# Selective Land Clearing in Palm Bay

> Selective land clearing in Palm Bay, FL: underbrush, pepper and chosen trees out, keeper pines and palms fenced at the root zone and counted. Get an estimate.

URL: https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/selective-clearing/

Selective clearing starts from the trees that stay. Each keeper is marked, measured and fenced at its root zone, the machines get routes that stay outside those fences, and only then do the underbrush, the invasives and the trees you chose to lose come out.

![Selectively cleared Palm Bay lot with slash pines and sabal palms kept inside protection fencing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/images/selectively-cleared-palm-bay-lot-with-slash-pines-and-sabal-palms-kept-inside-protection-fencing-1024.webp)

**Numbers that set a selective clearing job**

- **DBH x 12 in**: Diameter of the critical root zone Palm Bay protects around each kept tree, with a 10 ft minimum barricade (Palm Bay Code §175.003)
- **3 trees**: Credit for one kept 6 to 12 inch tree toward the four trees a new Palm Bay home lot needs (Palm Bay Code §175.014(C)(5))
- **Hand only**: How underbrush inside a kept tree's root zone has to be cleared; no machines, soil or materials inside it (Palm Bay Code §175.003)
- **10% canopy**: The most native canopy unincorporated Brevard's small-scale clearing permit allows to come out (Brevard Code §62-4338(7) application)

Last Updated: October 31, 2026

[Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/) offers selective land clearing across Palm Bay and south Brevard: the underbrush, the Brazilian pepper and the trees you choose to lose come out, and the pines, oaks and cabbage palms you choose to keep stay standing and healthy. It is the opposite of starting a machine at one corner of the lot. Selective clearing starts from the keepers, plans around them, and only then removes the rest. The work is carried out by licensed and insured contractors, with the keep-and-remove list written down before anything is cut.

## What happens on the first visit

The walk is mostly about trees. Each candidate keeper is measured at breast height, because trunk diameter sets both the size of its protection zone and how much it counts toward the city’s landscaping requirement. Each one is checked for the things that make a poor keeper: a dead or broken top, a heavy lean toward the house site, damage or rot at the base, or a position so close to the pad that the builder could not work around it. Palm Bay’s code asks for kept trees to be marked on site with bands or flagging that match the approved plan, so the flagging done on this walk is the same flagging the permit sketch will show.

The walk also looks at the ground between the trees. Machine routes have to reach every area being cleared without crossing a root zone, so a lot with keepers scattered across the middle may need hand work where a machine cannot fit. Burrows are checked too, since FWC requires a [gopher tortoise](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/gopher-tortoise-survey-before-clearing/) permit before any work within 25 feet of one, and so is wet ground, which on Palm Bay sand decides whether a tracked machine can work without rutting.

## Root zones decide the job

A tree’s roots spread far wider than its trunk and most of them sit in the top of the soil. Palm Bay’s code turns that into a rule. Under §175.003, each kept tree gets a critical root zone of 12 inches of diameter for every inch of trunk diameter, and a visible barricade at that line or 10 feet from the trunk, whichever is greater. A 24-inch slash pine has a root zone 24 feet across, so its fence sits about 12 feet out; for trees under 20 inches the 10-foot minimum governs. Palms get 3 feet. Where four or more trees stand together, the protection is drawn as a limit of development at least 12 feet beyond the outermost trunks.

Inside the barricade, the rules are strict. Underbrush is cleared by hand. No machines, materials or soil go inside, nothing is nailed to the tree, felled wood is carried out promptly, and the natural soil level is kept. Trenching through the zone is avoided, and where a utility line has to pass a kept tree the code points to tunneling instead.

The reason is the way trees fail after clearing. A machine driven over the roots compacts the sand and tears the fine roots that take up water, and fill piled against the trunk smothers the root flare. Neither kills a tree on the day. The decline can show months later as thinning and dieback, long after the lot looks finished, which is why the protection goes up first and stays up.

## Kept trees pay you back at the certificate of occupancy

A new one- or two-family home lot under an acre in Palm Bay needs four trees and ten shrubs before the certificate of occupancy, under §175.021, and half of any trees planted have to be native canopy species. Kept trees count toward that number, and generously:

- A kept tree of 6 to under 12 inches counts as three trees.
- A kept tree of 12 to under 20 inches counts as four.
- A kept tree of 20 inches or more counts as five.
- Palms with at least 4.5 feet of clear wood count one for one, up to half of the trees required.

