The Manhattan Beach Tree Ordinance Doesn't Protect Trees. It Prices Them.

"Those houses go for over five and a half million." That's what Gaston Moraga said after watching a 50-year-old sweet gum tree at 1823 9th Street lose its fight with a construction project. He wasn't talking about the house. He was talking about the math: a $600 penalty against a $5.5 million sale price isn't a deterrent. It's a line item.

If you're evaluating a home in Manhattan Beach's Tree Section, or anywhere near a construction site, this matters more than it sounds. The city's tree ordinance uses the word "protected." What it actually delivers is a paperwork requirement with a price tag small enough that a builder can absorb it without changing course. Here's what that looks like in practice, and what it means for anyone buying or selling near a tree that's supposedly safe.

What Happened at 1823 and 1827 9th Street

The story starts with a name: Sally Palm, who lived at the address for more than 60 years before her death in 2024. The sweet gum in her front yard was planted around the same era. Her property sold in May 2024, and within a month a letter arrived for her neighbor Gaston Moraga informing him that the new owner, developer Thomas James Homes, intended to remove it.

Moraga looked into the city's code and found what he describes as one of the stricter tree ordinances in the South Bay, at least on paper. He spent nearly two years trying to save the tree anyway.

The developer's own arborist, Peter Harnisch, an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, filed a report in August 2024 identifying the sweet gum as protected and requiring preservation. He returned in November 2025 and found that roots had been cut near the tree, but at that point he stopped short of saying the tree was doomed and recommended further inspection instead. He came back a third time on January 13, 2026, and found something different: large roots severed within roughly 30 inches of the trunk, well inside the city's own protection zone.

No independent arborist checked the tree during that year and a half of construction. Under the ordinance, that isn't the city's job. The code requires the applicant, meaning the developer, to supply the arborist report. So for eighteen months, the only professional opinion on the tree's condition came from someone the builder was paying.

"They just plant fast growing things that they use as hedges."

That's Moraga describing a block he estimates has lost roughly 40 percent of its trees in the last decade, new landscaping standing in for what used to be real canopy. In April 2026, the city took the unusual step of commissioning its own third-party arborist review, something Easy Reader News reported hadn't happened during the entire construction period. That independent review confirmed the developer's findings: the trees had been damaged and now posed a real risk. Associate Planner Johnathon Masi notified Moraga by email on April 6 that removal permits had been issued for all three trees.

The Fee That Explains Everything

Here's the number that makes the outcome predictable rather than surprising. Manhattan Beach's standard tree permit fee is $300. If work begins before the permit is approved, the after-the-fact fee doubles to $600. That's the entire financial consequence for removing three protected trees during a spec-home project on a street where finished houses sell well into seven figures.

Compare that to Palo Alto, which imposes civil penalties of $10,000 per tree or twice the replacement value, whichever is higher, and requires stop-work orders when violations happen mid-construction. Palo Alto also requires building plans to show protected trees on neighboring properties within 30 feet, so a tree's fate gets accounted for before a shovel goes in the ground rather than after. Santa Monica can impose fines in the tens of thousands of dollars and halt a project outright for noncompliance.

Manhattan Beach's own code actually contains stop-work order authority. Section 10.52 gives the Community Development Director power to issue a written stop-work notice when construction violates tree protection requirements. That authority existed the entire time Harnisch was filing his reports. It simply wasn't used until the city's own independent review forced the question in April 2026.

A Law Built for a Different Kind of Development

Manhattan Beach's tree ordinance dates to 1993, and it originally applied only to the Tree Section, the neighborhood where 9th Street sits. It expanded citywide in 2003, picked up stronger fines and replacement requirements in 2006, and was revised again in 2009 to add flexibility while still protecting healthy front-yard trees over a certain size.

Mayor David Lesser sat on the council during that 2006 strengthening. Asked about the Sally's Tree outcome, he acknowledged the ordinance has real limitations and said he's open to revisiting it. Community Development Director Masa Alkire was asked directly whether the ordinance has enough teeth to stop a developer from simply paying the penalty and proceeding. He didn't disagree that it doesn't.

That's the gap worth understanding before you buy or sell near a mature tree here. The ordinance was written to require a process. It was never written to guarantee an outcome, and the penalty structure hasn't been updated to keep pace with what a Manhattan Beach teardown project is actually worth.

