Do you need a permit?
No permit required for most private trees
Westland keys its tree permit to location, not size, and the location is the street or a park. Section 106-3(a): "No person shall prune, spray, plant or remove any tree in any street or park, except that the owner of land abutting on any street may, upon obtaining a permit from the director of public service, prune, spray, plant or remove any tree in that part of any street abutting his land not used for public travel." There is no permit and no diameter threshold for a tree standing in your own yard. Westland's only reach onto private property is the reverse of a permit: you must trim trees overhanging the street, and you must remove a Dutch elm diseased tree within ten days of written notice or the city does it and liens your taxes.
Size threshold
None for a private tree. The only dimensional line in Chapter 106 is definitional, at Section 106-1: "Tree means trees, shrubs, bushes and all other woody vegetation. Trees shall not include shrubs or bushes shorter than 15 feet in height." Trees planted to satisfy the certificate-of-occupancy requirement must be "at least eight feet in height and two inches in diameter at a point measured six inches above ground level."
What's protected in Westland
- Any tree in a street or a park, under Section 106-3. Section 106-1 defines Street broadly as "all of the land lying between property lines on either side of all streets, highways and boulevards in the city," and Park as "all public parks having individual names, and all areas owned by the city or to which the public has free access as a park."
- Trees in the right-of-way. The city states it plainly: "Trees located in the right-of-way on properties are considered City trees. The right-of-way is the portion of the property located between the sidewalk and the street."
- Prohibited species, which may not be planted — Section 106-1: "Prohibited species means any tree of the species of poplar (populus species), willow (salix species), box elder (acer negundo), and elm (ulmus)."
- Elms infected with Dutch elm disease or phloem necrosis, wherever they stand, under Article III.
- There is no protected species list for removal, no heritage or landmark tree program, and no woodland ordinance in the Westland code.
How to apply in Westland
- 1
These steps are for a tree in the street, the right-of-way or a park. A tree behind your lot line needs nothing.
- 2
Contact the Department of Public Service at 734-728-1770 or dps@cityofwestland.com. No standalone application form is published.
- 3
Section 106-3(a): "Every such permit shall specifically state the extent of the authorization and the conditions under which such permit is granted."
- 4
Expect conditions. Section 106-3(b): the director "may require as a condition for granting such permit that the landowner remove the tree in accordance with the regulations established by the department of public service, assume all or any part of the costs of removing such tree, and replace the tree removed at some other nearby location by planting another tree, not necessarily of the same variety as the tree removed."
- 5
Any replacement planted in the right-of-way must come from the city's published list of acceptable species.
Fees, penalties, and the ordinance
- Fee
- No fee is published for the Section 106-3 street tree permit, and no city fee schedule entry for it was located. An absent fee is not proof of a free permit.
- Penalties
- Section 1-8(a): "Unless another penalty is expressly provided by this Code for any particular provision or section, every person convicted of a violation of any provision of this Code shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500.00, or by imprisonment for not more than 90 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Each act of violation and every day upon which any such violation shall occur shall constitute a separate offense." Section 106-6(b) separately makes it a misdemeanor to let a tree or shrub spread branches or roots across a property line in a way that creates a safety problem. Failure to trim under Sections 106-4 and 106-5 lets the city do the work after ten days, with the cost becoming "a lien against such property" collected on the next tax bill.
- Ordinance
- Westland Code of Ordinances Chapter 106 — Vegetation. Article I (In General), Sections 106-1 through 106-9; Article II (Administration and Enforcement), Sections 106-36 through 106-41; Article III (Dutch Elm Disease or Elm Blight), Sections 106-66 through 106-68; Article IV (Weeds), Sections 106-91 through 106-99. Most sections carry forward from the 1981 Code, Chapters 36 and 40. The amendments on the face of the chapter are Ordinance No. 152-A, Section 1, February 17, 1998 (Section 106-2, planting), Ordinance No. 152-B, Section 1, August 19, 2013 (Section 106-6, encroaching branches and roots), and Ordinance Nos. 34-A-1 of June 18, 2007 and 34-A-2 of August 1, 2016 (noxious weed definitions). Charter Section 16.5 supplies the authority: "The Council may provide for and regulate the planting of shade and ornamental trees, and shrubbery in the streets and public highways of the City." Code current through the amendment of July 1, 2026 (Supp. No. 66).
