Tree Removal in Westchester, IL

Westchester knows exactly how many trees it owns. A 2023 inventory counted 6,845 trees on public property plus 1,701 potential planting sites, mapped in GIS with a Tree Management Plan behind it. Very few villages this size have that. It means when you call the village about a parkway tree they can look it up, and it means the tree removal Westchester residents pay for is cleanly separated from the work the village owns.

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Which Side Of The Sidewalk Your Tree Is On

Chapter 7.112 of the village code, reenacted by Ordinance 2015-2109 in February 2015, sets it out. Section 7.112.060 makes the village responsible for planting, maintaining, removing and replacing trees on public property under the tree management plan, and bars anyone from doing that work without village consent — unauthorized plantings get removed at the planter’s expense. The same section says the work must be performed by certified arborists meeting the village’s contractor and insurance requirements, and provides that the village may require parkway trees to be trimmed once every five years on a rotating basis.

Section 7.112.070 requires a permit from the director of public works before any contractor or property owner removes a tree from a public place, for construction or any other reason, and makes anyone who damages a public tree liable for its replacement value.

Your own trees are different. Section 7.112.020 requires you to trim branches overhanging public areas to at least twelve feet of clearance, and 7.112.030 requires removal of dead, decayed, diseased, broken or hazardous limbs or whole trees within thirty days of notice — with unpaid village costs becoming a lien filed with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.

Two Rules That Catch Out Builders

Section 7.112.075 prohibits obstructing the root area of a public tree — no depositing, placing, storing or maintaining stone, brick, sand, concrete or other materials that impede water, air and fertilizer reaching the roots. Section 7.112.080 requires building owners to place guards around parkway trees during construction. If you are having work done and the contractor is stacking material on the parkway, that is a village problem waiting to happen.

An Insull Town On Black-Soil Prairie

Samuel Insull bought the land in 1924 meaning to build an English-style town, and the Garfield Park rapid transit extension made it possible — until the line came out in 1951 and the expressways went in through the fifties instead. That history is why the street pattern here does not look like the grid towns east of it.

The other thing Westchester has is Wolf Road Prairie: eighty-five acres described as the largest black-soil prairie remnant east of the Mississippi. Black prairie soil is deep, heavy and slow-draining. Trees grow well in it and then hold water at the root plate through a wet spring, which is a different failure pattern from the sandier ground further north. Most tree removal Westchester needs after a wind event comes off soil like that.

What We Handle In Westchester

• Removal of private trees — the ones the 6,845 inventory does not cover
• Trimming to the twelve-foot clearance 7.112.020 requires over public ways
• Stump grinding
• Clearing back lots and fence lines
• Storm and emergency work, 24 hours

Get A Tree Removal Westchester Estimate

Give us the address. If it turns out to be one of the village’s 6,845, we will tell you to call Public Works on 708-345-0041 instead of selling you something you do not need. Replanting on your own ground is your call, and the Morton Arboretum keeps species lists for heavy prairie soil.

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