001e e e come and will be via telephone only to speak a public comment call 888 78899 and our meeting ID 954 3473 965 this information is available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city's website and broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 19 AT&T channel 99 and online at a2gov.org watch CN uh Aon will you read the land Heritage statement yes I acknowledge that the land the city of Anor occupies as the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including the Odawa oju and bwami and wand peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally and uncons ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where
002we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thanks Saron would you mind doing the roll call yes uh Vice chair Brown absent for now um council member Cornell here w v an arbor chairperson Curtis here an arbor commissioner Dale she let me know she would not be here this evening uh commissioner Graham here council member Malik here calling from Ann Arbor's second ward commissioner Marson here in an I'm here in an arbor commissioner mki here at my home in an arbor in War I commissioner Mitchell here and an arper looks like commissioner NRI is coming in uh commissioner peterswood let me know You'
003not be here this evening commissioner Smith here aror and commissioner wng absent and hello commissioner NRI hi apologies for my lateness no problem and here comes Vice chair Brown okay that is a Corum thank you so does anybody want to make changes to the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda so seconded by okay Rita good um is there all in favor of the approval of the agenda raise your hand say I I unanimous um okay does anybody want to make changes to the minutes from last month's meeting is there a motion to approve last month's meeting minutes and seconded by Steve will be second um all in favor of the approval the minutes raise your hand or say I I I approval it's approved uh next item of business is public comment
004this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call raise your hand press nine to unmute press star six City staff will select callers who have raised their hand one by one using last three digits of your phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there may be a delay up to 30 seconds before a connection is established eron you mentioned we had one caller uh yes caller uh 464 hello can you hear me yes we can oh good thanks um yeah my name is Linda barer 4213 Street um I was very happy to see the draft resolution supporting inclusion of natural features protection protections into the city's new comprehensive plan the comprehensive plan which as you
005know is in process of development now and likely to be finalized towards the end of this year will embody land use principles and guide land use decisions for years to come in Ann Arbor I consider it essential at the comprehensive plan include robust protections for natural features protection of natural features has been an Anarbor Community value for as long as I've been here going on 40 years the last and most recent comprehensive plan formerly known as the master plan contains sections speaking eloquently about the importance of preserving green open space Forest remnants Heritage trees and our tree cany in general and maintaining the Integrity of our wetlands and the many Creeks that feed into the hiron river I have not seen is yet much emphasis on natural features Protections in the current discussions and planning
006surrounded the currently being revised comprehensive Plan and there's no better body than you guys the environmental commission to bring this to the attention of the planners and Commissioners and others who are developing the comprehensive plan so I urge you to recommend such protections to the Planning Commission and Council and planning staff in the strongest possible terms you guys have the credibility to make that recommendation because of your expertise in environmental issues so I encourage you to use your leverage and then I have one specific request for inclusion in your recommendations the draft resolution mentions protection of wetlands water courses but there is no mention specifically of flood planes and with the increased infield development and effort to increase density Citywide protecting the open flood planes that remain under the ownership should be of the highest
007priority this was the recommendation of our longtime and recently retired highly credentialed flood plane manager Jerry Hancock as you know the city is purchasing vacant Lots in the flood plane to prevent others from you know buying them in building so that they can stay open and they're even buying some Lots in the flood plane with modest homes and demolishing the homes in order to exp expand the areas of UN obstructed flood plane I can't remember which Creek sheds that kind those kind of purchases were happening in but I do know that the city owns significant acreage in many flood planes notably in the Allen Creek flood plane and I en urge the environmental commission to urge the city to adopt the policy of no further construction of any type on the remaining city-owned Parcels located
008in the flood plane these should remain open Green Space planted with Native species to serve as green infrastr infrastructure flood ples serve a natural purpose which is even more important in our era of increased prec precipitation brought on by rapid climate change reducing the potential impact of floods is a matter of public health and safety as well as environmental responsibility thank you thank you thank you um color 411 uh commissioner Curtis uh members of the commission can you hear me yes yes great thank you um my name is James deore and I am a a longtime resident of the city as well I work with a previous speaker uh Linda bar and uh um working on the S Creek uh uh task force and I concur with opinion regarding uh um uh parcel development along
009the oun creek uh Greenway um but the main reason why I called you I speak to you as a a former member of both the Parks Commission and as a city planning commissioner and I have what I have to say about this issue is I think this ordinance before you uh change that uh you're working on is long long overdue um i s surprised when a uh previous iteration was delayed in the first place at the request of the sustainability office and the Planning Commission um we really need this element in our uh development of a comprehensive uh uh plan I note that commissioner that that uh uh city council member dish a couple nights ago um mentioned a certain parcel with a large number of trees is saying this the parcel wanted to be
010developed did anyone ask the trees that are there um we still have a number of steep slopes and natural each areas that need greater protection as Miss MC Brower had noted also the flood plane issue I note that my time planning Parcels are developed without consideration to Greater natural systems around them they're analyzed in isolation by planning department and commission sometimes as I said not taking the greater issue I have to say let's bring natural features protection hand inand with sustainability initiatives we cannot solve the CRI climate crisis while protecting natural systems I'm sorry if I'm a little I'm reading my chicken scratching as I carved it this the last minute but I know that each of you are are well qualified and you have great interest in coming forth a good plan and I
011look forward to what you produce and I support your efforts thank you for what you do and good evening thank you that is all the raised hands for now okay thank you um so let's move on we don't have any old business so let's move to a new business which is the resolution that was just being talked about Rita do you want to walk us through it and Aon will you share it on the screen yes I'll give a short introduction um the goal of this resolution that's being offered by the biodiversity work group of the environmental commission is to acknowledge biodiversity as essential for the future health of the an arbor Community we know that we're affected by the climate crisis we know that in addition to climate change land use planning will change
012our immediate surroundings we've pulled together some ideas in this resolution from local planning efforts as well as International thoughts about including biodiversity in urban settings and that seems to be the direction that we're going more urbanization um benefits to humans are inter intertwined with ecological health health we are part of our system um as an arbor changes we strongly believe I think I'm speaking correctly for the biodiversity work group we strongly believe that we must work to implement actions that integrate natural systems that will result in measurable gains in biodiversity that will ultimately be more efficient and effectively effective to address our overall Community Health and Welfare as we're were part of this system so we're proposing support for ongoing processes to be included with City Planning efforts for the comprehensive plan and the a20
013plan as well as existing um protections that are involved in the um historic districts in the city so that's my intro and um I guess it would it would help me to know um if the Commissioners have had a chance to review the document and to understand how closely we need to follow it and and track as we discussed tonight is there uh could we have like a show of hands if you at least had a chance to read it one two three okay four okay looks like we might need a little bit of review um so I'll just I'll kind of skim um first we call out the responsibility of the environmental commission itself as a body um so that because we are responsible to advise Council on ways to protect and enhance our
014air water land and public health um and we want to help set those goals for the city um we know that the natural features plan that exists now um has definitions and we want to retain those for our reference and use as we go forward how we do that in the comprehensive plan is something that we want to make sure that is worked out um and so what we want to acknowledge is that the planning for the comprehensive plan and down to the one that has multiple bullet points Associated um has already acknowledged some aspects of green infrastructure Environmental Protection promoting balance between natural and human systems which I think is really important um and in that um the balance again is reflected not only in the natural features protection but also in reducing carbon
015emissions they're intertwined so carbon emission reduction is not just about burning fewer fossil fuels but it's also retaining natural features that help us to store carbon excess carbon that's being emitted um and to give us oxygen um we had a um public feedback let me see it yeah just in the review for the comprehensive plan there was an indication again of the need for balance between natural features and biodiversity uh and the develop system uh and calling out preserving natural features and again uh once more in looking at public support for natural features there's a we feel that this is essential so we have quite a lot of sort of our Preamble uh the whereas is that that introduce the features that we feel are really important about um how we live in our ecosystem
016it's a natural system that can help us it's there to serve purposes so a couple of our callers indicated that for example the flood planes serve a purpose and can help us to to avoid what could be excess flooding in the future if we keep intact ecosystems um we need those ecosystems or life just vanishes essentially and we'll work even harder we'll be impoverished I would say um from a a natural perspective maybe even from a food system perspective um so we're looking again for how we acknowledge and support what natural systems do um they support diversity of species and we want to avoid that decline um I'm just going to go through these multiple whereases there are quite a few um and we'll probably ultimately and we welcome your input today and of um
