Clearing for Driveway Access on a Wooded Lot (Oregon)

Quick Verdict

Clearing for a driveway in Oregon is the corridor work that comes before the driveway is ever cut and rocked: dropping the trees in the path, grubbing out the roots and stumps, daylighting the corridor, and stripping the road prism down to workable ground. On a wooded Coast Range or foothill lot, this clearing is its own job, distinct from the driveway excavation that follows. You also have to clear it wide enough for trucks and fire apparatus, open sight lines at the road, and respect the dry-season window. Get the corridor cleared right and the grading and rocking that follow go smoothly.

Clearing Is Not the Driveway Dig

It is worth being precise: clearing for driveway access and excavating the driveway are two different steps. This page is about the first one, opening the corridor.

• Clearing is removing the trees, brush, stumps, and roots from the path and stripping the organic layer so you have bare, workable ground.
• Driveway excavation is the later step of cutting the road to grade, building the base section, and surfacing it.

You clear first, then grade and rock. Skipping or shortcutting the clearing leaves roots and organics under the driveway that rot, settle, and fail. The clean hand-off from clearing to the grading crew is its own topic, covered in land clearing to grading hand-off. For the full clearing picture, see our land clearing guide.

Dropping Trees and Grubbing Roots

On a wooded lot, the corridor is full of timber, and clearing it means more than cutting trees at the surface.

• Drop the trees in and along the corridor, handling the logs, slash, and debris (sold, chipped, hauled, or piled per the plan and any burn rules).
• Grub the roots and stumps out of the road prism. Stumps left in place rot and leave voids that settle under the driveway.
• Daylight the corridor so the path is open to sun and air and the crew can see and work the full run.
• Strip the organics down to mineral soil, because topsoil and root mat make terrible driveway subgrade.

Grubbing, pulling roots and stumps, not just cutting, is the difference between a driveway that holds and one that develops soft spots. The road prism, the footprint the driveway will occupy, has to come down to solid, root-free ground.

Width for Trucks and Fire Apparatus

A driveway corridor is not just wide enough for a car. On a rural Oregon lot, the access has to handle the vehicles that matter most in an emergency.

Requirement	Why it matters
Travel width	Room for vehicles, including delivery and service trucks
Fire apparatus width	County and fire-district standards for emergency access
Turnaround / pull-outs	Fire and large vehicles need room to turn or pass
Vertical clearance	Overhanging limbs cleared for tall vehicles

Many Oregon counties and rural fire districts set minimum driveway widths, turnaround requirements, and clearances for fire apparatus, and a building permit can hinge on meeting them. Clearing the corridor to those standards from the start avoids re-clearing later. Confirm your local requirements before the saws start.

Sight Lines at the Road

Where the driveway meets the public road, you need clear sight lines in both directions so you can pull out safely and so traffic can see you. Clearing for access includes opening that intersection:

• Remove brush and trees that block the view up and down the road.
• Open the approach so the sight distance meets the county's standard.
• Keep the cleared sight triangle maintained, not just cut once.

A driveway you cannot safely exit is a hazard and may not pass county approval. The sight-line clearing at the road is part of the access job, not an afterthought.

Oregon Realities

Wooded-lot access in Oregon has its own character.

• Coast Range and foothill timber. Many rural homesites are reached through real timber, so the clearing is substantial, mature trees, dense understory, and big root systems.
• County and fire-district standards. Driveway width, turnaround, and grade standards vary by jurisdiction and fire district, and they gate the permit. Build to them the first time.
• The dry-season window. The May-to-October dry stretch is the time to clear and build access; a wet-season corridor turns to mud and the machines tear it up.

This clearing often opens the way to the larger job of clearing the homesite itself, which is covered in clearing a wooded lot for a homesite.

What Happens to the Trees and Debris

Clearing a wooded corridor produces a lot of material, and what happens to it is a real part of the job and the cost. There are a few paths, and the right one depends on the site and the rules.

• Merchantable logs. On a lot with real timber, larger logs may have value and can be sorted and sold or kept for the owner's use, offsetting some clearing cost.
• Chipping. Brush, limbs, and smaller material can be chipped on site, leaving mulch that can be spread or hauled.
• Burning. Slash piles can sometimes be burned, but only under the local burn rules and during permitted windows. Oregon burn restrictions are seasonal and area-specific, so this is not always available.
• Hauling off. Whatever is not sold, chipped, or burned gets hauled to a disposal site, which is trucking cost.
• Stumps and grubbed roots. These come out of the road prism and are hauled or processed; they are not left to rot under the driveway.

Deciding how to handle the debris up front keeps the job moving and the cost predictable. A corridor through mature timber generates far more material, and disposal of it, than a lightly wooded run, which is a big reason clearing cost scales with how heavily wooded the path is.

Current Market Reality

Driveway-access clearing cost depends on the corridor length, the density and size of the timber, the stump and root work, and disposal of the debris. A short, lightly wooded run is modest; a long corridor through mature Coast Range timber is a real job.

Industry Baseline Range: site clearing commonly runs $3,500 - $25,000+ per acre, but a driveway corridor is priced by the run and condition, with stump removal at $150 - $900+ per stump, haul-off of debris and spoil at $250 - $750+ per load, a $250 - $800+ mobilization, and a $500 - $1,500+ minimum on small jobs.

These are industry baseline ranges for planning only -- actual pricing depends on site conditions, soil, access, depth, haul-off, and current market conditions. Get a site-specific quote.

The Bottom Line

Clearing for driveway access is the corridor work that comes before the driveway is cut: drop the trees, grub the roots and stumps out of the road prism, daylight the path, and open sight lines at the road, all to the width fire apparatus and the county require. Build it to standard once, in the dry season, and the grading that follows goes clean. Cojo clears wooded-lot access and hands off a build-ready corridor. See our excavation services, read the Oregon excavation contractor guide, and request a free estimate.