We clear lots, take down trees and grind or pull stumps across Buford, from building sites on larger wooded parcels to finished lots in the newer subdivisions near the Mall of Georgia. Most of this ground was pine and hardwood forest not long ago. The City of Buford sets its own tree rules, and on the unincorporated Gwinnett side homeowners on a developed lot generally need no permit, with buffer exceptions. We check before quoting, and the phone is answered 24/7.
Clearing a wooded lot before the build
Larger lots around Buford often come with more woods than the plan has room for. A typical job starts with a walk where we flag the trees worth keeping, usually sound white oaks and healthy pines well away from the house pad, and mark the ones standing in the footprint, the driveway and the septic area. If a build is coming, we fence the keepers' root zones before any grading so trucks stay off the clay above them.
Then the marked trees come down, felled into open ground where there's room and lowered where there isn't. Brush is chipped, logs are hauled or stacked, and stumps are handled according to what goes on top. Where a slab, driveway or pool will sit, pulling the stump and main roots beats grinding, and we file a Georgia 811 locate before digging. Our lot clearing stops at the trees and stumps; grading belongs to the builder.
City side, county side and the Gwinnett homeowner rule
Inside City of Buford limits, the city sets its own tree rules, and Buford addresses on the Hall County side of the line can fall under Hall's rules instead. On the unincorporated Gwinnett side, a homeowner on a developed single-family lot generally needs no permit to remove a tree. The exceptions are a tree in a required zoning buffer, a stream buffer, conservation or open space, a designated Tree Save Area or the Chattahoochee River Corridor, or a street tree, and at least two live trees must remain on the lot.
That exemption is written for a lot that already has a house on it. Clearing raw ground for a new build is a development question, handled through the site plan and land disturbance approvals the owner or builder files, and we work to the approved plan. Below Buford Dam the Chattahoochee runs past the west side of the area, and on land within 2,000 feet of the river a dead tree may be removed by hand with the stump left in place.
Downtown, the mall corridor and the lake
Near downtown Buford, older homes sit on smaller lots under oaks and pecans that were big long before the subdivisions arrived. Those jobs are mostly trimming and the occasional sectional removal over a roof, with trucks parked carefully on narrow streets. Around the Mall of Georgia and along Buford Drive, the newer neighborhoods bring a different list: Bradford pears splitting at weak forks, Leyland cypress screens browning in patches, and tall pines left standing between houses.
Toward Lake Lanier, lots get bigger and woodier, and the ground rolls down toward coves and creeks. Owners there often want part of a lot opened up and the rest left wooded, so we clear the understory, take out dead and leaning trees and keep the healthy canopy. Neighbors in Suwanee and Cumming ask for the same kind of selective clearing, and our Gwinnett County page covers the rest of the county.