Pasco County commissioners have unanimously approved a rewrite of the county’s tree preservation ordinance, raising the cost for developers to remove trees and creating new incentives to keep them standing.
The board voted 5-0 at its March 24 meeting in New Port Richey to adopt the updated Tree Mitigation Ordinance, overhauling Land Development Code Section 802 for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Under the new rules, developers will pay $75 per inch of trunk diameter to remove a tree, up from $50. Heritage trees carry a $150-per-inch removal fee. On the flip side, developers who preserve heritage trees will receive $300 per inch, and those who keep trees 10 inches in diameter or larger within required perimeter landscaping and screening along arterial and collector roads will receive $150 per inch.
The ordinance also establishes tree canopy preservation standards, requiring sites to retain at least 20% of the total inches of upland trees 10 inches in diameter at breast height and larger. Preserved canopy must include each tree and its associated native vegetation within the drip line, undisturbed except for invasive species removal.
Tree removal now requires approval as part of the overall development plan. Developers must submit tree surveys, inventory and canopy preservation calculations, along with a tree plan. A permit is required to remove any tree 5 inches DBH or greater.
When developers pay to remove trees that are not replaced, those fees go into a separate Tree Mitigation Fund maintained apart from the county’s general revenue.
The county’s Planning Board had been reworking the section since June. The goal was to better protect wetlands, forests and tree clusters that have been disappearing as development has surged across Pasco over the past 15 years. Under the old rules, developers routinely clear-cut properties because the $50-per-inch fee made removal cheaper than working around existing trees.
Despite the lengthy revision process, several residents urged commissioners to go further. Public comments submitted for the meeting noted that other Florida jurisdictions charge as much as $500 per inch for tree removal, and some residents pushed for canopy preservation requirements as high as 35%. Others expressed gratitude for the update and urged the county to ensure the preservation and replanting provisions are enforced.