Southampton Landscaping Rules: Blowers, Fertilizer, Water and Permits

A landscape job in Southampton can answer to a town or village code, Suffolk County law, New York State law and the Suffolk County Water Authority at the same time. The same leaf blower is legal on one side of a village line and banned on the other: the Village of Southampton bans gas leaf blowers all year (Village Code section 78-4B(3)(a)), while the Town of Southampton bans them in its hamlets only from May 20 through September 20 (Town Code section 235-2B). East Hampton, next door, is a separate town with its own code. This guide keeps those governments apart and names the code section behind each rule, so you can read the text yourself.

We plan every job around these rules before it starts: the season a blower can run, the date fertilizing must stop, the setback a planting bed keeps from a wetland, the kelvin rating on a lamp. The five sections below cover who governs your property, leaf blowers and working hours, fertilizer and water, clearing and wetlands, and lighting, fences, hedges and pools. We quote the Town Code as posted with legislation through 06-09-2026 and the Village Code through 07-09-2026. Fines and permit fees are listed on our Southampton landscape data page, and published price ranges for the work itself are on our landscaping cost guide.

Who governs your property: the Town, a village or East Hampton

Start with the map. The Town of Southampton governs the unincorporated hamlets, among them Water Mill, Bridgehampton, Hampton Bays, North Sea, Noyac, Shinnecock Hills, Tuckahoe and East Quogue, and its Department of Land Management at Town Hall, 116 Hampton Road, issues their building permits. The Town lists seven incorporated villages inside its borders: Sag Harbor, North Haven, Quogue, Westhampton Beach, West Hampton Dunes, Southampton and Sagaponack. Each writes its own code and runs its own building department; the Village of Southampton's Building Department also manages its Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation. East Hampton is a separate town with its own Village of East Hampton, and the Village of Sag Harbor straddles the line, three-fifths in the Town of Southampton and two-fifths in the Town of East Hampton.

Two licenses cover landscaping here. The Town of Southampton's home improvement license (Town Code Chapter 143) names landscaping and arboriculture as covered work in section 143-1 and runs one year at a time. Suffolk County's home improvement license (Chapter 563) covers landscaping and tree work too, requires the license number in all advertising (section 563-17D), and makes it a prohibited act to skip a written contract that states the start and completion dates and the costs of labor and materials (section 563-21C). Ask any landscaper for both numbers; the County's online license search lets anyone look one up. In the Town of East Hampton, a commercial landscaper also needs a commercial landscaper's endorsement on the license (East Hampton Town Code section 155-3A).

The Village of Southampton adds a registration. Under Village Code Chapter 73, in effect since 2020, no landscaper may advertise or work in the Village without registering every year (section 73-2). Registration requires the Town license, an agreement to follow the Village's Nuisance Law (Chapter 78), proof of a New York State DEC certificate for anyone using regulated pesticides, and proof of a Suffolk County nitrogen fertilizer turf management course for anyone applying fertilizer. In the Village of Southampton we register with the Village every year, as Chapter 73 requires of every landscaper. The other villages set their own terms; our pages on landscaping in Sag Harbor and landscaping in Quogue cover two of them.

Leaf blowers, noise and working hours: the Town versus the Village

In the Town's hamlets, Town Code section 235-2B bans gas-powered leaf blowers from May 20 through and including September 20. From September 21 to May 19 a gas blower may run only from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, never on Sundays or federal holidays. A walk-behind gas blower is allowed only on a property larger than 1/2 acre, and on a smaller property no more than two handheld or backpack gas blowers may run at once. From May 20 through September 20 we clear leaves and clippings in the Town's hamlets with battery-electric blowers and hand tools, because section 235-2B bans gas blowers there in that window. Our spring and fall cleanups are timed to the same calendar.

