City Council - Committee Of The Whole

[Music] welcome to the afternoon meetings of the Bellingham city council this April 15th 2024 I am council president protm Holly Heathman as we have an excused absence for council president Dan Hamill today so today we are starting things off a bit differently than normal with our committee meetings we are starting with Committee of the whole and we have four agenda items the first being a presentation on the wcom racial Equity commission appointment process the Wacom racial Equity commission also known as the wreck was established in 2022 as a watom county Advisory Group co-founded by watom county and the City of Bellingham and facilitated through the cenet health Foundation the wreck is a quasi governmental entity formed to eliminate racial inequities throughout Wacom County the vision of the wck is that all Races in wcom County live Thrive and belong for who they are as they are without fear every day cheet Health Foundation Representatives will provide an overview of the appointment process now underway to seat the group's inaugural members and today uh also should note that council member Anderson is here but uh online so today I believe we are starting with uh Janice K Keller uh to present our presenters I'm here to present our presenters um I'll invite uh suing Zao from the Chuck nut Health Foundation to walk us through an overview of the appointment process hello Council thank you so much for having me I'm suing Z I'm I am the community advancement director for the

cut Health foundation and I'm excited to share information about our process with you all today thanks um so my purpose of presentation today is to tell you a little bit about the work that's happened since we passed the ordinance and the interlocal agreement with the city of Bellingham to establish the wam racial Equity commission to ground Us in the work that's happened so far and what the next steps of process may be and then what's been included in your packet for review and consideration today um this is going to be a brief update and my hope is that we can answer any questions that you may have about the process up to this point and where the road will lead us ahead bringing us back to the purpose of the racial Equity commission right here is the citation from 2107 it's a conduit for Community collaboration and engagement um within the broader context of diversity Equity to inclusion the purpose of the walk and racial Equity commission is to gather review and evaluate data and to make recommendations on eliminating racial inequities in all its forms throughout wam County when we were developing the ordinance alongside community members three key relationships were elevated by those community members the community and local government the community and this Commission and the commission and local government and I believe that's actually true of all of our advisory groups any Advisory Group is a can be a beautiful conduit for Community engagement in Civic spaces and I

think that over the course of these last several years of process that wam County and the City of Bellingham have demonstrated a deep demonstrated deep Community member engagement and Civic spaces across the development the transition the seating and this launch process of the commission I just want to revisit this beautiful map that we were able to share back in when we passed the ordinance and it is where everyone came from who was participating in the process to develop the ordinance to establish the commission and we had so many people apply for our appointed members and so there's three categories of members just as a reminder for the racial Equity commission there's Representative members who are brought forward from various organizations that were identified to be a part of the conversation because their work May intersect with the work of the the racial Equity commission and then we had a role for our elected officials as liaison members providing that important Conversation Piece between our small cities the city of Bellingham and wam County to to be a part of um the partnership necessary to address racial equity in wam County and the members that were talking about today and the process we're talking about today is the appointed community members so individuals from our community were able to submit an application for consideration in appointment across a variety of different roles and we had quite the process to even get us there again this is all about that deep

Community engagement so the County Council appointed an appointment committee by ordinance they were asked to bring create a body of community members to sit alongside representatives from the city and the county in order order to inform this process and to create some general recommendations that came forward to the mayor and the executive and those folks that were appointed were Dr Vernon dman Johnson Dr Francisco Rios Eliana steel Dr Pamela wheeler Matthew derky guava Jordan and Lee Langdon who's actually here with us today [Laughter] Kye the appointment committee then developed the process for the applications for the racial Equity commission and they had some key recommendations for us to implement as your steward of process to offer the applications in multiple languages to create different ways for applicant statements to be provided to offer technical assistance to people who were applying and then to allow applicants to be considered across multiple roles rather than just selecting one in County processes it's really common that they that folks are asked us to apply for one role within an Advisory Group and so our appointment committee said hey let's create the biggest opportunity for someone to be seated and to be considered for the roles um and so community members applied for the commission after that the appointment committee reviewed all of the applications and drafted some recommendations for the mayor and the executive we were able to have representatives from

the committee sit down with the mayor and the executive to review and finalize some recommendations that were included in your packet today that recommended slate was then provided to wam County Council and to Bellingham city council and wam County Council was able to vote on confirmation last week and then the these recommendations are here for you to consider conf consider confirming as well as per ordinance so we had 43 community members from all across wam County apply for they were across all of these different council districts so I'm using the County Council map since it's more comprehensive geographically of a region and we had representation from across all districts and then in the recommended slate for confirmation there's also representation across all districts I do want to note that there is definitely a disparity in District 2 and some of the things that we realized when we were going through the applications is someone may be appointed take for example we have Brett muskovich from mydan high school who's being appointed for a role that's specifically related through a k to a k through2 system and his district happens is in District 4 but he happens to live in District 2 so we have people that may be working in other districts but maybe living in the city of Bellingham and all of these folks these 43 applicants had a variety of different identities and what better way to capture that than a wordcloud my friends I'm a big fan of a wordcloud and happy to bring a

word cloud to you here today um because the fullness of all of these people is more than what they were able to check a box on on this application and unfortunately there are only 19 roles available for appointed community members and it was such a challenging conversation to consider who should should be filling these 19 roles because of the breadth and the depth of each application and it was so I will say it was incredibly inspiring to get to see how the community showed up and the desire of so many community members to engage in this kind of Civic space so our next steps that we've considered over the course of this application process and as we move towards seating this commission are to share a whole lot of gratitude and connect to all applicants we were able to send folks that were recommended for confirmational letter about engaging in these processes as they go and then folks who were not recommended at this time different ways that they could continue engaging with the commission whether it would be to potentially serve on a committee in the future that we would hold their applications for up to a year for consideration in the future and then also that they may want to join one of the other advisory groups that take for example Jpop Jpop and the par carceration reduction prevention task force we're all also looking for folks and there are other advisory groups that people can engage with and so we have County Council and city council considering confirmation County

council's been through their process and here we are today to look at the city council process after members are confirmed we'll go through an onboarding process and we'll support these folks who are confirmed in their next steps as commission members that would include things like taking them through the opma training going through the member expectations that we have for the county it would also be ensuring that they have what they need technologically if the meeting is hybrid do they have this the technical do they have the laptop that they need can we get them a laptop through the walkin County library system or any of those other things that just make attending and participating easier and allow for someone to show up fully and then we have tentatively scheduled our first commission meeting for May in 2024 and I know that we have kind of a limited amount of time always in a committee of the whole meeting and you have so many meetings this afternoon and you have your evening meeting tonight that I just wanted to offer my direct cell phone if you have any com questions about the applications or more conversations that you want to have with me I'm happy to be here for you all and then this is a direct email address that goes only to um commission related things in my inbox so I will I'm less likely to to miss an email in that inbox so please feel free to email me there as well and I'm here and happy to answer any questions that you have thank you so much for the

presentation Sue any questions or comments from Council no none oh council member cotton sure anyone else could do this too but I just wanted to say thank you uh for studing the work to this point and for all the community members who've engaged in this and exciting uh to see next step developing okay yeah council member Li well uh Melle you may not be returning this evening so I did want to express my gratitude to to you and everyone involved in the process I've been felt comfortable and confident uh in the whole process and so I feel equally confident in these appointments thank you so much council members okay I've got one got a question I have hopefully an answer excellent um so we've had a lot of conversations on the city council and within the city about boards and commissions and establishing expectations um with this commission it's it's you know brand new it is um a topic that can generate a lot of uh emotions feelings strong opinions um what are the steps that are being taken or can be taken to ensure um Civility and um and success in the light of uh a topic that can be can be pretty um riddled with with Conflict at times I think that there's a few things that we can think about we have the the expectations that are listed at the County Council level of how boards and commissions operate so those are everyone who's serving in an Advisory Group at the county level is required to sign those there's also uh guiding principles incorporated into the EST the enabling

ordinance related to advancing racial Equity work that all commission members will be expected to move through and all the processes of the commissions will be expected to move through that set of guiding principles um something else I think a lot about is we with a any new border Commission they will have to establish their own rules of procedure and so that could include things like how members vote make decisions have discussion engage in Conflict there's also an opportunity I think to consider how we want to engage the tension of the work without necessarily indulging the drama that may come along with that there's an there's a place for constructive conflict to find things but earning alignment is going to be probably one of the best gifts that we can give over the course of this process and that may mean that we're going to be asking people to compromise to have in to have really intentional conversations and challenging conversations at the same time if there is a conversation that is causing harm and if there's active harm in the space that's worth considering in a different way right um there is language in the enabling ordinance around maybe a me if there is so much if there's a reason for someone to need to be removed from the commission there's actually a mechanism in the ordinance for the commission members to make that decision where they can vote to recommend to the the appointing bodies to have someone step down from Pro step out of the room or be removed from

