It's up to you. I'd say perhaps best, but coffeetree is in the pea family, and has tough wood that isn't prone to spitting. If you're going to do it, don't wait long because the bigger it is, the bigger effect of cutting half the tree away. Looks like structures to the right, so I'd cut the leader on the right in this pic.

Thanks, would you say i can prune right now, or wait till winter when the tree is dormant?

For a tree this small, I'd wait until winter. But don't forget!

I'm just wondering about the position of the tree. It's potentially huge and it looks as if there's a porch close behind it. Do you think it has room to grow without affecting the house?

it's about 15ft to the house corner, maybe 10ft to the porch, kind of on a diagonal though so not square to the house. the sidewalk behind that you see is about 3-4ft away.

this tree is said to have a deep taproot and not a shallow root system that will heave sidewalks, which is partly why I chose it for this spot. I know various recommendations say these large shade trees need to be super far from structures, but if you look at old neighbourhoods, trees are all pretty close to houses. I actually think a lot of the spacing recommendations you find are intended to result in specimen trees, which can grow to their full potential unencumbred by other trees or structures, but life in the city just doesn't allow for that, nor does it require it.

I was thinking more of the canopy reaching the eaves than worrying about the roots. I'm all for big trees in towns but this one just seemed very close.

I'd be more concerned with the fact that they spread by suckers...though at least slowly compared to their distant relative, black locust.

That's such a good point, i wasn't aware of that. I guess all plants do ultimately try to propagate themselves. I did shy away from a trembling aspen, which i love the look of, because of root suckering and their tendency to form colonies, guess I should have read a bit more on this one. From my recent reading, i'm understanding that the root suckering is likely to occur if the main tree is harmed/stressed, so let's hope that doesn't happen. I think i will let it grow and see what happens.

I wish I would've placed this tree lilac several more feet from the house, back when it was 4 ft. tall. At the time it looked like plenty of room, and although it is a smaller tree than yours Elena, it's already rubbing on the roof edge and facade after just 5 years or so.

The only option now is occasional pruning/shortening branches (which I've done already a few times).

IMO: Now is the time to move that KC because it's going to get to be a much, much bigger tree than mine over time.

My experience is that left alone, a coffeetree won't sucker much if at all if left alone. However, if you cut it down, even a small one, it'll sucker quite a bit.