Hickory Hills, IL Tree Service

The permit costs fifty dollars. Skipping it costs a hundred dollars per inch. Section 39.14 sets the fee — “The City shall issue a Tree Permit upon approval of an application and payment of a $50 fee” — and section 39.07 sets the alternative: “Failure to obtain a permit as required in this section will result in a fine of $100 per inch of the tree’s diameter at breast height.” On a fourteen-inch tree that is $1,400 against $50. Hickory Hills has the most elaborate tree ordinance in this corner of the county, and any tree service Hickory Hills residents book should be quoting the permit as line one.

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Chapter 39 From End To End

The permit trigger under 39.07 is public ground: “No live, dead or dying tree, or grouping of trees, equal to 6 inches or greater on public property may be removed without first obtaining a permit from the City.” There is an emergency escape: where access to the City is not possible, a nuisance tree may come down at once provided a permit request follows on the next business day. Permits expire if work does not begin within a year.

Section 39.10 reaches onto private land. The City may enter private property where it suspects a tree of being a public nuisance, and the Director of Public Works’ written notice must “require the elimination of the nuisance no less than 30 days after the notice is delivered.” The code permits immediate action where there is an immediate threat to any person or property, and “The reasonable cost of such abatement shall be filed as a lien against the property.” The categories cover dead and dying plants, trees harboring insects or disease, obstruction of traffic or streetlights, and anything blocking the “visibility triangle.”

What Tree Service Hickory Hills Must Replace

Replacement follows a schedule rather than a negotiation. Under 39.08 a commercial removal of a 6–12 inch tree calls for two 2-inch trees or one 4-inch, rising to six or three at 26 inches and up. Single-family removals are one-for-one, and where nothing fits, payment in lieu runs at $100 per DBH inch. Section 39.21 pulls in the general penalty at 1.06 — up to $500 and costs, each day a separate offense.

Trees On A 14,000-Year-Old Ridge

Hickory Hills sits on the Tinley Moraine, a belt of ridges the Wisconsin glaciation laid down about 14,000 years ago — hilly ground by Cook County standards, with the Palos Forest Preserves against the west edge and I-294 on the east. That forest preserve boundary matters: canopy does not stop at a municipal line, and neither do the pests moving through it. University of Illinois Extension publishes what is active in this part of the state in any given season.

The city incorporated in 1951 out of the ground between 91st and 95th Streets and 80th and 88th Avenues, with roughly 600 residents, and reached cityhood in 1966 by the county’s account. Cheap dwelling units went up along the southern edges, and it is now landlocked on all sides. That is a compressed planting history: a few years produced most of the trees, and they are aging together. It also means tree service Hickory Hills tends to arrive street by street rather than tree by tree.

What The Storm Record Shows

The storm record is specific about what fails. A 2006 straight-line wind and microburst event produced “substantial debris removal”; a 2013 summer storm has a one-word municipal response logged against it, “Tree removal”; past wind events blew down “Numerous trees, tree limbs and power lines,” and “Several homes along 97th Street received damage from falling trees and tree limbs.” The city states its own exposure plainly: “Our tree canopy city wide is vulnerable to lighting strikes.” The 100-year floodplain covers 38.79 acres and the 500-year 51.17, with no repetitive-loss properties on the books. Tree City USA recognition came in March 2013.

Tree Service Hickory Hills: What We Handle

• Removals permitted properly under 39.07 rather than priced by the inch after the fact
• Pruning on the moraine’s older hardwoods, worked under a certified arborist as 39.03 requires
• Stump grinding clear of the root-zone protections in 39.06
• Emergency and storm work, including the next-business-day permit follow-up 39.07 asks for

Get A Figure For Tree Service Hickory Hills

Tell us the address and whether the tree stands on your ground or the city’s — that single answer decides whether a permit is in play. We will handle the paperwork if it is. Estimates are free, seven days a week.

Call 708-424-5885. See our Cook County coverage, and close by: Bridgeview, Justice.