Tree Removal in La Grange Park, IL

La Grange Park has the strictest tree code we work under, and tree removal La Grange Park allows is fenced in at every step. Chapter 95 was adopted by Ordinance 1178 in June 2022 and amended by Ordinance 1235 in November 2024. It runs to a Tree Board, a Legacy Tree program, an Urban Forest Management Plan, a village Arborist, and a fee schedule with real teeth.

A tree permit costs $100. The tree permit bond is $1,000. Cash bonds run $1,000, or $5,000 in conservancy and preservation areas. Reinspection is $75. Unpermitted work incurs double the permit fee plus per-tree and per-offense charges. Each tree cut down, destroyed, damaged, removed or moved counts as a separate offense under Section 95.99.

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The Six-Inch Threshold, And What Does Not Need A Permit

Section 95.08 makes it unlawful for any individual to remove or cause damage to any tree located on public property without first receiving a tree permit. It sets a six-inch threshold for public-property trees requiring one before removal. The code allows emergency removal without a permit where nobody can reach the village, with documentation and follow-up. It also requires utility locates before stump removal.

And one exception worth knowing: the village encourages removal of invasive woody plants such as buckthorn, and requires no permit for it. If your fence line has gone to buckthorn, that is work you can have done here without paperwork. The Morton Arboretum has the identification guidance if you are not certain what is growing there.

Section 95.06 makes it unlawful to remove, chemically spray or treat, injure, or undertake any procedure causing death, substantial damage or a hazard to any public property tree. Section 95.15 has the applicant file online or in person. The village Arborist then inspects and renders a determination, with a decision within ten working days of a properly completed application. That ten-day window is the real scheduling constraint on tree removal La Grange Park approves.

Licensing And Bonding In The Village

Section 150.08 requires a contractor license, valid one year, with a $10,000 corporate surety bond indemnifying the village. Public liability insurance runs at $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. Property damage insurance runs at $50,000, with not less than $10,000 per accident. Licenses become invalid the moment a bond or certificate of insurance lapses, so ask any tree removal La Grange Park bidder when theirs was last renewed.

A 125-Year-Old Village, Heavily Populated With Mature Trees

That is the village’s own phrase. La Grange Park incorporated in 1892 and covers 2.23 square miles in Lyons Township. It holds about 13,484 people, is nearly entirely developed, and calls itself the Village of Roses. It has been a Tree City USA since 1987.

Salt Creek borders it north and west, with Cook County Forest Preserve on those same sides — Bemis Woods North, La Grange Park Woods, Brezina Woods and 26th Street Woods. Combined sewer surcharge drives the flooding here rather than the creek overtopping. It affects the Homestead and Monroe area, the central block bounded by 31st Street, La Grange Road, Homestead Road and the Indiana Harbor Belt railroad, and Edgewood and Brainard Avenues near Salt Creek. The village carries zero repetitive-loss properties — unusual for a creek-side community.

Mature canopy in a fully built-out village means the trees came first, and the extensions came later. Most of what we do here is careful work on large, valuable, long-established specimens with houses close on every side. Tree removal La Grange Park signs off on is the exception here, not the routine. Section 95.03 even requires the village to inventory a representative sample of privately owned trees, which tells you how seriously the place takes its canopy.

Tree Removal In La Grange Park: What We Do

• Pruning on mature, high-value specimens, worked to the Urban Forest Management Plan standards
• Removals, with the $100 permit and bond handled before the saw starts
• Buckthorn clearing — encouraged here, and permit-free
• Stump grinding, with locates first as the code requires
• Storm response, 24 hours, with the follow-up documentation Section 95.08 expects

Before You Book Tree Removal La Grange Park

Address, rough trunk diameter, and whether the tree is on your lot or the parkway. Six inches on public property is the line, and the difference between a permitted job and a doubled fee is one phone call. Village Hall is at 447 N. Catherine Avenue.

708-424-5885 · Cook County service area · nearby: La Grange, Brookfield.