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Lexington planning commission finalizes recommended edits to Chapter 156 landscaping and tree rules
Summary
On Feb. 18, 2025, the Town Election and Planning Commission met at Town Hall to review and refine proposed amendments to Chapter 156, the town’s landscaping and tree ordinance, and directed staff to prepare a final draft for a March public hearing and recommendation to council.
On Feb. 18, 2025, the Town Election and Planning Commission met at Town Hall to review and refine proposed amendments to Chapter 156, the town’s landscape and tree ordinance, and directed staff to prepare a final draft for a March public hearing and a recommendation to town council.
The commission’s discussion focused on maintenance and sight-visibility concerns, street-tree placement and root-control requirements, scenic-corridor buffers and optional entrance landscaping, parking-island sizing, and procedures for approving removal of protected trees. Planning staff told commissioners that stakeholder meetings with home builders, landscape architects, Lexington County staff, public-safety representatives and utility supervisors shaped the current draft.
The commission agreed to several specific changes and clarifications and asked staff to return a cleaned-up redline and a final draft for the commission’s March public hearing (scheduled for March 19, 2025). Key outcomes included: allowing an optional entranceway landscape area adjacent to scenic corridors with limits set at the approving authority’s discretion (staff proposed a combined linear allowance of up to 200 feet with a suggested minimum of 50 feet on one side); increasing parking-island minimums to 400 square feet while changing the required tree ratio from one tree per eight spaces to one tree per ten spaces; removing the draft’s “scenic corridor 3” duplication; and directing staff to implement a staff-administered process for approving specimen/protected-tree removals that may require replacement plantings or payment into a tree fund on an inch-for-inch basis.
Planning staff also said the ordinance will retain existing language preventing landscape improvements from encroaching on rights-of-way or blocking sight-visibility triangles and noted changes to notification procedures for utilities (allowing electronic notices in addition to door hangers). Utility supervisors and developers told staff that heavily paved or landscaped utility access roads can impede access for heavy equipment and preferred gravel or millings; commissioners suggested installing a concrete apron where access meets the street to reduce curb and road damage.
On planting timing, stakeholders recommended allowing developers to delay planting scenic-corridor buffers until final inspection when water and other resources are on site, provided the required landscaping cost is included in the developer’s bond estimate so the town retains funds to complete planting if necessary. Staff said that bond estimates should include landscape amounts and that developers can request bond reductions later if work is completed earlier.
On tree protection and removals, staff said the approving authority will be staff (the town’s landscaping code enforcement officer or a designated delegate), not the Board of Zoning Appeals. The proposed protected-tree threshold in the draft is 4 inches in diameter; staff said an application process is being developed for payments to the tree fund, which "can only be used to plant trees in public places." The commission asked staff to confirm height/clearance language and ensure consistency with utility and school-bus standards; during the meeting staff cited typical clearances of 10 feet over sidewalks, 12 feet over streets and approximately 15 feet under power lines, and said they would verify and adjust ordinance language as needed.
Commissioners also discussed allowing alternate compliance for infill developments that are already built out; several commissioners preferred leaving exceptions to the Board of Zoning Appeals via the variance process rather than embedding multiple exceptions in the ordinance.
Planning staff said they will incorporate the commission’s direction, remove duplicate or unwanted draft provisions (including the scenic-corridor-3 language), prepare a cleaned-up redline that highlights the agreed changes, and bring a final draft back for the March public hearing and a subsequent recommendation to council. The meeting concluded without additional substantive items and adjourned by motion "without objection."
