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Tree Removal Permits in Sunny Isles Beach

Sunny Isles Beach puts its tree survey requirement inside the building permit application. Section 265-70 of the city code requires a tree survey identifying all existing trees over three inches in diameter to be included with any building permit application, and it asks for a drawing overlaid directly on the site plan rather than a list of trees. That is professional survey work, commissioned before the application goes in. 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 265-70 is headed Tree removal permit, and the survey provision inside it is written against any building permit application. What it turns on is the application, not the property type. A commercial site, an association common area, a condominium parcel, a hotel, a school or a medical campus sits inside it on the same terms once a building permit application is filed and existing trees over three inches in diameter stand on the site.

Sunny Isles Beach sits inside Miami-Dade County, and Section 265-70 adopts all applicable portions of Miami-Dade County Tree Protection Ordinance 89-8 into the city code, so the county layer that our Miami-Dade County guide sets out applies here through the city's own section. This page stays with what the city section says. Read the two together before a removal is scheduled, because the city section brings the county ordinance in by its own words.

What Needs a Permit

The city section carries the heading Tree removal permit, and the provisions published here from it attach to a building permit application. Where a removal is planned on an established property with no building permit application in front of it, what the city's own permit requires is a question to put to the city in writing. We put it before a crew is booked rather than on the day of the work. The county requirements adopted at Section 265-70 travel with the job in either case.

Where a building permit application is in play, the survey requirement is detailed. The drawing has to be overlaid directly upon the site plan. It must provide the accurate location of all existing trees which are proposed to be destroyed, relocated or preserved. It must give the botanical name and the common name of each tree, and the diameter, the height and the canopy spread of each tree. That is a species determination plus three measurements, not a trunk diameter alone.

One thing in that sentence is worth settling before a surveyor is engaged. The survey is described as identifying all existing trees over three inches in diameter, while the names and the three measurements are written against each tree in the list of trees proposed to be destroyed, relocated or preserved. Whether the city reads the detail as owed on every tree over three inches, or only on the trees in that list, changes what the survey covers and what it costs. The city settles that.

A second survey trigger sits in the city regulations, and it names three conditions together. There must be indications of existing native tree species, or of mature trees or palms not on the Miami-Dade County list of exotic or invasive species, on the site. Development must be proposed. And the provision reaches development within City areas of particular concern as identified in the City Comprehensive Plan. Both survey provisions are development provisions, tied to an application or to a development proposal.

What It Costs

The number that decides a budget here is not a city permit fee. Miami-Dade County tree permit fees are set by a separate administrative order approved by the Board of County Commissioners rather than printed in the code, so this page publishes no figure for them. They have to be obtained from the county before any amount is quoted, and a rate published by another city is not the county rate. We obtain the current county figure as part of preparing the application.

What Sunny Isles Beach charges on its own account is confirmed with the city before we quote, and no amount for it appears here either. That is the position worth carrying to a board. A tree budget for this city is not finished until the county figure and the city figure are both in hand, in writing, for the specific trees in scope.

The survey is a cost in its own right and it is separate from any permit charge. A drawing overlaid on the site plan, carrying a botanical name, a common name, a diameter, a height and a canopy spread for each tree in scope, is professional work priced by the tree count and the size of the site. On a property with a developed canopy the tree count drives it, so price the survey before the application is scheduled rather than after.

What Happens If It Is Done Without a Permit

Section 265-70 adopts all applicable portions of Miami-Dade County Tree Protection Ordinance 89-8, so what follows from unauthorized tree work runs through the county ordinance as well as through anything the city applies itself. The county guide linked above sets out that layer. What the city imposes on its own account is a question to put to the city in writing, and the answer belongs in the project file rather than in a contractor's verbal assurance.

There is a second exposure that has nothing to do with a fine. Where a building permit application requires the tree survey, a tree taken down before the drawing is produced cannot be put back onto it. The application still calls for a survey showing the existing trees on the site, and the record of what stood there has gone with the tree. Settling the survey first protects the application as well as the budget.

What to Check With Your Contractor

The survey is the first thing to check. Ask who is producing it, whether it will be overlaid directly on the site plan as the section requires, and whether it carries the botanical name, the common name, the diameter, the height and the canopy spread for each tree in scope. The section asks for a drawing overlaid on the site plan, so a tree schedule supplied as a separate sheet is worth checking against that wording with the city before it is filed.

Ask next what has been secured on the county side, because Section 265-70 adopts the county ordinance and both sets of requirements travel with the job. And where a tree in scope stands near an energized conductor, that part of the work is not ours. Our crews stay at least ten feet from energized lines and the rest is coordinated with the utility, because a line clearance qualification is governed by ANSI Z133 rather than by an arborist credential.

What to Do Next

Three things are worth settling before tree work is scheduled in Sunny Isles Beach. Whether a building permit application is in play, because that is what pulls the Section 265-70 survey requirement in. Whether the site carries native stock, or mature trees or palms off the county exotic and invasive list, and sits within an area of particular concern under the City Comprehensive Plan, because that is the second survey trigger. And what the county requires and charges, which is where the authorization and the money sit.

We settle all three before quoting. We inspect the trees, record species, diameter, height and canopy spread for the survey drawing, produce the arborist report where the application calls for one, file the city application, coordinate the county side and handle replacement planting where it applies. 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.

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

The information presented on this page was accurate as of 24 August 2026.

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