Kendall County, IL Tree Protection: Protected Tree Species (2026)

Kendall County's subdivision code does not protect trees generically; it names the species. Section 30-2 defines significant trees as existing trees on a development site that are worthy of preservation, and ties that status to three species lists: Section 30-191 covers native species worthy of preservation once they reach six inches in diameter at one foot above grade, including black maple, shagbark hickory, bur oak, white oak, swamp white oak, chinquapin oak, red oak, black oak, sycamore, and black walnut. Section 30-192 raises the qualifying diameter to twelve inches for species such as sugar maple, common hackberry, white ash, wild black cherry, basswood, and American elm.

Section 30-193 protects a shorter list of understory natives, including pawpaw, redbud, blue beech, and pagoda dogwood, at any size regardless of diameter. Species marked with an asterisk in Sections 30-191 and 30-192, mostly ash and cottonwood species vulnerable to disease and insects, are still counted as significant if they already exist on site, even though the code discourages planting new ones. These species lists are not decorative: Section 30-129(b)(1)f requires at least seventy percent of the significant trees they identify, outside rights-of-way and utility easements, to be fenced and preserved during construction of any new subdivision.

The lists themselves credit Plants of the Chicago Region by Floyd Swink and Gerould Wilhelm of the Morton Arboretum and Kane County Wild Plants and Natural Areas by Richard Young of the Kane County Forest Preserve District as their botanical source.