the body so that's in there too and that would go that kind of coincides with some of the other processes that may exist for someone needing to be removed from the commission I personally I'm really hoping we don't reach that point right I hope that we lean into the necessary and constructive conversations where we engage the tension authentically and find Solutions together I think we where this is going to be a group that's going to need to find ways to find compromise and build bridges over the course of their processes council member Stone thank you very much for the presentation it's an exciting time I know so much work has gone into this process um a couple of things I was thinking about just because this is a public meeting and people may have interest in be watching um now or or later two things one was you indicated that applications might be held right for a period of time but confirming again the term of those positions right because this is the first slate of appointments that will be taken under consideration this evening um but we expect this work to go on for a long time um and so if community members watching are interested right in applying if that is still open and that are you accepting applications for future consideration or will that be announced at another time um and then second was but I'll stop there oh you okay we'll do one okay uh we actually are keeping all the applications and I've kept the process open so we're still we still have all of the

applications up online with a notice that the first slate process is moving forward but that if anyone is to apply we'll hold that application for one year from when they submit it in order for in order to be considered in the future and so if there are vacancies that open up over on the commission then that person if they wanted to submit an application tomorrow would just be we'd hold that aside and then get in touch with them just to confirm that they'd still like to be considered if there is a vacancy that opened that's one thing that we're doing right now does and terms are two years by ordinance with an opportunity to stagger because of staggered because of the Staggering there is in ordinance the for someone to be appointed half the Slate to be appointed for 3 years as well right now so those term limits are kind of that's how they're defined and we actually ask the commission members to indicate whether or not they'd prefer a two-year or three-year term and or if they are open to either that so just to follow that then um so you mentioned that current applications that maybe weren't selected for this round but would be held for up to a year but the terms are going to be two or three years so likely people will need to reapply in the future I mean if they're interested right at the two-year point there would be an announcement I'm assuming made for people to to come forward and participate in that process absolutely um and so the second question was sort of Beyond

maybe the scope of this but since we're here just wanting to um highlight that there's also right a call right now for an executive director um and just wanting that call to go far and wide I know that we have a number of community members um yeah local here but it sounded like it's going to be a pretty far-reaching reaching search but um just excited about yeah the possib abilities there about um yeah who will help to lead this work and I know that this is a um a transition point in some respects um but curious to if there are roles for those like yourself who've been so instrumental in carrying you know this work forward to stay involved or is this sort of a complete baton passing right I guess the people who have been so instrumental in in creating the foundation for this work to really take off um what happens next what happens uh what happens next there's a few things that might H that may and prob will happen over the next few year the next year Chuckanut is um contracted to support this work through the end of the calendar year and to support the processes to establish some initial priorities for the commission to support the incoming Ed and the onboarding process there uh I you know there's anyone who's been a part of the process so far is still welcome to continue engaging right like we as individual citizens can also follow the work to support and to be aware of what's happening and if we are able to stay more engaged then we're able to be a part of the conversation

so like I I don't know I think about it in terms of how I think of voting right if voting if voting is our only Power that we have in a Civic space then we give up our power in a Civic space 364 days out of the year so be staying engaged staying a part of the ecosystem of uh addressing this work and being a and staying building our Civic muscle and our sense of Civic belonging is an important piece that anyone who's been engaged in the work so far can continue to be a part of whether it is in a formal role or an informal role or just someone who calls up someone someone they know who's Seated on the commission and go hey you did a really good job you might have had a tough meeting today and I saw you and I'm here with you there's so many different ways we get to show up right and I feel like there's also opportunities for people to get engaged there's sections of the ordinance in the meeting structure that allow for community members to be a part of committee alongside commission members there's opportunities for folks to engage in a lot of our community- based organizations that Advance this work as a way to stay connected to this there's also opportunities to just show up at a meeting give public comment and say hey I see you guys I see the work that you're doing I'm here and this is an idea that's come up to me right and they also can always support our seated our elected officials and our seated council members and our mayor as we do this work hey I saw this let me send

you an email about this really cool thing that we're working on or they can always email me I will take any email about something that's really cool anytime and now that email address is in record so please send me really cool things that are happening that advanced racial equity in Wacom County I love to read it and I would love to share it with our incoming Ed just one more point of clarification sorry I think I know the answer to this but I just want confirmation um so you made reference to write our roles as Citizens in particular and reference then to um just that Civic engagement through the voting process I just want to confirm that a member of our community who is not a US citizen who may be a permanent resident or here on a student visa some other capacity that they are not excluded from this work they are not and uh on December 5th last year council member Galloway and council member Fred frzy had written an ordinance that remove the requirement at the county level for someone to be a registered voter in US citizen to serve on an Advisory Group from county code so now someone who is um if they're someone who is an immigrant migrant or Refugee if they would like to participate or serve on an advisory group at the county level they're able to do so and there's a responsibility maybe all of us that have positionality in this work should consider like in what ways are we also supporting those people showing up in what ways do we ensure their ability to always show up in

these spaces be able to work authentically and to be supported as they do the work so there's more work to be done but we're we've removed at least like a roadblock from process and it'll be iterative as we build Civic belonging in these spaces member Williams I do not have any questions but um I wanted to just make this comment and offer my congratulations to you and to the other people involved in developing this because as I was reviewing the names and the people involved in here I was amazed at the representation of the diverse population that we have here and some of it it has to do with uh different cultures some of it has to do with um how long a person's been here and as I read through all of this and um I was very very impressed at the strength that is represented here and as our council's representative to this I'm really looking forward to digging into this so congratulations to you and to all of you that were that have been involved in this because I think this is a giant step forward thank you council member Williams it will be so delightful to have you on the commission as the liaison member representative from City of Bellingham I'm excited to keep working with you I will take a a final stab at this um so I was very privileged to be part of dreaming about this since July of I think it was 2020 and it still feels a little unreal that we're at this point of actually talking about appointing people to this commission um at one point we thought it would take six

months to get here and uh I am just I'm so grateful for all of the work of all of the community members um who've been a part of this it was a lot of work it was mountains of work and it really does feel unreal to be here um so thank you so much for your work in this um and and with that I think we can move on to the next agenda item thank you for your presentation Sue thank you all for having me all right next up we have agenda Bill 2487 EDI program loan and Grant agreement for the Oldtown Urban Village the city of Bellingham watom County and private developers are partnering to fund infrastructure improvements for the Oldtown Urban Village the proposed infrastructure improvements include Street improvements and undergrounding of overhead utilities as outlined in the Oldtown sub area plan and the development agreement the improvements will be consistent with The Pedestrian and bicycle master plan in furtherance of the city's goals goal for transportation mode shift as outlined in the climate action plan the county has approved an application for $3 million via the economic development investment program also known as EDI the funding is a $1.5 million loan and a $1.5 million Grant the funding agreement requires a approval by both the city and county councils sta staff's recommendation is to authorize execution of the funding agreement and here to present to us is Public Works director Eric Johnston thank you Miss hman Eric Johnston public works so this uh this grant excuse me

this loan application with wam County's EDI program is to follow up on the council's approval of the ytown Redevelopment agreement that was done several months ago it's consistent with uh the approved 2324 budget which does include Monday for aort of these improvements the improvements are largely to help with the street improvements and to do some undergrounding of the power M Tera sine and the planning Community Development Pro department has been instrumental in moving this project forward Mr Wilson and I are he to answer any questions you might have specifically about the agreement but our recommendation is to approve council members council member Stone I don't have any specific questions so I would move uh move to approve the funding agreement second okay we have a motion from council member Stone a second by council member Williams any further discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I I I any opposed and any extensions and that motion passes 601 with one excused all right moving on next we have council member Anderson did you have no okay thank you all right we have agenda Bill 2489 an ordinance amending the 2023 to 2024 by annual budget amendment number 12 in November of 2023 the voters of Bellingham passed a fifth Greenways Levy for 10 years raising 9.3 million in the first year of property tax collections staff will present an overview of stewardship maintenance and operation needs with a request for an additional 9.5 full-time equivalents and new Fleet and

