Scottsdale unanimously adopts Shade and Tree Plan guidelines, commits to enforceable ordinance conversion

Um, welcome to the Scottell Development Review Board. Yes. Did somebody interrupt me? No. Okay, just these guys. We're We're having a meeting. All right, let's start over. Good afternoon and welcome to the Scottdale Development Review Board uh public meeting.

The purpose of the development review board is to maintain the quality of development in Scottdale by reviewing all of the design aspects of a proposed development and the relationship of the design components to the surrounding environment and community. The board also reviews all preliminary plots for subdivisions to um assure conformance to policies and ordinance requirements.

Uh the agenda consists of roll call, public comment on non-aggendaized items, administrative report, minutes approval of prior prior meeting and action items. Um so a roll call vote will be taken after each item's motion. The liaison will call each board member's name to indicate their desired vote for that item. After the vote has been counted, the leison may read out the final vote.

Citizens wishing to speak during public comment time or to speak specifically on an agenda item may fill out a blue request to speak card and give it to the staff before the agenda item is to be discussed. Citizens interested in submitting written comment on any item can submit a yellow written comment card. When called, please come to the podium, state your name and address, and then begin speaking.

Groups wishing to speak should elect a spokesperson to represent the views of the group to facilitate the meeting. Your comment will be um let's see, will be limited to three minutes for individual speakers, one additional minute for each additional individual present at the meeting who has contributed their time to the representative speaker, up to 10 minutes.

I remind our audience that the board's review relates to design matters and does not include consideration of existing zoning district designations, zoning entitlements, or the allowed uses within a zoning district. The board's motion may be to approve to approve with modified stipulations to deny the request or to continue a um a case. And uh um thank you for your interest. And so now let's begin with roll call. Councilwoman Whitehead here. Vice Chair Brand, Commissioner Reid here.

Board member Paser here. Board member Fee. Board member Mason. Board member Robinson here. Four present. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. All right. So, um, let's have the administrative report. Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead, and welcome. Um, thanks for joining us today, all of you that can make it today. Um, just one item on the agenda today, but a very important one for the DRB and the city as a whole as we look to establish um some tree and shade guidelines for the city.

Um, there is a a couple of people that like to speak today. had given you comments um on that agenda item but otherwise there are no other public comments uh for today and that would uh conclude my administrative report. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Um so next up is the minutes from the last meeting. Um do I hear a motion to approve those? Motion to approve. Support. Okay, let's do a roll call. Councilwoman Whitehead. Yes. Commissioner Reid. Yes. Board member Peaser. Yes. Board member Robinson. Yes.

Motion passes. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Um, next we're on to um the I can read how the agenda works since that's here. Most of us know the development review board may take one vote to act on all items on Oh, actually we don't even have any consent agenda items. So, let's just go straight to the regular agenda. Um regular agenda item 3 11DR 2025 shade and tree plan for the belt environment. Let's have a presentation from staff. Yes. Thank you uh Councilwoman Whitehead, members of the board.

Happy to be here this afternoon returning to you all with uh the hopefully the final draft of the plan and your action this afternoon will be a consideration of the board. but here this evening to talk about or this afternoon to talk about 11DR 2025 shade and tree plan for the built environment. I'm going to start off the presentation do a little bit of background discussion and I'm going to hand it off to the consultant that worked on this project Justin Asvito from the design lab.

He's here this afternoon as well and then I'll come back and talk about some of the public outreach that's happened to date and some how how that's uh perhaps uh some edits that you'll be considering to the plan. So, in terms of citywide policy, I know we discussed this last time, but I'm going to bring it back up again. This is uh a map per se of uh the various policies, guidance, and regulatory means that we utilize when reviewing uh either land use decisions or design decisions.

So on the left hand side of the screen we have the general plan that provides broad policy citywide uh character area plans or area policy on the next slot and you can see we have the Oldtown character area plan and the greater air park character area plan providing more specific policy for those areas of the community.