Worth knowing
- You have an affirmative duty to trim over the street. Section 106-4(a): "The owner of any tree overhanging any street or right-of-way shall trim the branches of such trees so that such branches shall not obstruct the light from any streetlamp or obstruct the view of any street intersection, and so that there shall be a clear space of eight feet above the surface of the street or right-of-way. Such owners shall remove all dead, diseased or dangerous trees, or broken or decayed limbs, which constitute a menace to the safety of the public."
- Dutch elm disease carries a hard ten-day clock. Section 106-68(a): the director "shall immediately serve upon the owner of such property a written notice that such tree is so infected and that the tree must be removed and burned under the supervision of the director within ten days of the service of notice." Miss it and the city removes and burns the tree and liens the cost to your taxes.
- The city can come onto your land to treat a tree. Section 106-41 gives the director authority "to enter upon any private grounds and to spray or otherwise treat... any tree, shrub or plant infected or infested by any parasite or insect pest," and, where he deems it necessary, "to trim, treat or remove any such tree or shrub or cause such tree or shrub to be trimmed, treated or removed."
- A neighbour dispute can become a city matter. Section 106-6(a): "No owner of any land upon which a tree or shrub is growing shall permit such tree or shrub to grow and spread its branches or roots over or across the property line and on or in an adjoining owner's property in such a manner that it causes, in the determination of the ordinance enforcement official, a safety issue or problem."
- Corner lots have a sight-line rule: nothing over 24 inches above sidewalk grade within 25 feet of the intersection of two right-of-way lines, and trees trimmed to eight feet of clear vision.
- Westland does not license tree services. No tree, arborist or landscaping licensing provision appears in Chapter 106 or elsewhere, so nothing in the code makes it unlawful to hire an unregistered firm.
- The landscaping requirement in the building code is commercial only. Section 22-55.2 binds "the shopping center or commercial building premises" and does not reach a house.
- For a downed tree or a tree emergency the city routes requests through its Report a Down Tree service and the Public Service emergency line, 734-722-9600.
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.
- — No Westland page says in plain words that a private tree needs no permit. The conclusion rests on the text of Section 106-3, which is scoped to "any street or park," and on the Permitted Trees page, which addresses right-of-way trees only.
- — Section 106-2(b) is genuinely ambiguous and is reported rather than resolved: "Any person replacing an existing tree shall be required to replace the existing tree with one or more balled and burlapped trees of the species, size and number specified in this section." It sits in a section otherwise about trees planted between the sidewalk and curb before a certificate of occupancy issues, but the sentence itself is not limited to the right-of-way on its face. Ask Public Service whether it is applied to a private back-yard tree.
- — Any fee for the Section 106-3 permit, and any application form. Neither is published.
- — The Westland Zoning Ordinance was not reviewed, because Chapter 110 of the code carries only an editor's note: "The Zoning Ordinance of the City of Westland has been removed from the Code at the direction of the City. Said Zoning Ordinance is on file in the city's offices." Any landscaping or tree preservation requirement tied to site plan review would live there.
- — Whether Westland has amended Chapter 106 since the Sixth Circuit decided F.P. Development v. Charter Township of Canton in 2021. The amendments visible on the face of the chapter stop in 2016, and the chapter contains no fee in lieu or tree fund for the decision to have reached.
- — The additional "rules and regulations pertaining to the planting, removal and care of trees, bushes and shrubs" that Section 106-38 authorizes the director to make, and that Section 106-38 makes independently enforceable. They were not located.
Sources
- City of Westland — Public Service Department
- City of Westland — Permitted Trees (right-of-way species list)
- City of Westland — Report a Down Tree
- Westland Code Ch. 106 — Vegetation (Municode)
- Westland Code Sec. 106-3 — Permit to prune, spray, plant or remove trees (Municode)
- Westland Code Sec. 1-8 — General penalty (Municode)
- Westland City Charter Ch. 16 — Streets, Sewers and Drains (Municode)