In the two years since passage of stricter tree-removal regulations in Rye, residents and developers have actually been cutting down an increasing number of trees.
A review of city Planning Department records shows that since the June 2023 City Council approval of the new law “aimed at preservation and maintenance of trees and wooded lands,” 800 trees have been removed — 145 in 2023, 271 in 2024, and 384 over the first nine months of 2025.
Over that same period, the Planning Commission has ordered those who are building or expanding homes to plant 166 new “replacement” trees.
The new law also has kept the Building Department, which must approve any tree removal permit, busy. Inspectors have had to inspect hundreds of residential yards to authorize the removal of any tree, alive or dead.
The tree-removal law has some teeth: unauthorized removal of protected or “significant” trees carries a $1,000 fine — per tree. That means that a developer or landscaper who removes a large number of trees to prepare a site for new homes could face a hefty penalty.
The law allows property owners to remove some trees by right each year, how many being determined by the size of the property and the size of the trees. The range is from three trees on lots of 10,000 square feet to 36 trees on lots of 10 acres.
Trees of 30 inches in diameter or more are considered “significant,” and their permission to remove them is more limited. Building Department inspectors, in some cases with the help of an arborist, must visit each site where trees are to be taken down, using a specially-designed caliper tool to measure trees that might be deemed significant.
Removal of any tree more than eight inches in diameter requires a building department permit. Proposals for larger-scaled removals for new housing subdivisions need approval from the Planning Commission, which can order replacements and has done so in 12 instances. The law even limits what types of new trees can be planted: trees considered invasive — like sycamore maples, Amur corks, and Norway maples — are banned.
The law was enacted because of increasing concern that large numbers of trees might be removed to make way for new subdivisions. In addition, trees were said to “enhance air quality, mitigate global climate change, yield advantageous microclimate effects, offer a natural barrier to noise, provide a natural habitat for wildlife and add to the aesthetic quality of the community.”
The rules, however, apply to all homeowners, whether they are undertaking a major addition or simply wanting to improve their view or take down dead trees.
That prompted City Council member and mayoral candidate Bill Henderson — the only member to vote against the new law — to call it “a crazy overreach.” He continues to oppose the law during his current campaign for mayor, in part because he views it as an infringement on owner property rights.
His fellow Council member and mayoral opponent Josh Nathan voted in favor of the law and continues to support it as a “step in the right direction to protect Rye’s threatened tree canopy from destruction by ill-informed overdevelopment. The law is a ‘cause for pause’ in that it should help residents evaluate trees they are considering taking down.”
Rick McCabe, independent candidate for mayor, also supports the tree law. “Trees around Rye beautify our community and play an important role in mitigating flooding,” he said. “I agree with the tree law as it currently stands.”
The new law has required a significant investment of time by Planning Department employees and led to extensive paperwork. A total of 586 inspections have been conducted since June 2023, the vast majority for removal of one or two trees. A small number of major new home construction projects have led to the largest number of tree removals — 37 from one Kirby Lane property and 27 from land on Parsonage Point. In both cases, however, nearly as many replacement trees were planted as the number removed.
By law, property owners are required to replace healthy trees they cut down, though tree planting does not require a permit and inspections are not conducted to be sure replacements have been planted.
Among the trees that have been cut down: a 58-inch diameter oak tree on Stuyvesant Avenue and a 72-inch wide beech tree on Brevort Lane. A wide range of other types of trees of many sizes have been cut down, including sugar maples, black locust, cedars and dogwoods, as well as some apple and pear trees.
No data on tree removals from before the adoption of the new law was kept, making it impossible to know how the number of tree removals now compares to historic norms. But the law’s core goal — to “enhance the tree canopy throughout Rye and to encourage the proper planning for the maintenance, restoration and protection of City trees”— has not been simple.
