Do you need a permit?
It depends on the tree
Beaverton has the most elaborate tree code in Oregon and then exempts most homeowners from it. Development Code 40.90.10.1 says a property of half an acre or less developed with a detached dwelling or middle housing "may remove any number of Community Trees" — no permit, no annual cap, no size cap, no mitigation. A Community Tree is the default category for an ordinary yard tree of 10 inches DBH or more, so on a typical Beaverton lot the answer is no. The exemption does not reach Protected Trees, which have no minimum size at all: mapped Significant Individual Trees, Historic Trees, any tree inside a mapped Significant Grove or Significant Natural Resource Area, Mitigation Trees, or Landscape Trees preserved under a prior approval.
Size threshold
Beaverton Development Code Chapter 90 defines a Community Tree as "a healthy tree of at least ten inches (10") DBH located on developed, partially developed, or undeveloped land. Community Trees are not those trees identified as Significant, Historic, Landscape, or Mitigation Trees, trees within a Grove or a Significant Natural Resource Area, or trees that bear edible fruits or nuts grown for human consumption." DBH is "the diameter of the trunk of a tree measured 4.5 feet above the uphill side at the base of the trunk. If the tree splits into multiple trunks above ground, but below 4.5 feet ... the diameter is measured at the narrowest part of the main stem below the split." There is NO size threshold for a Protected Tree — protection is by mapping and designation. A 4-inch sapling inside a mapped Significant Grove is protected; a 40-inch Douglas fir in a half-acre yard outside any grove is an exempt Community Tree.
What's protected in Beaverton
- Significant Individual Trees — "a tree or grouping of trees that is mapped on the City's Inventory of Significant Trees and Groves, which has a unique identification code."
- Significant Groves — groves mapped on the same inventory, including "all species within the grove boundary."
- Historic Trees — "tree(s) designated by the City to be of historic significance based on their association with historic figures, properties, or the general growth and development of the City."
- Trees within a Significant Natural Resource Area (SNRA), resources identified in Volume III of the Comprehensive Plan as significant under Statewide Planning Goal 5.
- Mitigation Trees — "A tree planted in an effort to alleviate the impact of the removal of another tree(s). A mitigation tree takes on the designation of the tree(s) removed."
- Landscape Trees — "A tree ... that has been preserved or planted as a component of an approved landscaping plan. In addition, Community Trees that are preserved trees shall also be classified as Landscape Trees." These route to Design Review, not to a Tree Plan.
- Street trees, meaning "Any tree located within the public or private right of way or easement for vehicular access, or associated public utility easements." Beaverton Code 5.05.102.E requires a City permit before removal.
How to apply in Beaverton
- 1
Call the Planning Division at 503-526-2420 or email MailboxCDDPlanning@beavertonoregon.gov with your address and ask whether the tree is a Significant Individual Tree, Historic Tree, Landscape Tree or Mitigation Tree, and whether your lot is inside a Significant Grove or SNRA. The city's FAQ tells homeowners to do exactly this.
- 2
Check the city map viewer's Natural Resources layers yourself, but do not rely on them alone: the city's own GIS service description states "Limited digital information is available for Significant Trees. Please contact Community Development for more information."
- 3
If no Tree Plan is required, nothing further is needed for a Community Tree on a lot of half an acre or less with a detached dwelling or middle housing.
- 4
If a Tree Plan is required, complete the Tree Plan Application with an original owner signature, complete the four-page submittal checklist, and prepare three copies of a written statement with individual findings addressing each approval criterion in Section 40.90 and the applicable provisions of Section 60.60.
- 5
Prepare plans at a minimum 1 inch = 20 feet engineering scale, maximum sheet 24 by 36 inches, three copies of each, on separate sheets. Tree Plan Two and Three additionally require an Existing Conditions Plan with a Tree Mitigation Table.
- 6
Obtain written documentation from Clean Water Services that water quality will not be adversely affected, per BDC 50.25.1.F. A Pre-Application Conference is required for Type 2 and Type 3, and a Neighborhood Review Meeting for Type 3.
- 7
Pay fees before submittal. Tree Plan One is a Type 1 decision by the Director; Tree Plan Two is Type 2 with notice and appeal; Tree Plan Three goes to a Planning Commission public hearing.
- 8
For a right-of-way tree, apply for a Public Tree Removal Permit through the city's Electronic Permitting System, stating the number and kind of tree, the permittee and contractor, and the time by which the work is to be done.
