001e e e Ain will you read the land Heritage statement yes I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occup is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Anish shab including Odawa oju and Bame and wi do peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 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 in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you and will you do the roll call yes Vice chair Brown um here
002in Ann Arbor council member Cornell hereward five Ann Arbor H chairperson Curtis here an arbor commissioner Dale here and an arbor M Graham council member Malik here calling from Ward to an an arbor about two minutes from home and I'll be on video soon thanks guys thanks commissioner Marson I'm here in an arbor um commissioner wki believe is absent commissioner Mitchell here in an aror commissioner NRI absent commissioner peterswood Ur an arbor commissioner Smith here an arbor and commissioner weing you're an arbor well thank you that's great thanks uh does anyone want to make changes to tonight's agenda if not is there a motion to approve the agenda by Hank seconded by Anya is there a vote on the agenda if everybody approves it raise your hand say I I I okay uh does anybody
003want to make changes to last month's meeting minutes is there a motion to approve it by Rita seconded by Jen okay all in favor of approval of the minutes raise your hand say I I looks like a quorum okay uh next item of business is public comment this is an opportunity for people to speak up to three minutes please call 888- 78899 and our meeting ID 954 3473 9065 to raise your hand press 9 to unmute press start six City staff will select callers who raise their hand one by one using the 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 connection is established Aaron do we have
004any callers no callers okay uh we don't have any unfinished business so next will be new business we have Susan briyan here to talk about was County rain Gardens thank so much um do you mind if I share my screen is that yes please I actually all right I actually I think I made some changes since um I gave it to you Erin so great see all right um I'm so glad to speak to you all I am thrilled to be here actually because I feel like a lot of my work uh fits in exactly with what you all are interested in and I'm um thrilled to be in amongst people who are working hard for the environment um as I have many more slides than really this amount of time is necess should be
005necessary in this amount of time um so I'd love for as I'm going through if you have questions and we want to like hesitate and talk about a particular topic more and then something you're not as interested in we can just Breeze right through so um yeah so feel free to ask questions don't don't feel like you need to wait until the end uh so I run I work for the washon County water resources commissioner's office and I run the rain Garden program which focuses on residential rain Gardens so getting the people um who live in in Arbor to build a rain garden and it's really a program built on um a Behavior change and for the social good so any like a lot of these programs are in like public health or something like
006that like smoking sensation or um uh anything like that in public health but this is the Environmental side of that getting people to do something good that will benefit everyone so it's really crowdsourcing rain Gardens getting everyone to do it so that uh government doesn't have to do as much of it that would be very expensive so I work for um Washington County water resources commissioner's office which in my entire 15 year of working there an announc when someone's Introducing Me they've only said it correct once because it's a mouthful um but we are an unit of local government and uh we have our own elected commissioner which is now gret and Drisco and we are in charge of uh flooding water quality we are have jurisdiction over County drains and not all waterways are
007County drains but the ones that do we have authority to assess in those watersheds so that we can maintain those drains and this has gone this goes back you know more than a hundred years when Farmers needed um to to manage their drainage and so we're the government entity that does that uh so my the part of um our responsibilities that I'm uh in is green infrastructure and Rain Garden are a part of green infrastructure and what green infrastructure does is it slows down storm water soaks it into the ground and cools it down and this could be small um pieces like the this is on Miller Avenue the picture on the left a rain Garden that captures storm water from the street or it could be a large um area like in Mary Beth
008Doyle Park where we're capturing a lot of water and really helping with flooding Downstream uh so there's many benefits cleaner water recharges the groundwater cleaner air just because there's more plants more trees reduced Urban temperatures and then also Community benefits like these folks are volunteering in a rain garden and I try to provide a lot of community building in my programs okay so Ann Arbor and Wason County we partner quite a bit in this green infrastructure world and um that City B Arbor storm water utility fee provides funding uh so that my county unit of County government can run many things but the ones that I'm involved on are the master rain Garder class um we give individual consultations to Residents about rain Gardens so tell your friends it's free um we'll come out and
009meet with them in their yard give them advice strategize about how to fix their drainage issues and build a rain garden and then also we uh administer the maintenance of many public rain Gardens all of the an arbor public rain Gard s are administered by my colleague Katie Whitey and it's fascinating you should have her come out and speak to you as well she's great um and then also she wanted me to mention that we have a program called Community Partners for clean streams and that's a program for businesses where we help them um plan their uh pollution prevention plans and then also we will even provide a free rain garden design for them that they can then build we have a small Grant as well if they want to uh uh apply for that
