Seasonal and per-visit snow removal for Clarkston and Independence Township property owners — with what this community actually publishes about plowing, sidewalks and who is responsible for what.
Work in Clarkston and Independence Township is carried out by an independent snow removal operator under their own company name and insurance. This site arranges the introduction and clears nothing itself.
Independence Township publishes something no other community in this county does: an interactive Road Jurisdiction Map identifying which roads are public and which are private. That is the single most useful winter document in Oakland County, because the township’s position on the private ones is unambiguous — they “are the responsibility of the homeowners whose homes live along the private roads.” If you are unsure which kind of road you bought on, this is the fastest place in the county to find out. And what to do if the answer is private.
Clarkston and Independence Township is a township, and Michigan townships have no road jurisdiction at all. The Road Commission for Oakland County maintains every public road here, subdivision streets included — and RCOC states plainly that subdivision streets are at the bottom of its priority list, reached after more than 1,400 miles of major county road and 230 miles of multi-lane state highway. It has more than 1,300 miles of subdivision street to get to.
This community does not publish a residential plow trigger depth. Where a neighbor does, the range across the county runs from 2.5 inches in Birmingham to more than four in Troy and four inches in 24 hours in Farmington Hills — which is a wide enough spread that assuming is not safe.
This is the middle of the county’s snowfall gradient, between Detroit Metro Airport’s 45.0-inch seasonal normal and the 60 to 70 inches the National Weather Service reports near its office in White Lake Township. In the February 12–13, 2025 storm, Clarkston and Independence Township was forecast 5 to 7 inches. Triggers and completion targets across the county.
Private roads are the exception to all of it. No township, city or road commission in Oakland County plows a private road, and four jurisdictions state so in writing. Oakland County has roughly 5,600 miles of public road; everything beyond that is a private arrangement. What to do if yours is one.
No sidewalk snow ordinance deadline or penalty was verified for Clarkston and Independence Township, so none is quoted here. What the neighbors require sets the range: Birmingham gives 12 hours after snowfall ceases and charges a minimum of $100 if a city crew has to do the work; Troy gives 24 hours for snow over two inches; Novi gives 48 hours after two inches or more, with ice salted immediately; Farmington Hills does not plow or salt sidewalks at all. Confirm the current requirement with the city before the season. The ordinances that are published.
Independence Township, which surrounds the City of the Village of Clarkston, has 37,725 residents at 79.4% owner-occupancy and a median home value of $381,700.
Full basements are standard across this county and frost depth runs about 42 inches. Two practical consequences every winter: stakes go in before the ground freezes, in the first week of November; and snow piled against a foundation or over a basement window well drains into it on the first thaw. Neither is expensive to avoid in October.
Seasonal residential contracts on the one published Oakland County rate card run $1,595 for a single or double driveway with walkways, $2,795 for a circle drive or an unusually long driveway, and $7,995 for a large estate approach, with salting adding roughly $400 at the residential tiers. Per-visit work in recent Michigan data runs $50 to $100 for a typical driveway and sidewalk. Trigger is two inches; staking is included and done in the first week of November.
Ask one question before any of those numbers: does the price include a return pass after the municipal plow leaves a berm across the apron? Farmington Hills and Troy both state on the record that clearing that ridge is the homeowner’s job. All the published figures, with sources.
Nearby: Commerce Township · Oxford Township · Northville · South Lyon · all service areas
Address, driveway type, what else needs clearing, corner or not, and whether the road is public or private.
Call (248) 494-7362 Get a Seasonal Quote
Oakland County