Forest Park, IL Tree Service

Most villages give you ten days. Forest Park gives you twenty-four hours. Section 7-3-2(A) requires that all shade trees on village streets, and all trees on private property whose branches extend over the street line, be pruned so that no branch grows or hangs over the street or sidewalk less than nine feet above the sidewalk — and compliance is due within 24 hours of notice. That is the clock any tree service Forest Park owners hire has to work to. If the notice arrives on a Friday, you are not waiting until Monday to find someone.

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Seven Years, Nine Feet, No Topping

Title 7, Chapter 3, “Trees, Shrubs and Vegetation,” runs 7-3-1 to 7-3-6. Section 7-3-5 does two things at once: it states that tree topping “is expressly prohibited upon trees on public property / public right of ways,” and it requires tree care to “occur at every seven (7) years or less.” A maximum interval written into the ordinance is rare, and it tells you the village intends its canopy to be worked rather than watched.

Section 7-3-1 requires a written permit from the Director of Public Works before planting anything in a parkway. Section 7-3-5(H.2) requires a permit for removing a tree on public land or public right of way in connection with any private utility or private construction project, and sets replacement on a sliding scale: a minimum of two trees at two and a half inches DBH for each tree removed up to thirty inches DBH, three for trees between thirty and forty inches, four for anything over forty. A fee in lieu, reflecting the replacement cost’s fair market value, goes to a tree contributions account.

Sections 7-3-5(C.1) and (C.5) require a certified arborist to oversee any urban forestry work a contractor performs on Village property, and to be on site for any work pertaining to trees — the ISA’s homeowner guidance sets out what that credential actually covers. Penalties under 7-3-6(A) point across to 1-3-1 and 7-3A-1; the amounts are not published in anything we can cite, so ask the Building Department at 517 Desplaines Avenue rather than guess.

Fifty Times More Dead Than Living

Forest Park is 2.40 square miles holding roughly 14,300 people, and five major cemeteries holding more than 800,000. WTTW puts it at fifty times more dead than living residents, though a 2008 Forest Park Review piece gives the narrower figures of 597,000 against 15,000 — take the ratio as remarkable rather than exact. The Historical Society names Forest Home, also known as German Waldheim, plus Concordia, Jewish Waldheim and Woodlawn, the last opened in 1912 on approximately 95 wooded and landscaped acres.

That matters for trees more than it sounds. A very large share of this village’s mature canopy stands on cemetery ground rather than street parkway — old, unpruned, undisturbed, and sitting directly over headstones and access drives. When one of those fails it lands on something irreplaceable, and there is no parkway crew whose job it is. That work falls to private tree service Forest Park families and cemetery boards arrange for themselves.

The village dates from the railroad’s arrival in 1856, which brought a workforce that settled here, and grew again after the 1871 Chicago Fire when refugees came west to build. Today the Des Plaines River runs through, Madison and Roosevelt Roads are the flood-prone corridors, and the combined sewer system adds to it. FEMA records zero repetitive-loss and zero severe properties. Tree City USA status is genuinely unclear: the 2024 hazard annex records “No (not participating),” while an October 2021 Village Council packet reports the application approved at state level and forwarded to the Arbor Day Foundation.

Forest Park Tree Work

• Removals over headstones, drives and neighboring rooflines, rigged down in sections
• Trimming to the nine-foot sidewalk clearance the code demands, quickly
• Stump grinding without disturbing what is around it
• Storm and emergency work along Madison and Roosevelt when the water comes up

Estimates For Tree Service Forest Park

If you have had a 24-hour notice, say so when you call, and we will treat it that way. Otherwise, send the address and what you are seeing. Free estimate, no obligation.

Call 708-424-5885. Look through our Cook County coverage, or Berwyn and Maywood and North Riverside next door.