And then we have more specific design guidelines, not only citywide, let's say for self- storage facilities, but also for specific areas of our community such as the Oldtown urban design and architectural guidelines. Finally, on the right hand side of the screen, we have more design standards through our DSMP and the regulatory side of things through our uh ordinance. Where does this uh plan, if it's approved by the board, live?

It's going to live within those citywide uh design guidelines uh row of this or I should say column of this screen and we'll provide citywide provision of shade as infrastructure. In terms of the existing city framework, we do have one when we're you uh looking at shade and landscaping. We have regulatory standards and guidance. So the zoning ordinance does establish minimum landscape standards.

Uh we do have the DSMPM that provides design guidelines and technical standards that we utilize during our development review process and there's bits and pieces about shade and landscaping between those two documents. Also uh through development review approvals, if there's an approval by the board uh that has stipulated site plan or stipulated landscape plan, we can utilize that to evaluate uh what's on a site in the future and what's approved.

And also we utilize those approved landscapes landscape plans are referenced over time to guide the tree replacement or confirm again what was stipulated by the board. This slide uh articulates what the plan is and is not just to be clear on the lefth hand side. So the plan is a designoriented framework to maintain and expand shade infrastructure citywide. They will be utilized as design guidelines.

They will be implemented incrementally from sight to sight and they will uh be again to ensure consistency from sight to sight as well uh through through either redevelopment, new development or or city uh infrastructure. What the plan is not it's not regulatory ordinance at this time. It's it's not the zoning ordinance. It is not a specific streetscape or a strategic implementation plan with specific targets or timelines or outcomes. Again, it's going to be incrementally implemented.

Terms of the shade and tree plan itself, uh it does implement the general plan 2035 to address community heat mitigation by expanding our tree canopy and shade infrastructure. um city partnered with ASU on the cooler Scottsdale study which highlighted the need for shade throughout the community and through that we partnered or uh with our consultant uh the design lab to draft this plan.

So a lot of public outreach as you can see on the right hand side of the screen at the at the get-go of of drafting the plan. There's also some existing conditions analysis as well, looking at surface heat citywide as well as shade distribution citywide to inform the guidelines that are in the packet in front of you this evening. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Justin Aso from the design lab, the consultant. So, thank you. Hi there, y'all. Uh Justin Aso from the design laboratory.

Pleasure to be here today. uh excited to be back talking to you all about this great project again. Um so to kind of get down to the core of what we're looking at for the the plan and guidelines that we're uh looking at potentially moving forward with today, uh these kind of these core principles and goals is really to look at making sure we're maintaining our shade, increasing our shade, and collaborating on shade.

So those three things are really meant to be the overall guiding factors of anything and everything we're looking at shadewise. Uh we want to maintain the things we have. We want to make sure we maintain the things we have in the future. Uh we want to obviously increase this one thing that was the constant we heard in every last bit of public outreach is everybody wants more shade. Uh so thankfully this is something that the people want. Uh and collaborating on shade.

Uh Scottsdale, you know, we have a lot of city uh facilities but uh we don't control every last bit of everything. So, uh, looking at how is this a collaborative effort that's going to, uh, expand far beyond just the city itself. Uh, with that, there are the three, uh, uh, core elements of what makes up how we broke down the categorical uh, ways we can improve and increase our shade across the the city.

So looking at trees, water harvesting, and shade structure, the one in the middle might sound a little confusing because it's not necessarily a shade element, but it does really help to benefit it. Uh, and it is one of those pieces that is uh really in a response to what the public was most concerned about with how do we address water concerns with trees in the future. So we'll kind of walk you guys through each of these step by step. Uh, first looking at trees and how trees are addressed.

Uh, again, this is a very downsized version of a quite a large document. Uh so really this uh section of the guidelines breaks it down into seven key categories uh of tree placement. Making sure we have a understanding of what we should be looking at for some minimum standards uh for placement of trees in different locations. Soil volume is one of the most important things in my personal opinion. Uh making sure that we don't just create little bonsai trees everywhere all across the town.

