Melrose Park, IL Tree Service

Melrose Park is one of the few villages in Proviso Township where you can appeal the arborist. Section 12.24.040 seats an eight-member tree commission, and part of its stated job is hearing “disputes between residents and the arborist.” That is worth knowing before a tree removal Melrose Park has to approve turns into an argument you assume you cannot win. The commission exists precisely because the code expects disagreements.

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Title 12, Chapter 12.24 — The Melrose Park Tree Ordinance

The chapter names itself: the Village of Melrose Park Tree Ordinance. Section 12.24.050 appoints a village arborist, who “shall administer the urban forestry plan, the tree ordinance and the provisions of the Arboricultural Specifications Manual.” That last document matters. Melrose Park does not simply adopt a standard by reference and leave it there; it hands the arborist a manual and expects work to match it. If a contractor cannot tell you which specification a cut follows, that is a signal.

Section 12.24.060 handles permits. Work on village trees is reserved to the arborist, an agent of the arborist, or a contractor the arborist hired. A permit is separately required to trim, prune or remove any tree that “reasonably may be expected to fall” onto village property, and also for a list of smaller acts — setting plant containers, carving, attaching objects, digging tunnels or trenches near trees. The fee line reads “No fee shall be charged.” Applicants deposit liability cover of $100,000 per person, $300,000 per accident and $50,000 for property damage, with the village named as additional insured.

Section 12.24.070 covers public nuisances and 12.24.090 the penalty: “a fine not to exceed two hundred dollars ($200.00) for each separate offense,” each day counted on its own, plus replacement value calculated on the ISA method. The ISA’s public site explains how that replacement value is arrived at.

An Industrial Suburb That Floods More Than Its Neighbors

Melrose Park grew hard after the First World War as an industrial suburb, home to steel and construction manufacturers and a large lumber company, and the Proviso Freight Yards opened in 1926. It earned the nickname “Corporate King of the Suburbs” and it now holds 24,796 people across 4.24 square miles, split between Leyden and Proviso Townships.

Thatcher Woods and the Des Plaines River form the eastern border, and the village’s own hazard record is blunt: Melrose Park “continues to experience excessive urban/flash flooding, especially on Main Street.” The number that should get a homeowner’s attention is 63 FEMA repetitive-loss properties, with 5 of them severe. For comparison inside the same township, Maywood has three and no severe ones, and River Forest and Oak Park have none at all. Addison Creek channel improvements sit in the mitigation plan as action M-5.8.

Sixty-three repeatedly flooded properties means a lot of Melrose Park root plates spend part of every wet year without oxygen. Trees on those lots decline from the bottom up and give almost no warning in the crown until the year they let go. More tree removal Melrose Park ends up needing traces back to drowned roots than to storm damage. North Avenue running east to west and the Maywood Metra stop on the southern border add a second problem — long, wind-funnelled corridors through a village of mature trees.

Our Melrose Park Work

• Removals of trees standing on repeatedly flooded ground, where root failure is the real diagnosis
• Trimming written to specification, not to whatever fits the truck
• Stump grinding that leaves a planting hole rather than a trip hazard
• Storm and emergency response at any hour

Booking A Tree Removal Melrose Park Estimate

Send us the address and a photograph if you have one. We will tell you whether 12.24.060 puts the tree on the village’s side of the line, and what the arborist is likely to say. No charge for the visit.

Call 708-424-5885. More on where we work in Cook County, plus Northlake and Stone Park.