017in the next month um for how to um reduce the um how to consolidate these make them more efficient as statements but we want to make a strong statement and the point is that we know that we have some risks um in our climate and we know that we should be able to do better and we're lucky that we have some processes going forward that are looking at the future we just think that we we can do them better when we incorporate the natural systems that we have um so I'm going to buzz through these we want to acknowledge all those natural features down to the last one including the natural Forest fragments landmark in Heritage trees wetlands and water courses and flood planes um we want to now I'd like to move in uh
018actually I guess I should ask before moving forward um are there any questions comments or suggestions of about the the Preamble what I call the preamble to our actual resolutions where we want to go with dealing with natural features I'd like to hear a few comments from our group uh Steve hi hi everybody I had um a few thoughts about this um I'm we calling the city's proposal for what they call a tree line you know and that you have phase one um which goes between I believe Washington Street and the river and that will and that's which is the most um last I looked it seemed to be the most natural features friendly um of the um of the three legs that were proposed for the tree line and the thing is that um
019that would provide there's a lot of building going on downtown and so you know 15 minutes in nature can lower your blood pressure and other things so hopefully and I've been thinking about the part um the open space issues as well you know near downtown and West Park seems to be ideally situated for that so um I was wondering if you if the natural features group has thought about having a a corridor like a non-vehicular corridor short Corridor between the tree line and downtown and um West Park um I can say that we haven't talked about that specifically Steve but we have talked about natural features as being integrated with the entire city you know so we have residential areas we have streetscapes we have parks and um we know that the UN as part
020of our system as well so we're kind of thinking of it as an overall ecosystem as opposed to identified as one discret area um so yes to what you say but I would I would say I'd like it to be even more you know that considerations of biodiversity get included with developments as they move forward so that we have as residents visitors um exposure to Nature wherever we walk not that it has to be all greens space necessarily but um there is uh a benefit to having um components of nature that function near us that we can see and touch and so I wouldn't want to have Parks be exclusive as the features of natural systems that's my op Rita can I add a comment on that please do so maybe just building off of
021what Steve and you are saying we could look at a a nature Corridor in different ways you know that's a blend of public and private spaces because some private residential yards would count as part of a nature Corridor depending on the trees and the plants they have and that could be something of beneficial from a biodiversity standpoint absolutely that is a really good way to describe it and thanks ah Sarah Gita thank you for this resolution um this is It's just beautifully written and I you know the way that you spoke about this was so eloquent so thank you um I was really interested in the part you talked about metrics to measure biodiversity and that is such a big issue um I was actually just at a conference last year at the end of
022the year that there was a whole session on U measuring biodiversity and what types of metrics to use and it is it's it's really um there's a lot of policy debate about that right now even on a global scale um so you know I think that that is you know a really important step um if we are going to be able to track the impact of different actions the city's taken um we need to establish good metrics um so I like that you have that in there um I was wondering generally um do you know the timeline for the comprehensive plan like have we seen a draft and do we know um like is is this resolution um adverse to what's in that plan or is this just to kind of throw it out there
023so the make sure that it's in the plan both um yeah I would say thanks Chris I would agree that it is sort of both we want to make sure that natural features are mentioned and so I we called out points where it has been addressed in at least discussions of the comprehensive plan but we haven't seen a draft yet um and that is anticipated to come in the next couple of months I believe and I saw a calendar of the process recently and this proposal um our our recommendations should be possible to include in it and so we will we are intending to work toward that goal and um your comment on metrics yes and um I can't say that I am a an expert in those kinds of metrics it's clearly something that's
024quite Broad and we'd have to determine what are the right things and ideally from my perspective this would be something that would incorporate input from multiple departments in the city so that we'd have because I know we have expertise and so we should use what we have and in a way that can be measured right here it's very controversial so some people think you should look at overall like ecosystem Services provided and not worry so much about individual species and some people think you really need to have like look at diversity um and that that's the metric so it's just like this really hot debate um you know it's fun but yeah if you have recommendations please pass them along I can I'll ask I'll ask the experts and let you know where they're leaning
025great yeah thanks yeah um John mki thank you uh full transparency here I a member of the biodiversity group so I had a hand in uh the drafting of this resolution I just like to make a few comments um I'll speak for myself but I think many on uh the working group uh feel the same way uh to state the obvious I think um we all know but maybe not everybody in the community knows that we not only have a climate crisis we do have a biodiversity CL crisis I mean there's lots and lots of studies more and more all the time coming out showing dramatic in uh declines in um the number of insects uh the the you know the biomass of mammals I mean you can just go on and on down the
026list there was just recently a study published in nature within the last 10 days or so indicating that butterfly populations have decreased dramatically just in the last 20 years not over the last you know 100 years or something like that so we we have two two crises that we have to to take into consideration um re in that re recognizing both of those um I think most if not all of us also recognize that the city needs more housing and it needs more affordable housing and it needs that housing to be sustainable housing and um as outlined in the a20 plan we also recognize that vehicle miles traveled have to be reduced and uh that the only way Transportation emissions are onethird plus of total emissions and they're the one segment of emissions that are
027growing so we're we're we we recognize um the context in which we're operating in um if you look at the resolution um it's not prescriptive it's not saying yet you have to measure this or you have to do that um it's not saying we have to do this or that with a tree line Trail or anything else but we're saying that natural features and its ecosystem Services really needs to be considered as a part of the comprehensive plan and our view is up until now there has not been enough recognition of that um in the public comment as well as in comments from um Planning Commission and The Advisory Group that's working on this Etc so what we're trying to do is get this as a part of the discussion and this to be recognized
028in the comprehensive plan and then uh after that we can become a little bit more defined and prescriptive um lastly I'd like to say um we really uh well two more things we're not trying to prevent development we're trying to steer development to the areas that are going to have the lowest impact we're try want to steer it to vacant parking lot Lots we want to steer it to strip mall areas and things like that and that we're not also saying you can't develop in areas where they're natural features at least this is you know we're not saying this directly in here but I think this is our intent we're not saying to anyone you can't develop in an area where there are natural features or where some may be negatively impacted but what we'd
029like to see is that those be mitigated and as I said in that pushes people to doing development where it really makes sense and frankly where it's going to be have the highest Transit impact where is you're going to have uh Transit oriented development as opposed to putting it in residential areas so we we're we want everyone to realize what our motives are here um we're not nimes um we're really trying to do the right thing and um let's see I wanted to say one more thing I had some notes here um yeah oh just one other thing um and R it touched on this very briefly but I want to mention that we were some of this discussion was inspired by the fact that we um recognize that the UK has has passed legislation
030requiring that um larger scale development all larger scale development within the UK has to actually increase biodiversity so we we haven't dug into real detail on this and it's obviously there's metrics involved and things like that but the spirit of that law is that again development is desired and needed change is a good thing um if it's done in the right way and the right way is you do it in such a way that you preserve natural features you you enhance biodiversity and that is what is really behind the thinking and the purpose of elevating this for discussion in this whole dis this whole uh effort to update our comprehensive plan thanks for the opportunity to share those comments thank you John thanks John that was great um and I agree with what you said
031but I'd like to add something and that is that it's not just VMT miles traveled but also reduction of carbon emissions related to the buildings themselves which currently um a lot of them use fossil fuels and if we can reduce the fossil fuel use in buildings we may even reduce it emissions greater than the um transportation miles um whatever the right way is to say that um any other comments right now so we did the te up okay um and absolutely John you right on I was just going to say that we were not attempting to be prescriptive we want to set this as a framework so that we have a way to look at what we're doing in the future um and that sees our natural world as an ally that we need to
032work with as kind of like um sorry to anthropomorphize that but anyway that's that's my point is work with nature um and so with that I would like to get into our results oops I see another hand Chris Graham I'll put my hand now until you're done Ma okay all right well okay um I just want to make sure that that we all know that what we're going to be talking about is some suggestions for the comprehensive plan to be developed um and to make sure that we start that as we move forward that what we're talking about is included in this very important a20 plant that that I think um would benefit from having the scope to include natural features um again to be developed um and to have us work together in those
033uh planning things so um I think I'll stop there just Chris if you want to make your comment because I was just going to go into the resolve steps um more than more like 30 years ago when I first started to work on natural features we didn't call them that then um I wondered what an aru was like before Europeans came here what in other words the question answering the question what is native Europeans came to an arbor in 1824 and prior to that um the exact location that was the original plat of Ann's Arbor a RB o urur was a Grove of very large bur Oaks widely spaced with a 300 species count Prairie growing underneath it it was a spectacular parklike setting but all Native the Indians Who had who Camp there off