We want them to grow up and be at least happy, right? Uh because happy trees, happy people we found so far. uh tree diversity, making sure that we don't just do big monocultures, so not everything is the same tree, just in case we get a bug that wants to come through and take out some trees here and uh there, but fingers crossed that one never happens. Uh but we want to make sure we're prepared for it if it does.

Tree selection itself, there's lots of different types of trees, shade, uh different types of roots, different things need to go in different places. So, a really strong understanding of that. uh tree staking itself. Again, this is part of the the maintenance and the initial installation, making sure that we are we're following a set of standards to really make sure people are uh truly giving the best chance of life for these trees.

Uh to again provide an amenity and really an infrastructure element for our community. Uh efficient watering strategies because again, water is one of those elements and tree pruning itself to make sure we're maintaining them over the lifespan. We're not just looking at putting a bunch of trees in the ground and seeing what happens. Uh the second piece of that, this is kind of the supporting element that comes with it is looking at water harvesting.

Uh we say water harvesting because we're looking at all these different place we get water from. Water doesn't just fall from our sky here. We have like a few other fun spots it might come from like AC condensers off of roofs. You never know where your water might come from. Uh so looking at different ways we can capture and really make trees a little bit happier.

uh it tends to be uh if you want to look at it in a really basic sense uh it's really we just want to make sure that the ground goes down a little bit around the trees but there are so many different ways that you need to do that uh to make sure that that's working correctly and there's also a number of other strategies that go with it as well including permeable pavement and lots of other pieces.

Um, the one thing that this plan uh does not uh address as utilizing for potential water sources uh for this set of guidelines uh and we outline why is we don't use that gray water because Scottsdale is really really really good at utilizing the gray water they already have within their system and recycling that. You guys have one of the uh most high-tech facilities in the world right now for recycling water.

Uh so we want to make sure we're putting that water uh where it needs to go and we can capture the stuff that we're not already using. Uh shade structures themselves uh shade structures are this amazing key element to make sure that these larger spaces or unique spaces basically you can't put a tree um or maybe you want a structure instead of a tree. So giving a full outline of how do you place those what types of materials uh what's the functionality of it?

what are the other benefits uh that come along with them and uh how do we look at the long-term effects of those as well? Looking at things like maintenance and what are the ongoing concerns with that? It's just like anything else, things have to be up from time to time. So, we want to make sure we're looking at how those are considered on the front end. That way, as we develop out, uh we know what our future is going to start to look like.

Uh one of the pieces that comes with this as well is we developed a specific section for the Oldtown guidelines. Uh so what this does is it is not telling you necessarily you have to put a tree in this exact spot, but it's telling you an overall theming and uh a creation of a space that strengthens this pedestrian atmosphere that we already have.

We want to make sure we continue to embrace in the oldtown area uh while also fitting in uh with the urban design and architectural guidelines uh for the space. So that was my really really fast summary of what is within this plan and guidelines. Uh so what does success look like to us? This is something we asked ourselves over and over and over again as we work through this project. Uh to make sure that we weren't just creating something that might sit on a shelf someday someday.

We want to make sure this is something that's out there being utilized and is really embraced. Uh so making sure that we have a consistent application of shade infrastructure citywide. And I think infrastructure is one of the key words there. We found through our public outreach that this is the thing people want. This is the missing element that people want more of and they want it everywhere they can. Uh so making sure we do that smart and efficiently.

Uh we want to have clear expectations through development review. So making it really easy to go through and understand what are some of these uh standards that we're looking at moving forward with. Uh we want to integrate trees and structures uh around the real world. So it's not just put a tree everywhere you can.

it's put a tree everywhere you should or could uh and how do you do that and how do you look out for that and what are those methods uh that are considered best practices in the field. Um one of the things we didn't get to talk about a whole lot is how many people were behind the scenes. Design Laboratory is just one small portion of this project.

uh partnering with both uh large local, regional and national, international groups to make sure that this plan really is tailored down to exactly what Scottsdale needs, but also taking in all of this wealth of information from all across the world uh to make sure that we're implementing correctly here. Uh and I think the last piece and it's probably what everybody really wants at the end is uh creating a triangular sense of continuity over time.