What This Means If You're Buying or Selling Near a Protected Tree

A few practical steps translate this into something usable during a real transaction:

1. Check tree permit history before you fall for the canopy. If a listing highlights mature trees as part of its appeal, pull the property's tree permit record through the city's Citizen Self Service portal. A protected designation tells you a permit was required. It doesn't tell you the tree will still be standing after the next remodel.
2. Look at what's happening next door, not just on the parcel. Root damage during a neighboring construction project can doom a tree on your own lot months or years before removal is requested. If there's active construction adjacent to a property you're considering, ask what protective measures were put in place and who verified them.
3. Understand who writes the arborist report. Under the current ordinance, the applicant commissions the arborist, not the city. A report favorable to removal isn't necessarily wrong, but it isn't independent either unless a neighbor or the city separately verifies it, which historically hasn't happened until a dispute escalates.
4. If you're the one building, budget for the fee, not around it. The after-the-fact penalty is $600 at most. Treat it as a real cost of doing business, not a legal barrier, and document your tree protection measures anyway. It's the difference between a routine permit and becoming the next dispute the city's urban forester gets asked about.
5. Ask about the neighbor notification form. The city requires signed acknowledgment from neighbors for certain tree removal permits. If you're buying next to a property under construction, that form is one of the few early signals you'll get before a tree comes down.

A protected tree is defined narrowly under the code: a trunk of 12 inches or more in diameter, or multiple trunks totaling that, located at least partially in the required front or corner side yard, measured 4.5 feet up from grade. Deciduous fruit trees and Washingtonia palms don't count. Knowing that definition tells you whether a tree on a property you're considering even qualifies for protection in the first place.

Why the Tree Section, Specifically, Right Now

This friction matters more in 2026 than it would have a few years ago, and the market data explains why. Manhattan Beach's citywide median sale price for January through April 2026 reached $3.8 million, up nearly $500,000 from the same period a year earlier, according to data reported by Manhattan Beach News. Twenty-four properties closed at $6 million or more in that window, matching the combined total from the same period across the prior two years.

The more telling number is who's paying. Citywide cash purchases dipped to 36 percent of sales in early 2026, down from nearly half in each of the two prior years. But the Tree Section, the exact neighborhood the original 1993 ordinance was written to protect, saw the highest concentration of all-cash deals in the city at 48 percent. Recent local sales data has put the Tree Section's median sale price near $4.1 million.

Put those two facts together and the pattern is straightforward. The neighborhood most associated with mature canopy is also the neighborhood where buyers are least likely to need financing, which means fewer contingencies, faster closings, and less friction between purchase and permit. A cash buyer redeveloping a Tree Section lot faces the same $600 ceiling on tree removal penalties as any other builder in the city, with none of the lender-imposed timeline that might otherwise slow things down. The trees the neighborhood is named for are disappearing fastest in the submarket best positioned to move quickly past them.

A Few Questions We Hear

How do I check if a specific Manhattan Beach property has a protected tree or a pending tree permit? Tree permits are filed and tracked through the city's Citizen Self Service portal, where the Urban Forester's office conducts a determination inspection on each application. This is the most direct way to see permit history for an address before you write an offer.

What actually counts as a protected tree under the ordinance? A tree with a trunk of 12 inches or greater in diameter, or multiple trunks totaling that, located at least partially in the required front yard or corner side setback, measured 4.5 feet from grade. Deciduous fruit trees and Washingtonia palms are excluded from protection regardless of size.

What happens if someone removes a protected tree without going through the permit process first? The standard $300 permit fee doubles to $600 as an after-the-fact penalty, and a replacement tree is required. The code also gives the city authority to issue stop-work orders during active violations, though that authority hasn't consistently been exercised in disputed cases.

None of this means a mature tree is a liability, or that buying near one is a mistake. It means the word "protected" is doing less work than it sounds like it's doing, and a buyer or seller who understands the actual mechanics is in a stronger position than one relying on the label. If you're weighing a purchase in the Tree Section, or anywhere in Manhattan Beach where a canopy is part of the appeal, that's exactly the kind of detail worth running through before you're the one signing at closing.

If you'd like to talk through what a specific property's tree history, permit record, or construction timeline might mean for your purchase or sale, Hiraya Group is a good place to start. Let's Connect.