010and so they can build rain Gardens and build more storm water infrastructure okay so today this is what I was thinking we could talk about but feel free to ask questions or if you want to hesitate or talk more about one of these topics feel free or I can skim through that's also an option um I thought I'd tell you what my program objective is um I think uh just you know what what is the goal that we're trying to do what are some of the results I was able to partner with u ofm uh School of information uh recently for some kind of cool analysis I touch a little bit on is this Equitable I think it's interesting topic it's not necessarily um the end all BL analysis of that but I I've been
011looking at Maps recently and then I this is what I think about a lot is what stops people from building a rain Garden or or if you want to apply this to other subject matters what stops people from you know doing what um doing some environmental Behavior what stopping them um and then what is the benefit that they perceive that might be motivating them um and then how the program elements of what I offer sort of fit in with those needs there will be lots of photos of beautiful gardens and then actually I would love to hear your suggestions and comments because I know many of you have participated in some of my programs and if you have elements or things that you would love to see me do I this is my winter planning
012time and I'd like to hear from if you have brainstorms or um needs that you think the community has that I should address okay so this is my geeky um nerdy uh program goal which is to make it's full of jargon um vegetative infiltration the norm for landscaping practices in Wasing County so every time a homeowner is talking to a landscaper they're like oh well where should we put the water shouldn't we soak it in where should we put the rain Garden that that is just the normal way that people think about their own yard and how their yard should function so more specifically my goal is get rain Gardens built so that is the overarching goal that I'm always thinking about how to make that happen um it is also Aster part of our
013ms4 uh storm water wallet quality our storm water permit with the state um that is administered by eagle so we report out to them about our public agent public education and Outreach and then also our implementation of those [Music] practices oh also um the an arbor and I'll touch on this a little bit an does have an ordinance for if people are building a new building or are increasing their impervious surface through roofs or new pavement or anything like that they do require new either rain Garden or a dry while but most of what I do and I love it when those people ask me questions because I want to give them advice but most of my program focuses on voluntary action uh Erin mentioned that you all are interested in biodiversity and water quality
014and that's in everything that happens here embedded okay so this is all retrofits because an arbor is substantially built out and there's no more room to put rain Gardens except for in people's yards or in Parks or in areas that are already green um so lots of people building rain Gardens in their yards because there's all that opportunity when you look at this um map actually there's all those little yards every one of those people could have a rain Garden um and so encouraging people to do that last year this is 2024 just made this count 89 people built their rain Gardens through our program and then also I always you know sort of highlight those are people individuals residential people that I've trained to build their rain Garden but also landscapers that we have
015trained through the program built 53 so training landscapers is also a wonderful way to get lots of um rain Gardens built they're both doing their part now after 15 years it's um over 2,000 rain Gardens built which when I present this in front of other municipalities even much larger municipalities they're astounded by this number um because of the amazing residents of Hann Arbor who've done an amazing job I've taught other communities mostly in Ohio to teach the master rang Gardener class because it's such a great model um people build their rain Gardens and they maintain them over time it's a wonderful way to get infrastructure into the ground and um interestingly the um conservation districts in Ohio have a really good funding mechanism where they get matched by their state organization so that's why they've
016been able to um afford to be able to learn to do a new program so for the first time ever Ohio and Michigan both building rangu okay I can't hear you laughing but I'm sure you are all right um let me move this so I can see uh okay so I think most of you know what a rain Garden is some of you I know have built one because I've seen them that be built uh but just so we're all on the same page uh this is a rain Garden this rain Garden is off of um plat and Bess and it was one of our very very early rain Gardens uh built by Denise held so here's one example and you might recognize this sign I'm sure who most people have seen the signs around
017town right they're all over uh I also just wanted to go through quickly some slides that show the building of a rain Garden because it's no small task there's a lot of digging uh people can use a tractor if they want to if they have one um but there's always digging involved this is a an rain Garden on Pine Tree just north of Miller and this one's a little fancier because it has that front um retainer wall but just so we can get a moment of how much work this is we're talking about here this is a before picture and the yard was a little bit ripped up he had to replace um a pipe so the yard was already kind of mucked up and he said okay I think I'll um build a rain
018Garden here also if you can see right here the concrete is all broken up because the water from this down spout would go onto the driveway and just create a huge sheet of ice so he wanted to solve that problem oops okay this is all just Photoshop um so in order to do that they needed to break up some concrete um they started getting like the teenagers of the households had to get involved because they needed a little bit more muscle the trench for the pipe for the water to go to the Rain Garden it rained a few times while they were doing that there's laying the pipe rebuilding the porch now that the pipe goes underneath building the little retaining wall and not all rain Gardens have rebuilt porches and retaining walls but you