So we want something that is a set of standards and guidelines that'll be followed again and again and again and again. uh that way it is easy for people to follow through with it. It's part of the identity of of who we are and what Scott still is itself. I'm gonna pass it back to Dale. Thank you. Thank you, Justin. So, I'm going to round out the discussion with, you know, how does this get integrated uh with with your action this afternoon?

So adopting it as a guideline document for the community and also adopting uh a reference within the design standards and policy manual to ensure you know staff and also the community can review and can review and even applicants can utilize this document when uh when requesting u improvements within the community. It'll also inform streetscape future streetscape plans and city capital projects.

implementation could occur through again more specific planning efforts such as updates to the zoning code. So some of these pieces could become more regulatory over time. And then finally uh another phase to this is a residential idea book. Although this is not the idea book on the right hand side of the screen, it's something that staffs produ uh produced in the past. This is the every every house changes document.

It was utilized in the past to uh show residents or single family home homeowners how they could improve their home in a voluntary manner. As as you all may know, the city charter precludes uh the city from dictating design to single family homes. So, uh perhaps we would or the thought would be that there would be shade and tree plan as a voluntary guide for homeowners to utilize.

if if they see this happening in the community, they might think, "Hey, how do I do this on my own property?" This might give them better ideas to to bring that to fruition. Terms of public outreach to date and what informed what what's in your packet this afternoon, uh the draft was put online at the end of uh February. It was distributed not only to this board to but to several other uh commissions within the community that staff went to to collect their comments.

Those comments that were collected at those board or commission meetings are within your packet in a public comment matrix. We also collected public comment online. We had it online for that entire time through uh the end of uh February into midappril. Collected public comments online. Received emails as well. We had a couple in-person public h uh openhouse opportunities.

um also had a focus group with design professional local design professionals to get their input on the plan as well those those that may be utilizing it in the future locally. So in terms of that public outreach just wanted to bring it back to the last time we met. So at that time we presented the draft plan to the DRB. some of the things we heard that uh afternoon and and this first one was from council member uh Whitehead regarding are there goals and targets within this plan?

I'm not seeing them. The plan as we went over we it does have o overarching goal goals that inform the guidelines but no uh specific targets. Although targets, you know, are great, they they sometimes can manifest themselves in a way that we're just placing trees to place trees. Whereas these guidelines, if implemented incrementally over time, ensure right tree, right place that the these trees are given the opportunity to grow successfully over time.

There was another question about trees and water use. And this plan, as you could see, it's very integrated within itself.

There is emphasis on lowwater desert adapted trees talks about uh having efficient water uh irrigation practices you can see on the right hand side of the screen and we also have the section about water harvesting strategies to then complement the irrigation that's occurring with these trees and then finally there was a question I believe it was from board member Brand uh at March 5th about is there soil prep are there expectations in here about soil prep yes uh there There there's a section in here about soil volume and quality.

So that was our last time we met. We had all that public outreach. How did that inform what's in your packet? So if you looked in your packet, it's it's the same plan with redlinined additions. So those red lines came out of the public input that we collected over the last couple months.

uh which if you look through it didn't change anything substantively with the plan but perhaps made it the terminology more clarified and the objectives of the plans were more more clarity there ensured we did have consistency with the DSMPM in particular since it's going to be referenced within that document um it updated graphics as necessary and then there were also some minor text formatting grammatical errors that were found through that process so that's what's within your packet this afternoon since the packet was delivered to you and on the dis I delivered each of you this section of my presentation just so that it's in front of you.

We did uh receive public comments uh this very week uh concerning what was in your packet. And since that we received those public comments, staff looked at it uh from a p practical standpoint and from a professional standpoint through our consultant uh looked line by line through the comments received and tried to integrate uh in the next several slides. Uh these are recommended edits from staff.