034and on grew food there they did their families there um it was one of the many Indian camps across Southern Michigan they would migrate between them over the years they used fire to burn their prairie didn't hurt the trees but very much enriched the species count in the herbaceous Flora um some of the work we've been doing with nap is trying to restore some of those original ecosystem elements in any case it gives us a Bas map with which to say okay what did we have here what is our natural heritage and by definition those very healthy ecosystems that great stewardship that Indians passed on to us is a is an expression of the optimum cover for our land in an Harbor um we read every meeting in the city last phrase of which says
035um knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us we have this statement we don't do anything about doubt it I would submit to you that if we did a great job of including natural features in every step of development across our city parks and private lands and University they're very excited about this too we would be doing something important to recognize the Heritage that 10,000 years of Indian habitation here left us um I personally am very afraid of the current comprehensive plan I think it's undemocratically set up I think it should be set up and managed with the cooperation and full knowledge of each neighborhood I think it should have a very healthy dose of design
036management rather than doing away with the design review board I know it didn't have much effect because they never gave it any teeth we ought to really enhance it and really work to develop this city in a way that's poetic that's alive that's exciting that's very conservative about our old trees most of you don't know that our original natural features regulations amended parts of the code to try to protect Wetlands Woodlands Landmark trees blood Plaines waterways steep slopes it applies only to those um development projects in an arbor that require a site plan approval process which meant large Parcels of land back in the late 80s people were very upset because we had almost wall toall clear cutting of the large Parcels of land to develop housing mostly um Wetlands were filled all the trees
037were cut down all the soil was Disturbed the land was made flat and clear and most important in that whole process was the loss of trees so um we established these regulations with 100% support of the council back then 100% support of the Planning Commission and the process has worked extraordinarily well over the years to minimize the code actually said you'll present plans to this city that persuades them you are minimizing the damage to natural features on your property and if you want to take trees you want to take a piece of a wetland you need to mitigate via some sort of fee or replacement of the things you've taken the damage you've caused this has been very successful it ended years of terrible controversies about developments in the city but the key fact most
038people don't know it never applied to Res existing residential neighborhoods or any project in them anything that never required a site plan process through the Planning Commission and the planning department was not and is not regulated now we are talking about doing away with all of R1 and R2 housing in the city we are talking about allowing things like the George a big apartment building down on Packard to be built in an R1 neighborhood if someone can Assemble two or three lots together I and we're talking about cutting setback distances to about half what they are we're talking about these things happening by right no discussion if it fits the code we're talking about buildings as much as 48 ft tall in an R1 neighborhood um what the net result of that will be without
039the kind of planning process that really brings great Beauty to our city rather than building Galore is almost no trees left this will not be Tree City so this is what we're afraid of this is why we're doing this resolution here we've seen almost no sign that natural features matter in anymore in an arbor some of the neighborhoods are beginning to wake up they're beginning to talk about a tree ordinance we have one we just don't apply it where we need to right now given what's coming so I um we us should be a biophilic city Washington DC's one San Francisco's one uh Singapore is the world's most famous one they love to say we brought the jungle and its water into our city we didn't take the city and place it on the jungle
040and that place is really exciting if you like anything green last thing I'll say there was an astronaut yesterday or the day before fan of of those folks coming back from the space station he said the thing that's been most important to me over the last couple years other than getting back into shape which I guess takes a while I really love to sit out of my backyard and see green the plants the birds my Fountain my swimming pool this is the most important thing to me after being up there thank you thanks Chris okay so with that I want to move into um talking about the results um and we try to keep them simple so that we can move forward with the Planning Commission the planning department the other City staff groups that
041will help to move forward in the direction that we've discussed and that Chris gave a good summary about um so what we want to do is say that the comprehensive plan must incorporate measures to protect conserve restore enhance and manage natural features and recognize that the value of those features to our health as a whole all species um we want the existing natural features protections as they are stated in the current UDC uh to be a baseline um and not to disappear but to be available to be used as we move forward in the future um and we've got a really strong statement in our 1B about having higher mitigation requirements for taking of large old trees um freestanding or or otherwise in a in a native Forest fragment and to protect native soils from
042destruction compaction and extend natural features to all areas of the city so I acknowledge that there are some areas of controversy in in that particular um resolved qua um we want to have the living and Arbor a20 carbon neutrality plan prioritize natural features sustainability along with other strategies that are being used so that we can enhance that plan because I think that's an area where there is some opportunity for inclusion of natural features um so we want to work together collaboratively to develop some methods to assess and track gain or L of biodiversity so that we have a sense of where we are over time maybe we'll make a change that doesn't show um a direction of of um natural features that we'd like to see and we'd like to understand what could be changed
043um so there's that um we didn't call out specific City staff in the 2A section because we think that there will be different departments that may be involved um and we want to see more cross Department integration to support natural features um and number three um we know that the city currently has protection of natural features that are in in historic districts um those protections are related to features that were in place historically and at this point um it is required that um um permission be granted to remove say large old trees on a historic district property um we think that that information is not well known or understood across the city um and feel that it would be good to improve communication about that to both residents um maybe Realtors um and contractors so
044they know the requirements and and really the intent here is to show the value and the reason for um protecting those natural features some of those trees in historic districts may be among those that are remaining after our um European settlement of the area for example um and we the last is that we want to um work with the Department office of sustainability Innovation to develop some M natural features based complimentary actions to work on with that team on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sustaining our local ecosystems um those could be are definitely too be determined and since we are not intending to be prescriptive we are looking for um input from professionals uh to help us with developing measurements and and um thoughts on how to do this efficiently and effectively in the future
045so that's my rough review of where we're going with the resolution um okay Brooks yes can we go back to paragraph 1B sure I'd like to suggest that will you reward that section to be more in line with what commissioner mki talked about the UK requirements of the spirit of the UK requirements of increasing biodiversity when we do development um we know that um when Brett Leonard came to the environmental commission last year he stated he thought that the current level of Environmental Protection natural features protection was appropriate for Ann Arbor and he was not going to support any additional requirements on res Residential Properties um we know that city council as a whole is very Pro development and this statement when we start talking about additional higher mitigation requirements can be considered not pro-development
046and so I think that would make it hard to get through um and I would hate to lose the benefits from the rest of the parts of this resolution because of that one paragraph and and I think we can if we focus on biodiversity I think we can get a lot of the benefits that we want um as commissioner mki said we we need as a city we need more development of housing we need higher density housing but higher density housing doesn't mean Paving an arbor that's not the intent uh development and biodiversity can and should be done together if we work at it together and be creative I think we can get both of them but I don't think 1B the way it's worded would allow that option so I think we need to
047do something different there thank you the rub comes um about trees Brooks and uh and it comes about trees in in not just R1 or R2 R1 A or B neighborhoods it comes even in R2 neighborhoods in Burns Park um where trees that are 60 70 80 90 years old disappear those lots in order to build at the density they've already upzoned is so significant that they completely clearcut these lots to build not just one duplex but two one behind the other so I we're going to have we need a process that allows us to have these discussions I don't know where they all come out on any given site but um it's not just about it's uh I've been saying for a number of years one of the biggest troubles on Residential Properties in
048the city without any regulation whatsoever it's the Lo unintended loss of old trees a lot of contractors most of them go on private Residential Properties to do projects they drive on the roots of the trees that the owner of the house expects will be saved they're dead three or four years later especially if they're old Oaks we need some some sort of regulation on Residential Properties and the bone the real bone on those apart from losing open space and Gardens will be the loss of old trees and I I agree with you this is difficult and maybe there's a way to word it better but I don't want us to back away from uh the argument we have to have thanks Chris John mki uh two two points my understanding this is a first reading
049and um that we will have an opportunity to take into account everybody's input here take it back into the working group and tweak this that's is that correct that's right okay good so um I think what we're hearing between uh Brooks's comments mine um Christopher's and others is that there's these are uh things that we need to work on in terms of Shades of Gray um and it's um something that I obviously I think we we can come to a consensus on certainly within the working group and hopefully within the commission um my second is a request and that is um I saw some I'll call it subtle um nodding and shaking of heads between our two council members and I'm hopeful that they might be willing to share their thoughts on the resolution um
