Which Brevard County land clearing permit does your lot need?

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

Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay clears lots and acreage in Palm Bay and across south Brevard, and the permit question has a short answer: it depends on who governs the parcel. Inside Palm Bay, any clearing on a residential lot under an acre needs the city’s tree removal and small residential site land clearing permit. On unincorporated county land, a vacant lot usually goes through Brevard County’s $240 small-scale land clearing permit. Each nearby town runs its own rule.

None of these local permits covers wildlife or wetlands. Those are separate state and federal checks, and they sit on top of whichever local permit applies.

Step one: whose rules apply to the parcel

The mailing address can mislead. A Palm Bay or Melbourne address can sit on unincorporated county land, and a lot a short drive apart can fall under a different town’s code. The parcel’s record with the county shows which city, if any, it belongs to, and that decides the permit office.

In practice the south Brevard choices are the City of Palm Bay, unincorporated Brevard County, and the towns and cities around them: Malabar, Grant-Valkaria, West Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne Village and, across the county line, Sebastian in Indian River County. The service areas page lists each place with what is known about its local rules.

Palm Bay: three permits, one for house lots

Palm Bay’s Chapter 175 tree code, adopted September 19, 2024, governs all land inside city limits and makes it unlawful to remove trees or habitat except as the chapter allows. It sorts clearing into three permits by what the work does.

For a house lot under an acre, that means one permit: the tree removal and small residential site land clearing permit. It needs the building permit already under review, with its application number on the request. The application includes the fee, the recorded deed, a hold harmless, an owner’s letter if someone else applies, and a sketch with the species and diameter of every tree on the parcel, which come out, which stay and any replacement trees. The lot clearing service page explains how that sketch comes out of the scope.

Larger and commercial sites go the other way. A site work permit needs a city-stamped site plan, proof of any outside agency permits, a full environmental assessment that notes whether the site drains to Turkey Creek or the Indian River Lagoon, and a tree survey at a scale no greater than 1 inch to 50 feet. It is not issued before the building permit application. Commercial land clearing covers that path.

Fees for all three are set by city resolution, so they come from the city’s current fee schedule rather than this page. The Palm Bay lot clearing cost guide shows how each one is charged.

Protected trees, specimens and what keeping them earns

The code puts trees into two tiers. A tree of 6 to under 12 inches in diameter is protected, and removing one without replanting means one replacement tree or a mitigation fee. A tree of 12 inches or more is a specimen, and the requirement scales with size: one restoration tree for every 6 inches of trunk diameter removed. A 24-inch slash pine taken out and not replaced therefore stands for four restoration trees.

The same code rewards keeping trees. A new one- or two-family lot under an acre needs four trees and ten shrubs before the certificate of occupancy, and each kept tree of 6 to under 12 inches counts as three. Two good keepers cover the requirement. Kept trees need a barricade at the critical root zone, which is 12 inches of diameter for each inch of trunk and never less than 10 feet from the trunk, with hand clearing inside it and no machines, soil or materials. Selective clearing is built around those rules.

Timber on a residential lot

Cutting pines to sell does not change the permit. Palm Bay’s code has no separate exception for timber on residential land: the exceptions are bona fide agricultural, cultivation and grazing land, nurseries and public land. On a house lot, a pine of 6 inches or more needs the permit whether it goes to a mill, a chipper or a debris haul.

Unincorporated Brevard: the small-scale permit

On county land, the Natural Resources Management Department in Viera issues the Small Scale Land Clearing Permit under County Code Section 62-4338(7). The application carries a $240 non-refundable fee, and its limits are written on the form:

• Up to 50 percent of the site’s understory or one acre, whichever is less, can be approved for removal.
• Up to 10 percent of the site’s native canopy can be approved.
• Viable specimen trees of 24 inches or more cannot be removed, though non-native invasives are excluded from that protection.
• Mitigation may be required for protected trees of 10 inches or more.
• Only one permit is approved per property per calendar year, regardless of ownership.
• Native vegetation in the Surface Water Protection Buffer stays.
• The owner has 30 days from issuance to schedule a final inspection, or the permit expires.

The form also says what it does not do. It does not cover protected species, it authorizes no wetland impacts, and the owner remains responsible for any state or federal permits.

The small-scale permit is built for limited work on a vacant parcel, not for clearing a full house site. A 2020 county staff review described an exemption from canopy and specimen replacement criteria for lots of 1.25 acres or less applying for a building permit, and noted that most new homes on quarter- to half-acre lots had been fully cleared. Whether that exemption covers a particular county lot today is confirmed per address with the county.

The towns around Palm Bay

Every town below runs its own clearing and tree rules. Thresholds differ, so a tree that needs no permit in one place needs one a mile away.

Farther north, Titusville and Rockledge each have their own tree permits as well. Each town’s fees are set by its own schedule and confirmed per address.

What no local permit covers

Three outside checks apply wherever the parcel sits.

• Gopher tortoises. Any work within 25 feet of a burrow needs a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission relocation permit first. See the gopher tortoise survey guide.
• Scrub-jays. Palm Bay holds a citywide federal permit that sets limits during nesting season; outside the city, occupied habitat is a matter for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The scrub-jay guide covers both.
• Wetlands and stormwater. Work in, on or over a wetland needs a state Environmental Resource Permit, and construction that disturbs an acre or more needs coverage under Florida DEP’s construction stormwater permit. Clearing near wetlands explains the thresholds.

Who files, and in what order

Either the owner or the contractor can file, with the owner’s letter of authorization where the code asks for one. For a Palm Bay house lot the order is fixed: building permit application, then the clearing permit with that number, then the wildlife and wetland checks, then the clearing. The first site visit marks the keepers, checks for burrows, wet ground and access, and the written scope that follows lists the trees for the sketch. How to clear a lot to build a house walks through the full sequence.

Clearing before the permit is the expensive mistake. In Palm Bay it brings a stop work order, a new application at double the fee, a restoration plan and, where little evidence of the removed trees remains, four restoration trees for each quarter acre disturbed. The certificate of occupancy waits until the restoration plan is approved.