So, if approved this afternoon, we'd be asking for you to approve not only what's in your packet, but in addition, what you're going to see in the next several slides. I'm not going to go line by line, but topically, uh, the edits that we received were were helpful in making the plan either more consistent or clarify certain things that that needed clarification. This slide in part particular, you see the word minimum over and over and over again.

that again provides consistency with between some of the figures within the plan and the um the language and the guidelines that go with the figure. So this ensures that there's alignment between the guidelines and the exhibits within the plan. This slide notify or notes other uh clarifying edits that uh staff again thought we would recommend moving forward with based upon that public outreach received. things such as ensuring that figure text aligns with the guidelines.

Uh that we use nomenclature that is found throughout the plan such as suspended pavement instead of text that wasn't found elsewhere such as supported soil systems things of that nature again to provide more clarification within the text in the plan. This is another slide that in that's more of those recommended uh edits to the the plan again for consistency and clarification. Uh as you can see utilizing storm sewer system instead of a term such as underground piping.

Again more clarification there. And finally, another slide about clarification. And for this one in particular, pulling over a glossery term that is in our zoning ordinance specific to hardscape. That way, it's actually in the guidelines as a uh as a notation to what's in uh the zoning ordinance. Some other things that were caught through uh the public comment delivered to staff, some labeling, cleanup.

Again, we appreciate these sorts of things because it ensures that this document is is fully vetted and and looks clean uh at the end of the day. And then finally, grammatical and scriveners errors that we would recommend making to the document. They're all on the dis for you to look at if you have any questions or want to bring up those specific pages. I can just wanted to run through them quickly to let you know.

Those were the categories of of uh comments that we received that again staff agrees should be moved forward with your uh potential action this afternoon. So with that, staff's recommendation would be for the board to adopt resolution number 10 specific to adopting the shade and tree plan for the built environment, including those staff recommended edits presented at the main at this very meeting. uh again for citywide design guidance.

Again, if you were to all agree with those those edits on the last couple slides, you'd have to if you were to read this into the record, we'd be looking for that as well. So, that concludes staff's presentation. Happy to answer any of your questions. Um I know there's some public comment on this as well. Okay, thank you. Let's go to public comment. Looks like we have Alisa and Mike here. And Alisa is gonna speak for both of them, so come on up. Let's break the rules. All right. Okay. Okay.

So, it's got nice pictures. A lot of flowery language makes me feel warm and fuzzy. That is how one of our council members described a city plan during a recent work study. He then went on to describe how he wants to see that plan changed. Actionable plan with specific deliverables, clear steps, measurable outcomes. This is not a plan. This nice pictures, flowery language. This design guidelines.

I submitted written comments on the latest draft and some of them, not all of them, uh, were addressed on the screen. I hope you will use them to improve the document before it's adopted. Now, I'd like to focus on the pretty picture flowery language part. What is a plan? A plan for anything, a kitchen remodel, three elements. This is what we've got. This is what we want. And this is how we get from where we are to where we want to go. This part of the document fails on all three counts.

Where are we? A whole lot of work was done with three different methodologies to answer that question. Where is the complex answer in this document? One sentence and one map. Where are we going? Nowhere. Nice pictures. flowery language, no specific deliverables, no clear steps, no measurable outcomes, not even aspirational goals. How are we going to get to wherever we're going? Uh, apparently a design guideline with no requirements intended to be applied incrementally as development occurs.

Incremental pretty well sums it up. The Cooler Scottsdale study stated over and over again that Scottsdale already has many planning documents and design documents that speak to increasing trees and shade but lack specific benchmarks and goals and do not elaborate any resources. That's from the Cooler Scottsdale study. The shade and tree plan was supposed to meet that need. Instead $325,000 later, we have yet another city document that lacks specific benchmarks and goals.

In presenting this document, staff has mocked lofty goals, saying, "When cities have lofty goals, trees just get stuck willy-nilly in the ground." Well, I'm here to tell you countless cities have plans with both lofty goals and guidance for doing it right. It is not an eitheror. Councilwoman Whitehead, you asked a critical question. Does it include data to address water concerns. Justin's answer, we do have a number of those calculations available.

