City of Olympia Tree Management
What every Ken Lake home owner has the responsibility to maintain and prune tree limbs and shrubbery overhanging roadways, or blocking sight distance at intersections. The following are pruning requirements by City of Olympia ordnance.
Tree pruning requirements, Roadways
08.24.050 - Overhanging vegetation-Abatement
If any tree, shrub, plant or vegetation, or parts thereof overhang any
public street or alley or sidewalk at a height of less than fourteen feet
above the street or alley surface or less than ten feet above the sidewalk
or other public installations, the same is declared to be a public nuisance.
The city, through the director of public works, may require the owner
thereof to remove, prune or trim such tree, shrub or vegetation on private
property or on a parking strip abutting such owner's property. Such
proceedings shall be initiated by a resolution of the city council, adopted
after not less than five days' notice to said owner, and shall require such
owner to so remove or trim such tree, shrub or vegetation within thirty days
of passage of the resolution, after which time, the director of public works
shall cause such trimming, pruning or removal to be done with the cost of
such work to be charged against the owner and a lien against his property.
Notice of the lien authorized herein shall be in substantially the same
form, filed with the same officer within the time and manner and enforced
and foreclosed as is provided by law for liens for labor and materials.
18.40.060 - General standards
B. Clear Sight Triangle. (See Clear Sight Triangle definition.)
1. All corner building sites located in use districts that require a front
and side yard shall maintain a clear sight triangle at the intersection of
the street rights-of-way for the purpose of traffic safety. Such building,
other structures, and landscaping shall conform to those standards set forth
in the Public Works and Engineering Standards of the City.
No building, structure, object or growth over two and one-half (2.5) to ten
(10) feet in height, measured from the street centerlines of the
intersecting streets, shall be allowed within this triangle.
2. Absent an Engineering Standard, one angle of this triangle shall be
formed by the intersecting street rights-of-way and the sides of the
triangle measured along the property lines from said angle shall be twenty
(20) feet in length; the third side of such triangle shall be a straight
line connecting the ends of the two (2) aforementioned lines.
