Tree Removal and Trimming in Oak Forest, IL

Damage a tree in an Oak Forest street or parkway and the city does not price it by the inch. Section 90.107 charges a flat fine: “first offense, $500; second offense, $1,000; third and subsequent offense, $2,500.” It then adds “a sum equal to the value or partial value of the tree lost.” An appraiser sets that figure to International Society of Arboriculture and Illinois Arborist Association standards. The cost of any pruning or cabling that follows goes on top. If you cannot pay, a lien goes on the property. Few towns in Cook County stack a professional appraisal on top of an escalating fine. That makes the tree removal Oak Forest oversees on public ground an expensive thing to get wrong.

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Sixty Days, Eight Feet, And No Private Permit

The permit under 90.102 covers “any tree or shrub in any street, parkway or other public place” and nothing else. The Department of Public Works issues it and may require protective fencing. There is no permit and no threshold for taking a tree down on your own land here.

What the city does hold private owners to is 90.105. Its clock is the most generous in the county. The section covers a dead, diseased or nuisance tree that is “a hazard to life and property, or harbor[s] insects or disease.” The owner has “60 days after the date of service of notice or such other time as may be agreed upon.” The owner pays for removal, and if nothing happens the city removes and liens. Sixty days is long enough to get three quotes and still be inside it. It is also long enough that people forget.

Clearance, Appraisal, And What Tree Removal Oak Forest Puts Back

Section 90.106 sets the overhang rule: “there shall be a clear space of eight feet above the surface of the street or sidewalk.” Owners must prune anything overhanging a right of way. They must also remove dead, diseased or dangerous trees and decayed limbs. The city may enter and prune a private tree that blocks a streetlight or a traffic sign. The appraisal method 90.107 leans on is worth understanding. The ISA’s consumer site explains how a standing tree gets a dollar figure. Under 90.101, new parkway planting runs at one tree per 40 feet of frontage. A diversity cap applies: “No species should exceed 30% of total tree count.”

A City Named For The Forest Around It

Oak Forest is “mostly surrounded by Cook County Forest Preserves (hence the name).” The city covers roughly six square miles of Bremen Township. It began as a whistle-stop on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. The county poor farm arrived in 1907, an infirmary in 1910. By 1932 that infirmary held more than 4,000 patients. In 1940 only 611 people lived in the town outside the hospital grounds. The suburb people live in now went up in the 1960s and 1970s. The village incorporated in 1947 with 1,618 residents and became a city in 1971.

That leaves a canopy of two halves. One is a thin edge of 1920s subdivision stock. The other is several thousand houses whose trees went in within about fifteen years of one another. They are reaching the end together. That second cohort is where the tree removal Oak Forest books now overwhelmingly sits.

Water is the aggravating factor. Eleven properties sit on FEMA’s repetitive-loss list here, along with one severe repetitive-loss home. The heaviest count falls in the southwest corner. The plan names the problem addresses. At 167th and Cicero, four to five inches of standing water collects. 159th and Central takes water off the forest preserve. The list continues: 155th and Long, 152nd and Oak Park, and the culvert crossing at 151st and Boca Rio Drive. Natalie Creek, Boca Rio Ditch and Tinley Creek run the drainage. Trees in ground that holds water lose their grip slowly, then all at once. The August 2007 storm took down over 350 power lines regionally, and it is the template. Tree City USA since 2008.

Tree Removal Oak Forest: Services We Run

• Removals inside the 60-day window 90.105 gives you, not after it closes
• Pruning to the eight-foot clearance and sight lines 90.106 requires
• Stump grinding leaving the parkway ready for a replacement
• Emergency and storm work around Natalie Creek, Boca Rio and Tinley Creek

Ask For A Tree Removal Oak Forest Quote

If the city has served notice on a tree, send it to us with the address. The date tells us how much of the sixty days is left. Free estimates, seven days.

Call 708-424-5885. See our Cook County coverage, and next door: Midlothian, Tinley Park, Markham.