The Village of Southampton goes further. Village Code section 78-4B(3)(a) prohibits gas-powered leaf blowers in the Village all year; the one exception is storm cleanup during a state of emergency declared by the Mayor. Section 78-4B(2)(b) also sets hours for all property maintenance and landscaping, deliveries included: no earlier than 8:00 a.m. or later than 6:00 p.m. on weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and none at all on Sundays or federal and state holidays. The rule names vehicles, tractors, lawn mowers, weed trimmers, leaf blowers and hedge trimmers, so our Village crews arrive no earlier than 8:00 a.m. and leave by 6:00 p.m. on weekdays. An older Chapter 77 rule applied the noise limits to blowers only from Memorial Day through Labor Day; the later Chapter 78 ban has no season.

East Hampton keeps its own clock. The Town of East Hampton bans gas and diesel leaf blowers from May 20 to September 20 (East Hampton Town Code section 155-6A(1)) and bans every leaf blower, whatever its power source, on Sundays in that period (section 155-6B); a walk-behind gas or diesel blower needs a property larger than one acre. The Village of East Hampton bans gas and diesel blowers from May 15 through September 15 and limits all landscape equipment to set weekday and Saturday hours (Village Code section 196-1A(11)). Sagaponack, Sag Harbor, Westhampton Beach and Quogue each write their own blower and hours rules; our pages on landscaping in Westhampton Beach and landscaping in East Hampton set them out.

Fertilizer, pesticides and water: Suffolk County, New York State and SCWA

Suffolk County's fertilizer law, Chapter 459, applies in the Town and in every village. Section 459-9 sets a fertilizer blackout, the months when no fertilizer may go on turf, from November 1 to April 1, and bars fertilizer within 20 feet of any regulated surface water unless a continuous natural vegetative buffer at least 10 feet wide separates the lawn from the water. The County Department of Health Services enforces it. New York State's law (Environmental Conservation Law section 17-2103) sets a shorter December-to-April blackout and adds rules that apply here too: no phosphorus on a lawn unless a soil test shows the need or the lawn is in its first growing season, no fertilizer on driveways, walks or other impervious surfaces, and the duty to contain any spill on pavement right away. We schedule fall fertilizing to finish before November 1 for that reason; see our lawn care calendar.

Pesticides carry their own paper trail. Suffolk County Code section 647-10C requires anyone making a commercial lawn application to give written notice at least 48 hours ahead to the occupants of dwellings on abutting property within 150 feet, with exemptions that include granular products, horticultural soaps and oils and small spot treatments. New York State requires DEC certification to apply any pesticide commercially and a written contract with the owner before a commercial lawn application (Environmental Conservation Law section 33-1001). The State's Birds and Bees Protection Act (section 33-1301(13)) bars clothianidin and dinotefuran on outdoor ornamental plants and turf as of December 31, 2024, and adds imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and acetamiprid from December 31, 2026.

Watering is the Suffolk County Water Authority's rule, not the Town's or a village's; neither code we read sets watering hours. SCWA asks odd-numbered addresses to water on odd calendar days and even-numbered addresses on even days, with no watering from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Its page does not say the schedule is mandatory, but the Stage 1 Water Alert SCWA declared for the East End in July 2026 put those rules in force until SCWA lifted it for the Town of Southampton on July 31, 2026. A required backflow preventer, the device that keeps irrigation water from flowing back into the supply, needs an annual backflow test at the customer's expense by a tester holding New York State certification, and chemical-fed irrigation needs an RPZ device. SCWA also credits smart controllers and rain sensors on irrigation systems; the amounts are among the water numbers on our data page.

Clearing, wetlands, the aquifer and tree removal

Long Island drinks from a sole-source aquifer, and the Town of Southampton protects it through zoning. In the Town's Aquifer Protection Overlay District, which applies only outside incorporated villages (Town Code section 330-64), natural vegetation must be preserved to the maximum extent possible, a building permit application must include a survey of it, and the clearing limit is staked and ribboned on site. Clearing is capped by lot size, from 75% of a lot up to 15,000 sq ft down to 15% of a lot over 200,000 sq ft (section 330-67A). Fertilized vegetation, which the code defines as planting that needs irrigation, fertilizer or pesticides to survive, may cover no more than 15% of a lot (section 330-68). Over-clearing brings a stop-work order until the ground is replanted with low-maintenance, nonfertilizer species. The Central Pine Barrens Compatible Growth Area carries the same 15% cap (section 330-220A(13)).

