The county's most prescriptive landscape code, and a native-planting mandate that happens to suit how we already work.
Request a ConsultationPittsfield has the most detailed landscape standards of any township we work in, and most of them push in a direction we'd choose anyway. At least half of all plantings must be native species. No single species may make up more than twenty percent of the canopy trees, ornamental trees, conifers or shrubs on a site. Replacement trees must be non-sterile varieties native to Washtenaw County. Mulch is specified at four inches.
The tree rules have real teeth. A heritage tree is anything twenty-four inches or more in diameter at breast height, but only eighteen inches for ash and sixteen for oak. Approved removal requires replacement at a hundred and fifty percent of the original diameter; unapproved removal, two hundred percent. Any quarter-acre or larger patch of contiguous woodland is regulated in its own right.
Then there are the impervious caps, which matter the moment anyone starts drawing a patio or a wider driveway: twenty-five percent in the rural non-farm district, forty percent in the suburban one. Malletts Creek, which drains much of the township, is already at roughly forty percent impervious with only eight percent of its natural land remaining. Every square foot of permeable surface you can keep is worth keeping.
At least fifty percent native species, replacements native to Washtenaw County, and no species over twenty percent of any planting category.
Twenty-four inches generally, but eighteen for ash and sixteen for oak. Far more trees qualify than people expect.
Twenty-five percent on rural non-farm lots, forty percent on suburban ones. It governs how big a patio or drive can be.
Around forty percent impervious, eight percent of natural land left, and an aquatic insect community rated very poor. On-site water management is not decorative here.
Every project is designed for the property it sits on. These are the services Pittsfield Township clients ask for most.
Common Questions
Not if it's designed as a planting. The township's vegetation ordinance sets an eight-inch height limit, but it explicitly exempts cultivated meadows and native wildflowers, along with land more than twenty-five feet from a public sidewalk or street. The difference between a meadow and a neglected lawn is legible on the ground, defined edges, deliberate species, evident intent, and that's a design problem we solve routinely.
Measure the diameter at roughly four and a half feet up. Twenty-four inches makes any species a heritage tree; ash qualifies at eighteen and oak at sixteen. If you're near those numbers, find out before anything comes down. Unapproved removal is replaced at two hundred percent of the original diameter.
It can. The rural non-farm district caps impervious surface at twenty-five percent of the lot and the suburban district at forty. It's one reason we favour permeable construction: flagstone set in gravel, or stepping stones through planting, which looks better than a slab anyway and keeps water on your property.
Partly ecology, partly hydrology. Native plants are adapted to Washtenaw's soils and rainfall, root more deeply, and need far less water and intervention once established. In a watershed as heavily paved as Malletts Creek, that root depth is doing stormwater work as well as looking good.
Yes. We design to the standards from the start rather than redesigning after a rejection, and we prepare the planting information the township asks for.
Aaron works personally with every client, March through November, across Ann Arbor and surrounding areas.
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