equipment to better manage bellingham's Park system the attached budget ordinance will will implement the staffing change and add Associated funding and here to present is Parks and Recreation director Nicole Oliver good afternoon Council Nicole Oliver Parks and Recreation director I am now downloading a presentation um here we go uh th this is really an exciting day for us I've got Steve janeski here um and we are here to talk about wonderful world of Maintenance and operations since about 200 9 uh most almost all of the new positions that were created in the operations and maintenance division including some existing ones have been paid for by Greenways um the Greenways fund has done an extraordinary job of buying and developing property but it wasn't until 2017 that a portion of that funding was available for Staffing and specifically maintenance projects and so this new Levy has made um some additional funding available that we are embracing and we are going to Lo use it to um expand our Park system uh maintenance duties with additional staff so that's what I'm here to talk about main points of these FTE will be U more boots on the ground um we want to we have a pretty uh absurd supervisor employee ratio in our in the Operations Division we have two supervisors that each have 26 and one of them has 25 and one of them has 26 direct reports um we are fairly inefficient um because there's so many different things to take care of so we're trying to really streamline some

things we're trying to create maintenance standards we're trying to be more proactive versus reactive and all the while address our priorities that are laid out very accurately and specifically in our Pro Plan and Greenways strategic plan what we maintain in operations there's 46 Parks um 3,649 AC of Park and open space we now have 86 miles of trails and we just recently uh determined that 36 miles of those Trails came from Greenways Acquisitions and development we now have four Community Gardens we just opened our fourth one we take care of the cemetery and and we we help manage the municipal golf course and that is all done with 50 full-time 13 seasonal and nine part-time Park ambassadors so over over the last specifically a decade um the park Operations Division staffing has just not kept pace with the addition of new parks um we also have with every Park development there's Wetland mitigation that after the contracted period of being cared for by a cons a contractor it gets turned over to park operations that's been a really big increase in in work workload um we have been able to convert those some existing seasonals to longer term positions you may recall we did that a couple of years ago and that has made an enormous difference on our ability to retain staff uh that are now 9month benefited positions we've also been trying to with this ask respond to some concerns from the union and I'll talk about that a little bit too so just an asset snapshot 27 restrooms and that's

in 75 different buildings um we have 165 garbage cans 5,000 Street trees 256 community garden plots that we help people maintain and 150 acres of turf we also have um taken on some new programs over the years the the dogway station on the right of the black ones are maintained by staff and the pink are main maintained by Park Stewarts that's a total of 86 when we took that on um it was about 36 and the reason for that is that our staff really really likes it when people will pick up their own poop so it's very much in our and and the and the environment's um best interest other thing uh here's Cordata Park Wetlands we're going to add to our existing uh right now we've got about um five and a half acres we're taking care of and those those after 10 years they go away but we're going to be adding another eight and a half acres of wetland mitigation in cordada park and then the volunteer program is just more and more people want to come and work in our Parks um we've been having really great success we've been expanding that program it now has uh 5.69 FTE 11,000 hours served by volunteers um in 2023 some of our statistics we emptied 1,700 yards of waste and that's something we're addressing with a new uh Fleet ask 10 miles of trails resurfaced with 1400 tons of gravel Greenways helps pay for that um we also managed the uh just in the last year 2850 facility reservations those are all all the different people who uh reserve a different picnic shelter or Pavilion for their event

or open space we spread a lot of mulch we spread a lot of seed and then we have those 86 dogway stations another thing that has um a big part of our work that and there's been a big uptick and you heard about that a little bit with um the graffiti graffiti has been a problem we spent a lot of time responding to that we had a the the somebody keeps coming into the parks and doing 360s and trashing the turf so we are working on a plan this plan is going to help us gate those parks that tend to get vandalized in that way and then uh we have deteriorating infrastructure a lot of our structures built in the 70s they're built with in the 80s they're showing signs of failure they're made of wood and we we are replacing things um the underground infrastructure is also something that's failing frequently and needs to be replaced um and then we have a huge backlog of bridge repairs that we're T taking one at a time so the new ones coming soon are the community park Phase 2 which just opened on Friday Resturant restroom at Waypoint Park which I'm really hoping is going to open very soon um we have the community of Garden at King Mountain we're taking on a playground and park at King Mountain that uh is being dedicated to the parks department um sunset con loop trail the pier at little Squalicum there's a nectar trail that we're going to be building it's going to connect the bay to Baker up to the north to ironate and then we have a Bear Creek Trail head that's underway as well off of

Northwest so the positions and this effort um started with Greenways committee and we went through parkboard and we also did a presentation with the staff and we we changed it a little bit what we decided to do was just do one supervisor at this time and then get an additional person in each of the main work groups and I think this is going to really help the morale of our staff that are feeling pretty um overwhelmed at the amount of things that keep building and handing to them to maintain so uh we also that the reappropriation of funding we have in our um we have contracted $260,000 for hazard tree removal that we were paying a contractor because we had such a trouble keeping a arborist and the workload got up to an incredible amount and it was a health and safety thing but we have now have three Techs in that group and we are going to add an arborist back into the park Department we've only had texts for a while now but we've been caught up we've caught up on a lot of the work and we don't need that contract anymore so that's existing contracted work that we're creating two new FTE um to fill that work and then the facilities maintenance you see the two techs and two M3s we're just really have in all the parks that we've created it's it's a lot of uh facilities maintenance work so that group is getting um quite a few people so that's 10 positions that's June through December and then to go along with that are some additional Fleet and Equipment um that is going to help us

do our work um more effectively and efficiently and we also are working on a motorpool shared Fleet proposal so that we don't have to get additional TRS for the additional staff we're really hopeful about that and uh working with public works that's making great progress we're I think everyone's excited about that option so that just to make sure you are aware there's more Parks coming and we plan to have um maintenance management plans with Staffing projections for each of the new parks so that we make sure that we know what we're going to need for staff before we start construction and those are another supervisor um additional facil facilities and grounds you have heard about the support that we need in the cemetery that will be coming we hope with phase two we're still PS pursuing some sort of limited commission enforcement of a park ranger type of position and then we would like to get an education and Outreach coordinator that is my presentation and I am here if you have any questions happy to answer them but we are looking for your approval um this funding will um it's about $750,000 this year and with the fleet being one-time asks and the positions funded from June to December it'll turn into similar amount between seven and about 800 that will be continuing in the next bium we'll expect those positions to continue he thank you director Oliver Council I'd like to move I'd like to move approval of of amendment number 12 to the banal bu budget second we have a motion by

council member Williams and a second by council member lillquist any further discussion council member Stone so just one question regarding the new Fleet um I understand these are fairly large vehicles I know that in public works when we're talking about the you know attempts made to look at hybrids or electric options um was any of that explored and do we know what's available to meet those needs you have any answer on that U those are large trucks correct um I don't know that there's an electrical electrified version of those one of them is to all garbage it's a large dumped truck and then the other's a one ton the mulching mower is diesel operated City policy requires that the city look first at electric vehicle options if they are available but if they are not operationally adequate to meet the needs of the city then we move on to the other options uh we are starting to see some of those larger F150 50s come onto the market as electric vehicles we're not seeing the F250s 350s 450s or larger vehicles uh and and and the requirements of those heavy duty operational trucks just aren't quite there yet but they're coming quickly we've seen chassis that are large for fire trucks and dump trucks and garbage trucks are coming electric side of things but we're probably maybe a couple years away before those might be Mass available in the market questions or comments council member Anderson thank you um so thank goodness we have the Greenways Levy so that we can expand our staffing

because completely support this uh increase because it's a lot of work but I'm just curious because I always worry what happens I know we have 10 years but if the next Greenways did not pass uh what kind of situation would we be looking at um percentage of Staffing that is funded through this Levy do you know if we're kind of reaching like you know 25% of our current Staffing or is it less or more um well it's a great question um this this will be 10 additional on top of the 17 that we have um and that includes um I mean Greenways has been this in the last bium it's about a third of our Revenue it is our cushion it is our way that we are able to get as much done as we do um and I think as you saw in the annual report the maintenance side of that pie we' we've almost maxed that out in the last Levy but this new Levy has created some additional revenue and we do see these positions going towards stewardship and climate resiliency as well as um maintenance we're also thinking about rethinking the way we talk about Wetland mitigation for instance could be be part of development funding but we also have um looking ahead 10 years I mean we were on the cusp of we spent a good eight months evaluating whether to do a Metropolitan Park District or a fifth Levy and we chose to do a levy but what the committee I've heard them talk about is the goal is to get those last pieces that we need those really critical parts of those goals that we've had um for many years um completed with this

