Manhattan Beach Tree Ordinance Teardowns: What Buyers Should Know

As Easy Reader News reported, a Manhattan Beach resident lived at her home for more than 60 years. The sweet gum tree in her front yard was there for most of them, planted when the street still had the quiet, unhurried feel that longtime Manhattan Beach residents describe when they talk about what the city used to be. She died in 2024. Her property sold that May. A month later, a letter arrived for her neighbor, Gaston Moraga, informing him that the new owner's builder intended to take the tree down.

Moraga spent nearly two years trying to stop that from happening. He lost. In April 2026, the City of Manhattan Beach issued removal permits for the sweet gum and two other protected trees at 1823 and 1827 9th Street, after an independent arborist confirmed what the developer's own consultant had already found: construction had damaged the roots badly enough that the trees posed a real risk.

If you're evaluating a Manhattan Beach property with mature trees on it, whether you're planning to remove them to build or hoping to keep them because they're the reason you want the house, the Sally's Tree case is worth understanding in detail. It also offers a close look at how arborist reports inform decisions about protected trees, including when the applicant commissions the report.

What "Protected" Actually Covers, and What It Doesn't

Manhattan Beach's tree ordinance is often described as one of the strongest in the South Bay, and in terms of scope, that's fair. According to Easy Reader News, it started in 1993 covering only the Tree Section, where 9th Street sits, then expanded to every residential zone in the city in 2003, with fines and replacement requirements added in 2006 and further revisions in 2009.

But "citywide" doesn't mean "every mature tree on the lot." According to the City of Manhattan Beach, the ordinance protects trees in specific locations: the required front yard setback, typically 20 feet, and the corner side yard setback, typically 5 feet. A mature tree in the middle of a backyard, however old or however much shade it provides, generally falls outside this particular protection. If you're buying a property because of a specimen tree, the first question isn't how old it is. It's where it sits on the lot.

Who Commissions the Arborist Report?

One practical point for buyers is who commissions the arborist report. For a property with a protected tree slated for construction, the arborist report is commissioned by the applicant—the property owner or their builder—not the city.

In this case, that was Thomas James Homes. The company's retained arborist, Peter Harnisch, an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, inspected the sweet gum three separate times over roughly a year and a half. In August 2024, he identified it as a protected tree requiring preservation. By November 2025, after roots had already been cut nearby, he found the tree "might not have been adversely affected" and recommended further monitoring. When he returned in January 2026, the picture had changed: large roots had been severed within about 30 inches of the trunk, well inside the ordinance's own protection zone.

No independent arborist was sent out during that entire window. Under the code, that isn't the city's job unless something triggers it. What triggered it here was Moraga's sustained pressure over two years, plus a family-retained arborist of their own, Louis Gamino, who offered a softer but still cautious read: the tree might have been saved, but it carried risk. The city's decision to bring in a third-party reviewer at all was, by its own planning staff's description, something that hadn't happened during the entire construction period up to that point.

For buyers, a useful question is whether the city has requested or received an independent review in addition to the applicant’s report.

Tree Permit Fees and After-the-Fact Penalties

A confirmed violation can result in an after-the-fact permit fee and a replacement-tree requirement. According to Easy Reader News, the standard tree permit fee in Manhattan Beach is $300. When work happens before a permit is issued, the fee doubles to $600, plus a requirement to plant replacement trees.

Moraga put the number in context better than any regulation could. Referring to the homes going up on the block, he told Easy Reader News, "Those houses go for over five and a half million." For comparison, the $600 fee is far below the over-$5.5-million sale figure Moraga cited.

Other California coastal cities treat this differently. Palo Alto imposes civil penalties of $10,000 per tree, or twice the replacement value, whichever is higher, and requires stop-work orders for violations during construction. Santa Monica can levy fines in the tens of thousands of dollars and halt a project outright. Manhattan Beach's code also allows stop-work orders and after-the-fact fee doubling; the fees described above are lower than the penalties cited for Palo Alto and Santa Monica.

Possible Changes to the Tree Ordinance

If you're under contract right now on a property with mature trees, or weighing an offer on a teardown candidate, it's worth knowing that the ordinance itself is under active discussion. Mayor David Lesser, who was on the council when the ordinance was last strengthened, told Easy Reader News that it was "troubling to learn about limitations" and signaled he's open to revisiting the rules. Community Development Director Masa Alkire, when asked directly whether the current penalty structure deters anyone, didn't push back on the premise.

Any legislative fix, whether that's higher fines, mandatory independent arborist inspections triggered by neighbor complaints, or something else, would require a City Council vote to amend the municipal code. Nothing has changed yet as of this writing, but a buyer planning a multi-year construction timeline should treat the current fee structure as something that could look different by the time their project is midway through permitting.

What This Means Depending on Which Side of the Tree You're On

If you're buying a lot to build or substantially remodel, and there's a mature tree in the front or corner-side setback, don't assume your own project timeline is immune to the same slow degradation that happened on 9th Street. Root damage from nearby excavation or grading doesn't always show up immediately. It can take months, sometimes longer, for a tree to visibly decline after its root zone has been compromised, which is exactly the gap that let this situation stretch across a year and a half before anyone outside the project caught it.

If you're the one preserving a tree rather than removing one, the practical steps look like this: confirm with the city's Community Development Department whether the tree in question meets the ordinance's protected-tree definition, request the site plan showing tree locations relative to setbacks, and ask whether a Tree Permit has already been filed for the property, since that filing (or its absence) tells you where the project currently stands. For anything above the mid-six-figure to low-seven-figure range, commissioning your own arborist assessment before you remove contingencies is a reasonable cost given what's at stake if the seller's disclosures turn out to be incomplete.

Treating the tree permit as an afterthought is how projects end up with the kind of timeline gap this case shows.

A Couple of Questions Worth Asking Directly

Does this ordinance only apply in the Tree Section? No. It started there in 1993 but has covered every residential zone in Manhattan Beach since 2003.

What actually happens if someone damages a protected tree without a permit? The city can require an after-the-fact permit at double the standard fee, mandate replacement trees, and issue a stop-work order while the violation is being resolved.

A mature tree on a Manhattan Beach lot can be a real asset or a real complication depending on where it sits, how it's documented, and how far along a construction timeline already is by the time you're evaluating the property. That's the kind of detail that doesn't show up in a listing photo, and it's exactly where local, hands-on guidance earns its keep.

If you're weighing a teardown, a remodel, or a home you want to keep exactly as it stands, trees included, Lisa Moule Realty can help you look past the curb appeal to what the lot actually allows. Schedule your South Bay consultation and let's go through the specifics together before you write an offer.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.