I do not believe they made it into this version. A lot didn't make it into this version. Why not? How did this start in 2024? as the shade and tree master plan initial implementation capital project. That's what it was called. Master plan, not design guidelines. Our general plan is very clear on the difference. To be sure, the development of design guidelines was a part of it, but it wasn't the whole thing.

Finally, while DRB is of course authorized to review and adopt design guidelines, approving a shade and tree plan is not within DRB's purview. Moreover, although the report in your packet lists general plan references in the character and design element, in fact, the policy, the general plan policy that calls for creation of a shade and tree plan is in the sustainability and environment chapter and there are numerous relevant references in four elements of that chapter.

In some, this is no plan and DRB cannot approve a plan. By all means, once they're finished, adopt the guidelines as what they are, design guidelines. Don't call them a plan. Don't check the box that a shade and tree plan has been completed when it hasn't been. It's too important for the livability of Scottsdale that we get a real plan done.

And if I could just add one thing, unprepared because I didn't know about the changes that had been made in response to my written comments on the latest draft. Um, happy to see those. Um, they were not the most crucially important as mentioned. They were scrier errors and um, internal consistencies and things like that. So um, from my perspective, they have not all been addressed and probably the most important ones have not been addressed. So, I hope you will do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Alisa. I think we all agree that um we want uh we want the outcome. I think we all agree on the outcome that we want. And I'm going to go ahead and have staff though respond. I mean, I always say there's a reason that um these plans that we approve and and policies we approve aren't uh chiseled in stone because they evolve over time. You know, I want to call out Tim Connor in the audience. He's he Good to see you.

He's been involved in a lot of evolving plans that have gotten us to a better place. Um, does staff want to respond to some of those um concerns? I'm not sure who on staff wants to do that. Yes. Thank you, Councilwoman Whitehead. So, in terms of, you know, there was discussion of perhaps what this plan should have been and what it became.

I mean ultimately the the development review board um through the ordinance it's stated should be reviewing and in in instances where you find that it aligns with the character and design uh element of the general plan approved design guidelines for the city. So such a plan should be before this board and was ultimately intended to come before this board.

When we look at the the deliverables that were requested and delivered by our consultant, they delivered a plan for city-wide shade and tree aligned with our uh general plan. They did that initial analysis and outreach. Although not all of the analysis that they put together is at the forefront of the plan. If you look across all of our other design guidelines, we don't uh post all of the background material.

It's the guideline for where the rubber meets the road where we're going to be reviewing uh site plans moving forward. So, that was delivered as well. There's clear direction through those goals and strategies again to maintain, increase, and coordinate shade as the overarching goals to this plan. And there's practical guidance for trees, water use, and shade structures citywide. So again, pending the approval of this board, it's ready to utilize for staff to review site plans moving forward.

Uh so thank you. Okay, so I have a I'm going to turn it over to to to the rest of the board here in a minute, but um another question is um about next steps and I you know I do want to address the legality issue. We get that at every council meeting too. Um we get questions about the legality of our processes. We have a pretty strong legal team at the city. So everything has to be reviewed. We don't it's staff doesn't make these decisions. Our legal team does.

Um so what do you see as the next steps? So thank you Councilwoman Whitehead. Next steps is potentially the approval of this these guidelines by the development review board. And I know as you may know staff is working on uh HP2447 as a result of state statutes changing um that I don't want to say diminishes the role of the development review board but perhaps increases the role of what staff will have to review from a standard aspect.

I mean, um, Brad Carr might be able to answer that a little bit more as he'll be working on, uh, looking at design guidelines that we already have, design guidelines that may be approved this very afternoon and working those into more of a, uh, objectionable object acceptable objective standards for the community uh, in line with our zoning code. Yeah.