Levy as far as acquisition and hopefully roll it into something that would be much more long-term and sustainable and I think by demonstrating the need with funding and using this this um funding to help take care of the things we own now and make them better we are also being really responsive to the community that has asked us to do that um especially now that we're we have a lot more Equity between the North and the South too with these Investments we've made with Greenways um and continue to make but I don't have a crystal ball um I just know that I need more staff and there is additional funding here and and this is our priority is to put it toward operations and maintenance just to follow up how many staff are in the parks department because if this is going to be 27 that is funded through Greenways total do you know how many uh staff members you have in Parks there's about 120 it varies seasonally it goes up to about 154 in the height or even a little higher depending depending on how many recck staff we hire at any one time but as far as full-time um it's about 120 FTE thank you council member Stone thank you so I have a question but I think it's beyond the scope of right the discussion today so maybe to put a pin in it but related to Wetland mitigation just curious to learn more about you know the cost of maintenance on that front because I know that when we're looking at for instance in Lake watcom and the Watershed right our land acquisition efforts really there is

to prevent development um my understanding with respect to the wetlands we have regulations in place that prevent development in those areas and so sometimes when there are gestures made right to donate let's say areas of land in the city um that really is subject to you know mostly Wetlands let's say I'm just curious you know how much of a a burden that actually is to the city to take that on even if it was gifted for a dollar even for free to the city what the cost because looking at this and you know the ongoing maintenance and mitigation that has to take place um it seems like that's pretty costly but we're looking at development to in the city I'm not sure we do try and um job cost our our Wetland maintenance we've also looked at a couple different ways of doing that over time um because the because it's piff we use Park impa fees and Greenways to for development um and then we use uh Reit for Street Front Frontage improvements but so we try and build that those Wetland that W Wetland development to the original fund that developed the impact um oftentimes I mean if you looked at Cordata Park we had 25 acres and 14% of it was not encumbered by Wetlands um so we have to at least build some trails to crisscross around but we also are doing uh we're also preserving what could have been an entire Urban Village in that location that would have had way more impact the cost is it's it's um it's also limited by time you only have to maintain and report on it for 10 years until

the plants are established so it's really that early years that have been sometimes costly in areas where we've had hard trouble um keeping the trees alive Cordata around Cordata tra Trail to school we ended up having to hire a consultant to help with with that but it's not a huge expense compared to the rest of development um it I think we're going to we also already H uh created a job description it's in the queue for classification for a community garden in Wetland coordinator we're hoping that's going to give a little bit more um oversight and organization and then working more closely with the um Wetland staff at natural resources which is why Eric just showed up yeah so so the Parks Department Public Works we we have a lot of very similarities when it comes to operationally and wetlands is one of those areas that uh we do very similar things um between the two departments but I want to make draw a distinction between Wetland mitigation which is tied to projects that we do have to maintain as Nicole pointed out that are when we do a project that has impacts to Wetlands we have to do mitigation for that project we then have to maintain that as a wetland mitigation project for a period of time it depends on the project the location that's different than Wetlands that are acquired by the city from their natural state or properties that might be donated to the city where those may not have the same level of effort to maintain them as a wetland if you will so when we talk m

mitigation of wetland maintenance of wetland mitigation sites those are projects that the city has undertaken I.E a new road that got built we had to mitigate for that particular Wetland we also have the Wetland mitigation bank that we are proposing where we are creating Wetlands uh and then those Wetlands need to be maintained for the benefit of wetland development or credits for development that might occur that but I want to draw the distinction between existing Wetlands that the city May own or properties that may come to us through donation or acquisition they have a different level of maintenance respons responsibilities for them uh at some point in the next nine months or so maybe the next year we'll have more of a conversation about uh the Wetland mitigation Bank we'll have some some specific cost as the cost to operate and maintain and develop those Wetlands uh Council may also recall that in the last fall we did a budget amendment in public works to convert the WCC Crews to a full-time City position this is again to help us to maintain those uh mitigation sites that we have been doing over many many many years uh and that's in a couple several hundred, per year to move those from contract ed services into um uh city employees that's battle wash uh in terms of the actual cost but it's it's not inexpensive but do do want to draw the distinction between mitigation sites and just Wetlands that are naturally existing any further discussion go ahead and call the vote all

in favor say I I any opposed extensions all right that's 60 with one excus thank you you so much director we will move on agenda Bill 2 488 presentation of the draft Urban Forest plan the city of Bellingham is creating a strategic Urban Forest plan to help maintain a healthy and desirable Urban Forest through well-coordinated consistent and sustainable long-term Urban Forest management the plan outlines a suite of action to preserve and enhance the urban Forest to help achieve goals outlined in the climate action plan and the comprehensive plan the plan is based on the aspirational goal of achieving 45% tree canopy coverage within the city in Equitable fashion as a policy document the plan creates a basis from which future reg regulations funding and programs can be based Council consideration for approval of the plan will be in early summer 2024 the plan the draft plan is available on the City website at cu.org FMP staff will present key elements of the plan and an overview of the upcoming public engagement process on the draft plan staff will also have an update on progress of the landmark tree protection ordinance and to lead us in conversation I have uh Eric Johnston of director the director of public works thank you Miss hman Eric Johnston public works so we have a couple of introductions to do today and I want to first thank Blake lion and Nicole Oliver to my left directors parks and Public Works excuse me parks and planning excuse me you can have public works if you

want it um but first before we get into introductions I just want to apologize for not having the presentation in the council packet last last week we were kind of finally these things up and I I just didn't get it sent out before the long weekend so actually short weekend I get but so my apologies for not getting that presentation to you until early this morning it will be included with the council packet minutes uh forth with so just for introductions I want to take just a minute to in uce a couple of three key people who've been working on this project for the last many years these folks are experts in their fields and I just want to make sure that we are aware of their credentials first of all Renee lroy who is the assistant Public Works director for Bellingham Renee has a bachelor's degree in science science and environmental policy and a master's degree in environmental science uh from Western Washington University with over 30 years of experience in natural resources Analise Burns is the habitat and restoration manager with with Public Works she has a bachelor's in science from in biology from west from the University of Washington and a master's Environmental Studies from Western Washington University with emphasis in Environmental Policy she's a certified professional Wetland scientist and a lead accredited professional with over 25 years in natural resources management and joining us as from the Consulting side of this particular project is Diamond Head Consulting

and uh Miss Amelia Nida is joining us online she's been here with us Council before uh Diamond Head Consulting is a is a is a firm established in 2001 they're an awardwinning consulting firm having completed over 3,000 projects for over a th000 clients across North America their team has over 70 registered professional planners Foresters biologists designers arborists and GIS Specialists Amelia specifically has over 15 years of experience in Forest management and urban forestry both as a municipal staff member and a consultant Amelia has been the project manager or leading team member on the development of urban Forest strategic regulatory technical planning projects for Vancouver Richmond Calgary Melbourne Australia Metro Vancouver courtne Campbell River etc etc etc etc Amilia has also administered private tree bylaws and experience in revising and developing tree bylaws and en devel environmental development permit area guidelines uh and prior to joining Diamond Head Amilia was the urban forestry for the city of Melbourne Australia where she received M awards for her work with that and so with that I'll turn it over to anal be excuse me anelise Burns who's going to take us through a presentation uh it's about 35 slides we've got uh some things to go through and we'll take it from there hey thank you again I'm Analise Burns I'm the habitat and restoration manager Public Works and we are really excited to be here today this is um multiple presentations have been brought forth

to council this is one in a series the last time that we were here and was in November of 2023 where we received some guidance from Council on how to proceed with drafting a plan and we are here today to present that draft plan in accordance with that guy we're going to go through a project overview in case people don't have the background that we're talking about then we'll go through the draft Urban Forest plan itself couple of key highlights then some con see some key considerations oh H thank you jck this is what happens when I have too many buttons okay this was all the only slide that I that you didn't see um so we'll do the project overview then the draft Urban Forest plan itself go through key key uh highlights of that plan some key considerations that were um part of developing the plan and then our next steps and as uh director Johnston just mentioned we have a wonderful team that has been brought brought us through this multi-year process uh he introduced Amelia Adoba who's here with us today and she represents a a wide ranging area of expertise within Diamond Head Diamond Head has um planners and Foresters and biologists and GIS analysts uh and an Outreach experts that are part of her team as well and I two key subc Consultants that are worth mentioning we have an equity subc consultant as part of the team Mary Duma of Duma Associates and then um a project adviser is Dr Melissa male from UBC it's also really important to note that this is a multidisciplinary