Fees, penalties, and the ordinance
- Fee
- Planning Division Fee Schedule, effective February 1, 2026 to January 31, 2027, with a 5 percent technology fee: Tree Plan One $1,575 plus $78.75 = $1,653.75; Tree Plan Two $9,051 plus $452.55 = $9,503.55; Tree Plan Three $21,813 plus $1,090.65 = $22,903.65. Cooper Mountain Tree Plan Type 1 $2,125.20, Type 2 $9,503.55, Type 3 $22,903.65. In-lieu fees: Significant Trees / Groves $174 per inch DBH; Street Trees $922 per tree; Single Detached and Middle Housing Tree Preservation $346 per tree; Cooper Mountain Tree Fee In-Lieu $5 per square foot of canopy. Fees must be paid before an application is considered received; applications unpaid after 5 business days are voided.
- Penalties
- BDC 60.60.07: "A person found responsible for causing the removal or pruning of a protected tree in violation of the standards set forth in Section 60.60., unless exempt, shall be subject to monetary penalties. In cases of unlawful removal the person must also mitigate the removal as set forth in the mitigation requirements of Section 60.60.25." BDC 60.60.15.1.A: "It shall be unlawful for any person to remove or prune to remove a tree's canopy or disturb the root zone of any Protected Tree, except in accordance with the provisions of this Code." Violations are Class 1 City infractions under BDC 10.70.6, and BDC 10.70.7 gives the City "a rebuttable presumption that a violation of the Code was caused or allowed by the person owning or controlling the property." Street tree violations are Class 1 civil infractions under Beaverton Code 5.05.104.B, and the City may require the violator "to pay the cost of repairing, restoring or replacing and re-establishing any and all trees damaged."
- Ordinance
- Beaverton Development Code Section 40.90 (Tree Plan) and Section 60.60 (Trees and Vegetation), with definitions in Chapter 90; Cooper Mountain has its own parallel regime at 40.91 and 60.61. The Development Code was adopted by Ordinance No. 2050, October 20, 1978. The half-acre exemption at 40.90.10.1 was added by ORD 4822, effective June 30, 2022. ORD 4857, effective October 3, 2024, added "Removal of Landscape Trees" to Single-Detached and Middle Housing Design Review One. ORD 4859, effective January 2, 2025, created the Cooper Mountain regime. ORD 4876, effective January 20, 2026, amended 60.60.15. The Development Code is effective through Ordinance 4879, effective April 2, 2026. Street trees are governed by Beaverton Code Chapter 5, sections 5.05.100 through 5.05.104, added by Ordinance No. 3979 in 1997.
Worth knowing
- Tree Plan One is not the homeowner's ordinary single-tree removal permit. Its thresholds cover major pruning of Protected Trees and mechanized vegetation work, not simple removal. A homeowner removing one Protected Tree lands in Tree Plan Two (a Significant Individual Tree) or Tree Plan Three (a Historic Tree).
- The Landscape Tree trap is the most likely way an exempt homeowner still needs approval. Because a Landscape Tree includes "Community Trees that are preserved trees," a lot subject to a subdivision or design approval that preserved a tree may need a Single-Detached and Middle Housing Design Review One to remove it. BDC 40.90.10.15 expressly routes Landscape Trees to Design Review rather than to a Tree Plan.
- The dead-and-hazardous exemption is narrower than it looks and we are not resolving it. BDC 40.90.10.2 exempts "Removal and pruning of any hazardous, dead, or diseased tree when the tree is identified as such by a certified arborist or by the City Arborist and the removal is required by the City." Read literally, an arborist's hazard letter alone does not exempt the removal; the City must also require it. A separate after-the-fact emergency path exists at 40.90.10.3.
- Nuisance species are exempt citywide: Lombardy Poplar and birch may be removed or pruned anywhere in the city, though where they are part of an approved landscape plan Design Review approval is still required. Norway maple, Tree-of-Heaven, Golden Chain Tree and English or Common Hawthorn are exempt specifically inside Significant Groves and SNRAs.
- Beaverton does not require a homeowner to hire a certified arborist. The Tree Planting and Maintenance Policy states: "Nothing in this section shall prevent an owner or property or an agent for the owner from pruning, treating, or removing trees with someone who is not a certified arborist."