050where we where they sense either personally or um judging this the overall um thinking of of council and the Planning Commission and those working on this what um they think might resonate and what they think um maybe needs to be reconsidered or re-evaluated so that's a request that I have no further comment thanks uh Steve yeah thanks John um I support your comment but also I want nobody picked up on this on my earlier comment it seemed but I want to emphasize that this is also a quality of life issue for the residents that are living in these highrises you know the ability to to re to to easily access natural areas without getting into their car and driving 10 miles or across town um would be an amenity that I think anybody like not
051even the astronauts would uh I mean certainly the astronauts returning would agree to but anybody who's lived in a high-rise apartment building like I have I would appreciate having um ready access by foot by walking or biking to a natural area so I think I I would suggest that you add a wees Clause that includes that as a value a proven value by the way um for the health and um for the health of residents living in these um more dense housings uh in denser housing you now um and that's not to detract anything from biodiversity but in support of it um that's all that's all I had to say thanks Steve um aarin I think we're talking in a way that doesn't require view of the resolution unless someone has a need for that
052could we just go to a the big screen screen of all of us thanks um other comments Sarah yeah I just had um like one random thought after this discussion of Residential Properties and big trees have we looked at like cost and Energy savings of having big trees in the summer since you're not going to be using your AC as much like could that be another argument or consideration I should say I know just throwing it out there I think yes because and and to me that would be a great area to have the office's sustainability assist with developing that kind of an assessment um and might biometric I don't know um but yeah I would think so yeah um Olivia hi thanks for this great discussion everyone I just want to play devil's advocate
053for a second and ask whether we think you know allowing more high density you know development in the city not that any stances are like anti-development but these higher density residential developments I think in a lot of cases allow people to more affordably move into areas that have greater access to Green Space um could you explain that a little bit more because we're talking about including so maybe I need to understand a little bit better yeah I I agree with the inclusion of it that was just kind of a devil's advocate question um just like more access to the green spaces in this the downtown you know City area the residential areas that you know already have a lot of parks and in Access let me see if I I'm understanding are you saying more
054green spaces in the downtown never mind it's no please don't back off um I think like the the higher density like in the I think this is one get like more walkable areas higher density residential developments in more like walkable and accessible areas like allows greater access to the green spaces already exist okay thank you um I see an marsan hi uh it has been a great discussion um certainly um I'm in support of um a resolution of this kind and I think uh just wanted to follow on on commissioner Smith's comment I think one of the things about an arbor is that for a city our size we actually have a substantial amount of Park land and um it I think it's it's one of the reasons not the only one certainly but one
055of the reasons why there's a lot of demand um to live within the city of an arbor is access to that kind of amenity and and therefore in order for an arbor to be affordable um sensor housing kind is is one way in order to achieve that so that more people have access to the great green spaces that we have and uh I certainly believe that we need to do what we can to protect those green spaces and make sure they're there for generations to come thank you thank you John rki I'm I'm hoping to engage a little bit with commissioner Smith to tease out what I think she's getting at um so my daughter and son-in-law live in Seattle and in Seattle you see along major Transit quarters a lot of faceless multistory um
056multifam development um it's loud it's noisy it's not a very pleasant place to live um and my senses is that um what we also want to provide is for people to have the opportunity to live in a residential neighborhood without um being able to afford rent that's $5,000 a month or a home that is um frankly a million dollars um you know if you're looking at an ior Hills then you're not going to find any place that's over or that's under a million dollars and so I I think that's and maybe commissioner Smith you can comment on that I think that's what you're getting at is we shouldn't be forcing everyone into faceless places that are in horrible neighborhoods yes they may be they may be walkable neighborhoods in many regards but they should also
057still be pleasant neighborhoods um and I I hope that we're not setting up that dichotomy and I think also what most a lot of developers may find is that frankly it's not particularly economical to go into an aror woods and buy three homes um that are a million dollars to put up a multistory multifam unit because there's a lot of other places in the city where that can be done where you don't have to buy properties and tear them down um so I don't know that these um doomsday scenarios are um really realistic um at the same time I don't think also that the kind of solutions that we're seeing in some some cities where really people are being pushed into areas that really aren't desirable um because they are loud and noisy and they
058don't have trees right outside their window that's we don't want that either so it's really difficult to thread that needle um I I see that council member Malik has raised his hand but maybe um uh commissioner Smith you can play catchball with me on on that idea and maybe elaborate more or tell me where I'm wrong and what else you were thinking if you may sure yeah I think you and also commissioner Marson kind of more eloquently put what I was trying to say um that you know there there's a very fine line you walk I think of some of the developments on like the city boundaries um my office is at the corner of map Miller and there's all these developments going up that are just like Barren land and you know very loud
059the highways right there so yeah I think there's a very fine balance to strike between like high density development within the city limits that have great access to all these parks and these green spaces um and you know biking trails and walking trails and you know lots of Nature and bird noises instead of car noises um but also preserving those spaces and not you know developing them away so yeah it's it's very tough balance to strike and I think this resolution is would will bring attention to preserving those spaces um and I think the way it's worded right now you know isn't is not anti-development and you know it still allows for those higher density developments thank you council member Malik hi thanks for the presentation Rita um I do want to underscore something you
060mentioned about the status of the comprehensive plan right now you are exactly right um it's still being drafted um there I think maybe like a year and a half into Gathering input on the plan but they're still be drafting it and they being the planning commission so the Planning Commission will work on drafting the plan it will still have to pass the Planning Commission after that and then there will still be a 90day public comment period on the plan before city council even considers it so I think the kind of Target is to get it to city council eventually sometime maybe like fall or early winter just for a a general timeline um and then on on the resolution itself my perspective on it broadly um I think the focus on biodiversity is great and
061worthwhile overall uh being newer to both city council as well as this commission I'm not entirely sure if or how the comprehensive plan kind of takes these aspects into account um it does sound like Mr Leonard from uh City staff planning staff has had a conversation with commission already on this I heard chair Curtis right um so I would I guess kind of defer to him broadly on it at the moment um and then just to kind of touch on the you know I guess kind of environment versus development kind of topic we've been discussing um I'm also on the Green Belt commission and of course everybody here kind of knows the purpose of the green belt to create kind of clean space and open space outside the city um the city has kind of
062long the city and the county and the whole region kind of has decided that that is a a good um a good thing to pursue for the city overall and the region so but of course one of the trade-offs of doing that means development is kind of confined to the city um and even if you know Ann Arbor didn't grow some things are out of our control such as the university admitting more students and bringing bring bringing new uh folks to the city so um development is needed in the city and I do think there's a a balance to be found in terms of allowing greater dens City within our city boundaries as well as protecting some of our green spaces so I think this is a really good discussion for the environmental commission overall
063but um I did have one question if anybody would know um do any other cities have kind of aspects like like we're discussing tonight in their plans or I guess maybe not in a comprehensive plan necessarily but um kind of like we're discussing like are any do any things like these already Exist Elsewhere um I know some somebody earlier was mentioning like San Francisco and stuff but um I was just curious if other cities have tried kind of exactly what we're discussing here tonight and if so what the results have been if anybody knows thanks I don't feel I can answer that last question but I do want to make a comment about the green belt and is that is that the um funding does include um funding for some purchase of green type properties
064within the city of an arbor it's a lesser amount than the whole um but that's something that perhaps could be um used as part of this biodiversity process as we go forward and again I don't have a specific prescription in mind but it's something to to keep in mind because um although we do have a generous amount of parks um if you count the number of parks there are areas of the city that are less well supported by Parkland and so it's worthwhile to think about that in terms of balancing where we go with this I think so onethird of the proceeds of the green belt is allocated for purchases of Parkland within the city that's right that's right and so I believe there's some funds that haven't been used yet um we really should
065think about that um because now there's no better time than now right um so going up in price in the future um so uh Brooks so just um to answer some of council member Mal questions the currently we have a separate natural features master plan that's sep a separate document than the comprehensive plan the new comprehensive plan is going to incorporate everything that's or incorporate natural features we don't know what's going to be in there we haven't seen anything back out um relative to natural features nor we any of the presentations we've seen coming from the steering committee show say anything about natural features and I think that's that's the uncertainty that's driving a lot of discussion Steve oh responding to uh council member Malik's comment um my information is old but um the City
066of Minneapolis resolved to um eliminate R1 Zing Citywide almost 10 years ago I don't know any more of the details but I do know that um elimination of R1 zoning they also said that you could not build more than two or three units on any property that had formerly been zoned R1 so there wasn't any allowance for combining lots and building highrises but um um they also impo they also encoded in their ordinances um you know Transportation oriented zoning there were toc's which the city recently did but I as I recall City staff actually proposed that modification to city codes back in 2008 but it took um a long time for U for the political will to develop for that rezoning so um I think it's a good thing to look through and see what
