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Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay clears lots, acreage and pasture across Brevard County and in Sebastian, with the work carried out by licensed and insured contractors. Palm Bay is the center of that range and has the most vacant lots by far, but the first question on any parcel is the same everywhere: whose permit applies. The table below answers it in one line per area, and the sections after it cover the places that do not have their own page.
Which rule applies to your parcel
The permit office follows the city or town limits, which do not always match a mailing address, so the parcel ID is what settles it. Once the office is known, the rule that changes the job is usually one of three things: the trunk size that needs a permit, whether existing homes are exempt, and what happens to the debris.
| Area | Permit office | Rule that changes the job |
|---|---|---|
| Palm Bay | City of Palm Bay | A permit for any clearing on a residential lot under an acre, and for trees from 6 in. |
| Malabar | Town of Malabar | Own land clearing and tree ordinance with mitigation; 25 ft minimum wetland buffer |
| Grant-Valkaria | Town of Grant-Valkaria | Town rule confirmed per property; acreage and scrub-jay screening drive the scope |
| Melbourne | City Engineering Department | Per-inch tree fee on undeveloped land; separate underbrush clearing permit |
| Sebastian | City of Sebastian | Protected trees from 4 in.; scrub oak from 1¼ in.; 5 to 20 trees per lot |
| Titusville | Community Development | Permit from 4 in. unless the house is over a year past its CO; no clearing fires |
| Rockledge | Building Division | Tree permit even at existing homes; four trees must remain |
| West Melbourne | City Building Department | Building permit before any clearing, even silt fence staking |
| Melbourne Village | Town Permitting Clerk | A permit to remove any tree, dead or invasive ones included |
| Micco, Viera, Suntree | Brevard County | Small-scale permit: up to 10% of native canopy, no specimen trees |
| Cocoa | Planning and Zoning | Clearing follows an approved site plan or development order |
Palm Bay: southwest, southeast, northwest and Bayside Lakes
Palm Bay's own rules are on the homepage and in the Palm Bay permit guide. In short, Chapter 175, adopted in September 2024, requires the city's Tree Removal and Small Residential Site Land Clearing Permit for any clearing on a residential lot under an acre and for any tree of 6 inches or more, and for a new house the building permit has to be under review first. Fees follow the city's current fee schedule. The city also holds a citywide federal scrub-jay incidental take permit, issued in 2007, that limits clearing in nesting season where active nests are on or near a lot. The rules are the same across the city; the land is not.
Southwest Palm Bay and The Compound
ZIP 32908 alone holds 10,627 vacant platted single-family lots, about 2,739 acres, the most of any ZIP in the area. It also holds the city's large undeveloped tracts, including the area known as The Compound, where about 130 acres burned in a set of brush fires in April 2026. The May 2008 Mother's Day fires began as a brush fire in southwest Palm Bay near Jupiter Boulevard and Santo Domingo and burned more than 10,000 acres. Palm Bay Fire has advised clearing dense brush at least 30 feet from homes, and brush clearing does that work: it reduces the fuel next to a house, though it does not make a lot fireproof. The city's 50 vacant grazing parcels, averaging 98 acres, suit pasture clearing.
Southeast Palm Bay
ZIP 32909 has 5,833 vacant platted lots, about 2,003 acres, on the Port Malabar grid, and the 2008 fires did most of their damage to homes here. Many lots back onto drainage canals. The city's GIS maps about 395 miles of canal lines, with easements commonly 20, 30 or 50 feet wide, so lot clearing stops at the easement line and nothing is pushed into the canal.
Northwest Palm Bay and Bayside Lakes
ZIP 32907 counts 2,403 vacant platted lots, and ZIP 32905 in the northeast another 276. Anywhere in the Port Malabar units, the city's map flags 11 units with neither city water nor sewer, so a lot there may need a private well and a septic drainfield, and the clearing plan keeps machines off the future drainfield. Bayside Lakes, in the southeast, is a master-planned community, and any association rules on tree removal are confirmed per lot.
Send the parcel ID and what grows on it
The parcel ID tells us whose permit applies. A rough idea of what is planned and a few phone photos are enough to start a scope.