Can I translate that for you for the for the public of to um that the goal is to then um change ordinances so that there is enforcability and that's my goal. Um are there any did you did anybody else want to jump in on that? You're okay. I'm sorry Councilman Whitehead. I can um just to follow up a little bit about that. Yeah, you're right.

what you summarized is exactly what our next step is is to transfer these guidelines into objectable objective standards that can be then enforced through our city code. And so we as staff are working towards that uh on a lot of different fronts right now, but one of those fronts will be these tree and shade guidelines, getting those into our landscape standards and other things that we have within the code to make them actionable, make them enforceable.

Okay, so that's another chance for us all to get involved. Um any comments up here? Okay. Uh board member um Reed, could you explain h incrementally implemented? What what is what does that what does that mean? It kind of goes to your point is you know that seems pretty loose and not specific and kind of we hope and hope isn't much of a strategy. So h how do if you could maybe define that for me I'd have a better understand.

Commissioner Reid, uh, Councilwoman Whitehead incrementally implemented is how we implement all of these design guidelines as private development applications come in or whenever we have our own citywide or city projects come in for staff to review before, you know, it gets to those final permits that are issued.

We're reviewing those site plans incrementally uh sight by sight over time just as uh in the past the development review board has reviewed uh development proposals time and time again and you all have done a great job of my opinion a great job of uh uh implementing that over time. So and I think that that's the uh that's what is meant by that. So, in other words, as things come up, this will be applied as opposed to this is now the lay of the land for everybody that is in place.

It will be applied over time. And and to Councilwoman Whitehead's point of whenever this gets uh pushed into, let's say, the zoning ordinance, then that would be the regulatory means. Uh still sight by sight, but re regulatory. Thank you. You know, I want to compare it to our requirement that our municipal buildings be leadcertified. We didn't go back and rebuild our buildings, but over time, we have a lot of lead certified buildings.

So, it's sort of a a similar I'd like to see, of course, um not through this process, but to get so that we can either incentivize or expand these types of um guidelines exist in where we have existing homes, buildings, and properties. So, uh okay, how about uh board members Paser Robinson? Anything from you guys?

Uh Taylor I've listened to everything you've said and and answered, but I'm not sure that I've heard an answer to the uh what the public speaker made as far as some of her comments having hard goals and and so maybe address some of the stuff that that she stated and and maybe that's what happens when we get to the ordinance. once we get into the ordinance, we've got the ability to set those standards.

Um, but I'm just curious, a lot of comment was made by the public speaker, but I'm not sure I heard a complete answer from staff, uh, board member Piser, Councilwoman Whitehead, I think if your point is, um, hard goals or having targets.

I I think I tried to address that in the presentation, but um in that you can have targets, you can have lofty goals that you hope to achieve over time, but documents such as this that we're reviewing site by sight, case by case ensures that that incremental going back to the same phrase, incremental impa implementation occurs over time. We do have within the general plan uh general plan policies about providing let's say storm water uh services.

Well, that gets implemented further down the line through either regulatory means or DSNPM. So, hope that hopefully that answers your question. So if if somebody submits a plan, staff is going to use this plan to review those plans. And let's say that they don't meet the the standard that we're trying to look at today. And you say, well, to the applicant, this needs to be done or that needs to be done. And they don't want to do that.

If it's not an ordinance, how do we get them to do what we'd like them to do as far as what this this document is suggesting? Uh, Board Member Paser, uh, Councilwoman Whitehead, members of, uh, the board. Uh, to answer that question, uh, just as we do with with our current, uh, policies and guidelines, those would be, um, points of consideration that we would bring forward as staff to the board, uh, in the creation of objective design standards that uh, have been previously mentioned.

uh for those things that may not make it into an objective design standard but still only live as a guideline uh we would still make those key consideration points in your packet bring them to your attention as the board and leave that to the board to consider. Uh but for those things that are worked into our ordinance and become regulatory um those are not uh uh a available to be um debated. It becomes ordinance as you know. Correct.

So I guess the my next question is be is at what point in time do you anticipate this becoming an ordinance or when you Yeah. Counciloman Whitehead, Bo Piser. As I mentioned earlier, we are we are working through that. Um and the first step is to restructure the DRB which is um undergoing uh that right now.

