Tree Removal and Trimming in Franklin Park, IL
Ten dollars a year buys the license. That license lets a tree service Franklin Park has approved go near a village tree. However, the qualification behind those ten dollars is the expensive part. Section 7-13-4 covers any person, contractor or firm in the business of “consulting, interacting, or in any way impacting trees on village property.” Each one “must be or have a certified arborist on staff.” Furthermore, it is unlawful to do such work without first obtaining the license. So the village made the fee nominal and the standard non-negotiable, which is the right way around.
Chapter 13 And The Ban On Topping
Title 7, Chapter 13 covers tree preservation, planting and maintenance. It also establishes the Tree Preservation Commission, and it runs from 7-13-1 through 7-13-21. Section 7-13-5(b) reserves to the village the right to plant, prune, maintain and remove trees on village property. Moreover, 7-13-5(d) makes it unlawful to remove, injure or destroy a village tree without the village arborist’s authorization. That applies to any person, contractor or firm. Removal needs defined grounds. Specifically, the tree must be diseased, dead or dying, or damaged such that it is likely to die or become a hazard.
The section worth quoting to anyone who offers you a cheap price is 7-13-14. It makes it unlawful “as a normal practice to top any tree on village property.” Section 7-13-2 then defines topping as removal of the top of the central stem. It also covers “severe cutting back of limbs to stubs larger than three (3) inches in diameter within the tree’s crown.” Topping is what unqualified crews sell as trimming. Franklin Park, by contrast, has written it out of the code.
Penalties, And What They Leave Out
Penalties under 7-13-20 run “not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00), nor more than seven hundred and fifty dollars ($750.00) for each separate offense.” On top of that comes ISA replacement cost, payable within thirty days. However, there is no per-day multiplier. That distinguishes it from most codes in Proviso and Leyden.
Ask for our Franklin Park paperwork up front; it goes out with the quote. Section 7-13-4 sets the annual fee at $10.00 payable in advance. It also requires insurance of $500,000 bodily injury and $250,000 property damage. The village must be named as additional insured, and statutory workers’ compensation applies. Separately, building-trade contractors under 8-1-2 post a $10,000 indemnity bond. They also carry liability of not less than $1,000,000 in the aggregate. However, the trades listed there do not include tree work. So the tree license is its own track.
A Village Planted Between 1940 And 1960
The majority of Franklin Park’s housing and its industrial and commercial buildings went up between the 1940s and the 1960s. That is a narrow window. As a result, it produced a tree population planted within a couple of decades of each other. Trees on that kind of schedule mature together and fail together. So one street can look fine for thirty years and then need half its canopy replaced in five. Managing that cohort block by block is most of what a tree service Franklin Park residents keep on call actually does.
The village keeps count. In 2025, it planted 169 trees and lost 89. The 2024 figures were 215 planted against 95 lost. For 2023, it was 189 against 64. Furthermore, it has been recognized as a Tree City for eleven years. It is also certified as a Bee City USA affiliate. That work runs with Openlands and the East and West Leyden High School ecology clubs. Indeed, very few villages this size publish a planted-versus-lost ledger at all.
Franklin Park is landlocked across 4.77 square miles, immediately west of Chicago and immediately south of O’Hare. Schiller Park, River Grove, Melrose Park, Northlake and Bensenville hem it in. Meanwhile the Des Plaines River forms part of the eastern boundary. However, the flooding that hurts trees here comes from Crystal Creek and Silver Creek. Their floodplains have “resulted in dozens of properties experiencing flooding,” compounded by combined sewer back-ups. Altogether thirty-three properties carry FEMA repetitive-loss status, 27 single-family and 6 other non-residential, with two severe.
Tree Service Franklin Park: What We Provide
- Removals of the post-war cohort as it reaches the end of its span, block by block
- Pruning done as reduction and cleaning — never the topping that 7-13-14 prohibits
- Stump grinding to a depth that suits the village’s replanting record
- Emergency work after wind, ice or a Crystal Creek event
Storm damage. Stay clear of anything touching a wire. Call 911 first, then ComEd at 1-800-334-7661. Meanwhile the village’s own brush line for oversize material is (847) 671-8252. We run storm crews around the clock.
Get A Tree Service Franklin Park Price
Give us the address. Also tell us whether the tree is on the parkway or behind the fence, because the answer changes who decides. Estimates are free, and we will not quote work the code does not allow.
Call 708-424-5885. Browse our Cook County service area, or read about Schiller Park and River Grove.
19253 South Blackhawk Parkway #80
Mokena, Illinois 60448
708-424-5885
Inquiries@protreeservice.com
Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week