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Pinellas County consolidated its tree rules into a new ordinance effective January 23, 2026, and the county's own pages have not all caught up. What is protected at four inches, why every palm over six feet now needs a permit regardless of species, the 24-inch homestead exception and exactly who qualifies for it, the state law route that can replace the permit entirely, the rating system that decides whether a healthy tree can come out at all, and the eight steps to apply.

Dunedin's ordinance opens from the position that every protected tree stays on site. What is protected at 4 inches DBH, the 19 exempt species and the one the city's own page leaves out, why only the cabbage palm needs a permit here while unincorporated Pinellas County now protects every palm, Grand Tree sizes by species, the 25 percent cumulative pruning limit, the $25 application, replacement rules by lot size, the penalty and its lien.

Learn the hidden structural costs of emergency tree maintenance for HOA communities and why reactive management creates expensive operational risks.

Most properties carry more trees than anyone on site can name, and no record of what they are or what condition they are in. Here is what changes the first time a property's trees become individual records: which trees belong in one and which do not, what you can finally ask, where the multi-year plan and the annual budget come from, what happens to everything observed from that day forward, and what a tree record honestly does not do.