067other um es cities especially in the Upper Midwest have accomplished over the last 10 years in terms of resoning you know to increase density um because there are ways to balance some Community Values um better than I think what a lot of residents here think is coming thank you for your time thanks Steve I'm for balance um Chris Graham you call me Rita I did your hand up very good job so thank you Steve uh Boulder and Madison both had very different kinds of planning processes to to do this kind of up zoning they're very Democratic they're very open and transparent and they really were based on working with each neighborhood to decide how to design those neighborhoods to be really satisfying to everybody while there is more density I I I get it but
068I'm just really afraid we're uh dipping the real estate Kool-Aid te here in an Harbor and not doing a balanced set of zoning changes um if I understand I heard planning director say something last night we don't really want to have public hearings for anything that satisfies the code we don't want to even talk about it at the Planning Commission anymore we'll just approve it in my view that's not the way um unless there's a whole lot of homework done on the planning staff that's not the way that you get exciting poetic green um thriving neighborhoods it's a way you ruin them so um I'm afraid forgive me I'm expressing my fear I am not the only one I'm going to meetings where there are many other people bothered about the trend lines of this
069discussion thank you Steve thank we Mak my hand now thank you um all right I feel like we might be near the end I'd like to invite council member Corell if you would like to add anything since you're here and it's a good opportunity for us to include your thoughts yeah I I'm also uncomfortable with the 1B um I'd like that to be a top of conversation for the work group just to see how um we can acknowledge the fact that we do have a housing crisis and having people commute into the city because they can't afford to live here is an envir contributes to our environmental crisis these two things are are linked and so um I think when we talk about density we do need to find that balance we we do and
070I guess my other point is I I think council member Malik did a good job of describing the process but I don't want that there to be a public I want to publicly acknowledge that this process for the comprehensive plan has involved a lot of input sessions a lot of opportunities for the community to engage and so um I think City staff has done an excellent job with it and to sort of hear like maybe to hear it suggested that this process wasn't thoughtful wasn't included and wasn't Democratic is is just patently false and so those are two separate thoughts but um I I did want to acknowledge that City staff has really been very thoughtful about Community engagement and made available through various listening sessions um there was a huge session at the library
071this isn't a press this is not something that has been done in a dark room with no input so just just to make sure that that's clearly stated thank you thank you um John riski thanks I know I've spoken a lot but just one one other thing that I want people to also consider um this is building off the comment of council member Cornell um you know I think we all have heard that uh washingon county is the eth most economically segreg ated County in the country and there's one thing that's not taken into consider consideration in that you know we talk about affordable housing affordable housing is the cost of the housing your mortgage or your rent it's the utilities um it's also your housing is going to drive your transportation costs but the
072other thing that's never considered when we talk about this um in terms of what we're doing and what we're imposing out others the people the8 80,000 people plus that commute into anabor every day there's an opportunity cost a huge opportunity cost for time lost in transit and so when we force those people to live outside the city of ant Arbor and we don't give them an opportunity to live here we're imposing not only higher Transportation costs but we're imposing the opportunity costs of time lost and Transit and a lot of these people um are already on the edge um they probably have families many of them um they want to have time with their kids and when we put them in the car for 45 minutes or you know in each Direction you know it
073obviously ranges um there's I'm on the board of um two housing nonprofits and we had students interview um people that come to University of Michigan parking lots and get their hours ahead of time and there are and and we talk to them and there are people that come and try to get a parking place sleep in their car and then walk to work because um they um can't you know they I don't need to get into details I think you get the sense of what I'm saying is that by by not doing the kinds of things that I think need to be done in terms of Housing and providing housing and opportunities for these people um we're also imposing not only economic hardship we're imposing other kinds of hardships on those families and I just
074want to all of us to think about all that worldwide problem and cities worldwide problem very tough very tough not not in all cities and there are cities that that do this very very well they do a lot of things obviously to solve it but um look at Vienna and look at um affordable and public housing in Vienna and other cities in in Europe but yeah it is I mean every every Big City that's a desireable place to live is a problem because they're expensive yeah thanks John I feel like we've gotten a lot of really good feedback on this and I appreciate everyone's comments um members of the biodiversity group that are here thank you for uh contributing as to the what we've written so far and also to the discussion and um everyone
075else so um I feel like this might be a good time to transition to our next topic thank you all okay thanks Rita you did a great job um do just a clear question because maybe I should know this but do we need to have a vote as since it's a first reading does anybody know no no okay thank you um next topic is discuss discussion of combination of the environmental of the merger of the environmental and energy commission to create a sustainability commission and Aon I don't know if you have anything you want to start with that to talk about sure yeah um I think I'll let um council member Cornell can introduce the topic thank you Miss Donnelly um so this has been this should not come as a surprise to anyone that
076these discussion these discussions have been going on for some time about creating uh Joint Commission that could work and concert to with OSI um to advance our at20 goals and for us to be more effective in reaching those goals um I think council member my colleague council member Briggs did a really good job at energy commission um explaining it but the city has changed the city structure has changed um City staff has changed especially with OSI um you know being being um such an influential part of how the city conducts business um that none of that existed when these commissions were created and envisioned and their missions were set and so the idea is really to create um a sustainability commission that would be a merger of the two energy and environment and would um
077focus on a work plan that would come through OSI um kind of stating these are the four goals that we have where participation from a commission would be really really helpful in advancing and accelerating Network um and so versus kind of OSI doing its thing energy doing its thing environmental doing its thing bringing everybody together to work in concert because it just makes more sense right we're just going to be able to move a lot faster in my opinion um and being able to tap into the unique expertise within each group um and have that collaboration between the groups I think is is definitely great too so um where it stands right now is just kind of having these discussions and getting input on it um but that is the the core idea of it
078and sort of the impetus for it and council member Malik I don't know if you have anything to add but because you were I know you were part of that discussion from energy so if there's something I I watched most of that meeting to get the gist of it but if there's anything that I'm missing please let please fill in thanks yeah I think you uh hit the nail on the head uh the kind of main thrust behind this would be to kind of realign and refocus if you will and uh we had a really good discussion at energy commission a few weeks ago discussing this and council member Cornell is right you know this is kind of the discussion stage to see if this really does in fact make sense um I know commissioner
079mki you had some really good comments at energy Commission um in that discussion and um chair Curtis I know you probably have some things to say on it too so I'm happy to pitch it to whomever would like to chime in thanks and I can add a little more about the logistics um to um so I would also add it'll be um a combination of OSI and public services since there is so much overlap with environmental and energy issues in both of those departments and so uh the vision as it stands is um coming up with kind of a staff Le work plan that would focus on three or four high priority items that could come from OSI or from um Public Services um and then we would kind of continue with the current structure
080we have now where there are work groups that are you know the the technical work would happen in the work groups and then those groups the work groups would come back to thear group um for broader discussion um but the work groups would be the ones to really drill down into the to the issues um so we are uh staff and Council are are working on updating the bylaws um if if discussions go well um we will start updating the bylaws um and we would have kind of that ready uh around May um and then potentially take a break or you know that the the bylaws and the ordinance SL resolution would be ready by May for Council to discuss um and then June would probably be a a kind of recalibration month and then
081you know potentially the sustainability commission would kick off in July sort of timeline so yes we can open it up to questions and disc disc question thank you so I'll start for the um first meeting is it safe to assume we would know what those high priority topics would be at that point in time or when do you think we would know what those topics are going to be good question I think that would be the goal yes to have those prepared by then and would it makes sense for that first meeting since we're going to have a lot of people who don't know each other to have as an in-person working group meeting and then maybe have staff discuss those so we can figure out where people want to fit into those priority topics
082I think that could be considered for sure yeah person be good commissioner Marson thanks um I yeah I wanted to State my my support for this um the idea of aligning a sustainability commission that kind of works better with the current city structure City Administration um but I had a couple of recommendations as you're working on the V laws um and this these are based on my um experience with um Parks advisory commission uh where I'm currently the the chair um I think first of all I consider that the staff leaz on to a sustainability commission actually you know be the director of the office of sustainability so have Dr staltz be the primary Point person um my experience in pack that we we work directly with um uh the the the director of um
