Tree Due Diligence Before You Buy Or Lease A Site

Several can. Carrollton carries a survival obligation two years past project completion and Allen three years under a tree mitigation agreement, and those periods run against the land rather than against whoever signed. Buy a recently completed site and you may be buying the back half of somebody else's replacement commitment.

In Allen it's the instrument that records replacement obligations and the period they run for, three years, with the owner replacing a tree that dies inside it. It's the sort of document that sits in a development file rather than in a title commitment, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed at acquisition.

In Dallas, yes, and it matters at acquisition. A tree planted as mitigation becomes a protected tree in its own right, so a landscape that looks like ordinary planting may be a set of individually protected trees. Removing one later starts the whole process again rather than tidying up a previous obligation.

Whether the site was developed recently enough to still be inside a survival period, whether any planting on it was mitigation rather than landscaping, whether a perimeter or natural area constraint touches the boundary, and whether a planned development condition attaches tree provisions the general code doesn't. All four are answerable in advance.

They can, and they attach to the parcel rather than to the city. A planned development ordinance or a site-specific zoning condition can carry tree and landscape provisions the general code never mentions, which means checking the zoning case for that specific property rather than relying on the city's general position.

It matters differently. A tenant rarely inherits mitigation obligations, but a tenant does inherit the trees, the parking they shade and the walkways their roots are lifting. On a long lease with maintenance responsibility, the condition of the canopy is a cost you're agreeing to before you've seen it assessed.

Condition and risk on the trees that carry consequence, which on most commercial sites is a small number of them over parking, walkways and buildings. Alongside that, the regulatory position: what's protected, what obligations may still be running, and what the site would cost to change if the plan is to redevelop.

It depends entirely on the city and the trees, which is the honest answer. What can be said is that it's cheaper to price before closing than after, because before closing it's a negotiating point and afterwards it's simply yours. The assessment costs a small fraction of either outcome.