Quick answer
Yes, we work throughout Cheltenham Township. Jobs here are shaped by its tree ordinance: limbs must clear 9 feet over sidewalks and 14 feet over roads, trees over 20 inches across count as specimen trees, and fines run up to $600 per offense. Most calls are clearance pruning on busy streets and careful removals on tight rowhouse lots.
9 feet over the sidewalk, 14 over the road
Cheltenham requires overhanging branches to clear at least 9 feet above sidewalks and 14 feet above roads. Violations of the tree ordinance carry fines up to $600 per offense, and each day counts separately, so a low limb left for a month is not a small problem.
Reaching those heights is crown raising: removing the lowest limbs back to the trunk or a strong side branch, in stages when the limbs are big. Taking too much at once stresses the tree, so on a large limb we may raise to the sidewalk line this year and the road line next season.
Cheltenham jobs that come up again and again
Clearance heights and the specimen-tree rule drive a lot of these. Tight lots drive the rest.
- Crown Raising & Clearance PruningLimbs below 9 feet over a sidewalk or 14 feet over a road, raised before the township cites them.
- Deadwood RemovalDead limbs over sidewalks and parked cars on the dense streets near the city line.
- Tight-Access Backyard Tree RemovalRowhouse yards where every log leaves by hand through a narrow passage.
- Tree RemovalSpecimen-size trees over 20 inches that have died or failed, taken down with the ordinance in mind.
- Tree PlantingReplacement trees at the 2 to 2.5-inch caliper the ordinance calls for on woodland sites.
Specimen trees and woodland lots
Chapter 280 treats any tree over 20 inches in diameter at breast height as a specimen tree. On a woodland site, no more than 15% of viable trees 6 inches or larger may be cut, and removals beyond that are replaced with trees of 2 to 2.5-inch caliper.
The township has a seven-member Shade Tree Advisory Commission that includes a professional arborist or horticulturist and a landscape architect. When the township requires a tree to come down, owners get four weeks' written notice by mail. Planning an addition, a driveway or lot clearing on a wooded parcel? Count the trees before you draw the plan, not after.
Rowhouse streets and the Tookany Creek corridor
Montgomery County's landscape starts here, with dense rowhouse streets in Cheltenham Township at about 125 feet of elevation, before the county opens out toward the Perkiomen. The township also holds the planned Tookany Creek Trail corridor, 3.4 miles along the creek between Cheltenham Avenue and High School Road, studied with the local watershed partnership.
On the rowhouse blocks, a backyard tree may have no route out but a narrow side passage, so it comes down in small pieces. Our tight backyard removals page shows how that works, and the Abington page covers the township next door.
Cheltenham tree questions
At least 9 feet above the sidewalk and 14 feet above the road. Each day a violation continues can count as a separate offense, with fines up to $600 each.
If its trunk is over 20 inches in diameter at breast height, about four and a half feet up, the ordinance treats it as one. Measure around the trunk and divide by roughly 3.14.
Only within limits. On a woodland site you may cut no more than 15% of viable trees 6 inches or larger, and removals beyond that need replacement trees of 2 to 2.5-inch caliper.
You get four weeks' written notice by mail. Use that time to have the tree looked at and priced; sometimes pruning fixes the hazard, but often the removal goes ahead.
Near Cheltenham
Low limbs or a failing tree in Cheltenham?
Call any hour. Tell us where the tree is and what it overhangs, and we will explain the clearance or removal it needs.