Tree Removal Permits in Delray Beach

In Delray Beach a Vegetation Removal Permit must be submitted and approved before any tree removal or land clearing operation. Section 4.6.19 states that it applies to all improved and unimproved properties within the City, including single family homes and duplexes. What the code gives single family property is an exemption from mitigation, and the permit requirement survives that exemption. TWQ Landscaping prepares and files these applications, and our ISA Certified Arborist (NY-6948A) produces the supporting report where one is required.

Does This Apply to Your Property?

Section 4.6.19 carries the title Tree preservation, protection, enforcement, and maintenance. Its applicability subsection states that the section applies to all improved and unimproved properties within the City, including single family homes and duplexes. Improved and unimproved covers a built commercial site and a vacant parcel alike. An association common area, a condominium parcel, a hotel, an industrial site and an institutional campus all sit inside that sentence on its general terms.

The two Palm Beach County articles we read do not create a general permit to remove an ordinary tree, so on a removal in Delray Beach the city rule is the one that governs. A separate county obligation does reach inside city limits: the countywide invasive non-native vegetation ordinance applies in incorporated areas except where a municipal ordinance conflicts, and our Palm Beach County guide sets out what it requires. The single family position is worth stating plainly, because a board member may be asked about it. The ordinance names single family homes and duplexes inside its applicability, and the exemption the code gives them is written against mitigation requirements rather than against the permit.

What Needs a Permit

The permit sentence is short. Prior to any tree removal or land clearing operation, a Vegetation Removal Permit per Section 4.6.19(E) must be submitted and approved. Land clearing sits beside tree removal in that sentence, so a clearing operation is covered as well as the removal of an individual tree. Submitted and approved is the operative pair, since an application on file is not an approval.

The code states a size, in the protection standard. All development proposals, meaning a land development application or a building permit, must provide for the protection of existing trees having a trunk four inch or greater diameter. That diameter is measured at four and one-half feet above grade, which the code labels Diameter at Breast Height. Palms are measured on a different basis, a Clear Trunk of eight feet or more. Where a particular tree falls against the permit trigger is worth settling with Development Services.

A Tree Disposition Plan is required with any land development application. It identifies the trees and palms to be preserved, relocated and removed, and it carries the protection and relocation measures and the mitigation calculations. The disposition of each tree and palm on the parcel is therefore settled as part of the application.

What It Costs

Mitigation decides a budget here rather than the permit fee, and the code publishes neither as a figure. Removal is mitigated in kind or by an in lieu fee paid into the Tree Trust Fund. The code states that the in lieu fee is approved as part of the landscape plan and calculated as established by Resolution of the City Commission. The permit fee is set the same way. Both amounts sit in a Commission resolution rather than in the ordinance, and we confirm them with Development Services before quoting.

The exemption the code gives existing single family homes and duplexes is written against mitigation requirements, and the code says they are generally exempt provided three conditions hold. The property has to sit outside a historic or beach overlay district. The tree proposed for removal has to have a DBH of less than four inches. And the property has to contain the minimum number of code required trees under Section 4.6.16.

Two rules sit under that exemption, and both concern code required trees. Mitigation is required for the removal of a code required tree with a DBH of four inches or greater. The code makes one exception, where the location interferes with a proposed addition to an existing structure or a new accessory structure. Separately, the code sets the grounds on which a code required tree of four inches or greater can be removed. They are life safety issues, property destruction, irreversible structural deficiencies within the tree, or an incurable disease.

One category carries no permit fee and no mitigation. Nuisance plant species are those classified as Category I by the Florida Invasive Species Council. Their removal is authorized by the Development Services Director or designee, and the code provides that they may be removed without a permit fee and without mitigation. The last sentence of that provision runs the other way. Where nuisance plant species are indicated on the landscape plan of record, approval is conditioned upon their removal.

What Happens If It Is Done Without a Permit

The code closes the gap between the exemption and the permit in one sentence. Notwithstanding Sections 4.6.19(E)(6), 4.6.19(E)(4)(c) and 4.6.19(E)(4)(d) of the Land Development Regulations, tree removal permits are required prior to removal. Penalties may be assessed pursuant to Section 4.6.19(E)(8) where a permit was not obtained prior to removal. Prior to removal is the operative phrase in both halves.

A second track runs through the palms. Palm trees infected with, or clearly exhibiting the symptoms of, lethal yellowing are declared a public nuisance under Section 100.09. The code describes the symptoms it expects to be recognized. They are blackening of young inflorescences, developing fruits suddenly dropping on coconut palms, and mature leaves yellowing until the canopy wilts and dies. In other species the leaves collapse and the palm dies quickly.

The City Manager or an authorized designee may enter any lot or parcel in the City at any reasonable hour to inspect palm trees. Tissue samples may be taken for laboratory analysis. Removal of a palm may be required on the basis of its obvious physical demise alone. Anyone who resists or obstructs an individual carrying out the provisions of that section is guilty of a misdemeanor. The penalty is a fine not exceeding $500.00 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding sixty days, or both.

What to Check With Your Contractor

One route through this code runs on a report rather than on a form. Removing a code required tree of four inches or greater on the disease ground calls for an incurable disease documented by a certified arborist's report. The Development Services Director or designee also has to determine that no other tree saving options are available. Settle who is producing that report, and on what evidence, before a crew is booked.

Relocation is written in the same detail. A Tree Disposition Plan that proposes to relocate a tree has to state the relocation measures, including the transport methods and the watering details. A crew that offers to move a tree rather than remove it is committing to a written method. Ask for that method at the quote stage, because it is what the plan has to carry.

What to Do Next

Three things are worth settling before tree work is scheduled in Delray Beach. Whether the trees in scope are code required trees, since that is what the mitigation rules turn on. What the mitigation comes to, in kind or as the in lieu fee, at the figure the Commission resolution currently sets. And whether the property sits in a historic or beach overlay district, because the exemption is written for property outside those districts.

We settle those before quoting. We inspect the trees and palms, record species, size and condition, and prepare the arborist report where the application calls for one. We file the Vegetation Removal Permit and handle replacement planting or the in lieu payment where mitigation applies. TWQ Landscaping handles tree permitting for the properties we maintain across Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. That is community associations and condominiums, commercial and industrial sites, medical and senior living campuses, schools, religious campuses, hotels, multifamily rental, self-storage, mobile home communities, municipal grounds and mixed-use. Call (954) 583-4752 or request a proposal.

TWQ Landscaping maintains commercial and community association property in Delray Beach. See landscaping services in Delray Beach.

The information presented on this page was accurate as of 23 August 2026.

Related Services

• Tree Care (Overview)
• Tree Trimming & Pruning
• Root Pruning
• Palm Tree Care
• Palm Tree Strapping
• Tree Removal
• Invasive Tree Species Removal
• Emergency Tree Services
• Tree Health & Risk Assessments
• Tree Inventory & Management Plans