083our parks department and uh there are a lot of benefits to that in terms of um having a better sense of um what the needs are within the department um you know that's the person who's going to have the most holistic view of the department and so um they're able to really direct our work um and they're also able to get things done when we need things done so um they've got the connections with the city manager with legal and that sort of thing so with and the city council um and so I think that's that's one recommendation I would have and then the second one is um I think we should consider term limits for for Commissioners I I I know there's many on the uh environmental commission who've been here a long time
084and I really you guys are great I value the um insights that you have and your history with the city your passion for the environment um but that said I again this is based on my experience with Pac I think um when we have new faces uh new folks um regularly cycling on to the commission that it provides for dynamic um fresh approaches to issues um it encourages more collaboration I feel like between the Commissioners so that um valuable information isn't siloed um helps you know with the the handoff of information as people are rolling off um I think it allows us to share what we've learned from working on these commissions with other organizations that we go to when we're our term is over and frees up time and we go serve on boards
085at other places um with other nonprofits um or continue work on other commissions within within the city it allows us to kind of share that information um and then I think I think it encourages us to kind of if we've got projects that are important to the city and the sustainability commission you know the office of sustainability agrees with that kind of encourages us to to move those projects along and and tie them up wrap them up um as we're rolling off so yeah those would be my two main recommendations but thank you commissioner Graham yes and I've been here a while sometimes there's some value in deep deep history um one great idea it could be accomplished by combining commissions is that we could finally amend the a20 plan to include biodiversity plan it's
086the other half of the coin in my view about um climate mitigation um most of our resolution tonight was talking about the reasons for that um I I know we the environmental commission asked how we might amend the a20 plan to include this a couple years ago and we didn't get an answer maybe if we're all together we can get an answer and move on move ahead with it hand commissioner Mitchell thanks um I agree with what Christa said about that thought um and also I just want to ask um if the priorities under consideration will be shared with the two commissions so that we could actually have some input in um moving forward with particular priorities as opposed to just necessarily having them assigned or at least it just would be good to be
087involved in that discussion yeah I think there's a going to be a lot to work out there I think we're certainly open to feedback um I think we need to kind of land on um the amount of collaboration on the work plan um just to ensure alignment um but yes we are we're certainly open to suggestions um and we need to I guess it's still a question of how like the process of the work plan will work um but yes to be determined um yeah thank you for that feedback commissioner mki yes thank you I'd like to share some comments that I shared at the energy commission meeting and a few new ones um first of all um I'm absolutely positively in favor of a discussion of how we make the energy and environmental Commission
088s more efficient and more effective um my personal opinion is that they have not been recently so I'm all for that um second um my sense is this is a fate to comple um and I think actions speak louder than words um the energy commission should have 15 members we have not replaced a commissioner since 2023 in the summer um so that's one example of that um there's other examples um and I don't need to go into them but if it is a fate compley then we should figure out how we do make the commissions as efficient and effective as they possibly can be the statement that this is a realignment with City staff I I frankly take exception to that um OSI is responsible for basically climate and energy it's not responsible for solid
089waste it's not responsible for air quality it's not responsible for water quality it's not responsible for natural features um I I've been around for a while um I'm not like quite like Chris um but I happen to be uh have a role um in the office of the city administrator that's since been eliminated but I helped draft Missy's uh job description I was on the interview team um I was present when she was introduced to council and she was introduced um as with the title that she has but it also included and I can I looked it up earlier this week and I can share it with you she was to have include she had responsibility for solid waste so if we're going to be efficient and effective and if we're going to realign um
090the commission then let's realign it with with reality and not with statement saying well this is a realignment um so that it better fits with the city structure it doesn't better fit with the city structure certainly not as it is right now so if if if that makes it more efficient and effective then I'm I'm all for it um as far as how the commission would work my understanding is completely different than what has been explained here tonight my understanding is that city council sets policy those are that's given to City administrator and City staff and they execute on that policy they they are provided with the overall um objectives are they're provided with goals like a20 goals or affordable housing goals you can go on down the list and then it's U and and
091the way that city council is informed on on policy issues from from from the citizenry up from the residents up is that the councils are there to develop proposals and give input to City Council on what needs to be done so that there are the proper uh objectives set the proper metrics and targets that are set as well as how to best achieve those with with with policies and I what I heard earlier is that City staff and city council will get together and tell the commission the new commission these are the things that we think you need to work on I think that has to be a two-way street and if this restructuring is a one-way Street then I think you've really taken away a critical element of and a critical role of boards
092and commissions boards and commissions need to be the the route to provide input to to city council and I I'll give you a specific example that I was going to mention earlier but I think maybe it fits better here um when I think everybody is aware that um the city is looking at various utility options um this seu is obviously one of them that's now approved the other is this proposal that's been put forth by anabor for Public Power that there should be a municipal City utility that City should condemn dte's assets and buy them out um there was was a phase one study um that was authorized by the city that was brought to uh the energy commission it was debated over three meetings a resolution was passed and city council then uh uh
093passed a uh uh a budget amendment um to spend $700 for that phase one study um the way the last discussion went over a phase two study for $1.7 million probably the most important budget policy related activity that the the energy commission could have considered that went directly from City staff to city council it went to one meeting City staff didn't say oh this is something that maybe the energy commission should weigh in on and we should be getting public comment in an energy commission meetings that went then a second time to city council and city council voted on it so what what I see is a series of of actions that like I said speak louder than words words so what what I would like to see is if this is indeed as I
094believe it is a Fed comple then let's really talk about how we make the commissions more effective we take into consideration what Ann said about term limits we talk about the city structure we talk about how do we have effective working groups where people are really dedicated to spending time in working groups and actually have things develop there and then percolate up that has not worked on the energy commission we used to have working groups the working groups don't exist right now and that's partly probably a function of the fact that the number of Commissioners have been uh reduced and the fact that a number of the Commissioners frankly don't have the time to do anything more than come to to commission meetings these are the kinds of things that we really need to Grapple
095with and we need to be honest with each other about what what we want to accomplish um about this and let me just say one more thing I want all of you all of us to think about of all the city's major environmental and energy related goals what outcomes I'm not talking about actions I'm not talking about efforts I'm not talking about accomplishments I'm talking about outcomes what outcomes have we had that really align with our goals our diversion rate is is virtually the same I think in terms of clean clean water there there are some definitely some great outcomes p and and and a bunch of other things but even if you look at at greenhouse gas reductions we are reducing greenhouse gas reductions at a rate where we will reach net zero this
096is the average of net greenhouse gas reductions from 2015 to 2023 if you take that same rate by the way we have the rate going back to 2000 um and it's it's a little bit lower so we start are are starting to uh accelerate the activities but we will reach Net Zero in 2070 if we want to reach it in 2030 it needs to be 7.5 times faster if we want to reach it by 2040 it needs to be three times faster so there we have to do things certainly that are more efficient and more effective there's a lot of things going on but there's also a lot of headwinds in from Washington and I think we need to think of all of this in context and think of what are we going to do
097to really make the commissions more efficient and more effective and serve not just Council and staff but serve the residents of the city of an arbor better so that we achieve outcomes really outcomes for them that's what we're that's what we're here to do thank you so I've got a couple of comments um regarding term limits um since we have we will have working groups you don't have to be commissioner to be on a working group so that's a way for people if they term out if they still want to be involved they can stay in the working groups and still be effective there and then get back on the commission the next time there's an opening so there are opportunities there with term limits to work with working groups um the second is really
098a question if if assuming no one wants to drop off of either commission when we merge them it's going to be a relatively large number of people on the commission is there a concern about the size of the commission um I think at this point it will be a slightly larger commission um but as somebody was talking about the size of the energy commission is quite low um and I forget it last count what the if we the combined number of Commissioners and I know we have a couple people that will be terming out in the environmental commission um our two youth members um uh will not be returning so I think the total number is I want to say around 18 um so it's not crazy especially because we have the working group structure
099that can be like where the actual work is getting done in the smaller groups and the um the larger group when we all get together is just kind of a general discussion so I for me personally I'm not concerned with the size um and then at first and then it will kind of as people will kind of naturally drop and I I forget where we landed on the total number at this point um but it's it won't be a huge group to start just due to the kind of smaller size that we're both going into on both the environmental and energy side is the plan to still have the youth youth Commissioners going forward or are they going to be that is the plan yes all right Vice chair Brown yeah thanks um chair Curtis
