Do you need a permit?
It depends on the tree
How close you are to water decides it, and nothing else does. Portsmouth has no general private-property tree ordinance — its tree chapter is titled "Trees and Shrubs on City Property," and the article that once covered private tree planting and replacement was repealed outright in December 2020. Away from the water you can remove your own tree with no city permit, no size threshold and no fee. Inside the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Overlay, particularly in a Resource Protection Area and its 100-foot vegetated buffer, existing vegetation may be removed only with the city planning director's approval and only for a short list of reasons. Check the city's Chesapeake Bay map first.
Size threshold
No size triggers a permit, because there is no general private tree permit. Diameters appear only as standards inside the development and Bay process. Sec. 9.1-3 defines DBH as "the diameter of a tree measured outside the bark at a point 4.5 feet above ground," and defines a mature tree as "a canopy tree with a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 12 inches or greater or an understory tree with a DBH of four inches or greater." Sec. 9.1-10(b)(2)b requires in the development context that "existing trees over two inches in diameter at breast height (DBH) and other woody vegetation shall be preserved outside the construction footprint."
What's protected in Portsmouth
- Existing vegetation in a Resource Protection Area buffer, which may be removed only with the planning director's approval (Sec. 9.1-10(c)(5))
- Any tree or shrub located on city property, including street trees and park trees (Ch. 36, Art. II)
- Trees in a development or redevelopment site subject to the zoning code's tree canopy standards (Sec. 40.2-304)
How to apply in Portsmouth
- 1
Check the city's Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area interactive map to see whether your lot is in the overlay. If it is not, there is nothing to file.
- 2
If it is, contact the Planning Department at (757) 393-8836. There is no standalone tree removal form; buffer work is routed through plan of development review, a Water Quality Impact Assessment, or an exception.
- 3
A Water Quality Impact Assessment is required for all land disturbance in a Resource Protection Area (Sec. 9.1-7(c)).
- 4
An exception is applied for in writing to the director of planning on a city form (Sec. 9.1-12(c)(1)). File before you start work — the fee roughly doubles if you apply afterwards.
- 5
City guidance sets buffer mitigation at one planting unit per 400 square feet of RPA land disturbance, a planting unit being one canopy tree, two understory trees and three shrubs or groundcover.
Fees, penalties, and the ordinance
- Fee
- Nothing for an ordinary removal outside the Bay overlay. Inside it, Appendix A sets a Chapter 9.1 plan of development review for CBPA compliance at $125.00; a Planning Commission exception at $275.00 if you apply before starting work and $500.00 after; and an administrative exception at $25.00 before and $150.00 after. Applying first is markedly cheaper.
- Penalties
- Bay overlay violations carry real money. Sec. 9.1-13(a) provides that a violator "shall, upon such finding by an appropriate circuit court, be assessed a civil penalty not to exceed $5,000.00 for each day of violation," and Sec. 9.1-13(b) allows consented civil charges "not to exceed $10,000.00 for each violation." A Chapter 36 violation, which covers city trees, is a class 3 misdemeanor under Sec. 36-1.
- Ordinance
- Portsmouth City Code Chapter 9.1 — Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Overlay District (local program adopted September 1, 1990; Ord. No. 2004-02, January 13, 2004; most recently Ord. No. 2025-100, adopted November 25, 2025, with the CBPA Map dated the same day). Chapter 36, Article II — Trees and Shrubs on City Property. Chapter 40.2 — Zoning (Ordinance No. 2020-128, adopted December 8, 2020), tree canopy at Sec. 40.2-304. Chapter 36, Article III, which covered private tree planting and replacement, was repealed by Ord. No. 2020-135, adopted December 8, 2020. The code is codified through Ordinance No. 2026-13, enacted February 10, 2026 (Supp. No. 65).
Worth knowing
- The scope evidence is in the chapter title itself. Chapter 36, Article II is captioned "Trees and Shrubs on City Property," and Sec. 36-28 reads: "No person shall, without a permit from the director, prune, spray, remove, destroy, cut, girdle or deface any tree or shrub located on city property." Sec. 36-26 defines that director as the city's director of parks, recreation and leisure services.
