Street Trees in Lexington: Who Owns Them, Who Pays

Search this question and you will find two confident, opposite answers. A tree service says the trees belong to the city. The city says you maintain them. Neighbors on Reddit argue both sides.

Both are half right, and the half each one gets right is worth knowing.

What the city owns is the land

Sec. 17B-1 defines the term this whole chapter runs on:

Street tree shall mean any tree within the urban county government right-of-way or designated tree planting easement, excepting those trees regulated pursuant to article 18 of the Zoning Ordinance or the Downtown Street Tree Ordinance.

Right-of-way is public. So a street tree stands on public ground, not on your lot, even though it sits a few feet from your porch. That is the grain of truth in "the city owns it." The city also regulates it hard, which is why you cannot simply cut one down.

What you carry is the work and the bills

The city's own street trees page says it in one line:

In Lexington, maintaining street trees is the responsibility of the property owner.

Chapter 17B backs that up. It puts the care on the owner, the pruning on the owner, the permit on the owner, the replacement on the owner, and in several situations the stump removal on the owner too.

The part nobody mentions

Chapter 17B never defines the word owner. Sec. 17B-1 defines eight terms: hazardous tree, large tree, medium tree, person, root zone, small tree, street tree, and tree planting easement. That is the entire list.

The chapter then hands duties to "owners of street trees," to "the owner or occupant of any building or lot," and to "the adjacent property owner," without ever saying who holds title to a tree growing on public land. The city's plain-language position is that the responsibility belongs to the adjacent property owner, and the ordinance is written as though that is understood.

So the useful version is this. Ownership is genuinely blurry. Responsibility is not. For every practical question below, the answer is you.

Lexington has more than 53,000 street trees, so this is not a rare situation. It is most of the city.

1. Measure the three clearances.

   Seven feet over the sidewalk. Twelve feet over the street. Fourteen feet if your street is a truck route.

   The city's page lists only the first two. The fourteen foot figure is in the code (Sec. 17B-8), and it is the one people miss.

2. Cut the dead and diseased limbs.

   Sec. 17B-8 asks for reasonable care and maintenance. In practice that means watering, pruning, insect control, and taking off dead or diseased limbs.

   It also names something easy to overlook: pulling off any vine or invasive growth that hides defects in the tree. Ivy up a trunk is not just a look, it is a concealed problem.

3. Do not top the tree.

   Topping is cutting limbs back to stubs thicker than three inches inside the crown, enough to strip the canopy and disfigure the tree. Sec. 17B-7 makes that unlawful as a normal practice.

   Storm-damaged trees and trees under utility wires can be exempted, but only in writing from the urban forester. It is also unlawful to cut away a quarter or more of the crown just to make a sign or a storefront easier to see.

4. Hire the right person if you hire anyone.

   The city recommends an ISA-certified arborist. Its tree care guidance also asks for coarse, undyed mulch, two to four inches deep, spread out to the dripline and never piled against the trunk.

Letting it go is not a neutral choice. Sec. 17B-8 makes it unlawful for an owner or occupant to let a tree grow so that it interferes with a sidewalk, blocks street traffic, or becomes a safety problem by blocking a view or a passage.

The minimum clearance of any overhanging portion thereof shall be seven (7) feet over sidewalks and twelve (12) feet over all streets except truck routes which shall have a clearance of fourteen (14) feet.

For the sidewalk underneath it, the rules are different again and the bill is also yours. See sidewalk repair rules, which cover the same strip of ground.

1. Measure the trunk before you do anything else.

   Measure the diameter four and a half feet up from the ground. Over three inches and you need a permit.

   No person shall remove a tree larger than three (3) inches in diameter, measured at a point four and one-half (4½) feet above the ground within the urban county government right-of-way without obtaining a permit from the division of environmental services.

2. Work out whether you will get one.

   If the tree is dead or dying, the permit shall be granted. That is the easy case.

   For a live tree, permits come only in special circumstances. The code lists three: the tree threatens public safety, it threatens the health of other trees in the community, or it is being replaced by a more desirable tree.

3. Apply through Urban Forestry.

   The permit comes from the Division of Environmental Services. Call (859) 258-3404 or email urbanforestry@lexingtonky.gov. The office is at 200 E. Main St.

4. Plan on replacing it.

   Sec. 17B-3 requires whoever removes a right-of-way tree to replace it, meeting the standards in Sec. 17B-2(b). The division can waive that where a replacement would not make sense.

   On timing, the city's street trees page says:

   Street trees that are removed must be replaced within one year.

   Worth knowing where that year comes from. The ordinance sets no deadline at all. Sec. 17B-2(b) is a list of conditions about species, spacing, and utilities, and it contains no clock. The one year figure is the city's published guidance, not a line in the code. If the date matters to your situation, ask Urban Forestry directly rather than relying on either source alone.

5. Budget for the stump.

   The stump lands on the property owner in three situations the code spells out:

   • The division declares the tree a hazardous tree and orders it out. Removal of the tree and the stump is at the property owner's expense.
   • The tree was planted without a permit, or in violation of the permit. The division can order the tree and stump removed.
   • The urban county engineer takes out a tree that has become a hazard to traffic, using the authority in KRS 179.070. Even then, the adjacent property owner bears the cost and responsibility of removing the stump.

Skipping the permit does not save money. The division can order an unpermitted removal put right, and Sec. 17B-4 makes it a violation to cut, poison, or remove a street tree without one.