100um so I'm just going to take a minute because I have some historical memory I've I've been with the commission I think as long as John msky has but not as long as Chris Graham but um I'm going to speak about solid waste because in 2016 I believe it was City staff um told I was just an audience member when this happened to the in front of the environmental commission but City St told the commission that there was that the solid waste fund which is financed by a special millage um that enjoyed generous support from the uh electorate here in an arbor um City staff was saying that the uh Solid Waste fund was going to go to zero within two or three years um under questioning you know under some questioning you know friendly
101questioning by the environmental Commissioners City staff was not able to adequately explain why why the solid waste fund was going to disappear now um the commission was a forum for the community um to investigate this matter and um in a way take it off council's table um to see how this to gather facts to gather um information to have a public discussion and try to see where it would come um ultimately after months of uh discussions it was clear that the U City staff could not actually explain why it was going to go to zero I think what was happening in the background is city the city staff decided they did not want to have a murf they did not want to manage a murf so the outcome was that um so the outcome that
102that principally happened through the commission is that um the city city council decided that okay we'll restart a murf so they set up rfps there were two U organizations that submitted proposals one was mtera a canadian-based company who proposed Trucking you know our our recyclables and uh to uh aerf that did not yet exist in Lansing in East Lansing and that uh it was unclear about what was going to happen with that um their bid was higher than the other bid which was submitted by recycl Arbor recycle an arbor put together a proposal that did not to restart the murf that did not involve any Capital expenditures by the city and now the solid waste fund has $24 million in it so um I I just want to throw this out as an example where
103the environmental commission performed an excellent Public Service um as it existed because it was able to take um to take the discussion out of city council the community had a chance to uh provide input um and uh the situation was resolved in a matter of sa satisfactory to City staff and to uh Council and to the electorate here in an Harbor so um I just hope that um whatever changes are envisioned that they do not really cut the legs out of this um of out of this um kind of public forum that exists to resolve issues such as this well that's all I I want to say on this topic Steve commissioner NRI hi I just wanted to very quickly express my support of combining um I have expressed that I wanted the environmental commission
104to focus more on a20 and so I feel like this is a good opportunity to kind of share and collaborate more and understand where the city's going with that um and I also have expressed that I wanted more input from City's staff on what we should be prioritizing and working on and it sounds like you guys heard us and you're going to be doing both of those so thank you my support so I just want to say that um I know John mury and I have had some conversations offline I do I do a lot of volunteering for a lot of different groups around an arbor and one of the things I always think about is is my time being used valuably am I making a difference and after you know almost three years on
105the environmental commission it was not ranking very high as far as that so I'm really looking forward to the emerged Commission of sustainability to and the new direction we're going with the the working groups the way they're being set up I think I think I'm hoping we have some opportunities to really make a positive change so that's where I stand on it anybody else so our next topic we're probably going to go a little bit over but Steve we want to talk about the discussion on Solid Waste education I don't know if we can make that a quick one and then move on or maybe do more next month what would you like to do yeah um yeah this came out of discussions in the uh circular economy working group so please um Olivia you
106know Aaron and um and John and Brooks um you know please um add to whatever I I'm just going to put out here and that is um two things first of all um we're we're in the middle or at the beginning it's hard to tell which of a process where Solid Waste Management is regionalizing you know to cap to better capture economies of scale that may exist now uh what that means is that first first of all uh um there was an or organization created called warma WR MMA um to which the city has subscribed um they are U uh this is this is a government institution which is designed to help facilitate regionalization um now the um the second thing is that uh is that of course anybody who's volunteered as I have um
107you know with um City staff um on booths where you're talking about recycling like what's recyclable and what isn't it's very confusing to people that show up at your booth because they don't they all live in different areas of the county and the rules are different you know and so um and so there's some sort of harmonization that should occur now um the way the business Works um I I was formerly on the board of directors of a recycling company in North Carolina so I have some I have some experience on the other end of that and um so um you know it's the MF it's whoever is managing um the recycling and the composting who really are best aware of what their end markets are what's the marketability of the uh diversion you know
108of the things we're diverting from the landfill what's the marketability of all the recyclables and the compost and so in a sense um they're the ones who really know best about um about what the rues should be because they're the ones that have to sell the product that they're processing so um so so there needs to be some sort of harmonization but it needs the murfs themselves the contractors who run the murfs have to be a central part of that because they're the intermediaries in in the whole value chain and and so um and so um and so that's highlighted the the need for more um you know more education more funding now I'll just say that um that within the recycling Community you know there's the Michigan recycling Coalition there's the there's various organizations
109Nationwide that I have participated with from time to time um including MRC and there's a general consensus that basically uh a bottom level of funding for education is basically $10 per household so if you count you know the the 2020 census um an arbor has 26,000 some 26,000 households but when you start adding um you know Apartments as individual households Condominiums it's more it's closer to 50,000 so what that means is that there should be um to really attain any kind of goals on waste reduction and diversion you should be spending about the city should be spending about $500,000 a year now the question is um the way the rfps have been um have been drafted it's not uh it's not clear um what the goals are first of all for the education what are
110the metrics we're going to use to tell whether an education campaign is successful or not so there need and and so my experience with various organizations reinforces what I'd heard as a young person that it really takes 3 to 5 years to evaluate the success of any plan especially something regarding around changing cultural habits you know uh we we don't want to wait seven generations for everything to get right um but three to five years is a reasonable uh goal to set for yourself and um and but we don't have a real stability s uh stable kind of fund like like the solid waste fund is so one of the things that I was um one of the ideas that several of us are putting are are have been discussing is just that maybe maybe
111um we should sequ maybe we should ear Mark uh maybe five uh who knows what the amount is but it's it's it's hopefully it could be up to 500,000 just to cover the city um and um maybe we could earmark some of the funds that are within the solid waste fund to provide an annual fund for Education that staff and Council can um Can evaluate um you know the success of various um strategies and um you know and issue rfps and all that but this would provide a stable funding source for education to accommodate you know the regionalization and all the confusion that's going to cause and also provide a stable source of funding for educating the residents of an arbor in U in compost and you know and uh improving the value of the
112compost and the recyclables so um did I uh miss anything or I don't think so uh so next are report outs from the the work groups um so biodiversity we had a meeting uh March 10th we discussed the merger of the commissions and we discussed the resolution and then Google cut us off after an hour so that was all we talked about um circular economy Steve I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to report on circular economy um let's see um um yeah um yes Sarah Mason was present you know she's um she's one of the staff people that's um that we're talking with um you know that's part of the circular economy group she was mentioning that City staff prefers reusable containers actually because of this confusion about um about whether a
113plastic container is recyclable or compostable because everybody you know um everybody knows everybody here probably knows that um back in the beginning of 2023 um there was a problem with our composting contractor you know we care Denali because uh these bla approved you know uh containers plastic cups that are made out of like poly you know polylactic acid and other um that are sourced from biological um chemicals um that they are not really compostable uh you know with the operation that they're using so you know there's um the fact is that I've saved him in my garage and I just take him to the university because the university uses a different contractor um that accepts um bla Plastics so you know it's a very complicated area but um Sarah did mention that because it's so
114complicated and it's probably not going to you know the market isn't going resolve clearly for a number of years than um than the city's actually City staff is currently thinking that um you know that um using that expanding the reusable program in some way may be the best it's beginning to look like that's the best option um and that was about it it's new yeah um have I missed anything Olivia okay uh water quality Sarah hi um yeah we had a water quality meeting on February 21st which I wasn't at the last meeting so I don't think you got an update on that um and then we also had a chloride chloride subgroup meeting on March 3D and we actually have our next water quality work group meeting tomorrow um so we've been busy um
115the flad subgroup has been very active um shout out to Kelly M from here on River Watershed Council she's been amazing getting us a bunch of data on forde um surface water quality um and we've kind of been able to through her her her data crunching um kind of come up with a a more prioritized plan of focusing on our um Creeks that are impaired for fluoride in the city so that's malitz Creek Swift Creek and Miller's Creek um so we're taking a more targeted view on those and looking um more at what we can do to specifically help those water uh those specific Creeks um I'm tentatively thinking of a field visit um to maybe tag team with hrwc as they go out um to see these Creeks um we've been looking at some