project and so it requires multiple departments to be involved as well so from the city Side I'm up here giving you a presentation but really there's a whole Cadre of of folks behind me who have been supporting this work uh a lot of time has gone into it from multiple departments including public works department Parks and Recreation Department planning and Community Development Department the fire department and the mayor's office of climate so let's just make sure we're all talking about the same thing uh what is an urban Forest so an urban Forest is all the trees vegetation soils Associated natural processes cultural elements found in towns cities and other communities where people reside so that's a general broad uh definition for what an urban Forest is you can make that really simple to just say all the trees we're talking about all the trees we're talking about uh trees on private property public property and we're talking about a single tree in a backyard a street tree along a Boulevard or a forest in a park or any open space and for our P purposes we're talking about within the city of Bellingham limits so why do we care about an urban Forest there are many reasons why we're pursuing this work I encourage folks if they haven't seen prior presentations to go back specifically to the September 2023 or the November 2023 presentation where we went through in detail some of the benefits of an urban Forest but just briefly um there's habitat and biodiversity benefits

they're critical habitat for many fish and wildlife species there's Health and Social benefits reducing stress uh recreational benefits cultural identity for our community there's storm water benefits for absorbing water reducing runoff erosion and there's economic benefits and there is a calculator that we have estimated some of the benefits that uh go into uh an urban forest and just a fraction of some of those benefits is in the order of $6.3 million per year another reason why we want to pursue an urban Forest management uh efforts is to help meet our climate action plan goals so specifically in the land use section of our Urban excuse me of our climate action plan is a natural system protection and restoration measure talks about sequestering carbon and urban forests help us do that by protecting and conserving forests we can sequester carbon that includes Street trees and our Landscaping practices and then also restoration of degraded lands helps us restore or excuse me um sequester carbon in addition to sequestering carbon Urban forests help with climate adaptation so when we think about adaptation we're thinking about how we can be a resilient community in the face of um the challenging climate impacts and urban forests help provide shade for streams lakes and wetlands as we increase temperatures provide shade to reduce heat island effects for humans within our uh more uh Urban Landscapes Urban forests provide habitat diversity and resilience so the more diversity in

habitats we have the more resilient an ecosystem will be as we see changing climate and then of course uh by actively and carefully managing our Urban Forest we can reduce Wildfire risk so those are some of the reasons why we want to pursue an urban Forest plan now uh what is an actual plan an urban Forest plan is a strategic plan that helps maintain a healthy and desirable Urban Forest through well-coordinated consistent efficient and sustainable long-term urban forestry management and as many of you know we value trees and we have um for a very long time in the city of Bellingham we've been a tree City USA for decades and there's a lot of efforts that we have that we can point to over the years but what we've lacked is that overarching strategic plan to ensure that we're coordinating these efforts and we're all headed toward a common goal so we have been pursuing creating our first urban Forest plan that's um listed in the comprehensive plan and something that we should do back in 2016 and it's always been envisioned as a multiphase project first phase was assessment that was completed in 2021 second phase was Community Values reaching out to our community and say what do you expect from an urban Forest what do you want that was completed in 2022 and now we are developing the plan itself as we develop the plan and bring this draft plan forward to you I want to note that there are some things that are commonly understood as actions we can take right now there's not very much

argument about whether we should pursue them so we are pursuing early actions simultaneously with bringing you um the the draft plan and at the um Public Works committee this afternoon will go through some of those early actions as part of the new Community Tree programs now on to the actual draft plan here's the cover page page to show you it's real and inside is a um table of contents we'll just go through the the general uh what the contents are it is available online now uh and the U public feedback is being accepted as of today so the uh contents uh when you see it online or in your packet or however you um are able to access the plan is seven different sections the first section is an introdu C just talking about what is urban forestry a little bit like what we just went through now the importance of an urban forest and then it goes in section two is to specific to Bellingham what does our Urban forest look like those are really the results of phase one which was um the extent of our Urban Forest the health of our Urban Forest how is the distribution and the equity to access um tree benefits that's that second section breaks it down by neighborhood as well section three is our existing management context so how do we manage our uh Forest today and what are the different laws and policies and programs that we have in place that are part of forest management oops uh section four is the vision goals and targets so this was really the the new work that we needed to do as a

community to say what do we want from our Urban Forest what are our shared goals and then um are we what are the targets we're trying to hit in the future number five would be a breakdown of those goals there's six goals and then uh number six which is probably the most exciting section for everyone is an actual implementation section so how are we going to hit that Target under those six goals what are we going to do about it that's our implementation plan and of course there's references so this is the vision I'm going to go through a couple of those sections in a little bit more detail not all of them but just a couple of key highlights one is the vision this is our draft Vision bellingham's healthy and resilient Urban Forest enhances the quality of life for all residents supports Associated ecological functions and contributes to The Climate mitigation and adaptation needs of our entire Community these are the six goals uh a little bit larger so you can see them better uh and they're they uh represent the findings that we had in phase two which is when we reached out to the community and said what was important to you what do you expect that's what helped us write these six goals and they U represent a diverse range of ideas that we heard and they range from protecting and expanding the urban Forest um touches on habitat and movement corridors and um goal two number three is focused on the management kind of theer operations and um maintenance section of our Urban Forest

number four is adapting the urban forest for climate change goal five is collaborating with diverse Community reaching out and having Partnerships and number six is monitoring an adaptive strategies so we make sure that we're hitting that Target and adapting along the way so another part of the plan is that Target so we had our vision we had our goals now where where are we trying to get to and that's uh the guide gu that we got from Council in uh November of last year and that was to have a growth Target of 45% canopy cover so if you remember um our Baseline was 2018 imagery where we understood that our city currently or back in 2018 has 40% canopy cover and um when Council said we want to grow it to 20 to um 45% that was um by 2050 and so this chart was or this um diagram was presented back in November I'm just going to review it again so people understand what this means um there is always an expectation that there's going to be canopy loss or tree loss trees die naturally or there's development that happens so you need to account for that loss that's what the gray bar is so the green is existing trees and forests that remain the gray is loss that we're going to see through development or natural die off and then the blue would be how much we need to to increase canopy more tree planting to offset the loss and then to also grow it from 40% to 45% uh by 2050 so as you can see um our projection is that we're trying to get to 42% by 2030 and then 20 um 45% by 2050 and that

net gain is the purple line another part of the plan um is our report card so these are all components that are building toward that implementation that I that I mentioned so we have a vision we have goals we now have a Target and we have a report card so a report card is looking at um how we how we're doing so far and where we need to improve so this report card is based on some industry standards um several of them so they're they're listed here on the slide the report card is based on the sustainable Urban Forest manag M framework also best practices academic research and the sustainable Urban forest or sustainable forestry initiatives Community Forest standards so those were the components that were used to tailor a report card specifically for the city of Bellingham and for our six goals that we identified in this draft plan so the report card I have a snapshot of uh the report card the full report card is available in the plan it's divided by each of the six goals and then under the goals are some aspects that we're looking at to see how well is the city doing right now for um uh Concepts under that goal and um what you'll see this is has four of them that you can see on the on the slide here there's a grade that you're getting U from poor to um yellow to uh good is good and optimal or green and so um you can see some of the attributes let's say um take the third one down because it's it's in the lower category ecosystem Services targeted in tree planting projects and

