Tree rules in Winston-Salem

Most of what homeowners worry about here turns out not to apply to them. The short version: a tree standing entirely on your own residential lot is yours to remove, the strip between the sidewalk and the street is not, and the city will not take away brush that a contractor cut. Everything below is the detail behind those three sentences.

Removing a tree on private property

No city permit is required to remove a tree standing entirely on private residential property in Winston-Salem. The city regulates trees through its Unified Development Ordinance, and the tree preservation requirements in UDO Section B.3-4.2 and B.3-4.2.1 apply to development projects and building permits that require a land disturbing permit, whether issued through the Winston-Salem and Forsyth County Inspections Office or through the state. A homeowner taking a tree out of a back yard is not a development project and is not caught by that.

That distinction has real consequences on the other side of it too. If you are subdividing, building, or grading enough ground to trigger a land disturbing permit, tree preservation obligations do attach, and the time to find that out is before the machines arrive rather than after. The city Land Use Administration team handles those questions.

Street trees and the right-of-way

The strip between the sidewalk and the curb is public right-of-way, and the trees in it are city trees regardless of who mows the grass around them. The city Urban Forestry program cares for trees on city property and enforces the tree ordinances, and its crews plant and maintain trees along rights-of-way and in parks. City crews manage more than 100,000 trees on public land.

What that means practically: a private crew does not work on a right-of-way tree at a homeowner's instruction. If a street tree is dropping limbs, dead, or interfering with something, the route is the city rather than a tree company. The city's stated position is that it plants and maintains on city property and rights of way only, and that private property is the owner's responsibility.

The practical difficulty is that the right-of-way boundary is not always where people assume, and it varies from street to street. Where a tree sits close to that line, establishing which side it is on is worth doing before anybody quotes on it.

Historic districts

Winston-Salem carries a number of designated historic districts, including Old Salem, listed on the National Register since 1966, Reynolda since 1980, Ardmore since 2004, and Bethabara since 1978, and Bethania nearby since 1976. Where a property sits inside a locally designated district, exterior work can be subject to review that would not apply elsewhere in the city. Whether a specific tree removal falls under that review is a question for the city rather than for a tree crew, and it is a short call to make before scheduling work rather than after.

Brush and debris collection

This is the rule that surprises people most, and it is worth knowing before you agree a price rather than after the crew has left.

The city does collect residential brush. The stated requirements are that brush should be no larger than six inches wide and six feet long, and that limbs are placed neatly at the curb with the cut ends facing the same direction, in a spot crews can easily reach. During the regular season, from January 1 to October 31, collection typically takes twenty-one working days or less per quadrant. From November 1 to January 15 brush collection is limited because leaf season takes priority, though small branches, sticks, and shrubbery clippings placed in yard carts are collected weekly through that period.

What the city explicitly does not collect is brush cut by contractors or commercial services, and it does not collect brush from vacant lots, businesses, or apartments. So the branches you prune yourself on a Saturday can go to the curb. The material a crew cuts cannot. That haul-away is a genuine cost and it belongs on the written quote, which is one of the more common gaps between a cheap-looking price and a complete one.

Burning

Open burning of vegetative material is regulated in North Carolina and generally requires a burning permit from the N.C. Forest Service, with additional local restrictions inside city limits and further constraints on days with poor air quality or elevated fire danger. It is not a plan to improvise on the day a pile appears. Chipping avoids the question entirely and leaves a mulch pile worth having on bare Piedmont clay.

Who does what, in one list

• Tree wholly on your lot: yours. No city permit for removal.
• Tree in the right-of-way: the city's. Urban Forestry handles it.
• Development or land disturbance: UDO tree preservation requirements apply, through Inspections and Land Use Administration.
• Brush you cut: curb collection, within the six-inch by six-foot limits.
• Brush a contractor cut: leaves with the contractor.
• Burning: N.C. Forest Service permit, plus city restrictions.

Contractor credentials in North Carolina

North Carolina does not issue a trade licence specific to arborists or tree removal companies the way some states do. What established companies here carry is general liability and workers compensation insurance, and many employ or are led by an ISA Certified Arborist, which is a voluntary industry credential administered by the International Society of Arboriculture rather than a state licence. The N.C. General Contractor licence, which under NCGS 87-1 applies to construction undertakings of $40,000 or more, governs building work rather than tree work.