Since May 2026 the Town's Land Disturbance law (Article XIIIA) adds a permit on lots of 20,000 sq ft or more: disturbing more than 2,000 sq ft, or changing grades by more than two-foot contours, needs a land disturbance permit from Land Management before a building permit issues, and clearing undeveloped forested land needs one at any size. Significant trees, healthy trees at least 18 inches in trunk diameter at breast height, are to be kept to the furthest extent practicable (section 330-69.11). Ordinary pruning and care on a developed lot, removal of dead, dying or hazardous trees, and clearing within 20 feet of a house for wildfire separation are exempt (section 330-69.6B). In the Village of Southampton, a Tree Commission permit is needed to remove a tree on Village land or the street right-of-way (Village Code section 107-12A).

Wetlands set the widest setbacks. The Town's wetlands law requires a permit for regulated work in a wetland or within 200 feet of one (Town Code section 325-6A); on developed lots the buffer for turf and fertilizer is, where practicable, 75 feet, and on undeveloped land 100 feet (section 325-9A). The Village of Southampton requires a wetlands permit to clear, grade, landscape or fertilize within 125 feet of a wetland and to build any structure, a pool included, within 150 feet (Village Code sections 116-19.1 and 116-19.2). New York State's tidal wetland adjacent area reaches up to 300 feet inland. Work in Town waters, bottoms and beaches needs a permit from the Town Trustees, a board established in 1686. We draw these lines on the plan before a bed goes on paper; see landscape design.

Lighting, fences, hedges and pools

The Town of Southampton defines landscape lighting as nonessential, and nonessential lighting is under a curfew: it may not stay on continuously from 10:00 p.m. until dawn (Town Code section 330-345E). The Town prohibits lamps with a correlated color temperature, the warmth of the light measured in kelvin, above 3000 kelvin (section 330-343B(1)). Fixtures must be fully shielded, with all light projected below the horizontal, and aimed straight down unless they put out 600 lumens or less (section 330-345B), and no light may shine onto a neighbor's property. A replaced or repaired fixture must meet the rules too. The Village of Southampton's lighting law (Village Code section 116-13.1) also requires fully shielded, downward fixtures and caps fixture height at 20 feet. We specify lamps of 3000 K or warmer and put landscape lighting on timers that switch off by 10:00 p.m. in the Town.

Fences follow the same limits in the Town and the Village of Southampton: four feet in a required front yard, six feet in a side or rear yard (Town Code section 330-109A; Village Code section 116-18A(1)). In the Town, a fence or wall four feet or lower needs no building permit, the finished side faces the neighbor, and driveway gates may reach eight feet; driveway hedges must leave 14 feet of clearance, wide and high. In the Village, a boundary-line hedge, one on or near a property line, must be cut on top and on the neighbor's side at least once a year (section 41-7B); if it is not done by July 31, the owner has 30 days from a notice. New York's invasive plant rule (6 NYCRR Part 575) prohibits border privet but not California privet. Our privet hedge crews finish that boundary cut before July 31.

Pools answer to New York State first. The 2025 Residential Code of New York State requires a permanent barrier at least 48 inches high with no more than 2 inches between its bottom and the grade, gates that are self-closing and self-latching, pedestrian gates that open outward, away from the pool, and an approved pool alarm on any pool installed or substantially modified after December 14, 2006. Where a house wall forms part of the barrier, doors with direct access to the pool need an alarm. The Village of Southampton adds its own rules: a pool sits at least 20 feet from every lot line, a lot holds one pool, and the enclosure is at least four feet high with no gap over four inches (Village Code section 116-9A(10)). We set pool-side paving so the barrier line stays whole; see bluestone patios and hardscape.