Once we've completed that, then we'll start turning our attention to u making more of our guidelines uh objective standards in the code so that they become requirements, regulatory requirements. We are looking to probably put the tree and shade and other landscaping items towards the front of that list because they're so important and to really piggyback on efforts that have been done with this overall uh effort here.

So, I think that we'll see those hopefully within um the next few months um come to the DRB just for some input on what those look like um before they go and do the whole process with city council for formal adoption. Okay.

Well, obviously in my mind, we're better off if we have something like this in an ordinance rather than we have it in a policy manual because the policy manual basically doesn't give us a whole lot of room for strict enforcement if somebody doesn't want to adhere to the policy manual. I realize that I think most people probably do, but you can with the ordinance you're not going to get much kickback where in a policy man you could get a lot of kickback.

That's reason I'm asking when this might become a an ordinance and part of the zoning ordinance because it certainly would be a lot more enforceable and you'd have staff that could enforce it not only during the plan review process but you'd have staff that could enforce it in the field as the hard construction is being done. Uh board member Rabbitson.

So a question that I have Brad is is when when you're talking about the ordinance and and things being objective, will they also be measurable so that you do get into the specifics where if you have the design guidelines that overall a plan appears to meet, will there be specifics so that you can actually measure whether those guidelines are being met? If yes, that makes sense. Yeah, Councilwoman Whitehead, board member Robinson.

Yeah, they will have to be in order to be in in any kind of enforceable manner within the zoning ordinance. They'll have to be measurable, quantifiable standards. And so that's part of the task that we'll be t uh tasked with staff as we transition some of these uh goals and policies, guidelines that are in this document towards those objective standards. They have to take on a measurable form, one that can be quantified.

And so that will be part of the process and we'll be vetting what those measurable standards are with the DRB and then eventually with city council as well as the public as we go through that process. But yes, they had to do that transition into that more hardline measurable standard. Okay.

You know, I'll add some comments to the comments I just heard, which is, yeah, on one hand, this is really a nice opportunity for the DRB because usually we make recommendations and in today's meeting, we get to adopt uh a tree and shade plan. Um the frustration with uh government, at least a good government, is that there's a process. So, it's not as efficient as just adopting whatever the heck we think is best. And so this is the first step towards that ordinance.

On that ordinance, um you know, I think Alisa and I are very and probably all of us very very aligned on wanting to maximize um shade and really by the trees aren't just about shade. They actually cool down this this the surrounding areas and they're critical to biodiversity, but we have to follow a process to get there. And so when we talk about overarching goals, that's not really part of this document because this is a site by sight. What we really need is citywide goals.

So that's a different effort which certainly will be a priority. But step one in in my opinion and how I'll be voting is to adopt this shade and tree plan.

And I want to thank staff for a lot of work between last meeting and this meeting listening to probably the two people who put gave the most input which the two of us that are here today and I don't know maybe you all gave a lot of input as well um adopt it and then just know that we're going to need the same amount of um input the same amount of dedication from residents and staff and board members to make sure the ordinance is as good as it can be and try try to advance Quickly, I also want to thank our uh consultant here for providing expertise.

We all love trees, but I don't know, you know, I'm not a tree professional. So, uh I guess if there are no other comments, I would love to hear a motion on this item.

I would make a motion to adopt development review board resolution number 10, adopting the shade and tree plan for the built environment, including the staff recommended edits presented at the May 7th, 2026 meeting as citywide design guidance for shade infrastructure to inform project planning and review, declaring the plan as a public record and adopting it in its entirety and adopting the complimentary amendment to the design standards and policies manual uh to incorporate the plan by reference.

Are you going to second it? Second the motion. Okay, I have a motion and a second. And now we just need a roll call vote. Councilwoman Whitehead, yes. Commissioner Reid, yes. Board member Peaser, yes. Board member Robinson. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Well, um, thank you. Thank you everybody who's participated in this. And this is step one. I mean, a lot of us have started this in 2019. And with that, we're adjourned.