Short answer: maybe. Longer answer, and the one that actually saves you a fine, is that the rules change the second you cross a town line. A silver maple on a Park Avenue lot and the same silver maple two miles east in Brighton are governed by completely different paperwork. We get this call about twice a week, usually from someone who already has a crew scheduled.
Here's how it actually breaks down across the towns we work in.
City of Rochester: the 6-inch rule (and the exemption most people qualify for)
On paper, the City requires a permit to remove a private tree that's 6 inches or more in diameter, measured about 4.5 feet above the ground. The application fee is $90.
Then come the exemptions, and they're broad:
- Owner-occupants of a one-family parcel under one acre are exempt. That covers the large majority of city homeowners — Corn Hill, the South Wedge, Maplewood, most of the 19th Ward. Small lots, one house, you live in it.
- Dead, diseased, damaged, or hazard trees are exempt — meaning trees that would be dead within roughly two years anyway. Your EAB-killed green ash falls here.
Two things the exemptions do not cover: designated landmark trees, and anything in the public right-of-way. Which brings us to the part people get wrong most often.
If it's in the tree lawn, it isn't yours
That strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb — the tree lawn — is City property, and so is the tree standing in it. You mow it. You rake it. You don't own it. Street trees belong to the Forester Division, and a homeowner can't legally take one down, top it, or hire us to take it down. Not even if it's dropping limbs on your car.
What you do instead is call Forestry at 585-428-7581, or dial 311 if you're in the city (585-428-5990 from outside). They inspect, they decide, and if it comes down, they do it. It's slower than you'd like. It's also free, which is worth remembering when you're weighing a $1,200 removal.
Rule of thumb we use on estimates: if the trunk is on the house side of the sidewalk, it's almost certainly yours. Curb side, it's almost certainly theirs. When the sidewalk jogs or there isn't one, ask before anyone starts cutting.
Brighton is stricter than the city, and that surprises people
Brighton's Chapter 175 flips the logic. Instead of exempting small lots, it regulates parcels larger than one acre — so the big properties off Clover and Elmwood, the ones with real canopy, need a permit. And a "tree" in Brighton is anything over 2 inches in diameter at 4 feet, which is a much lower bar than the city's 6.
On top of that there's the Woodlot Protection District, an EPOD overlay where removing anything over 5 inches in diameter requires a development permit. If your deed or survey mentions an environmental protection overlay, assume you need to file.
Routine grounds maintenance is exempt, and so is removing dead or diseased trees. Town-owned trees are the Commissioner of Public Works' call, not yours. We spell out more of this on our Brighton service area page.
Brockport, Canandaigua, and the outlying towns
Head west or southeast and it loosens up considerably.
- Village of Brockport: the code covers public, right-of-way, park and easement trees only. Private removals are largely unregulated. The Superintendent inspects and enforces on the public side. If you're on a village lot in Brockport and the tree is behind your house, you're generally clear.
- City of Canandaigua: same idea today — only public, tree-lawn and right-of-way trees are regulated, with a permit from the Public Works Director. But the Tree Advisory Board has floated a private-property notification ordinance. Light-touch, not a permit. Still, it's moving, so don't assume last year's answer holds.
- Livingston and Orleans County towns — Avon, Caledonia, Albion — vary, and several have essentially nothing on the books for private trees. Confirm with your own clerk. Don't take a neighbor's word, and don't take a Facebook group's word.
Two things worth doing before you call anybody
Take a photo with the sidewalk and curb in frame. Ninety percent of the ownership question resolves right there, and it saves the town a site visit.
Second, if the tree is a dead ash, say so on the phone. Monroe County sits in New York's EAB Restricted Zone, so untreated ash wood and firewood can't leave the zone — that changes how the wood gets handled, and it's a normal part of the job here, not a complication. Dead ash also goes brittle fast, which is why those removals get quoted differently than a live maple of the same size.
We pull permits as part of the job when one's required, and we'll tell you straight when one isn't — a permit we don't need isn't billable hours we want. If you're not sure which side of a line your tree falls on, send us the address and a photo and we'll look it up, or start at the overview of what we do. Ten minutes on the phone with Forestry beats a stop-work order and a crew standing in your driveway.