Tree Service in Lockport, IL

Six words in the Lockport code tell you how hard the emerald ash borer hit this city. Section 153.50.150 states it flatly: “Ash trees shall be prohibited within the city.” Not discouraged. Prohibited. A town does not ban a species outright until it has already paid to take thousands of them down. So tree service Lockport homeowners need starts with knowing what you have in the yard, because the ash question here is settled.

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A Dead Tree Here Starts A Clock

Lockport handles hazardous trees through nuisance law, and the teeth are real. Section 92.20 declares a public nuisance any dead tree “that poses a danger to persons and/or property,” along with anything carrying infectious disease. Furthermore, 92.21 makes it unlawful to let one stand. The section puts a duty on the owner “to see that all such trees are properly cut down and removed from the property.”

Then comes the clock. Under 92.24, if the tree is not gone “within 30 days from the date of the delivery or sending of such notice,” the city’s forestry division does the work itself. Afterward it files a lien. Moreover, unpaid costs draw “an interest charge of ten percent” each year the lien sits there.

Therefore the expensive path is waiting for the letter. The cheap path is a phone call in the spring.

Tree Service Lockport: What We Do

• Removals, including the dead and diseased stock that 92.20 and 92.21 put on your clock
• Pruning, including the ten-foot street clearance that 92.04 requires
• Stump grinding, four to eight inches below grade as a matter of our own practice
• Emergency and storm work, sequenced by danger rather than by who called first

One honest note on stumps. The Lockport code sets no grinding depth, so nobody can hold a contractor to a number here. Consequently we tell you ours up front instead.

Building Something? The Threshold Is Four Inches

Development is where Lockport gets specific. Section 153.50.125 bars any developer of a site “greater than or equal to three acres in size” from removing “any tree of four inches or more in diameter at breast height (DBH), without first obtaining a permit.” Below three acres, that section does not reach you.

Above it, the city names heritage trees: “Oaks 20" or greater in DBH, Hickories 20" or greater in DBH, Hackberries 20" or greater in DBH, Ironwoods 10" or greater in DBH, Walnuts 20" or greater in DBH.” Take a protected tree without the permit and the same section sets “a fine of $300 per inch of the tree’s DBH.” On a 24-inch oak that is $7,200.

However, the code also carries the exception you would want in February. Emergency conditions requiring immediate removal “to avoid danger or hazard to persons or property” get a permit issued “without formal application.”

The Canal Town On The East Bank

Lockport is “located on the east bank of the Des Plaines River just north of Joliet,” and it “was the headquarters of the canal when the canal was operating.” That canal is the Illinois and Michigan, and Lock No. 1 is what gave the town its name. Today the city holds 26,094 people across 11.59 square miles at 696 feet.

The Historic American Engineering Record describes the setting precisely. Lockport “developed in a region where woodland and prairie meet,” where “the elevation rises to bluffs beyond which are table lands or broad rolling prairies.” In short, you get bluff-edge trees and prairie-edge trees within a few blocks of each other, and they fail differently.

Get A Tree Service Lockport Estimate

Send the address and tell us what the tree is doing. If you think it might be ash, say so. A photo of the bark and the canopy usually settles it. Estimates are free, seven days a week.

Call 708-424-5885 or request one online. If you want to read up first, the ISA’s homeowner guidance explains what a hazard assessment looks at.

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Lockport sits entirely in Will County. See where we work in Will County. Nearby: Joliet, Lemont and Romeoville.