Which office you deal with, when a permit is likely needed, and the two things that catch people out. No competitor in this county publishes anything on this at all.
This is general information written by a contractor, not legal advice and not an official source. Requirements change, jurisdictions differ, and your specific parcel may have conditions on it that no general guide can anticipate. Always confirm with the permitting office that actually has jurisdiction over your property before you clear anything. See our disclaimer.
This is the thing people get wrong, and in Mobile County it’s genuinely confusing because the municipal boundaries are irregular and annexation has moved them over the years. Two parcels a mile apart on the same road can answer to different offices.
| If your property is… | You’re generally dealing with |
|---|---|
| Inside the City of Mobile limits | The City of Mobile’s permitting office |
| Inside another incorporated municipality, Semmes, Saraland, Satsuma, Citronelle, Bayou La Batre, Mount Vernon, Creola, Chickasaw, Prichard | That municipality’s own permitting office |
| Unincorporated Mobile County: Theodore, Tillmans Corner, Wilmer, Grand Bay, Irvington, St. Elmo, Chunchula, Axis, Dawes, Kushla, Tanner-Williams | Mobile County |
| Anywhere, with wetlands or regulated waters on it | Federal jurisdiction applies in addition to whoever else is involved |
If you aren’t certain which side of a line your parcel falls on, the county’s parcel viewer or a call to either office will settle it in a few minutes. Do that before you assume.
Thresholds vary by jurisdiction, ask what applies to yours.
Federal, and separate from anything local.
Additional requirements typically apply.
Separate permitting, with conditions attached.
Not a public permit, but a private restriction that binds you all the same.
Forestry mulching often falls outside land disturbance permitting because nothing is grubbed and no soil is moved, the vegetation is ground where it stands and the layer stays put. That’s a general tendency, not a rule, and it does not hold near wetlands or where tree protection ordinances apply. Ask.
This is coastal Alabama. Wet-weather branches, seasonal ponds, sloughs and Delta-adjacent ground are common across this county, and a great deal of it is not obviously wet in August. Clearing regulated wetland without authorisation is a federal matter with consequences that dwarf the cost of the clearing job.
Signs worth taking seriously on your own parcel: standing water at any time of year, a defined channel or drainage, cypress or tupelo, ground that stays soft when everything around it is dry. None of those is a determination, only a qualified delineation is, but any of them is a reason to ask before you clear.
If clearing debris is going to be burned, that’s separate permitting with conditions attached, and the permit is held by the landowner rather than the contractor. Worth settling before the job rather than after, because the alternative, windrowing the material into a pile on your property, changes where you want that pile to be.
Free, and required. Give it the statutory notice period.
Irrigation, invisible fence, a run to a shed, well and septic lines. Only you know where those are.
Tree removal restrictions are common and are enforced privately, not by the county.
If your land is in a forestry program, mechanical work may be restricted.
Additional review for demolition.
More common on rural family land in this region than people expect, and protected.
We work to a permit you hold. We’ll tell you when we think you need one, and we’ll flag wetland concerns before we quote rather than after we’ve started. We don’t pull permits on your behalf and we won’t clear a parcel we think needs authorisation it doesn’t have, not to be awkward, but because the exposure lands on you as the landowner and it’s not worth it.
Call and you get John Williams, not an answering service and not a dispatcher. If it’s after hours or a Sunday, send the form and you’ll have a text back and a callback first thing.