- Portsmouth deliberately got out of the private tree business. The editor's note records that "Ord. No. 2020-135, Section 1, adopted December 8, 2020, repealed ch. 36, art. III, Sections 36-50 through 36-56. Former art. III pertained to tree planting and replacement."
- The zoning replacement is development-triggered, not a standing rule: "Tree canopy requirements shall apply to all development in the City" (Sec. 40.2-304(H)(3)(a)), and the landscaping standards "shall apply to all development and redevelopment in the City, including accessory structures that require a building permit" (Sec. 40.2-304(C)(1)(a)).
- The buffer rule is the operative one for waterfront homeowners: "In order to achieve the functional value of the buffer, existing vegetation may be removed, subject to approval by the city planning director, only to provide for reasonable sight lines, access paths, general woodlot management, and best management practices, including those that prevent upland erosion and concentrated flows of stormwater" (Sec. 9.1-10(c)(5)). Hazard and nuisance vegetation is easier: "dead, diseased, or dying trees or shrubbery and noxious weeds such as Johnson grass, kudzu and multiflora rose may be removed and thinning of trees may be allowed, pursuant to sound horticulture practice."
- This is Dillon Rule doing exactly what it does. Va. Code Sec. 15.2-961(B) lets any locality require tree planting and replacement "during the development process," which is what Portsmouth's canopy rules implement. Va. Code Sec. 15.2-961.1(B), the broader tree conservation power, is limited to localities "within Planning District 8," which is Northern Virginia. Portsmouth is in Planning District 23, Hampton Roads, so it may not adopt a general tree conservation ordinance at all.
- You have a duty running the other way for the strip out front: Sec. 36-2 requires an owner or occupant to keep bushes, shrubs, trees and other plants "trimmed so that such overhanging projections shall in no way impede or interfere with the free public passage" along a public right-of-way.
- Portsmouth's nuisance chapter defines debris to include "dead or dying standing trees," which is an obligation to remove rather than a permission to.
- Two housekeeping errors in the code worth knowing if you read it yourself. Sec. 9.1-11(c)(1)a still says a plan "shall be consistent with chapter 36, article III of this Code," an article repealed in 2020, and Appendix A still lists a $25.00 appeal fee under the repealed Sec. 36-56(b). The November 2025 Bay rewrite carried both forward.
- The city's own Chesapeake Bay Program web page cites chapters that no longer exist under those numbers, pointing to Chapter 31.2 for stormwater when Chapter 31.2 is now Reserved.
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.
- — Whether your lot is inside the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Overlay. Use the city's interactive map, then call Planning at (757) 393-8836.
- — Whether Planning in practice requires a written filing from a homeowner cutting one tree in an RPA buffer with no other development. No standalone form exists and the ordinance routes such work through plan review, a Water Quality Impact Assessment or an exception. We did not confirm by phone.
- — An ambiguity in the code itself: Sec. 9.1-10(c)(5) sits under a subsection captioned "Criteria for development within RPAs," yet its own text reads as a freestanding restriction on removing buffer vegetation. Which reading governs a homeowner doing no development turns on that placement, and we are not resolving it.
- — The Buffer Mitigation Manual, the CBPA development checklist and the Landscape Planting and Protection Manual referenced at Sec. 9.1-10(b)(2)e. We did not read them.
- — What "general woodlot management" means in practice under Sec. 9.1-10(c)(5).
- — Whether Portsmouth employs an urban forester. No such title appears in the city's department directory.
Sources
- Portsmouth City Code Ch. 9.1 (CBPA Overlay), Ch. 36 (Vegetation) and Ch. 40.2 (Zoning)
- City of Portsmouth — Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area interactive map
- City of Portsmouth — Planning Department
- City of Portsmouth — Permits & Inspections
- City of Portsmouth — Chesapeake Bay Program
- Code of Virginia Sec. 15.2-961.1 — Conservation of trees during land development