Building on a Wooded Lot in Indiana

Building on a wooded lot in Indiana means deciding which trees stay before any come down, then clearing the house, drive and utility routes completely while protecting what you keep. Plan the clearing, the drive and the drainage together, and check with your county, Indiana DNR and IDEM before the ground is opened.

Walk it and mark the keep line first

The trees left standing on a wooded lot are usually the reason somebody bought it. So the first job is not cutting. It is walking the lot with the house plan and marking a clear line around everything that has to go: the house footprint and working room around it, the drive, the parking area, the utility routes and any lawn.

Everything outside that line stays unless there is a reason to take it, such as a dead tree leaning toward the house. A tree you remove cannot be put back, and one more row taken than you needed changes the whole feel of the lot. Mark the property line too. On rural ground in Putnam County, Indiana, fence lines and old surveys do not always agree.

Plan the drive and the way in

On a wooded lot the drive is the first thing built, because every truck, pour and delivery uses it. Its route decides how many trees come out and how much grading the slope needs. A route that follows the contour costs fewer trees and washes out less than one that goes straight up the hill.

Where the drive meets the road, the culvert and apron are usually the county highway department's business on a county road. On a state highway, INDOT requires a driveway permit to connect to its road. Ask the right office before the entrance is cut. A stone base laid early also keeps the lot from turning to mud. See our driveway installation and grading work.

Clear the build envelope completely

Inside the line, the ground under the house, the drive and the garage has to be cleared properly. That means the trees, the stumps and the root mat all come out, and the holes are filled and compacted. Buried wood rots and the ground above it drops, which is the last thing you want under a footing or a slab.

The edges of the lot are different. Brush and small trees on ground that will stay wooded can be mulched and left as cover, which holds the soil and leaves no pile. Our guide to forestry mulching versus land clearing explains where each one fits. Once the envelope is clear, the house site becomes a building pad.

Protect the trees you keep

Most trees lost on wooded building lots are not cut. They die slowly over the next few years from damage to their roots. Roots sit mostly near the surface and spread well past the branches, so the damage comes from machines parked under the canopy, spoil piled around the trunk, a trench cut through the root zone or the grade raised or lowered around the tree.

Simple rules help. Fence off the trees you are keeping and keep traffic, materials and stockpiles outside the fence. Route utility trenches around root zones where you can. Keep grade changes away from trunks. If one tree really matters, have a tree care professional or your county Purdue Extension office look at it before work starts.

Water behaves differently once the trees are gone

A wooded slope soaks up a lot of rain through the canopy, the leaf litter and the roots. Clear part of it and the same storm runs off faster, carrying soil with it. Central Indiana's clay soils make that worse, because they take water in slowly.

So the drainage plan is part of the clearing plan. Rough grades should fall away from the house site from the first day, swales should follow where water already runs, and bare slopes should be seeded and strawed or blanketed as soon as they are finished. A project disturbing an acre or more, or one that is part of a larger common plan of development, falls under IDEM's Construction Stormwater General Permit. Confirm with IDEM before work starts.

Who to check with before you clear

Start with your county or town planning and building office for the building permit and any local rules for the lot. Call Indiana 811 at least two full working days before anything is dug, including stump removal. If a creek runs through or near the lot, check the Indiana DNR Division of Water Floodplain Portal, because building in a floodplain brings its own permits.

If the woods are enrolled in Indiana's Classified Forest and Wildlands program, talk to the Indiana DNR district forester before clearing to learn what it means for the enrollment. Burning cleared wood is not automatic either. IDEM says open burning for land clearing needs its prior approval, and local ordinances apply on top.

Start with a walk around the lot

Every wooded lot is a set of trade-offs between the trees, the slope, the drive and the house. The quickest plan on paper is often the one that loses the trees you liked and leaves a wet slope behind the house. The way to avoid that is to plan it on the ground, before anything is cut.

On Grade LLC clears, grades and builds drives and pads on wooded lots across Putnam County, Indiana, Hendricks and Boone counties out of Greencastle. Travis will walk the lot with you, mark the keep line and lay out the drive and the clearing as one job. See our land clearing and forestry mulching work, or call or text Travis at (317) 203-8928. Estimates are free.

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