Which Palos Are You In?

There is no municipality called Palos. There are three separate ones plus a township, and their tree rules have nothing to do with each other, so tree service Palos means four separate rulebooks depending on the address. Cut a four-inch tree without a permit in Palos Hills and the fine is $200 an inch. Do the same in Palos Park and the permit would have been free. Palos Heights does not license tree work at all. Before anyone quotes you a price, work out which one you live in — the answer changes the job.

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The Three Villages, In One Line Each

• Palos Hills — $25 permit at four inches measured six inches off the ground, and $200 per inch if you skip it, escalating 50% on a repeat. Landscape contractors register for $20 with a $5,000 bond.
• Palos Park — no diameter threshold at all. A permit is needed if the tree could fall on Village property, it is free, and a hired crew triggers a $100,000/$300,000 policy filed with the Clerk.
• Palos Heights — hickory, oak and walnut are protected at eight inches DBH. The permit is free but the rule is aimed at construction, and border trees need your neighbor’s written agreement.

Unincorporated land in Palos Township is a fourth case again. The township has no tree ordinance of its own — a full-text search of its code for the word “tree” returns nothing — so removals fall to the Cook County Department of Building and Zoning, which sets its threshold at a deciduous trunk of six inches measured six inches above grade, or an evergreen ten feet or taller. County contractor registration is $150 per trade initially and $75 to renew, due by 31 December.

What The Three Have In Common

Forest preserve, mostly. Palos Hills runs against 7,000 acres of it on the west, Palos Park is surrounded on three sides, and the whole area holds some of the oldest oak woodland in Cook County. That means remnant native oak up against back fences — larger and older than anything planted around it, and usually climbed rather than reached from a bucket truck. Tree service Palos wants, more often than not, is climbing work on old oak, and the Morton Arboretum’s oak guidance is the best regional reference on trees of that age.

It also means the ravine terrain that makes access here harder than the map suggests, and a canopy that produces a lot of calls from one street after a single ice storm. Palos Hills’ own hazard plan puts it plainly: the number and size of trees in the city make ice storms more dangerous for limb failures. Ravine access, remnant oak and a canopy that fails all at once are what set the price here, far more than the municipal line the property happens to sit behind.

Get A Price For Tree Service Palos

Address, and what the tree is doing. We will confirm which municipality you are in and what it requires before we quote. Free estimates, seven days. Call 708-424-5885. More of our Cook County coverage, and nearby: Hickory Hills, Orland Park.