Crane & Large Tree Removal in Lambertville, Michigan

What is Lambertville, and whose rules apply?

Lambertville (ZIP 48144) is a community, not a municipality. Its government is Bedford Township, whose compiled ordinances (Supplement 63, codified through Ordinance 44A-355 of October 2025) contain no tree ordinance — the full reading is on the Bedford Township page. The zoning ordinance regulates tree removal only on development sites under site plan review (§ 400.1913). Lambertville does have one section of the code to itself: the Lambertville Village Overlay District (§ 400.1702B), a set of rules for the commercial crossroads at Secor and Sterns about sidewalks, cafés and outdoor displays, one of which forbids attaching anything to a tree on the public sidewalk. And the township blight ordinance (§ 114.004 J) makes a left-behind pile of cut trees or brush a violation, so a removal here includes the haul-away.

The result for a homeowner: a tree on your Lambertville lot comes down with no permit from anyone. A tree on the roadside belongs to the road.

Road permits and jurisdictions near the Ohio line

Secor Road, Sterns Road, Consear Road, Whiteford Road, Smith Road and the dedicated subdivision streets are county roads, and the Monroe County Road Commission states that any work within its right-of-way requires an MCRC permit — Permits, 734-240-5132, Permits@mcrc-mi.org — which covers a roadside tree and a crane on the shoulder alike. US-23, which runs through the west side of Lambertville, is MDOT’s. The unusual part is the south edge: the state line runs just south of Sterns Road, so a house on the Lambertville side is under Bedford Township, the MCRC and the property’s electric utility, and the house a few hundred yards down Secor Road is under the City of Sylvania, its Forestry Division and Toledo Edison. The Sylvania page is the other side of the line.

Electric utility and safe tree clearance

Check the electric supplier on the property bill before arranging line clearance. Consumers Energy lists Bedford Township in its electric service territory; do not assume that a Monroe County address is supplied by DTE. Consumers Energy’s tree-maintenance policy covers vegetation around its lines, including branches rubbing on service conductors. Utility line clearance is separate from a complete private-tree removal and haul-away estimate.

For a downed line, keep clear, call 911 and contact the electric utility: Consumers Energy 800-477-5050, or DTE 800-477-4747 where DTE supplies the property. DTE’s published trimming guidance distinguishes pole-to-pole lines from the customer’s service drop. Arrange any disconnection with the utility; do not have a private crew cut around an energized wire.

Oak wilt: Lambertville’s oaks and the calendar

Lambertville has more old oaks than the rest of the township — the Secor Road blocks and the woodlot subdivisions were built under them — and Michigan’s rule applies: the DNR asks that oaks not be pruned from April 15 to July 15, because sap beetles carry the oak-wilt fungus to fresh wounds, red oaks can die within weeks, and the disease travels root to root through a woodlot. Storm wounds in the window are painted at once. MSU Extension records the disease across the Lower Peninsula. A live-oak trim waits for mid-July; a dead-tree removal does not, and in a woodlot the stump of a wilt-killed oak is handled to break the root grafts.

Storm exposure

The June 2022 derecho log records 10-inch oak limbs down in Sylvania at 9:35 PM — across the line from Lambertville — and the March 13, 2026 windstorm was measured at 61 mph at Toledo Express, the nearest NWS station, with more than 94,000 DTE customers out across south-east Michigan that night. The 2012 derecho is the older benchmark. Oaks shed limbs in those winds, sometimes weeks later from a crack that opened in the storm; silver maples split at the union; dead ash snap. The storm and insurance guide includes the Michigan DIFS guidance on tree-removal coverage.

Which Lambertville trees become crane jobs?

Oaks over houses on the older blocks, silver maples over garages, and dead ash on every fencerow. The oaks are the Lambertville problem: red and white oaks 36 inches and more through, kept when the Secor Road lots were built and now spread over the roof from a trunk a few feet off the house. Green oak is the heaviest wood a crew handles, and a limb a climber can cut is not always one a climber can lower over a roof — that is the crane’s job, in small vertical picks. The silver maples are the opposite: the ODNR describes an 80-foot tree with brittle wood that takes “significant storm damage throughout its life,” and on a subdivision lot the stems are over the garage.

The acre lots toward Whiteford Township are lined with ash killed after emerald ash borer was found in south-east Michigan in 2002 — dead for a decade or more on the ODNR’s three-to-six-year timeline, brittle from the top down, and not a tree to climb. Bucket truck along the drive where it reaches; crane where it cannot; and where a whole fencerow has to go, the brush and land clearing page covers it. The dead ash guide explains the method and the cost.

Crane scenario: a 40-inch white oak over a house on Secor Road

The crew that does this work for the site owns its cranes and is licensed in both Ohio and Michigan; its yard in Metamora, Ohio is a short drive west along the state line.

A crew for both sides of the line

Nowhere in the metro is the state line more visible than here, where Secor Road crosses from Sylvania into Lambertville with nothing but a sign to mark it. The Sylvania side has a Forestry Division, Chapter 951 and Toledo Edison; the Lambertville side has the MCRC, the property’s electric utility and the Michigan oak-wilt window. Most Toledo crews quote the Sylvania side and not the Lambertville side — the reasons are insurance, the road-commission permit and the Michigan pesticide license, none of which a state license replaces because neither state issues one for tree work. The crew behind this site is licensed in both Ohio and Michigan and works both sides of the line; the Ohio vs Michigan guide gives the three questions to ask any crew that says it does.

What to send for a Lambertville estimate

The address; a wide photo from the road and one from the yard showing the roof under the tree; trunk diameter at chest height; whether the trunk stands on the road shoulder; driveway length and surface; whether a wire runs through the crown; and whether it is an oak, because that sets the calendar. That is enough to say whether the job is a climb-and-rig removal, a crane removal or a clearing job, and what the cost ranges look like.