[PLedoux]

Besides ARC approval, you may need city/county approval. We lived in Lady Lake when we “Excessively Pruned” our Oak Tree, which resulted in a letter from the town stating that a fine would be assessed unless we could prove the necessity of the pruning for the health of the tree. We had to hire an arborist to verify the necessity. That got us cleared by the town (they were able to provide names of approved experts.) We then had to go to the Villages ARC to get cleared for the aesthetic issue of the oak tree. (This was before some recent state changes regarding removal of “historic” trees.) The Villages took a while to determine that we did not have to replace the tree. One of the reasons we got past that was that the tree expert had mentioned damage to our driveway from the roots of the tree and the possibility of another tree in the same spot causing more damage.
This all happened about 6 years ago, and I know some state regulations have changed, which changes rules of the ARC, but just wanted to point out that The Villages may not be your only roadblock, and that this is not worth taking this task into your own hands without getting permission from all the entities. A good tree guy should be able to guide you through the steps. They also should be aware of current regulations. The fine from the town of Lady Lake was going to be around $1200 if we had not had evidence of the tree’s health. We used Bryan Stanage, and he was wonderful. He may not be doing individual work now, as I see he is doing a lot of commercial work these days.