So one sound 14-inch pine left beside the driveway covers the whole tree requirement. The tree has to stand inside the property lines, though, not in a right-of-way or easement, so a big pine on the swale or in the canal easement does not count. The [Palm Bay permit guide](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/palm-bay-land-clearing-permits/) covers how kept trees appear on the site sketch, and the [house lot guide](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/clearing-a-lot-to-build-a-house/) shows where the decision fits in the build sequence.

## Underbrush, heavy undergrowth and invasives under kept trees

Much selective work is underbrush removal: the palmetto, vines, saplings and pepper that fill the space under a pine canopy. Outside the root zones that layer can be mulched or cut and hauled; inside them it is cut by hand. Saw palmetto resprouts from trunks left in the sand, so cutting it back under a kept tree is maintenance, not removal, and the scope says so. Where palmetto has to go for good, see [saw palmetto clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/palmetto-clearing/).

[Brazilian pepper](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/brazilian-pepper-removal/) is the exception to keeping things. It is on Florida’s noxious weed list, and Palm Bay requires Class I invasives on a property being developed to be removed before the certificate of occupancy, so a pepper growing up through a kept oak comes out with its root crown, carefully, by hand.

On a lot that is being kept rather than built on, thinning the understory has another reason. After the 2008 Mother’s Day fires, which destroyed 33 homes in Palm Bay, the city’s fire department advised clearing dense brush at least 30 feet from homes. Opening the understory while keeping the canopy is selective clearing by another name, and [brush clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/brush-clearing/) covers the wider job.

In Palm Bay, underbrush removal on its own needs no grubbing permit on a one- or two-family site under an acre, or on any area of a quarter acre or less. Larger sites need one, with a sketch of every tree in and around the area.

## Trails and paths through kept woods

On acreage in Malabar, Grant-Valkaria and the edges of Palm Bay, selective clearing often means a path rather than an opening: a walking trail, a cart path or an access lane wound between the trees worth keeping. The route is flagged on the walk to bend around root zones instead of through them, cleared to a set width, and usually mulched as the tread, which keeps the sand from washing in summer rain. The [Malabar](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/service-areas/malabar/) and [Grant-Valkaria](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/service-areas/grant-valkaria/) pages cover the local rules on acreage.

## Selective clearing outside Palm Bay

Neighboring jurisdictions build selective clearing into their rules in different ways. Unincorporated Brevard’s small-scale land clearing permit allows up to half of a site’s understory or one acre, whichever is less, and up to 10 percent of the native canopy, and it does not allow viable specimen trees of 24 inches or more to come out, so on a vacant county parcel selective clearing is the permit. Rockledge requires four trees to remain on a property after a residential tree removal, as the [Rockledge page](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/service-areas/rockledge/) notes. Sebastian sizes its barricades differently, at 5 feet for trees up to 10 inches and 10 feet plus a foot for every inch beyond that, as the [Sebastian page](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/service-areas/sebastian/) explains. Any other local rule is confirmed per address.

## What a selective clearing scope includes

- A walk of the lot to choose keepers, with trunk diameters measured and each tree flagged
- A check of each keeper for dead tops, heavy lean, damage and closeness to the house plan
- A written scope listing what stays, what goes and the machine routes between them
- Root zone barricades set before any machine moves
- Underbrush inside the root zones cleared by hand
- Brazilian pepper and other Class I invasives removed with the root crown
- Chosen trees felled into planned drop zones away from the keepers
- Debris chipped, mulched outside the root zones or hauled
- A hand-off walk of the kept trees and barricades against the scope

## Full clearing, selective clearing and underbrush thinning

|  | Full clearing | Selective clearing | Underbrush thinning |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| What comes out | Every tree, shrub, stump and root | Chosen trees, invasives and the underbrush around the keepers | Brush, palmetto, vines and saplings; trees stay |
| Machine work | Open across the lot | Along set routes, outside every root zone barricade | Light machines or mulching outside root zones, hand work inside |
| Tree credit at the CO | None, so all required trees are planted | Kept 6 to 12 inch trees count as three trees each | Most trees stay and count |
| Pace | Fastest per acre | Slower: more hand work and more planned felling | Moderate |
| Best fit | A tight lot the house and septic fill | A lot with good pines or palms clear of the building areas | A wooded lot being kept, walked or made less fire-prone |

Selective clearing costs more per acre in labor and planning, and often less in replacement trees, mitigation and lost shade.