- Mitigation only bites above 50 percent. BDC 60.60.25(B): "If the total DBH of trees to be removed is less than or equal to 50% of the total DBH of surveyed trees on the site, then no mitigation is required." Above that, the excess is mitigated, with a 2:1 credit for on-site replacement, and unmet mitigation converts to the $174 per inch in-lieu fee.
- Hazardous and dead trees inside groves should be left where they fall. BDC 60.60.15.2.C.8: they "should be fallen only for safety and left at the resource site to serve as habitat for wildlife, unless the tree has been diagnosed with a disease," and such falling requires no mitigation.
- Cooper Mountain is a completely separate regime with different thresholds — for example, an exemption only for lots under 3,500 square feet, and a Tree Removal One threshold of "Removal of one 6-inch DBH tree or larger, per 5,000 square feet of lot or tract area, per calendar year." Do not apply the half-acre exemption to a Cooper Mountain address.
- Street trees always need a permit. BC 5.05.101.A: "No person shall plant or remove any tree in the public right of way or on City property except as allowed by this ordinance." The abutting owner is responsible for maintaining them. There is an emergency affirmative defence where "the desirability and urgency of avoiding the injury clearly outweighed the desirability of protecting the public's interest in the tree."
- Beaverton City Code 9.05.032.D doubles the fee for work started without a permit, but writes homeowners an exception: the double fee does not apply where "the person who requires a street tree permit is the owner of adjacent property or agent of the owner and the property is used for a single family residence."
What we could not confirm
We would rather tell you what we don't know than guess. Call the office below to confirm these before you cut.
- — The current codified text of Beaverton City Code Chapter 5.05. The municipal code host is behind Cloudflare and returned 403 to every method. Sections 5.05.100 through 5.05.104 were read as adopted by Ordinance 3979 in 1997; whether they have been amended since, and what the municipal code is codified through, could not be confirmed.
- — The exact adoption date of Ordinance 3979. The city's own scan reads "Passed by the Council this __ day of __, 1997" with the month illegible.
- — The dollar amount of a Class 1 City infraction or Class 1 civil infraction under Beaverton's Civil Infractions Ordinance.
- — The fee for a street tree or Public Tree Removal Permit. It is not on the Planning Division fee schedule, which covers land use applications; the permit issues through the Electronic Permitting System.
- — Whether the $346 per tree "Single Detached and Middle Housing Tree Preservation" in-lieu fee applies to removals or only to the tree-planting and preservation standard for new dwellings. Textually it appears tied to the planting standard.
- — Whether a given address is inside a Significant Grove or SNRA. This cannot be answered generically, and the city's own GIS warns that only limited digital information is available for Significant Trees. The mapped layers are labelled "2009 TI," suggesting a 2009 inventory over a 1991 significance determination.
- — The Comprehensive Plan Volume III Inventory of Significant Trees and Groves itself, which is incorporated by reference in the definitions.
- — Whether Clean Water Services treats standalone tree removal, with no construction, in a Vegetated Corridor as triggering a Service Provider Letter. CWS's published homeowner language enumerates construction activities and does not name tree removal.
- — The city's currently published Tree Plan Application form is stale. Its footer reads "Revised 08/2016" and it offers a "TYPE 1 COMMERCIAL TIMBER HARVEST" checkbox and refers to "TYPE 2, 3, & 4 APPLICATIONS," but the current code at BDC 40.90.15 states "There are three (3) Tree Plan applications" and a full-text search returns no hits for "Tree Plan Four" or "timber harvest." The form also lists a Clean Water Services contact from 2016; use the CWS general number, 503-681-5100.
Sources
- Beaverton Development Code 40.90 — Tree Plan, including the 40.90.10.1 half-acre exemption
- Beaverton Development Code 60.60 — Trees and Vegetation (protected trees, enforcement, mitigation)
- Beaverton Development Code 40.91 — Tree Applications, Cooper Mountain
- Beaverton Development Code — full code, definitions in Chapter 90 and ordinance history table
- City of Beaverton — Planning Division (phone, email, address, hours)
- City of Beaverton — Urban Forestry (City Arborist contacts, street tree responsibility)
- City of Beaverton — Tree Planting and Maintenance Policy (Resolution 3391)
- City of Beaverton — Applications, Fees and Brochures (Planning Division fee schedule and in-lieu fee schedule)
- City of Beaverton — Public Works and Urban Forestry FAQs
- Clean Water Services — Step-by-Step Process for Homeowners