An illustrative Palm Bay quarter-acre lot, cleared from start to finish

Last Updated: October 31, 2026 · Written by Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay

Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay offers lot clearing for house lots across Palm Bay, carried out by licensed and insured contractors, and this is how a typical job runs from the first call to the finished lot. The example is a wooded quarter-acre platted lot in southwest Palm Bay: slash pine and cabbage palm over a thick floor of saw palmetto, a patch of Brazilian pepper along the back line, and a drainage easement at the rear. The owner has a builder and a house plan and wants to know what happens before the slab.

Step 1: the first call

The first call covers the address, the lot size, what is planned and which trees the owner would like to keep. The question that shapes everything else comes early: has the building permit been applied for? In Palm Bay, clearing a residential lot under an acre needs the city’s tree removal and small residential site land clearing permit, and for a lot being cleared to build, the city takes that request only once the building permit is under review. In this example the builder has filed, so the building permit application number is ready.

A few phone photos from the street and the corners of the lot are enough to start a scope. They show the density of the palmetto, the size of the pines and how a machine would get in.

Step 2: the site visit

The lot is then walked in person. Four things are checked on every visit.

• Keepers. Two slash pines near the back corner, each about 9 inches across at chest height, sit outside the house footprint. They are marked to stay.
• Burrows. The sandy, open edges of the lot are checked for gopher tortoise burrows. Work within 25 feet of a burrow needs a state relocation permit first, so a burrow would change the schedule. None is found here; if one had been, the next step would be the tortoise survey by an authorized agent.
• Wet ground. The low back third holds water after rain, and the rear drainage easement belongs to a water control district. Clearing stops at the easement line and no debris goes near the canal.
• Access. The frontage is wide enough for a compact track machine, and there are no overhead lines across the drive.

The visit also notes the trunk diameter and species of every tree of 6 inches or more, because the city’s permit needs a site sketch showing each one, which come out and which stay.

Step 3: permits and the written scope

With the sketch drawn, the clearing permit goes in with the building permit number. The pines being removed are protected trees of 6 to under 12 inches, and the code asks for one replacement tree for each, or a mitigation fee. The fees follow the city’s current fee schedule, and the Palm Bay permit guide explains each part. The two kept pines help here: a new lot under an acre needs 4 trees and 10 shrubs before the certificate of occupancy, and each kept tree of that size counts as three.

The written scope then names the method and finish for each area:

Burning is not on the list. A land clearing pile needs 300 feet from any occupied building, and this lot, like most platted lots, has neighbors much closer than that. The debris hauling page explains the choices.

Step 4: clearing day

The barricades go up first. Palm Bay sizes a kept tree’s critical root zone at 12 inches of diameter for each inch of trunk, so a 9-inch pine has a root zone about 9 feet across, and the barricade sits no closer than that zone or 10 feet. Inside it, underbrush is cleared by hand and no machine, soil or material is placed.

Then the vegetation comes down. Trees are felled and processed, the palmetto in the building area is grubbed out with its creeping trunks rather than mowed, because saw palmetto resprouts from what is left in the sand. The Brazilian pepper is cut and its root crowns removed, since a cut stump alone sends up new shoots. Limbs and brush go through the chipper; the grubbed root mass, which carries sand and does not chip well, is loaded out. The stumps in the future yard are ground below grade with a stump grinder.

Step 5: the hand-off walk

The finished lot is walked against the scope: pad, driveway and septic area grubbed to clean sand, yard stumps ground, pepper gone, both pines standing behind their barricades, the easement untouched. What comes next is named so nothing is missed. Fill to raise the pad, grading and compaction are earthwork for the next trade, along with silt fence or other erosion control before the summer rains, the driveway culvert and the replacement planting before the certificate of occupancy. The guide to clearing a lot to build a house covers that sequence in full.

What the budget looks like

Using national budgeting ranges, not quotes, the illustrative budget lines are:

• Clearing the lot: a quarter-acre lot falls in the national $800 to $3,000 band. Thick palmetto, the pepper and hauling the root mass push this one toward the high end.
• Stump grinding, five yard stumps: $120 to $400 for the first and $30 to $60 for each additional one, so about $240 to $640.
• City permit and any mitigation: per the city’s current fee schedule.
• Outside clearing: fill, grading, survey, erosion control and planting.

The lot clearing cost guide explains each driver, and the cost calculator runs the same ranges for a different size or density. Before booking anything, the lot clearing checklist shows which permits and checks likely apply to your own lot.