Tree removal permit rules in Champaign County, IL — sometimes called heritage tree, protected tree, or street tree ordinances — list which trees require a permit before you can cut them down.
Removing a tree in your own Champaign County yard needs no city or county permit. Champaign and Urbana regulate the public parkway trees they own and require tree preservation on development sites, but private homeowners may fell their own trees.
Illinois has no statewide law reaching a homeowner's private trees, and neither Champaign nor Urbana makes a resident get a permit to remove a tree from an established single-family lot. Their tree ordinances protect the public realm, the parkway and street trees the city owns and maintains, and impose tree-preservation and landscaping requirements on new subdivisions and commercial projects at plan review. Dead, storm-damaged, and emerald-ash-borer-killed trees are the owner's to take down. The real limits on a private yard are utility line-clearance near power lines and any HOA covenants in newer subdivisions.
None from the county or a city for removing your own yard tree. Removing or damaging a city parkway tree without authorization violates the tree ordinance and can require paying the tree's appraised value plus replacement.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
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See how Champaign County's tree removal & heritage trees rules stack up against other locations.
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