Tree Care in Park Ridge, Illinois

Five hundred dollars an inch. That is the floor, not the ceiling. Section 15-18-12 sets a “minimum of $500.00 per inch of tree DBH” for an unauthorized removal or substantial destruction. Section 9-4-8 repeats the same rate for parkway trees. A sixteen-inch maple taken down without a permit starts at $8,000 and goes up. The replacement obligation still stands on top, because the code is explicit that fines do not waive replacement. So no tree removal Park Ridge regulates is worth attempting without the permit. The city carries the steepest per-inch exposure of any municipality we work in.

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What Counts As A Protected Tree Here

Article 15, Chapter 18 governs private property. Section 15-18-3 makes it unlawful “to remove a Protected Tree or cause the Substantial Destruction of a Tree.” Then 15-18-5 states that “No Protected Tree may be removed without first obtaining a tree removal permit from the City Forester.”

The definition has two limbs. A Protected Tree is “(A) Any tree larger than ten inches DBH (31.5″ circumference) or multi-stemmed tree having a total diameter of 15 inches DBH (47.12″ circumference); and (B) Any tree of any size that was required to be planted by City regulation, permit, ordinance or agreement.” Limb (B) is the one people miss. A sapling someone planted as a building-permit condition ten years ago is protected today at any diameter.

Parkways, Replacement, And What Tree Removal Park Ridge Costs

Parkways sit under Article 9, Chapter 4. Section 9-4-2 sets no size threshold whatsoever: “It shall be unlawful to plant, prune, remove or otherwise disturb any trees, shrubs or flowers in any parkway outside of the sidewalk line on any street or public way or on any City property in the City without having secured a permit therefor.” Any size, any species, including pruning.

Replacement under Section 15-18-8 scales with the loss. One tree covers a removal over ten and up to twenty inches. Four trees cover forty inches and above. All come from the Appendix A list. Other violations run “not less than $250.00 and not more than $2,500.00 for each violation,” each day separate. And one detail catches builders. Section 20-7-8 charges “$300.00 for the fertilization, mulching and aeration of trees located on parkways adjoining a property where either a new house or” an addition is built.

Clay Soil, Brickton, And Twenty-One Thousand City Trees

Park Ridge went by Brickton for a reason. The quarry that gave the settlement its second name worked the same clay that sits under the city today. The county annex records “clay-rich soil.” Clay is the single most useful thing to know about growing and losing trees here. It holds water, drains slowly, swells and shrinks with the season, and gives roots poor purchase in a saturated spring. A tree that looks solid in July can lift in April. That spring lift drives a good share of the tree removal Park Ridge owners end up permitting.

Twenty-One Thousand City Trees, And Where The Water Sits

The forestry program is substantial. The city counts “over 21,000 parkway and city-owned trees.” Crews prune around 2,500 a year on a six-year cycle. They remove “2%, or 350 to 400, of its public trees each year.” That figure rose to “700-800 trees during those waves” of emerald ash borer. University of Illinois Extension still tracks the borer, which matters if you have a surviving ash behind the house.

The city states that “A tiny part of our city is located in FEMA’s flood plain.” Even so, it carries 17 repetitive-loss properties, 16 of them single-family, none severe. The Des Plaines River divides the two cities. Recurring problem points are Burton and Fenton Roads, the Kennedy at Cumberland, the Country Club Area and Northwest Park.

The city incorporated in 1873 in Maine Township. It grew through the 1920s, and the Pickwick Theatre dates from 1928. Growth came again after the war. Today “larger single family homes are built” as smaller ones come down. That teardown cycle is precisely where the Protected Tree rules bite hardest.

Tree Removal Park Ridge: Our Services

• Removals we permit through the City Forester before anything comes down
• Pruning — and in the parkway, that needs a 9-4-2 permit at any size
• Stump grinding in clay, which grinds and backfills differently from sand
• Emergency and storm work, day or night

Start A Tree Removal Park Ridge Estimate

Check first whether anyone required that tree as a condition of a permit or agreement. That alone makes it protected, regardless of size. Tell us what you find and we will quote free.

Call 708-424-5885. See our Cook County coverage, or the towns adjoining: Des Plaines, Niles, Mount Prospect.