116technology like chloride strips to get more um uh detailed understandings of where the chloride is coming from um and then we're also looking into Minnesota has some really great um salt programs um called their smart salt program where they actually Ed have education for applicators um and the public um so we're going to look at that and see if it's feasible to implement a similar type of U program here um we're hoping to have a presentation on our work um available for this group group probably I would say in like May or June um so we might have a special presentation um to give you guys some more detailed update um and we're hoping to also meet with public works and talk about all the efforts they've done um to reduce salting um through their
117work um we're also still kind of working on the4 dioxine ms4 issue so we have a few feelers out on that um so we haven't dropped that yet but I think that's it Steve am I missing anything oh just one thing um and that was with the midon partners with the Heron River wat Council um Mid mid hereon Partners meeting that was held on February 27th um it was noted that scoring is the scoring for rain Gardens is a little whacko like you get a four point credit every or rain Garden no matter how the size gets a four point credit while the entire entire Mary Doyle Park Basin project only get seven points so there was a discussion about the fact that that needs to be Revisited and uh and and actually follow the
118metrics about storm water retention far better um than it currently is so we're going to discuss that in the in the water quality team okay Sarah was there anything on storm water also on that work group no so we're kind of on pause for that we're focusing right now on chlorides and then I think in the summer we're going to pick up on the storm water stuff so okay like juggling priorities right now sure uh energy commissioner mki yes uh we discussed two topics one of which was already mentioned we discussed the combination of the two commissions into a sustainability uh commission um I don't think you anything further needs to be said about that the other thing that we discuss uh is uh the idea of using zoning to uh Levy a carbon fee
119on new natural gas uh developments as well as the replacement of mad major uh Natural Gas Appliances in buildings over 20,000 square feet um that effectively was shot down because of legality concerns but I'd like to point out to our two council members that still leaves a major problem in that the a20 plan assumed that starting in 2022 all new buildings in an aror would be um all electric and we also have obviously problem with major uh buildings um in their systems large boiler systems and things like that um those are um in many cases in most cases still being replaced with natural gas and uh residential systems are going to be there for 15 to 20 years and Commercial systems in many cases when you're talking about the commercial boilers they're going to be
120still emitting um renous gases for up to 50 years so we need to do something and I know that in one case including recently there was at least as I understand it there was a 30% % height bonus that was given um and that that that's that's okay but when we're talking about um New Heights in the comprehensive Plan and there's push back against some of the higher Heights in residential um neighborhoods if it goes up to 48 ft and then you add a 30% bonus for uh all electric construction or maybe for um affordable housing then it's no longer 48 ft so we we have a problem that uh we need to solve and just so that people understand we have approved since the a20 plan was implemented um we've approved over 30 buildings
121that are natural gas connected I'm not just talking about um for a backup generator and um the emissions of those buildings is going to wipe out um essentially um about 2third of one full year of decarbonization activities for everything else that we're doing and that is that problem that we're going to uh continue to be confronted with particularly in my view in in in the sense that we have a trump Administration that's not going to be doing much um in this way to advance um all electric construction so we we have a dilemma that we somehow need um to figure out how we're going to address and that hopefully will be something that a new sustainability committee um can come up with so we we talked about this resolution it was shot down but basically
122the topic as an open topic for further considerations um although I don't know exactly what options we have um available to us so uh that's that's all from the energy commission uh Parks commissioner Marson hi thanks we've had two meetings actually since the last time the environmental commission met so um we had a nap a natural area preservation update on uh they they recently did a new strategic plan um mostly reaffirming the the goals that they've had all along um we had an update on the capital asset study that's being conducted um and suffice it to say that Parks has quite a large number of capital assets um most of them aging and uh quite pricey to uh repair and maintain um we uh uh voted to recommend that the that an arbor be designated
123a bird city of Michigan and then we uh had an update on West Park um and the planning that's going on with that and those are the highlights thanks uh do our council members have anything they want to add I can just say really quick um on the city council agenda on Monday so a few days ago uh we did approve what I believe is the last step to build a new fire station 4 which will be just simply replacing the old fire station 4 um this is at plat and here on parkway but of note for this group it it it will be Net Zero um and we believe this will be the first Net Zero fire station in the state so uh more to come on that as it's built and hopefully you
124know things like tours and stuff like that will be available once it's complete but that's all I have thanks okay um nothing else from chair uh report out from staff yeah I had an update about the next sustainability uh Forum series is next week at the library on circular economy so check that out uh from 6:00 to 7:30 pm um one other update from OSI in my notes are the Energy rebates available um so it's an expansion of the home energy rebate program um to hopefully make it easier for for residents to get um hooked up with that and then public I have the budget update under public services but it's clearly for the entire city but um so we are our budget process is underway for fiscal year 2627 um Council will have a
125work session I believe on Monday um and then in April um the city administrator will have his kind of recommended fisal year 2026 budget um and then in May um Council will uh then adopt um the budget on May 19th and that's all the updates for me thanks nice chair Brown you have a question oh yeah um I'm not sure if um I'm sorry Erin I dropped my attention but I I just wanted to mention that there's an a20 sustainability Forum as part of the U you know uh on March 27th at 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the downtown library 4th Flor meeting room it's going to include a lot of um I I I'm not I didn't catch whether you'd mention that or not oh I did yep but I was very brief
126so thanks for the underscore sorry yeah no problem Melle gr uh could we by chance see a copy of the natur race program strategic plan if it's now public um we all had a lot of discussion with them on multiple channels about this plan and there are a lot of details that i' I'm sure we'd all like to go see yeah sure I can um round that up for you thank you so our next meeting is on April 24th and now we're at our second public comment um this is an opportunity for people to speak up to 3 minutes please call 888 78899 enter meeting ID 954 3473 9065 to raise your hand press nine to unmute press star six City staff will select callers who have raised their hand one by one using the
127last three digits of their phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there may be delay up to 30 seconds before a connection is established Aon do we have a caller or any caller still um don't see any raised hands on the caller so I think we're good okay yes sorry yes we do okay uh caller 464 please hi um can you hear me yes oh thank you I just always need to be reassured because I'm not on Zoom I'm just I just dialed in just I'm just on audio only so uh my name is Linda Brower I spoke earlier in this meeting and I kind of surprised myself by just listening to the entire meeting and I wanted to just respond
128to things that some of the Commissioners said and I don't know who said what because I didn't have the video and I don't know voices so the commissioner who me asked about West Park linking to the alen Creek Greenway or what is now known as a tree line you know you'd have to condemn couple of building a couple of homes on Third Street and tear them down to allow that to happen so I I don't think that's a good idea but I wanted to mention that what Park is largely functioning as a wetland right now under it is the tributary that goes into the Allen Creek and the route of the Allen Creek is what is supposedly going to be uh morphed into the tree line and that goes into the hon River um and
129the tree line itself is not going to be green infrastructure as it's envisioned now um I should mention I was a I was a parir advisory commissioner as well and I was chair for several years and I also was on the alen Creek's Greenway task force so I just want to not let this history be lost right now the the plan for the for the tree line is kind of a concrete narrow path to the river and the only way it's going to act is green infrastructure which was the original Vision if the city owns Parcels along it which are in the Allen Creek flood plane are not built upon and are remediated if there's any toxins and planted with um you know Wetland native plants okay the second thing I wanted to say in
130response to commissioner Malik yes commissioner um many cities incorporate protections for natural features in their comprehensive plan the comprehensive plan is a land use plan natural Fe Fe are part of the land and you need to address how how they're going to be used so I think you can uh consult with the consultant that the city hired to uh develop the plan because they should have in addition to doing a lot of demographic Trends within the city and real estate investigations and all that they would have looked at what other cities are doing currently with their n with their comprehensive plans so they should have some examples of other communities that incorporated those protections we did in the past um and then the third thing I wanted to say um to council member Cornell my
131council member um I I think you said that somebody misstated the fact that there wasn't robust participation in the meetings for the comprehensive plan and you know I have only been watching it kind of from afar and reading about it but um I don't think it was fair that you you basically you said he miss you basically said he lied you know you said it's patently untrue and and I need to tell you that you need to uh tune in to the Planning Commission meeting last night which I did after many months of not listening I I tuned in and it was the largest public turnout at the Planning Commission I have ever seen in years and all those people were talking about the comprehensive plan and how they didn't realize what was in it
132so there's plenty of people that didn't know about it I I just think it's important it's important 30s left for a public comment okay thanks thanks my last 30 seconds I just want to say I think it was John Mery who was saying things about um or somebody said it's not a question of either or you know density is going to happen that's the Comm the city has already committed to that you know nothing's going to change that so the the goal now is to see what we can Preserve in terms of green infrastructure and natural features to counterbalance the density that we're all going to be living with because that green infrastructure is necessary it's just three more words it's necessary just for the environmental health and the environmental health is affects physical and
133mental human health thank you right thank you no other callers okay so is there a motion to adjourn or is anybody say want to say anything else I see a one motion from Chris is there a second you works good meeting okay I think we are adjourned for the day have a good night right e e