Lot & Land Clearing

What lot clearing includes

Clearing a lot is a bigger, more coordinated job than dropping a single tree, and it starts with a plan. A good tree service walks the property with you, and often your builder, to mark the building envelope, the access, and any trees worth keeping. Then the trees and heavy brush come out, the stumps are ground or pulled so the ground can be graded, and the wood and debris are hauled off. The result is a lot that reads as ready ground instead of forest.

Selective clearing is usually the smart play. Mature trees add shade and value, so keeping the right ones while opening up the build area is common. Protect them for real: the Georgia Forestry Commission lists construction damage among the stresses that let pine bark beetles and hypoxylon canker kill trees, and it advises guarding trees from injury during construction. Fence off the root zone of every keeper before the machines arrive.

Common reasons homeowners clear

• New construction on a wooded lot, where the building footprint and driveway need to come out of the trees.
• Additions and outbuildings, which need a cleared, gradeable area behind or beside an existing home.
• Overgrown back acreage reclaimed for a yard, garden, pasture, or just to push the tree line back from the house.
• Firebreaks and defensible space, thinning dense, dead-heavy stands away from structures.

Permits and the north-metro reality

A finished house lot can often take down a tree without a permit. Clearing for construction is different: it is land disturbance, and that is where the rules start.

• City of Marietta. The single-home exemption in Zoning 712.08 does not cover new development. On a non-exempt parcel, a tree protection and landscaping plan goes in with the building permit drawings, no land disturbance permit is issued until Development Services approves it, and the tree protection measures have to be installed before any land is disturbed. Preliminary plats and subdivision plans need a tree protection plan too.
• Acworth and Kennesaw. Acworth's tree ordinance applies to activity that needs a land development or building permit, and vacant lots are not exempt. Kennesaw requires a $25 tree cutting permit before trees or brush are cut. See the Acworth and Kennesaw pages.
• Streams. Georgia's Erosion and Sedimentation Act restricts land disturbance and even trimming within 25 feet of creeks, streams, and most lakes and ponds, and some cities add more; Dunwoody's buffer is 75 feet. A ditch that runs in wet weather can be a protected stream.
• The Chattahoochee. Within the 2,000-foot Chattahoochee corridor, the Metropolitan River Protection Act adds a 50-foot undisturbed vegetative buffer and a 150-foot setback for hard surfaces along the river; the Atlanta Regional Commission reviews projects and the city or county issues the certificate.
• Unincorporated Cobb. Outside the cities, ask Cobb County Community Development what your project needs before any grading.

Ask the tree service to coordinate the tree side of the permits with your builder so the clearing and grading happen in the right order. Clear first and ask later, and you can end up with fines or replanting requirements.

Where the debris goes

Not into a burn pile. In Cobb County, land-clearing debris cannot be burned at any time of year. Georgia EPD's summer burn ban (May 1 to September 30) prohibits land-clearing burns in 54 counties, and Cobb, Fulton, and DeKalb are also on EPD's 27-county list where land-clearing burns stay prohibited from October through April. The only exception in those months is land clearing with an air curtain destructor. So the clearing quote needs a line for chipping and hauling, and the city will not take it either: Marietta Sanitation does not pick up trees a tree company cuts down.

Before the machines dig

Clearing, stump pulling, and grinding all count as digging. Contact Georgia 811 (811 or 800-282-7411, free) at least 3 business days before the work starts and wait for every utility to mark or clear. Utilities mark only their own lines, which usually end at the meter; a private locator has to find wells, septic lines, irrigation, and power run to a barn or shed. If a power line crosses the lot, the contractor must give Georgia 811 at least 72 hours' notice before working within 10 feet of it, so the utility can guard the line.

Lot clearing questions