1. Get a permit, even for an empty strip.

   Sec. 17B-2 lets any person plant a tree in the right-of-way immediately next to their own property, with a permit from the Division of Environmental Services.

   The city is explicit that an empty easement is no exception. If there is no street tree there now, you still need the permit to put one in.

2. Pick a species off the approved list.

   The tree cannot be an unacceptable species under Sec. 17B-10. The city publishes an approved street tree list and a quiz to help you choose.

   Sec. 17B-10 describes what gets a species excluded: disease or insect problems, dirty or drooping branches or objectionable fruit, weak wood that drops big limbs, unpredictable habits, shallow destructive roots, or thorns and poison.

3. Pace out the spacing.

   For a tree going in between the sidewalk and the street:

   • Fifty feet in advance of a stop or yield sign.
   • Twenty-five feet in advance of any other standard regulatory or warning sign.
   • Ten feet from a fire hydrant or a utility pole.

   Look up as well. Where overhead utility wires run, or where an easement for them has been dedicated, only small trees are permitted. Small means a species that tops out between ten and fifteen feet.

4. Call Kentucky 811 before you dig.

   The code puts this on the property owner, along with checking the site against utility and obstruction requirements. If the planting damages an existing utility, that is yours too.

5. Expect an answer within fourteen days.

   The division has fourteen days from your application to decide. If it does not decide in that window, the code treats the silence as approval.

   It can also waive conditions to protect an area's tree population, require a particular species, or deny the permit for just cause where the planting would threaten public safety.

Once it is in the ground, it is yours. Sec. 17B-2 says the property owner maintains the tree after planting: watering, pruning, dead and diseased limbs, insect control.

1. Blocking a road? Call 911.

   The city's storm guidance is direct about this:

   To report a downed tree that is wholly or partially blocking a road, call 911.

   Wholly or partially blocking. A tree across half a lane still counts, and it is still an emergency.

2. Down in a yard and nobody in danger? Call 311.

   That is a non-emergency. Call (859) 425-2255 or 311. The city lists downed trees in yards that do not pose a safety risk as an example of exactly this.

3. On a power line? Call your energy provider.

   Not the city, and not 311. Stay away from the line.

4. Then deal with the stump and the replacement.

   Once the emergency is over, the ordinary rules pick back up. The replacement duty in Sec. 17B-3 and the stump costs above are the ones to read.

Full storm guidance, including what to do at intersections when the signals are out, is on the city's storm updates page.

Taking down a large tree is expensive, and the duty does not come with a budget. The city runs a cost-share program for hazardous street trees.

1. Check the income limit.

   Household income must not exceed 80 percent of Area Median Income, as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Qualification depends on income and family size, and the city publishes the current dollar thresholds for households of one through eight.

2. Get two estimates.

   The application needs the form plus two estimates covering removal and replacement. Applicants who want the hundred percent funding tier have to say so on the form.

3. Send it in early.

   The program is first come, first served until the funds are allocated. Email, mail to 200 E. Main St. attention Urban Forester, or drop it at the security desk in the Government Center.

Questions go to Urban Forestry at (859) 258-3404. The current application packet, income table, and email address are on the city's street trees page, which is also where the permit forms live.

Sec. 17B-4 is short and covers more than people expect. No person shall:

• Intentionally damage, cut, poison, carve, transplant, or remove a tree without the permit Sec. 17B-3 requires.
• Park a vehicle or store materials of any kind where it may compact the soil in the root zone. The root zone runs out to roughly the edge of the canopy.
• Attach rope, wire, nails, advertising posters, or anything else to the tree.
• Let any harmful liquid, herbicide, or solid substance touch it.
• Set or permit a fire where the heat will injure any part of the tree.

Construction adds another duty. Under Sec. 17B-9, any street tree within ten feet of an excavation or of building, street, or sidewalk work has to be guarded with a protective barrier at least eight feet square, with materials, dirt, and debris kept outside it. Trees damaged or removed by that work must be replaced in the original spot or as close to it as possible.

You get a warning first, in most cases

Sec. 17B-12 requires the city to issue a notice of violation before the first civil citation, and that notice must give at least twenty-four hours to correct the problem. The time allowed cannot be unrealistic given the weather and the site.

Two exceptions. No notice is required where the violation is a serious threat to public health, safety, and welfare, or where waiting would make the harm irreparable. And once you have had a first citation, later offenses need no notice.

The fine

The maximum civil fine is two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500.00) per violation, and each day a violation continues is a separate offense. In setting the amount the city weighs your compliance history, the environmental harm done, and whether the violation showed willful and knowing disregard. Good faith efforts to fix it can reduce the penalty.

Where the city abates a condition itself, it can bill you for the work plus a one hundred fifty dollar ($150.00) administrative fee, and it can file a lien for unpaid fines, fees, and abatement costs.

Appealing

Two different routes, which is easy to get wrong. A decision of the Division of Environmental Services, such as a denied permit, is appealed to the tree board. File written notice with the clerk of the urban county council within ten days of being notified, copy the urban forester, and say why. It is heard at the tree board's next meeting.

A civil citation is different. Those are appealed to the infrastructure hearing board under Chapter 2B.

Everything above is about street trees, meaning trees in the public right-of-way or a designated tree planting easement. A tree standing in your yard or your neighbour's yard, with branches or roots crossing the property line, is governed by Kentucky common law rather than by Chapter 17B, and this page does not cover it.

This page is a plain-language summary of an ordinance, not legal advice. For a dispute with a neighbour, or for anything involving injury or serious property damage, talk to a Kentucky attorney.