Landscaping so how are we doing currently on that um we're maybe in the fair category and then the purple is indicating where we want to be so the idea is we want to build an urban Forest plan that takes into account our vision our goal our six goals or Target of 45% by 2050 and then also moving where we no we're not doing as well as we want to into um the area that where we want to be the purple and many of those is um optimal and in some areas we've selected good as um appropriate for our actions so all of these components then build into the implementation plan so the implementation section of the report is divided into two sections it's there's an action plan and a monitoring plan so the action plan is a 10-year plan and it has actions for each of the six goals each six of goals you'll see actions underneath them and for each action there's a cost associated with that action a time frame that we hope to implement that action and a responsible entity meaning a department a city Department that would be responsible for implementing that action and this was a very intentional way of writing this action plan because we did not want this to be report that just sat on the Shelf we wanted it to actually be implemented and for us to have enough guidance to uh know how to add it to our work plan to our budgets and know if we're on track so the monitoring plan is that are we on track part of it right so the um monitoring plan is built into the urban Forest plan so that we can track

our progress are we getting to 45% canopy cover by 2050 we have performance indicators that we want to measure method that we're going to measure it and the time frame we're going to measure it in so we're going to dive a little bit deeper into that action plan I've said that under each action or sorry under each goal of the six goals there are actions so I just wanted to break this down a little bit more so people understood what I'm talking about this is um a screenshot of goal one this isn't all of the actions under goal one there are 70 over 70 actions total in the plan but I'm going to give you um a small version so that we can understand how to read the action plan so act or goal one is protect and expand the urban Forest you can see there's eight actions associated with that then there's a column with a cost time frame and responsibility the cost has a dollar symbol the dollar symbol is um a indicates a level of of cost and these are based on real numbers so these are based on our budgets that we've had over years it's based on our Consultants guidance of what they've seen in other municipalities um and then the time frame is four time frames we have quick start which is 2024 establish which is the next five years and then we have um build which is from 6 to 10 years out and then strengthen which is after 10 years so the time frame is just in these fiveyear categories basically the responsibility is uh the department and as you read through the actions some are easier

to do than others and some of that um difficulty can be seen in the different cost or the different time frame so here's another example this is goal three manage the urban Forest which is probably the most challenging um goal of all of them and you'll see that the cost the Dumber of dollar signs went up dramatically in this example and um so$ onear sign is somewhere in the range of you know less than $10,000 or just staff time so a pretty small Financial lift but something with five doll signs means more than a million dollars and uh four is you know more than 150,000 and then the time frame what you'll see is sometimes an action is just for one time frame for instance number 32 apply for available state and federal grants um you might make a big push let's say in the first five years um and there isn't a whole lot of outlay after that point but there might be other actions that require a lot of money to to implement that action and that's going to be a continual action that's going to happen from then on maybe an ongoing cost and that's why you'll have a time frame that mentions multiple um multiple categories so this is the time I'm going to bring out the Rope again and remind us that uh this has been challenging it has taken us a while to come uh with a plan that we believe is going to be successful and part of that is is taking this seriously to say we have a lot of very important Community Values that we're trying to make sure are working together they're synergistic

and that um when we're weaving Urban forestry now into our other community values that we're going to end up with a stronger hole and as we did that and we looked at the 45% canopy cover Target there were some key considerations that we took into to play and I wanted to go through a couple of those for you to make sure that you understood that we know that you wanted us to consider um these attributes and uh and what what they really mean so first is equity we looked at Equity um and when we talk about equity and trees we're talking about the access to the benefits of trees and um there are lots of benefits to trees as we went through before recreational shade Health um but we have areas of our city where there are a lot of trees and some where there's not a lot of trees so it's not the trees themselves are not equally distributed and then our population is not uh equal everywhere either we don't have a uniform population some we have some areas with higher vulnerable populations or higher density of populations and so what we did was we took um a uh the American Forest tree Equity score meth methodology it's a pretty standard methodology to look at both the tree canopy where are the trees currently today together with 2020 census data and um together those factors were um put into a score to say um how where are the areas that you need to increase tree canopy cover to increase the equitable distribution of those benefits so the score is in the left hand part of the slide and

the lower the score the lower the benefits of trees um to the population and American Forest suggests that uh communities have a target of trying to get above 75 the score 75 so areas that are lower than 75 is really where we want to concentrate a lot of efforts in um additional tree planting so another consideration is land use and I'm G to pass it off to Blake who's G to take us through a couple of slides thank you for allowing me to ins myself a little bit in this I wanted to uh touch on this a little bit in uh simply that provide maybe a little bit of guidance or structure on how I'm hoping that you Andor the the public will look at this particular um slide and the information that's represented it and the thing that I wanted to encourage you know when you're looking at this type of thing uh especially when there's multiple different data points um the value in this is really in its broadest sense it's in the sense that when you look at one particular column it's not either good or bad it's a matter of looking at it in terms of how it relates to something else um and the different information that you can glean from that and really the importance is where we can find balance and opportunities and look for places to add value so if if one were to look at this and you um in particular looked at like for example the letter streets um where you have a canopy coverage an existing canopy coverage of 16% or maybe Roosevelt at 18% natural inclination is say okay that's a low

score that's not necessarily a very positive um type of thing but then you start to look at some of these other components that go along with it and you realize well neither one of those two communities has really the benefit of a large riparian Corridor going through there and so it too has a maybe a lower corresponding number but then you come over over into the population density calculators on the on the column here with the blue and you realize that those are at least on this graphic two of our our largest and most accommodating with the amount of density that's provided within those particular neighborhoods and they tend to be very walkable compact environments and so again while much of this is provided through the lens of uh ecology and and the forestry component I encourage those looking at it not just just to look at that from a sole single Source but to consider the broader range of implement implementation as we begin to um go through this plan and think about the implementation of it um and thinking about the built environment there's an important component to thinking about um and you all will be doing this in multiple different conversations outside of just today's and this afternoon's venue when we start talking about parking minimums and requirements there when we talk about maybe the middle housing and different components associated with that that we need to find a balance and try to identify what are the right trees for the right locations and it's not

just a one- siiz fits-all so I just encourage folks as they look at this particular information to kind of keep that in mind as you move forward um the next slide gives you a little bit of a a introduction into that this graphic is one that I'm borrowing from the Department of Commerce and it's part of the discussion that they have um as you get into middle housing so this is an illustration that shows all the houses that are basically in your light gray or white color are intended to represent existing homes and then those that are in the various different color shaded are intended to be the addition of middle housing forms that are added into existing neighborhood context and the point that I bring up in all of this is as we begin to think about about those things and try to balance that out with the needs of our canopy loss and gains it's important to try to find ways and opportunities to do all of those things and so we didn't want to do one at the exclusion of the other but think about this and a in a kind of more uh comprehensive and total manner so I'm going to leave it at that but if you do have any questions or if there is a desire to get into any um typical or specific information we can certainly do that for you in a slightly dive thanks Blake so um this is getting to that multiple values we're trying to weave the multiple values and not leaving uh one out of the discussion uh as Blake just mentioned and as we do that Blake just mentioned that we don't have a

one-size fits-all right so we heard from Council 45% canopy cover Target by 2050 great that sets us on a trajectory uh but we can't have 45% canopy cover everywhere that would be too blunt of a tool to use and so uh we know that we need to have the nuances of our neighborhood character and uh the different attributes of you know a commercial area is not the same as an industrial it's not the same as a residential and so how how do we break that down that 45% canopy cover down to meaningful bite-sized pieces as um councilman list has asked us to do many times and we are happy to to show our work um this is uh looking at that multiple values saying okay how do we how do we have it to where um we can put it in bite-sized pieces so we understand where we're going and getting to that overall 45% canopy cover so this is a breakdown by land use type and the very bottom line is Bellingham total so what you'll see is um a total area of strata that just means the total acreage of trees that we currently have and then a 2018 canopy cover so you'll see we're at 40% in 2018 as we've been talking about and want to get to the urban Forest plan Target of 45% so what net change do we need to have so Citywide that's easy it's 5% but by land use type we need to look more nuanced at each of these land uses and this graph is showing that um there are different targets that we've set for different land uses and then that means an a um nuanced net change for each of those land uses and we've

ordered this slide right now by the total area of strategy so the the the um lines at the top are the areas that have the most Forest acreage and the lines at the bottom are the the least Forest acreage as of 2018 and a couple things to note we're going to see a couple versions of this um um table so I just want to go through a couple of things um the top two categories in acreage critical areas in our city and already developed sites have the highest canopy coverage have the most trees today and um followed by rof way and one of the things you'll see jumped out to me as a biologist right away was um critical areas for instance has 49% canopy cover in 2018 and we're saying that the target is 57 why would you have 57 why don't you just have 100% was I think my exact comment to our consultant if it's a critical area make it forested and of course right not every critical area can be forested right we have lakes you can't have Forest on lakes um another uh good example would be we have wam Creek that goes through downtown what the critical areas means is our regulatory buffer so regulatory buffer on wam Creek through downtown is 100 feet we don't have 100 ft of forested buffer on wam Creek in many areas downtown we have existing development that predated our critical areas regulations and our Shoreline codes and um it would be unreasonable to assume that everywhere in downtown inham that's alongside that 100t regulatory buffer is going to be forested by 2050 we are trying to

