Do you need a permit?
It depends on the tree
For most lots the answer is no. Spokane Valley has no standalone tree ordinance at all — it regulates tree removal only as a slice of land disturbance, and its own Land Disturbance Checklist sets the trigger at removing seven or more trees or disturbing 5,000 square feet or more. One back-yard tree does not get near that, and the checklist ends by saying so outright: "If the answers to all the questions above are No then a permit is not required for the proposed work." Two things flip it. If any of your clearing is on a slope, in a floodplain, wetland, habitat conservation area, geologically hazardous area or erodible soil, a grubbing and clearing permit is required no matter how few trees. And within 200 feet of the Spokane River or Shelley Lake, removing even one native tree over 12 inches needs a vegetation management plan.
Size threshold
There is no diameter threshold in the land disturbance track. The trigger is a count and an area: "Will the G and C work disturb 5,000 or more square feet of area or remove 7 or more trees?" (Land Disturbance Permit Checklist, citing SVMC 24.50.050). Note that the seven-tree count carries no size qualifier, so seven saplings count the same as seven mature trees. The only diameter figure in Spokane Valley's code sits in the shoreline chapter, where SVMC 21.50.260(B)(1) requires a vegetation management plan to remove "one or more mature native trees greater than 12 inches in diameter at chest height" inside shoreline jurisdiction. That is measured at chest height, which is how the ordinance words it.
What's protected in Spokane Valley
- Native trees over 12 inches within shoreline jurisdiction, meaning land extending 200 feet from the ordinary high water mark of the Spokane River or Shelley Lake, plus floodways and contiguous floodplain areas landward 200 feet from those floodways (SVMC 21.50.020(A), 21.50.260)
- Any trees in a critical area — wetlands and wetland buffers, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, geologically hazardous areas including slopes of 30 percent or greater, and critical aquifer recharge areas (SVMC 21.40)
- Trees on slopes, in FEMA floodplains or in erodible soils, where the checklist requires a grubbing and clearing permit regardless of tree count
How to apply in Spokane Valley
- 1
Work through the city's Land Disturbance Checklist first. It is self-determining: you answer Parts 1 through 4 top to bottom, and the first Yes tells you which permit, if any, you need.
- 2
If every answer is No, no permit is required and there is nothing to file.
- 3
If you do need one, apply through the city's Online Permit Portal, or submit the Land Disturbance Permit Application with a site plan.
- 4
In person or by mail: Spokane Valley City Hall, 10210 E. Sprague Avenue, Spokane Valley, WA 99206.
- 5
For a shoreline removal, expect to submit a vegetation management plan, and for a dead or hazardous tree a letter from a certified arborist or qualified professional confirming the condition, with removal techniques, protection procedures and any replacement.
Fees, penalties, and the ordinance
- Ordinance
- Spokane Valley Municipal Code Chapter 24.50 — Land Disturbing Activities (Ordinance 07-010 Section 1, 2007). SVMC Chapter 21.50 — Shoreline Regulations (Ord. 15-024, 2015; Ord. 17-004, 2017; Ord. 21-007, 2021; the adopted Shoreline Master Program is current through Ordinance No. 22-005, passed March 29, 2022). SVMC Chapter 21.40 — Critical Areas.
Worth knowing
- This is a positive threshold, not an absence of rule. The city put a number on it and then said what happens below the number.
- The regulated activity is framed around construction. The city defines clearing and grubbing as "removing trees, stumps, roots, brush, structures, abandoned utilities, trash, debris, and all other material found on or near the surface of the ground in a construction area."
- Inside the shoreline buffer, ordinary maintenance will not cover you: "Removing trees and shrubs within a buffer is not considered a maintenance activity" (SVMC 21.50.090(A)).
- Shoreline pruning has hard limits: "Pruning of native vegetation shall not exceed 30 percent of a tree's limbs. Tree topping shall not occur" (SVMC 21.50.260(C)(1)).
- Dead or hazardous trees in a shoreline buffer may be removed with an arborist letter, and "where possible, hazard trees within the shoreline buffer shall be turned into snags" (SVMC 21.50.260(C)(3)).
- Shoreline replacement runs 3:1 for trees over 12 inches DBH, or 2:1 if the replacement stock is five years old or greater; for native trees over 16 inches DBH the replacement stock must be at least five years old.
- Forest practices overseen by the Washington DNR and commercial agriculture are exempt from the grubbing and clearing trigger.
- A contradiction we are recording rather than resolving: the city's Land Disturbance page says exemptions are "specified in SVMC 24.50.030," while the city's own checklist maps 24.50.020 to exemptions, .030 to engineered grading, .040 to regular grading and .050 to grubbing and clearing. Rely on the thresholds, not the section number.
- Spokane Valley is a separate jurisdiction from the City of Spokane, which has a much stricter urban forestry code. Nothing here comes from Spokane city material.
- The city's Arbor Day event with an "Ask an Arborist" booth at Mirabeau Point Park is outreach, not a regulatory program.
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 verbatim text of SVMC Chapter 24.50. The code host sits behind a challenge that defeated every automated route we tried, so the thresholds above come from the city's own checklist form, which cites the section. That is strong but is not the same as reading the statute.
- — Whether "5,000 square feet or 7 or more trees" appears verbatim in SVMC 24.50.050 or is an administrative interpretation living only on the checklist.
- — Whether SVMC 22.70 (Fencing, Screening and Landscaping) contains a tree retention rule for new development. We did not read it.
- — Land disturbance permit fees. The Master Fee Schedule PDF has no extractable text layer, so we will not publish a number.
- — Penalties for unpermitted clearing.
- — Whether Spokane Valley regulates street or right-of-way trees at all. Nothing surfaced in the Street Standards or the right-of-way permit application, but we could not run a full-text code search, so treat this as not found rather than proven absent.
Sources
- City of Spokane Valley — Land Disturbance (LD) Permit Checklist, updated August 2025 (PDF)
- City of Spokane Valley — Land Disturbance (Grading) Permits
- City of Spokane Valley — Land Disturbing Activities
- City of Spokane Valley — Critical Areas
- Adopted Spokane Valley Shoreline Master Program, SVMC Ch. 21.50 (WA Dept. of Ecology, PDF)
- City of Spokane Valley — Permit Center