019know sometimes you run into these things more digging this ringer has two stepped pools no three three stepped pools and that's kind of that's like high level rain Garden building right there and then planted yay all done I I feel like this is the moment when I need to tell people you've done a great job because those pants plants are so tiny and they're like wait what done here but it all grows and it blooms and it ends up being beautiful actually often I will bring um a tour group in to see this rain Garden every year we visit the same rain garden and the homeowner now it's a new person the old person who built the rain Garden moved it's a new person and he comes out and he always says okay which one
020which weeds should I pull and there's usually like two he's really takes a really good care of this rain Garden um so that's what I count is what that you know someone did that whole process all that digging that's what I count is that's one one rain garden and you know a lot of people end up doing it okay so this is the sort of this is me counting rain Gardens um back in 2006 we got a back it used to be called the mdeq grant um to fund 20 rain Gardens and so we funded and helped 20 people in an arbor build rain Gardens and then we were sort of like internally funded for a little bit bit where we designed rain Gardens for residences this is back in the early days when it
021was pretty um unusual and also we were learning as a staff to how to build a rain Garden uh in 2011 that was the first Master rain Garder class that I taught in person and then in 2015 uh we received a grant to put the class online this is before the pandemic so it was a big deal and it uh put us in good situation to actually have uh programs during the pandemic so I think it's interesting to look at look 2020 oh people gardened people really gardened that year and then the next year it's like the pandemic hangover no one guarded and then we're back up to like normal 90s um these are this so that's the whole County this is just an arbor and I think it's interesting to see that um once
022we offered the online class the numbers went way up so that's that's pretty interesting and then this next slide this is it really just look at the total out of our 2,100 rain Gardens 1,400 of them are in an arbor so an arbor is the bulk of the rain Gardens that we do now um I have a map of all those rain Gardens I've been able to take all those photos and put all those um rain Gardens on to a map and it's pretty interesting to see like how they're distributed around town um another thing to look at is how important the Anarbor utility fee is because look how all the rain Gardens are in an arbor outside not as much so yes so an arbor funding some of this program makes a big difference
023oh so this is the whole County so you can see how many rain Gardens are right in an arbor Lots in iilani actually um quite a few in Dexter I need to work on Chelsea that's my Chelsea and um myin are actually my next goals all right so um I like to think about um how rain Gardens can be free or low cost there's nothing that will change the fact that it takes quite a bit of energy and you need to have a shovel but um the there is the online class is free and On Demand if you want to watch the video and then do the homework and watch the video and do the homework anyone can do that and it's free I offer two plant swaps a year at The ipsan District Library
024and people bring their plants and they trade trade or just give away their plants to people who need plants um lots of people come from uh seeds to community with their extra plugs that they've grown up which is a wonderful program and they'll bring them to the swaps um also it's great that there's Municipal compost for free for residents and Chip drop so that people can build it for all you know very little money very modest but I thought it'd be interesting to look at um our our area our County and look at the we have an opportunity index that looks at um who has more opportunity when it comes to um job access and economic well-being and those sorts of um metrics and compare that to where people are building rain Gardens so this
025is just sort of a thought exercise so here's the whole County this is the opportunity index the um higher the wealthier areas are in dark blue and that goes to light blue and then to light pink and then dark pink is the least opportunity has the least access to opportunity so then I put my ring Garden map on top of that and you can it's a little bit hard to see um so I thought I'd zoom in and look at um I just looked at Southeast an arbor because it's kind of a mix of different um economic uh levels here's wash and then uh Packer just to orient you is right in here right there uh so I thought this was pretty this is just you know me analyzing my own program um that some
026of these areas like this is kind of interesting that this is the same neighborhood I feel like this is all the same but um just where the where people are building rank Gardens um and then just to kind of keep it real for myself I'm like okay well let me take some Zillow numbers and put it in there and what my sort of back of the napkin analysis is that the middle is who builds rain Gardens the middle is look at how dense it is in here those are you know people in just modest houses building rain Gardens I think people who live in apartments can't they just don't um and then people who live in these like really big lots and really expensive houses up here aren't doing it as much but when I
027think about all those contractors landscape contractors they're not on my map because just tell me how many I don't necessarily know where um so I think that's actually they could be doing better than it looks here so those are the contractor numbers those contractors are building rain Gardens okay so now a little bit more Behavior change part of it what's motivating people and what's stopping PE people and this is part of what I um the analysis that I do in my own uh program so basically I'm answering the question why should building a rain Garden rise to the top of people's priorities because there's a lot of other things they could be doing with their time um they could be exercising more they could invest their retirement money they could clean out their junk closet