bring our critical areas into compliance with our regulatory buffer but we also need to have a reasonable lens of what's going to happen by 2050 so that's part of the nuances that go into the target that's selected so another uh item that's worth mentioning is the other city-owned property that when always comes up people don't know what we're talking about when we say other city-owned property but if you look at the other categories we have community and neighborhood parks and we have right of way so it's other community property that's not that so you can see think City Hall uh the semetery um the library other city-owned Parcels that are not um right away they're not uh Parks a neighborhood park or a community park so I'm going to share uh another ordering of this slide this is the same information just reordered and it's ordered by the net change so it has the highest percent canopy increase at the top lines and the and the loss at the bottom and a couple of things I wanted to note is that we are expecting some land use categories to lose a canopy cover and this calculation was um very informed deeply by the um buildable lands assess M that's in that's going into the comp plan saying what's the development that we expect and need to have in the city of Bellingham when we look at affordable housing and meeting our state regulations and um new housing bills and so a lot of uh areas are going to see a canopy loss we need to have other areas have a canopy gain and of course

there's different acreages assigned um to each land use so if we look at um the top two areas that were project that were proposing for increased canopy coverage it's mixed use low density development and already developed areas I want to note that those are private land we did learn in phase two or sorry phase one that the greatest acreage of forest is on private land in the city of Bellingham and the greatest potential for Forest increase is on private land so this does require a Community Partnership and it's not insignificant the financial burden that may um be incurred by private uh community members and so we needed to take that into consideration when setting these targets and setting it at something that was reasonable for the community couple things to note there and more things to note uh right of way and parks are at zero it doesn't mean that there's going to be no uh tree loss or tree gain it means that the balance will be zero so we are going to have Trails built and and roads built and R of ways and Community Parks we're going to have um some development occur there's going to be some loss and then there'll be tree planting to offset that so that you have a net zero so these uh categories do assume full buildout of our anticipated development so we are not trading housing types or the amount of development it's not trees or housing we're assuming full buildout of our buildable lands assessment and then where can we fit trees in with the remaining space this is

one more depiction of that same data this is that net canopy change that yellow column that you saw before and now it's in a bar graph showing you um on the left hand side the greatest gains by land use so the greatest um proposed canopy increase the mixed use low density and the already developed land uses having an increase of 12% and then the furthest on the right is future arterials having a loss and anticipated proposed loss of 44% I want to just articulate one Nuance to this and that is that this is these are the percentages so this is the percent change but the acreages matter so future arterial there's only 51 Acres that we're calculating um for future arterials that 51 Acres might be reduced by 44% so the total number of tree loss is um relatively low even though the percentage change is the highest the mixed use low density and already developed those are some of our highest acreage areas so already developed has over 5,000 Acres of trees and we're saying that it's going to increase by 12% so that is actually a lot of actual trees on the ground that we're talking about because the acreage is so much higher okay so this is the final key consideration was cost and we spent a lot of time looking at how do we fund and resource an excellent Urban Forest program we all want an excellent program but how do we do it by limiting the financial impacts and do it in a way that that we can pay for so we have worked in a multip multiple Department project here to to calculate the

additional funding needed for implementation and again this is divided into four of those time frames quick start is this year what what can we do this year what's the funding needed for this year um establish is years 1 through five what's the cost in that range build is 6 to 10 what do we need uh financially to fund the project those years and then strengthen would be after you know after the 10year period what would be an annual uh projected cost $100,000 I want to give credit the council thank you so much for approving the BM budget that approved $100,000 to get some of these actions done right away that we know need to happen so we're spending that $100,000 right now and you'll hear more at 3:15 today establish we're projecting $ 25 to $30 million and that 5year time period is what would need to fund the actions in this plan and that is in the range of 5 to six uh million dollars a year so if you think annually a lot like I do a lot of people are thinking budgets annually that might be a number that's easier for you to get your head wrapped around build is 50 to 55 million or in the range of 10 to1 million a year and strength then would be in the range of 11 to 12 million dollar a year so that's an annual cost the range is depicting a level of uncertainty we don't know for sure exactly how all of these actions are going to play out but is our best informed estimate so that there there is a range and there's also uh inflation built into this so that thus the range so

let's look at okay H how exactly were those numbers derived uh we won't go through the entire plan because there's over 70 actions but I'm going to give you an example so you can understand how uh the methodology we use to get to those costs so this is our favorite example of goal one protect and expand the urban Forest here's the first eight actions we have that cost column that cost was an actual number so this this one that I've highlighted is less than 10,000 or just staff time and then what time frame was it uh anticipated for this one was quick start okay so that's a a cost and a time frame another one might be a in the range of $150,000 or more and it but it's in the established time frame so what we did was we took uh each time frame and each cost and could calculate the cost per time frame so if we look at an example of establish we would take all of the establ all of the actions that were listed for an established time frame in all six actions or sorry in all six goals total up the cost and this is what we would get to so for an establish um in the one to 5 years from now each goal if you total up each goal's actions uh for goal one it would be $870,000 for that time frame goal two the actions that were listed for the established time frame would be $30,000 for goal three remember that really challenging operations and maintenance goal um was over 25 million goal four is 40,000 goal 5 150 and goal uh six is 70,000 so what you can see is the goals are not equal there

are some goals that cost a lot more than others um and goal 3 is definitely the more expensive and the costs for goal three are ongoing costs in general so they are when do we want to start incurring those costs and then once we start incurring them the idea is that they would be operations costs so then they would continue through time so again that's how we ended up uh with this total so in summary uh the draft plan that we're presenting today is based on a 45% canopy cover Target we believe it is doable we have figured out an implementation uh plan that we believe in and we believe that's good for our community we believe it's achievable it is aspirational it's we are we're hitting high this is something that 45% canopy cover is challenging to get to with a a city of our size and the development that's in front of us but we believe we can do it it does require joint effort by the public and private sectors the public sector cannot do it alone we don't have the acreage and we don't have um uh frankly the the power to do it by ourselves and finally it requires significant financial investment to to get it done so next steps we are open today I'm um so excited uh our community outreach team has done such a great job bringing this plan to the public today engage Bellingham is open and we are um starting our community feedback on the draft plan feedback will be taken in between now and May 15th we have an the report is online engag Bellingham is open with several tools U we're

going to have an openhouse or um I think we're calling it a a community feedback session and we have three small group sessions so there's going to be in a variety of formats so online and in person as well to try and during the day and in the evening to try to make it as uh accessible to people as possible and all of the information is available at cob.org UFM after the feedback period is concluded we're going to come back to council for a couple of presentations first will'll be and we're targeting summer first will be an engagement summary so telling you what we heard from the community and then finally we're going to incorporate that that Community feedback into a final plan and bring that final plan to you for review and approval uh so there's no action that is um proposed for today this is an information only to let you know what we're bringing out to the community and we will incorporate that Community feedback into the plan for your review at the end as always information is being kept on our urban forestry management plan website people can access that using the URL at the top and um if people don't want to miss any opportunities for input and uh they can sign up there's been an online sign up for the last three years and they um it's been a great tool for people to make sure that they get updates with that I'll stop and any questions oh Cole has concluding remarks thanks Nicole we also uh wanted to give you an update on the landmark tree protection ordinance this

was something that U mayor Fleetwood instructed us to bring forward kind of as an it's a it's a it's in the goal number one uh to establish better tree protection regulation this has proved to be a little more complicated than we thought and but we have worked together Public Works planning and Parks um and we will have a draft for you by May 20th we anticipate doing an interim ordinance that will protect trees all trees that are larger than 36 in and will have a mechanism to um nominate additional trees for other reasons as well as a list of criteria um that would have to be met in order to have one of those trees removed we'll have a permitting enforcement and violation provisions and it'll be regulatory ordinates that we plan on bringing forward on the 20th that's something we promised just wanted to I know a lot of people are waiting for that so we wanted to make sure including May L thank you right and thank you anelise for that presentation um we are at time for this committee so maybe if we can keep it to critical questions uh and conversation to keep uh make sure we get to dinner tonight uh council member list I have 20 20 minutes of conversation so I can't squeeze it in now is there is there a chance that we could come back to this maybe in committee rather than Committee of the whole or something um there'll be a month or two of public feedback it seems we we would have a council feedback session somewhere in the next couple weeks as well we're open to that

recommend it comes to the committee of the whole as this would touch both both planning Public Works and parks department so recommend for hold if that would be the council's wish well that would be my wish so I'll see what the rest of council think council member Stone yeah I would support um council member Li request to bring this back for further discussion obviously we'll get feedback over the next it looks like a month um until May 15th from the public and one of my requests and I haven't I haven't had the chance to go online yet to to look at this plan more in depth um but thinking about visualization for the community and myself as far as mapping right I'm thinking about in particular when right this chart that you shared where I understand the complexity of it where you're looking at land use types as well as the amount of acreage which is key to consider but then that canopy cover percentage and the Target and then that net change I'm expecting a a reaction right from from community members in particular thinking about how it looks on paper with mixed use high density I mean um the residential right medium density and high density and looking at a loss right and canopy coverage in those areas and how that feels to people living in areas of our city that are going to be absorbing a large right amount of the increased density and so being able to see the proximity of those areas to Parks or Open Spaces right because we're not able to look at everything in isolation so

