Land clearing and tree work in St. Augustine, FL

Last Updated: November 8, 2026

St. Augustine, about 25 miles north of Palm Coast and the St. Johns County seat, is a city of small, close-built lots, and its tree permit starts at half the trunk size Palm Coast’s does. The Census Bureau counted 71 single-family homes permitted in the city in the latest full year. Sunward Palm Coast Land Clearing clears lots, brush and stumps in St. Augustine, and nearly every job we do there starts with the tree permit.

The city’s code makes it unlawful to cut down, destroy or remove any tree 3 inches or larger in diameter at breast height without a permit, half of Palm Coast’s 6-inch threshold. The permit costs $30 from the city’s Planning and Building office. Southern red cedar gets its own rule: one over 2 feet tall, or 1 inch in diameter measured 3 inches above the ground, needs a permit too. For new construction the city asks for a tree survey showing every tree with its type and size. On a wooded city lot that survey becomes our plan for selective clearing, because at those thresholds almost everything with a trunk counts.

Replacement is where the cost lies. Each tree removed with approval of the Planning and Zoning Board or the Code Enforcement, Adjustment and Appeals Board has to be replaced with two similar trees on site, or, where replanting on site isn’t feasible, $300 per required replacement tree goes to the city’s Tree Mitigation Fund. Removing four trees can mean planting eight or paying $2,400, before any clearing work is priced. So we look hard for the trees that can stay: set back from the footprint, healthy and long-lived, fenced at the drip line while we open the house site.

The ground at the city’s center is mapped as St. Augustine-Urban land complex, a somewhat poorly drained made land, and lots have neighbors on every side. Access, not acreage, sets our method: saws, small machines and careful felling into the lot instead of a big mulcher. Burning is ruled out by Florida’s 300-foot residential setback, so we haul the wood. Under the house footprint we pull the stumps with their roots; elsewhere we grind them below grade, as our grind or remove guide explains.

City, county or the beach?

St. Augustine’s rules apply inside city limits. The unincorporated communities nearby, such as St. Augustine Shores and St. Augustine South, follow St. Johns County’s tree-inch rules instead, and St. Augustine Beach is its own city with its own fees. Our clearing prices follow the typical ranges in the land clearing cost guide; the permits and mitigation sit on top.