## Related resources

- [LearnHow to clear a Palm Bay lot to build a house](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/clearing-a-lot-to-build-a-house/)
- [LearnLand clearing permits in Palm Bay and Brevard County](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/palm-bay-land-clearing-permits/)
- [Decision GuideForestry mulching vs land clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/forestry-mulching-vs-land-clearing/)
- [LearnScrub-jay rules before clearing a Palm Bay lot](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/scrub-jay-permit/)
- [LearnWhat to do after land clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/guide/after-land-clearing/)

## How a selective clearing job runs

1. **First call** The address, what you want to keep and why, what is planned for the lot, and whether a building permit has been applied for.
2. **Site visit** The keepers are walked, measured and flagged, and the lot is checked for gopher tortoise burrows, wet ground and access routes that stay clear of root zones.
3. **Written scope** A keep-and-remove list with trunk sizes, the barricade layout and the machine routes, so the permit sketch, the tree credits and the price agree.
4. **Clearing** Barricades go up first. Then hand clearing inside the root zones, planned felling of the trees that go, and mulching or hauling outside the fences.
5. **Hand-off walk** The kept trees and barricades are walked against the scope, and the barricades are left for the builder where the code needs them through construction.

## What this work looks like

- ![Kept slash pine inside a wide orange tree-protection barricade on a cleared lot](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/images/kept-slash-pine-inside-a-wide-orange-tree-protection-barricade-on-a-cleared-lot-800.webp) *Kept slash pine inside a wide orange tree-protection barricade on a cleared lot*
- ![Slash pines flagged with orange tape to keep before clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/images/slash-pines-flagged-with-orange-tape-to-keep-before-clearing-800.webp) *Slash pines flagged with orange tape to keep before clearing*
- ![Mulching machine working between kept pines outside the protection fencing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/images/mulching-machine-working-between-kept-pines-outside-the-protection-fencing-800.webp) *Mulching machine working between kept pines outside the protection fencing*
- ![Cleared lot with sabal palms and a live oak kept inside protection fencing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/images/cleared-lot-with-sabal-palms-and-a-live-oak-kept-inside-protection-fencing-800.webp) *Cleared lot with sabal palms and a live oak kept inside protection fencing*

## Selective clearing questions

### How far from a kept tree does the clearing machine have to stay?

In Palm Bay, outside the tree's critical root zone, which is 12 inches of diameter for every inch of trunk, with the barricade never closer than 10 feet from the trunk. A 24-inch pine therefore gets a fence about 12 feet out. Palms need 3 feet. Inside the fence, underbrush is cleared by hand and nothing is parked or piled.

### Which trees are worth keeping on a Palm Bay lot?

Healthy ones that sit well clear of the house pad, driveway, septic and the space the builder needs to work, and that are big enough to earn credit. A sound 12 to 20 inch tree counts as four of the four trees a new home lot needs. Trees with dead tops, heavy lean or damage at the base are poor keepers.

### Can underbrush be cleared without removing any trees?

Yes. Thinning palmetto, vines and saplings while the canopy stays is a common selective job. In Palm Bay a one- or two-family site under an acre needs no grubbing permit for it, and neither does any area of a quarter acre or less. Inside the root zones of the trees it is done by hand.

### Does keeping trees make clearing cost more?

Usually per acre, yes. Barricades, hand clearing inside root zones and careful felling take time that open clearing does not. The saving shows up later: fewer trees to buy and plant before the certificate of occupancy, no mitigation for trees left standing, and shade that a new tree takes years to give.

### Can a kept tree die after the lot is cleared?

It can, and the damage may not show for months. Machines driven over the root zone compact the sand and tear roots, and fill piled against the trunk smothers them. That is why the code keeps machines, soil and materials outside the barricade and asks for the tree's natural soil level to be kept.

## Related services

*Residential platted lot*

### [Lot clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/lot-clearing/)

A platted lot opened to the site plan: trees and palmetto out where the house, driveway and septic go, marked keepers protected, and stumps handled to the finish the builder needs.

*Understory and vines*

### [Brush clearing](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/brush-clearing/)

Underbrush, vines and saplings cut or mulched to ground level, under the trees you keep, with a straight answer about what grows back and how fast.

*Schinus terebinthifolia*

### [Brazilian pepper removal](https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/brazilian-pepper-removal/)

Cut pepper resprouts from the stump, so removal means getting the root crown out. On a new Palm Bay home site it has to be gone before the certificate of occupancy.

## Contact Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay

- Phone: [(321) 513-1820](tel:+13215131820)
- Email: [office@flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com](mailto:office@flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com)
- Address: 3555 SE Bayside Lakes Blvd, Palm Bay, FL 32909
- Hours: Monday to Friday 8am-6pm, Saturday and Sunday 9am-2pm (America/New_York). Outside these hours, emergency calls only.
- Request an estimate: https://flatwoodlandclearingpalmbay.com/contact/#estimate