028they could Vol you know they could do really important things like volunteering at their kids school or the thing that somehow always pops up in my social media like somehow uh my kitchen should be arranged in a rainbow or my closet you know like something like that these are things that are buying for our attention um why should a rain Garden rise to the top and by interviewing people and talking to people um which I do all the time these are some of the things that people view as the benefits um they're not all environmental reasons and that's okay sometimes we have to emphasize those non-environmental reasons um to make it happen and there are real reasons people love pollinators that's an environmental reason but ooh boy that's super um powerful but so is um
029having a purpose and meaningful work having something that you can do and complete and be proud of also the t-shirt liame is large so this is with the U of um M School of information they have an event called Deep dive and they're always looking for um data sets to look at if you ever need a data set looking um graft they are happy to do it uh this was who builds a rain Garden what kind of people build a rain garden and this is the first pass they said what level of gardener how skilled of a gardener are you interestingly intermediate and advanced I guess this is you would think um more likely to build a rank Garden whereas the beginners not as likely and that is that makes sense to me like okay
030those that's I should Target gardeners because they're just more likely to build a ring Garden this is interesting as well and maybe not as obvious uh of the people who end up building the rain Garden what were their original motivations for getting involved comparing those two things the people who actually end up building had some kind of problem that they wanted to fix like the ice puddle so they're a motivated person because they're fixing some kind of problem they have a deadline they get it done there's some miscellaneous answers and then as we go down the list personal reasons like um I want to see more Wildlife or not general knowledge so that's one two three four fifth down the list of seven is is the environment that's pretty interesting like hm okay so when
031we want people to do something good for the environment it's not always we don't have to always talk about the environment sometimes it's a little more nuan than that or sometimes it's um more it like just this is fun or this is something that can be very satisfying rather than um really emphasizing the environmental aspect of it I mentioned this briefly at the beginning but an arbor code does require A Rang Garden or a dryw if a homeowner is building a project that increases their impervious area on their property um when people were required to do this I love it when an arbor staff gives those folks our u a postcard that has like come make an appointment so that we can give them advice and they can do it correctly so that it turns
032into a beautiful rain Garden because it's a bummer when they do it wrong and then it fails and then that's not good for anyone so if you know anyone who's building a rain garden and they have to and they're complaining to you about it please send them to me I would love talk to them cuz we meet them in their yard we give them advice we'll do a little sketch um it's easy to make an appointment we have it all online where you could just you know book a time because everyone needs a little advice oh let's see okay I think I already that okay barriers what are the things that are stopping people this is pretty interesting when you talk to people about it we just did a survey um and number one actually
033was Labor like the the thing that surprised people at how difficult it was was the amount of digging like it's serious people with small children hardly ever build rain Gardens it's just too much work um and number two that confidence factor is huge because often they're building it in their front yard their neighbors are going to see it are they sure this is even going to work so these are the sorts of things that we address through our program um so the big thing that people have heard of is the master rain Garder class um that's how people get all those answers all their questions answered about how to build a rain Garden but we also do those visits um where we'll give people advice I offer garden tours during the summer so that people
034can see other people building rain Gardens they can ask them all sorts of questions you know if something's bugging them like I'm never really sure how do I get the water to it or you know they can flush out those aners with other people who have done it and then there's lots of opportunities for volunteer leadership because I feel like I'm only one person and I really need everyone else to go out and tell their friends otherwise we're not going to get many rain Gardens built so we'll give advice we have the master Ru in our class and then also opportunities to volunteer um I'm always having an iterative iterative process I mean trial and ER I mean iterative process um because I'm always learning from people and what they need and what and also
035the times change people um yeah what they what they how they use to design or what sort of materials they use to design their rain garden and then also just what they need ends up changing so that's one of the reasons why actually I don't I would love to hear your um perspective on what because you see it the program from afar and it's nice to have that kind of perspective I think Community is really important this is sort of the process where people you know they build a rain Garden they put up their sign they are leading by example and to be honest I used to be um president of the wild ones and we were always trying to get people to plant native plants this is the way lead by example by having
036a native plant garden with a rain Garden you encourage your neighbors to do it and then um support them make it easy conv and fun build community and then it's an iterative circular process okay here's your parade of beautiful gardens Lorie spr and Dexter Char tarazi this is in Wayne County actually she took the class and built it there Alicia Davis this was the number one picture actually of a garden in our survey it won Denise H you already saw this Garden uh Barb Tes hosted a a tour at her garden uh last year and then having that sign means that people know what it is otherwise no one would know it's rain Garden actually because the number one influence with what people do with their yards is what their neighbors do with their yards