West Melbourne
West Melbourne's Land Development Standards Manual, Section 7.1, says every project needs a City building permit before any work on the site, "including clearing or silt fence staking", and a pre-construction meeting where clearing or grading would disturb half an acre or more. The manual calls that half acre the NPDES threshold, while the state's construction permit starts at one acre, so the city's figure is the one to plan to. The city's tree ordinance is confirmed per address with the Building Department (321-837-7776). The land is wet: about 92 percent of the mapped soil is poorly drained. And it is nearly built out, with 8,189 homes averaging 0.23 acres and 260 vacant platted lots averaging 0.19 acres. Its neighbor to the east has its own page: land clearing in Melbourne.
Melbourne Village
Melbourne Village, a town of about 0.6 square miles beside West Melbourne, requires a permit to remove any tree at all, including pines, palms, dead trees and trees on the state's pest-plant list. The town lists a 7-day review, and a permit is valid for one year. That rule leaves out no size or species, so even Brazilian pepper removal starts with the Permitting Clerk (321-723-8300). With about one new home permit a year recently, a job there is more often a tree at an existing house than a lot ahead of construction, and it often ends with stump grinding.
Micco and unincorporated south Brevard
Outside the cities and towns, Brevard County's rules apply, and for a lot without a development approval that means the county's Small Scale Land Clearing Permit. It costs $240, non-refundable, and allows up to half of the site's understory or one acre, whichever is less, and up to 10 percent of the native canopy. Specimen trees of 24 inches or more cannot be removed, invasive species aside; mitigation may be required for protected trees of 10 inches or more; and only one permit is issued per property per calendar year, whoever owns it. The final inspection has to be scheduled no later than 30 days after the permit is issued. The permit does not cover wetland impacts, the Surface Water Protection Buffer or protected species. Applications go to Natural Resources Management, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Building A, Room 219, Viera, (321) 633-2016.
Micco, at the south end of the county, sits partly on the scrub ridge: about 13 percent of its mapped soil is well drained, and two historical scrub-jay polygons, about 400 acres, reach into it. Barefoot Bay, a manufactured-home community, the Micco Scrub Sanctuary and St. Sebastian River Preserve State Park are all nearby. A Micco parcel on scrub is screened before clearing, as the scrub-jay guide explains, and because the 10 percent canopy cap applies to a lot without a development approval, clearing ahead of the building permit is selective by rule, which is the work selective clearing is built for. Across the county line to the south, Sebastian and Roseland run their own rules, and Grant-Valkaria lies just north.
Cocoa
In Cocoa, land clearing follows a development approval. The city's combined Tree Removal and Land Clearing application is notarized and needs the recorded deed; tree removal needs a survey or plot plan showing each tree's location, species and diameter and a replacement plan, and land clearing needs the site plan number or other development order plus a drawing of the clearing limits and barriers. Outside a site plan, the city's fee schedule lists tree removal at $15 per tree or $200 per acre, and $100 per oak taken from the right of way. Ordinance 18-2024 relaxed palm replacement. The protected-tree sizes in the zoning code are confirmed per address with Planning and Zoning at 65 Stone Street. Most of the city's 895 vacant platted lots, averaging 0.22 acres, sit in two subdivisions, Windward Preserve and Lakes at Cocoa Grove. For nearby cities with their own pages, see Rockledge and Titusville.
Viera and Suntree
Viera and Suntree are unincorporated, so the county's small-scale permit and its 10 percent canopy cap apply to a private lot there. Most of Viera is built under a Development of Regional Impact by a master developer through county plat approvals, so its large clearing is developer-scale site work tied to plats and environmental resource permits. In the unincorporated part of ZIP 32940, the county counts 1,624 vacant platted lots averaging 0.18 acres, led by Landings at Viera, Atlin Cove, Pangea Park and Crossmolina, in active builder phases. Association or architectural review rules, where they apply, are confirmed per lot. Viera East shares one historical scrub-jay polygon of about 1,099 acres with Rockledge, and Viera West's mapped soil is about 80 percent hydric, so a wet low spot on a lot is checked as a possible wetland first, as clearing near wetlands explains.