected trees or install required landscaping breaches a condition of approval, risking correction, withheld occupancy, or forfeited bond.
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See how Orange County's tree replacement requirements rules stack up against other locations.
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