Darien To Rate Its Trees Around Town

DARIEN, IL – Darien plans to rate its 9,000 trees in its rights-of-way and other areas, an official said Monday.

In December, Darien hired Ohio-based Davey Resource Group to survey the city's trees and rate them good, fair, poor, or deceased.

The company will include other information in a database of trees – their size, species, risk ratings, defects and inventory dates, said Dan Gombac, the city's municipal services director.

"This data should be in a form that can be used for the next five years," Gombac said.

The project is expected to take about nine weeks, starting next week under the best-case scenario, Gombac said in an email to Patch.

With its last tree grant, the city planted trees in rights-of-way around town.

"There were several residents who did not want parkway trees, even though they are in the city's rights-of-way," Gombac told the council. The city wants "to work with these residents and explain further what opportunities there are and what the tree canopies actually do."