How do penalties count in Loxahatchee Groves?

Two ways at once. Section 87-055 provides that the removal of any tree in violation of the section constitutes a separate violation, that each day a violation exists for an unlawful removal constitutes a separate violation, and that removal of each additional tree constitutes a separate violation. So a multi-tree clearing accrues per tree and per day simultaneously.

Tree Removal Permits in Loxahatchee Groves

Q: What does a Loxahatchee Groves application need?

A completed application form signed by the parcel owner, or by an authorized agent with an agent authorization letter; a description of the work to be performed; parcel information including the legal description and a location map; identification of the type, size and location of native trees that are two inches DBH and greater to be removed, with representative color photographs; and a tree replacement or tree relocation table where applicable.

Q: Does a land surveyor need a permit to clear a line?

Section 87-020 exempts the minimal removal of trees or understory by a Florida licensed land surveyor necessary to perform their duties, provided the swath cleared is five feet in width or less and hand clearing is used. Where survey lines wider than five feet are required, the Town is notified and a permit is required.

Loxahatchee Groves writes its permit against every tree. Section 87-030 requires a tree removal permit for the removal of all trees, unless the activity is exempt under Section 87-020 or the Town awards a tree removal waiver under Section 87-025. There is no size threshold in that sentence, so the question on a property here is which exemption or waiver applies rather than how big the tree is. 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 87-030 is written against the tree rather than against a property type, so an agricultural parcel, a commercial site, an association common area and an institutional campus are read on identical terms. What differs between them is which of the Section 87-020 exemptions is in play, and that is a question about the activity rather than about the owner.

The two Palm Beach County articles we read do not create a general permit to remove an ordinary tree, so on a removal here the town rule is the one that governs. There is a separate county obligation that does reach inside town limits, and our Palm Beach County guide sets out what it requires.

On a detached single-family residence, the state route remains available. Florida Statutes Section 163.045 operates on documentation from an ISA certified arborist or a Florida licensed landscape architect, which is the credential our arborist holds. Whether it reaches a particular tree is settled with the Town before work is scheduled.

What Needs a Permit

Start from all trees and work through the exemptions, because that is how Section 87-030 is drafted. The exemptions at Section 87-020 cover utilities working inside permitted drainage easements, activities under an adopted management plan on public conservation land, government environmental restoration, forest management under an approved Forest Management Plan, and suspension of the section by the Town Manager during a declared emergency.

One exemption is specified tightly enough to brief a crew on. Land surveying covers the minimal removal of trees or understory by a Florida licensed land surveyor necessary for the performance of their duties, provided the swath cleared is five feet in width or less and hand clearing is used to remove the vegetation. Where survey lines wider than five feet are required, the Town is notified and a permit is required. Five feet, by hand, is the whole of it.

The application itself is more demanding than a form. It carries a completed application form with the signature of the parcel owner, or of an authorized agent with an agent authorization letter; a description of the work to be performed; parcel information including the legal description and a location map; identification of the type, size and location of native trees that are two inches DBH and greater to be removed, with representative color photographs; and a tree replacement or tree relocation table where applicable.

Read the photograph requirement as a scheduling item. Representative color photographs of the native trees two inches DBH and over are part of the submission rather than an optional attachment, which means a site visit to record them happens before filing rather than after. On a parcel with a lot of native material that is a day of work in itself, and it is the item that turns up missing when someone tries to file quickly.

What It Costs

The obligation that decides a budget is the restoration bond behind a violation rather than the filing fee. Where a tree is removed in violation of the section, the violator mitigates for the removed trees, submits a tree restoration plan to the Town for review and approval, and once it is approved posts a bond, letter of credit or cash equivalent in an amount equivalent to the costs for implementing that plan. So the exposure is the full installed cost of putting the site back, secured up front, rather than a fine calculated from a schedule.

Permit application filing fees are required as established by a Resolution of the Town Council, so the amount sits outside the code text and we obtain the current figure from the Town before quoting. Two conditions attach to it and both cost money on a project that moves. The fees are non-refundable and non-transferable, so a withdrawn or redirected application does not recover them. And an additional amount may be required where projects require specific detailed processing assistance by the Town, or where plans significantly change after initial review.

That last clause is worth designing around. A scope that changes materially after the Town has begun reviewing it can attract a further charge, which is an argument for settling the tree inventory and the replacement table before filing rather than amending afterwards.

What Happens If It Is Done Without a Permit

Section 87-055 counts violations two ways at the same time, and the interaction is what makes it serious. The removal of any tree in violation of the section constitutes a separate violation. Each day a violation exists for such unlawful removal constitutes a separate violation. And removal of each additional tree in violation constitutes a separate violation.

Put those together on a clearing job and the arithmetic runs in two directions at once: every tree is its own violation, and every day the situation persists adds another for each. A single afternoon of unpermitted clearing on a wooded parcel does not produce one problem, it produces a grid of them, and the grid keeps growing until the matter is resolved.

Alongside that sits the restoration obligation described above, so the exposure has two components: the counted violations, and the secured cost of implementing an approved restoration plan.

What to Check With Your Contractor

Ask whether the photographs and the tree identification have been done before the application is filed. An application missing the representative color photographs of native trees two inches DBH and over is an application that comes back, and the time lost is the customer's rather than the contractor's.

On any survey or line-clearing work, ask how wide the swath will be and whether it is being cleared by hand. The exemption stops at five feet and at hand clearing, so bringing a machine to a survey line, or widening it, moves the work from exempt to permitted without anybody deciding to do so.

And on a parcel where clearing is planned in stages, settle the whole inventory before the first stage. Because each additional tree is a separate violation and each day is another, a scope that grows on site is the specific shape of job this section punishes hardest.

What to Do Next

Three things settle a Loxahatchee Groves job before it is priced. Which exemption or waiver applies, since the permit otherwise reaches all trees with no threshold. What the native tree inventory looks like at two inches DBH and above, since that drives the photographs and the identification in the application. And what the Town currently charges, since the fee sits in a Council resolution and carries a surcharge where plans change after review.

We settle those before quoting. We inspect the parcel, identify and measure native trees at two inches DBH and above, take the representative photographs the application requires, prepare the replacement or relocation table, produce the arborist report where the application calls for one, and file with the Town. TWQ Landscaping handles tree permitting for the properties we maintain across Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade: community associations and condominiums, commercial and industrial sites, medical and senior living campuses, schools, religious campuses, hotels, multifamily rental, self-storage, dealerships, retail outparcels, marinas, mobile home communities, municipal grounds and mixed-use. Call (954) 583-4752 or request a proposal.

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

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