I feel like it would be beneficial to be able to see the bigger picture and obviously as a city I understand why it's important to be looking at that 45% Citywide rather than as you initially proposed right to it would be um pretty difficult subscribing that 45% to like everybody equally throughout the city so I understand why it needs to be done that way but I think visualization would help yeah if I might encourage for folks to spend some time looking at the nearly 90 pages of documents in the in the plan there's a specific figure figure 12 which gets exactly to that point locates on a f five acre grid we wanted to use those two tables or three tables which are variations on how that was presented because we were hearing from some groups that the city was targeting a 45% on all parcels and tracks in the city we wanted to communicate that that was not the case so that was why we highlighted that particular graphic in this presentation but the plan itself does cover different ways to present that information for different locations and a way I think that's getting to what you're trying to address um would maybe ask the council when would you like to have that work session about Council feedback we're anticipating the public comment would end probably the middle of May time frame so uh maybe the first meeting in June might be good for that Council work session followed up by another session after that for the feedback and then Council consideration of the final plan probably

towards August or September time frame ccil Stone followup well just I thought that um director line I wasn't sure if you had yeah I I just wanted to add a little bit of comment to Eric the the slide that I presented that had the kind of land use portion of it just to in response to your uh line of questioning kind of the uh four the three far right columns also on there have the miles of forested Trail based on per neighborhood the Parkland areas acreages uh per neighborhood and then the number of homes with uh Forest within a certain distance and so that can also arrive a little bit of what you're telling it's not mapped out the way that Eric referenced in the different uh piece but it gives you a little bit of indication of that everything council member list and then council member Anderson I really can't wait till June if if you don't mind it's council's choice I the the the the your your your direction as to when we come back that's tough I mean because I think some of it there's some important fundamental feedback that I'd like to give and been on this for well now nearly a decade um I I would like an earlier opportunity um I think there are ways that we can increase tree Equity while still allowing canopy loss and one of the ways we can do that is to stop thinking neighborhood by neighborhood because those boundaries are misleading I supposedly live in an area that is tree poor that's because Fair Haven has got a giant an industrial Marine area and an urban cor it's

it's not disfavored in any real sense but when you draw a neighborhood boundary you create these artifacts so I mean I I much prefer the analyses which goes by type and if we can show canopy loss goes with increased tree Equity that would be quite something and I think we can do that because canopy loss can often be development and then you can increase trees near that development so you lose trees in one sense but you can still gain equity in others I I I'm afraid we're using measurements which may be misleading I think maybe the only question I would have about when do we come back for that work session if you with the council does that before or after we have the summary of the public feedback that might inform some of the conversation that that'll be ready in June time frame but if you want to do that in the council work session in advance of that we're happy to do that whenever you so requested M stand yes in resp response to that I mean I would um I would be amenable to having the opportunity to provide feedback after we can also I mean one having time to look at the plan more in depth myself as well as having that public feedback available do we have a time frame I guess the better question maybe do we have a time frame for when this would be coming to council and a vote would be expected participating the public engagement would would conclude onor around the 15th of May time frame and just the time to get that summarized back to council 1 June or would be mid June

we'd prefer mid June these things take some time to put together but one of the other pieces that I'll offer to you councilman Mist um that may may help you is that we're anticipating bringing back the minimum parking discussion in May and then you'll also have the opportunity for the landmark tree ordinance also in May and so those those will be very uh informed discussions that will help influence a little bit of this consider ation so it may give you an opportunity to kind of think about this topic with those influences as well council member Anderson did you have a a relevant comment to this topic go ahead I do thank you um I personally would like to because we don't have time and I do have questions specific to um having read the plan a couple times last night so I for one would app appreciate meeting or having this come back at our next session so we can process those questions then we can also after the you know mid June after the public has had a chance to weigh in then revisit it um I personally don't want to wait two and a half months to comment about this presentation um and uh plan that has been brought to us so that's one thought originally why I put my my hand up um one of the things that I felt was really lacking that we had asked about a year and a half ago was to have other municipalities um tree protection ordinances not pre other municipalities uh Urban Forest plan to be looked at so that we can see perhaps some best practices as an example um I'm not sure

if that was done uh but I would like more information on that so if there is anybody else in Washington or on the west coast who has a good plan in place who has maybe been ahead of the curve than us and have been able to do some analysis of what is working and what is not working I I would really like to be able to get that information back I thought that would be part of this plan um and it was something specifically Council asked for I think it was like a about a year ago in October so um if somebody could address that we can wait until as long as we're not waiting till June um I can have someone uh share their thoughts on that um when we uh resume this conversation and the other side of it is I when I saw the timing of this being in the afternoon and we started at 1 this is such a big project and we've been waiting four years for this and for 45 minutes to be given when a majority of that has been a staff presentation um I hope in the future that the lens of how much time we really need so we don't have to bring it back that consideration would be made this should have been probably come in at 10 o'clock and given us a good hour and a half um I know council member liquis will have questions I have about six or seven um so far um and at a consideration to make sure everybody has dinner uh I'm not going to try to force the hand of going through them now but I really don't want to wait till June to do it may uh I have heard from Council and let's plan to come back in May to

continue this conversation with Council let's be able to be available to listen to council's questions and initial feedback and then my suggestion is is that we continue the public engagement process as planned and then come back in June where we'll have a conversation that's informed both by Council feedback in May and the public engagement process and I think director Johnson can speak to the process about evaluating other Ci's urban forestry plant I can speak to that so we did not provide copies of what other municipalities have been doing with their urban forestry plan but we have relied on our well qualified expert firm Diamond Head Consulting who has done this work over over 3,000 projects over a thousand different ients that they are bringing that to us their expertise in in the synthesis of those best practices to bear in the city of Bellingham so uh we have not provided copies of what other cities have done but we have provided the best recommendations of these experts in recommending this for the city of Billingham based on the feedback that we've received from our community during the public process Stone yeah um I mean I'm in support of I think of it as a continuation right this presentation was brought forward there wasn't sufficient time for discussion and so having that continue basically it would be the um May 6th I think is our next council meeting it would be the discussion part of of this presentation um to continue that my question with respect to timing I

understand that public engagement or that feedback period will end miday is what was the time frame for when staff's looking to finalize this plan the the intent was to have the public comment into middle of May time frame come back in the latter part of June based on Council feedback direction would then schedule the next time for Council approval but I think based on what the mayor is recommending would come schedule an item for work session discussion continued conversation at the first meeting in May we'll get that on the calendar for consideration and we'll propose to put an hour on the time frame with the agenda Bill and uh go from there if you don't mind Janice uh council member Stone are you asking when is the ultimate time that we're will be looking for Council approval of a final plan will you repeat what you said so so to be direct on that I'm not sure I can give a date to that because that will largely depend on a council response to the presentation in June so we'll come back with the response based on the engagement review there's a two step process we proposed one was the presentation of the public feedback from this next step that'll be the second meeting in June currently scheduled then following that a meeting in July or August on Council approval of the plan but that will depend on council's progess so I can't say when the council is going to approve it because I that'll be up to you but anticipating all things going well as considered we'll have a plan for

your consideration for approval in July or August time frame and anything further and I I also mentioned that that as Nicole director Oliver mentioned we'll be coming back with direct with the interim uh Landmark tree ordinance that will provide protections for those trees 36 in diameter and larger and certain specified uh Landmark trees based on the definition for Council action at the second meeting in May and as as we are contemplating that that's an ordinance that would go into eff immediately it would not require uh it would go into fact immediately followed by the date for a public hearing and the normal process to go through for for more uh not inter implementation of that draft ordinance now can articulate the timing on that better but the idea is to come with an ordinance that would be approved in the month of May there's nothing further thank you so much for the presentation we will have more conversation at our next meeting um we are 15 minutes over we have have one item left and that is old and new anybody have I see nothing so we will adjourn to Executive session we have four items uh litigation ofen Pearson V Co and lions litigation gari vcob and then two potential property Acquisitions we will be back hopefully by 3:15 p.m.