Tree removal in Mustang Ridge

What Mustang Ridge actually regulates

Mostly rural lots with fenceline trees — mesquite, cedar elm, hackberry. Fenceline work is its own thing: half the job is getting the brush out without tearing up the fence. Haul-away's included, so you're not left with a pile.

Everything else the Mustang Ridge code attaches

If it's not construction-related

Nothing to file with the city for a straight removal on an existing single-family home. New subdivisions and commercial sites have separate planting/mitigation requirements, but those attach to development approval, not to cutting down a tree on a lot that's already built.

How it's measured

Not applicable to existing single-family lots — see exemptions.

What's exempt

Ordinance Section 4(a): the additional-requirements section does not apply to individual single-family lots for single-family structures. Section 2(b)(3): single-family lots created before the ordinance's effective date are exempt from its residential landscaping requirements.

Who to call

City of Mustang Ridge — Landscaping Ordinance #23-00446

Check your own tree against Mustang Ridge’s rule

How a removal actually goes in Mustang Ridge

Rural lots right off I-35, easy to reach and easy to work. Half the job on a fenceline is getting brush out without tearing up the fence, and haul-away is included so you aren't left with the pile. Eighteen minutes from Kyle, sitting where three counties meet, flat and open with easy access. Fenceline work is most of what I do here and the haul-away matters as much as the cutting. Acreage lots along the frontage roads with room to work, and a straight run down I-35 from Kyle. Where it gets slower is the properties on unimproved drives after rain, because a chip truck on soft blackland is how you spend an afternoon getting unstuck.

Everything gets hauled away and the ground raked off behind us. Want the logs kept for firewood? Say so before we start and my crew will cut them to length and stack them rather than running them through the chipper.

The trees I get called about here

Fenceline mesquite, cedar elm and hackberry, with the occasional big pecan by an older house. Fenceline trees have their own problem: they've been growing into and around wire for decades, and there's often metal buried in the trunk where a chain saw shouldn't find it. Mesquite is the one to understand out here, because cutting it wrong makes it worse. Cut a mesquite off at ground level and it resprouts from the base with a dozen stems where there was one, and you've traded a tree for a thicket. If the aim is to be rid of it, the stump has to be dealt with rather than just the trunk. Mustang Ridge is spread across the Travis, Caldwell and Bastrop county lines, which matters more than it sounds — it's the one town where I routinely have to check which county a property is in before saying anything about rules. The ground changes with it. The northern end is blackland clay running out from Del Valle; head southeast and it turns sandier as you approach the post oak savanna, and the species swap with it, from cedar elm and hackberry to post oak and yaupon. Practically, sandy ground means a grinder cuts fast and clean, and clay ground means the shrink-swell cycle is what's stressing your tree.

Before you decide to remove it

A mature live oak took fifty years to reach that size and I can take it down in a morning. Neither of us can put it back. So the first thing I want to know is whether it actually needs to go — a tree that looks finished is quite often a tree that needs the deadwood out of it and nothing more. Here’s how to tell the difference, and here’s the risk check if you want to work it through yourself.

If it does need to come out, the permit side is the easy part. The rules for every town I’ve read are here, and here’s everything else I do in Mustang Ridge.

Questions I get asked