Land Clearing and Forestry Mulching in Licking County, OH: Newark, Pataskala, Johnstown

The professional land clearing services in Licking County our crews run:

• Lot clearing for a build, a quarter acre to five.
• Brush clearing on fencerows and old pasture.
• Tree clearing on wooded tracts inside the Indiana bat window.
• Stump grinding, $4 an inch, $150 minimum.
• Site clearing, site prep and grading for a pole barn.
• Underbrushing a woodlot so you can walk it.

Our land clearing service removes trees and brush, grinds the stumps and leaves the lot staked. Selective clearing keeps the oaks. Dirt work services run $160 an hour with an operator, excavation included, for a pond footprint. Residential and commercial, both. Tree removal over a roofline goes to a climber I trust. No concrete or septic from a land clearing service; I know people who do that.

Forestry mulching here is honeysuckle under every woodlot edge west of Newark and dead ash through all of it. Our mulching services grind the undergrowth, the trees and branches to 8 inches, where they stand. The mulch lays two to four inches deep and keeps the mud down in April. Ash and hardwood over 8 inches we fell first; the dead wood is stacked or hauled, your call.

Honeysuckle resprouts from the crown, so we grind the crown into the dirt and you spray the regrowth that summer. Callery pear on the old fields along SR 161 gets cut-stump treatment within minutes. I bought the mulcher in 2017 for exactly this woodland work. Two summers is all an old field here needs to overgrow into honeysuckle. Removing vegetation this way leaves nothing to burn and nothing to haul. We remove unwanted vegetation and leave the walnuts.

The Census Building Permits Survey shows 153 single-family permits for the county in 2025, and that number is an under-count; the county's townships report late. On the ground, Jersey Township and Johnstown are the hottest lot market in Ohio. Residential land clearing here is a homeowner on 2 acres of old pasture with a honeysuckle fencerow. Small residential lots run one day: half acre $2,500, quarter acre $1,700 flat.

Commercial land clearing is the Intel corridor and the suppliers following it along SR 161 and I-70. That commercial land and the master-planned communities around it get the 300-hp mulcher and a stormwater plan. Commercial development and property development start with site preparation. Residential jobs get the same price list.

Land clearing in Licking County costs $1,200 to $5,000 an acre, transport included from Delaware.

• Honeysuckle and brush: $1,200 to 2,000 an acre by density.
• Woodlot understory with dead ash: $1,800 to 2,600.
• Full clearing to dirt, stumps out: $2,800 to 5,000.
• Skid steer $2,500 a day; 300-hp mulcher $3,900 plus transport.
• Haul-off $600 to 1,100 a load.

Site conditions move the number inside those ranges, mostly wet clay and stump count. March and April add a day or we wait. The free quote follows the on-site walk; I walk the property and count stems myself. Call (740) 729-8625 or send the form with photos to get an estimate. The budget range is in your email before the end of the day.

Licking County's ground changes at Newark. West of town it is Crosby and Kokomo silt loam over till clay, flat and tiled, wet into May. East of town the sandstone comes up, Blackhand Gorge country, with oak and hickory woodland on the knobs. Near Buckeye Lake it is muck under swamp white oak. Along the Licking River it is sycamore bottoms and a hawthorn fence line on the agricultural land above.

Frozen, mud or dust, pick one. I walked a lot off SR 310 last spring and the tile was running at 30 inches. Dead ash tops drop early, so we fell them first and keep the drainage swales open for the cleanup.

Burning land-clearing brush is out inside Newark, Johnstown and every village. Ohio EPA OAC 3745-19 bars open burning inside corporation limits. In the townships the pile sits 1,000 feet from a neighbor's house with written notice to Ohio EPA, and ODNR Forestry bars daytime burning in spring and fall. So we mulch or haul.

A pad needs the Licking County Building Code Department permit plus a township zoning certificate from Jersey, Etna or Granville. Neither applies to clearing alone on acreage, and farm use is exempt under ORC 519.21. At 1 acre of disturbance Licking SWCD reviews the erosion and sediment control plan. Those plans were my desk work for fourteen years on the I-71 pads.

Kokomo flats and Buckeye Lake muck can be isolated wetlands; Ohio EPA Level 1 covers fill to half an acre, filed with you. Streams go to the USACE Huntington District. Trees over 3 inches on tracts over 1 acre come down October 1 to March 31 for the Indiana bat. OUPS 811 before any stump work. Tornado debris from 2024 and 2025 on a private lot is the owner's; FEMA covers public roads only.

Frozen ground is the land clearing season here, December through February. Frozen till clay carries the big mulcher the way I-70 carries trucks, flat and all day. No ruts, no mud surcharge, bat window open. Comparable job one county west: 3 acres of honeysuckle woodlot outside Sunbury, a day and a half in January, $3,800, not a track left. Book the frozen weeks early.

Our service area covers Licking County, OH and the surrounding areas, 45 minutes from the yard. The towns we serve in Licking County: Newark, Pataskala, Johnstown, Granville, Heath, Hebron. Serving Licking County puts us on the east edge of the six counties in Ohio in our Central Ohio circle. Across Licking County the drive is about an hour. Throughout Licking County transport is included.

Ready to clear a lot on the Intel side or a woodlot east of Newark? Our insured crews bring the experience and equipment to handle honeysuckle and clay, safely and efficiently. Expert land clearing is land clearing projects logged since 2018. Clearing land here will transform a closed woodlot into a lot you can stake. Call (740) 729-8625 or send the form with photos. I email you a budget range and two dates before the end of the day.