New Braunfels, Texas · Comal County
Tree removal in New Braunfels
Two spring-fed rivers, and cypress lining both of them.
Worth checking the homeowner exemption first.
About 35 minutes from me in Kyle. Whatever the answer turns out to be, it is a form and a measurement rather than a refusal — these get approved all the time. Call me and I’ll tell you where you stand.
What New Braunfels actually regulates
The Comal and the Guadalupe give New Braunfels deep bottomland soil and some of the biggest bald cypress and pecan in the region. Away from the water you climb onto the Balcones escarpment and it's live oak and cedar on rock. If your lot is near either river, root zones are shallower and wetter than they look, and equipment access needs thinking about.
Under the threshold
Check the exemption first
Worth checking the homeowner exemption first.
New Braunfels' tree rules sit in the zoning code's landscaping chapter and are aimed at development, not an ordinary home. The code says it plainly: a tree removal permit is not needed where the property is zoned or used for agricultural, single-family, or two-family dwellings. If that's your lot, there's nothing to file, whatever the tree's size or species. The permit process — an application, a decision from the Planning Director within 30 days, automatic approval if the city doesn't respond in time — only comes into play for commercial, multi-family or subdivision development.
The ordinance, in its own words
A tree removal permit is not needed if: The protected or heritage tree(s) to be removed is located on property zoned or used for agricultural or single-family or two-family dwellings.
Source: City of New Braunfels — Code of Ordinances, Ch. 144 Zoning, Art. V § 144-5.3 Landscaping and Tree Preservation. This is a reading of the code, not legal advice and not the city’s own determination. Ordinances change.
Everything else the New Braunfels code attaches
- If it's part of building or development
- Where the exemption doesn't apply, the application needs the tree's location, trunk circumference and species. The Planning Director has 30 days to act; if the city doesn't respond in that window, it's automatically approved.
- Fees
- A fee schedule exists in Appendix D of the code; the amount isn't stated in the section I read.
- What's exempt
- No removal permit is needed where the property is zoned or used for agricultural, single-family, or two-family dwellings — regardless of the tree's size or species.
- Who to call
- New Braunfels Planning Department
- What I couldn't verify
- The chapter also sets an 8-inch diameter mark for what counts toward a development's required landscaping credit — that's a different question from when a permit is required, and I haven't found one stated minimum size that triggers the permit itself for non-exempt property. Worth a call to Planning if you're building or developing rather than removing a tree from your own home.
Check your own tree against New Braunfels’s rule
Permit checker
Measure it, then check it
Pick New Braunfels, put the trunk measurement in, and it will show you exactly which band you are in and what the code says about it.
How a removal actually goes in New Braunfels
River lots need thinking about: soft ground, steep banks, and often no route for a chipper. Away from the water it's ordinary suburban access. Thirty-five minutes from Kyle. Thirty-five minutes, with river-bottom lots along the Comal and the Guadalupe and escarpment lots away from the water. Near either river the ground is softer and the root zones are shallower than they look, so equipment placement matters more.
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
Bald cypress and pecan along the Comal and the Guadalupe — some of the largest in the region — and live oak with ashe juniper once you climb onto the Balcones escarpment. Two rivers means a lot of lots where the root zone is shallower and wetter than it looks. The mistake I see most in this town has nothing to do with species: it's soil piled over the root flare. Where the trunk meets the ground it should widen out visibly, like a foot in a shoe. If your tree goes into the ground like a telephone pole, something has been buried — fill from landscaping, or the tree was planted too deep to begin with. Buried flares rot, and they generate girdling roots that slowly strangle the trunk.
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 New Braunfels.
Questions I get asked
Do I need a permit to remove a tree in New Braunfels?
It depends on the trunk size. A tree removal permit is not needed if: The protected or heritage tree(s) to be removed is located on property zoned or used for agricultural or single-family or two-family dwellings. That is City of New Braunfels — Code of Ordinances, Ch. 144 Zoning, Art. V § 144-5.3 Landscaping and Tree Preservation, and it is quoted in full further down this page.
How do I measure my tree for New Braunfels's rules?
Put a tape around the trunk 4.5 feet above the ground to get the circumference, then divide by 3.14 for the diameter. New Braunfels writes its rule in inches in diameter. If the trunk splits into several stems below 4.5 feet, measure below the split — that usually puts you in a higher bracket than you expected.
What if the tree is dead or dangerous?
Most ordinances around here treat a dead, diseased or genuinely hazardous tree differently from a healthy one somebody would simply rather not have, and a written assessment from a Certified Arborist is usually what the city wants to see. There is one on my crew. Get the condition documented before you file anything, not after.
How much does tree removal cost in New Braunfels?
Access is the biggest driver, ahead of size — whether there is a drop zone or whether every piece has to be roped out over a roof is the difference between a morning and a full day. Then trunk diameter, then lean and deadwood. Send me a photo and the circumference and I can usually price it from that.
Got a tree in New Braunfels you’re not sure about?
Text me a photo and the measurement round the trunk. I’ll tell you which side of the line it’s on and what it takes to get it done.
Same-day callback on estimates
Call or text before 5pm on a weekday and you'll hear back from me the same day. Not an answering service — me.