037and then we also try to reduce barriers so getting PE getting the plants to people where do they buy plants it's the number one question we get so there's the that we we partner it's really run by the Conservation District but we help them um also seeds to community is a wonderful new program that where people grow up their seeds with winter sewing and that's free which is amazing I love it when the community get gets built through visiting other people's Gardens or we have a potluck every year and it's so important like this actually 2018 I'm serious I during class I forgot to sort of open with introductions look at that that's how you learn right there so those are all the services and then also um that map has turned into like a
038really wonderful reporting um tool so that we do have to report to Eagle and also it is I had the school of information do a user experience analysis on it and I was a little worried that people had to submit a photo maybe they wouldn't like their privacy um you know Disturbed like that but that was the part people loved the most so you can go into this map and feel free to go into it and um I can actually put in the chat the link to it um super fun you can like zoom in into your neighborhood and see photos of all the rain Gardens in your neighborhood or you know it's it's a good time some of the um reference material and that's all thank you so much for um inviting me and
039I'd love to have a conversation so Ann you get the first question thank you Susan that was a great presentation I'm actually one of the uh one of those early folks back in like I don't know like 20 you're one of the original 20 oh my goodness I don't think I'm one of the original 20 but like uh you know I had my rain Garden designed by Harry Sheen back back in the day and uh anyway um and I've maintained it and it's so that the sign is faded and broken and no longer there but and it's in my backyard so it's hard you know people have to know about it to come back there but um what I'm interested about the two things um first of all do you track uh fail rain Gardens
040and then the second one is my second question is are there any barriers within the city of Anna Arbor that um that uh an organization like a commission like ours U could Advocate to help fix oh interesting question um the first do I track failed rain Gardens um they they stick in my mind I can think but there's not that many um I I don't because when someone has a failed rain Garden um we will visit them and strategize with them to fix it so it gets fixed that said there's probably three or four that ultimately just didn't there is a limit but there's not very many but I actually maybe I should it would be interesting to see there's certain neighborhoods that I know the soils are very difficult um and I can think
041of like specific places that it was very very challenging but other people in those neighborhoods I still encourage them to put in a rain garden and it doesn't mean it doesn't work it just needs they it just means they need to have a functioning outlet and then you are there any barriers that you all should work on um in the city of an arbor no it's a great place to build rain Gardens there aren't any um people don't have to get a permit which is fantastic they can just Garden um I think that ad uh making it I think the staff already know to send people to us to get advice on when they're building their rain Gardens when they're required to um so that's working all right but if you know anyone who does
042have a garden that they built that is not working as well because usually because they dig it too deep then you should send them to us because we want to get it fixed are there any other berries that's really interesting I'm going to think about that an thank you so much for asking that Anya yeah um Susan thank you so much this is really I loved seeing all the photos and the maps and stuff um I I have a question so I know that there's opportunities to volunteer I wonder if there's something already in place to specifically go out and do some of the physical labor for in the communities where maybe people don't have that free time available to do it you know maybe they need it because of flooding in their basement and
043I understand there's a lot of sort of you know ways to get compost and wood chips and other things um for free or low cost but maybe they just don't really just don't have the time to do some of the physical labor is that is there like a something in place to help connect people who want to specifically go give their time to those neighborhoods there's not um if people take the master rainard our class in one of our live versions right now we're teaching it online live and we also have an in-person live class um if they're in one of those actual community building classes then we'll match people up like for instance in our class right now there's a young man who doesn't really have a spot to build his rain garden and
044he was saying does is anyone building their garden and needs help cuz I will help you know he's a young strong person he can do it but um so there's that informal way but there's no formal way uh for us to do that interestingly in Detroit they have a different model um rain Gardens to the rescue which is an amazing model it's not like mine is more scalable more um uh gets a lot of rain Gardens built their model is people in the class they also teach a class and then as a unit they go from house to house and build a rain Garden so by the end everyone's built a rain Garden but no one had to dig it all by themselves so that's another the mo other model is out there but we
045don't have someone either needs energy or they need money to hire it up Steve well thank you Susan that was spectacular um you know um um regarding the last question um there are like High School athletic teams that I know will do this kind of work for money you know yes and um and the other thing is um it would be nice to maybe Implement something like that Barn raising idea that they use in Detroit you know um in Seline at the Seline District Library on the North side there's a rain Garden um that was built by two Master rain gardeners they were the the mines behind it and then they hired the Seline crew team to dig it yeah and one of the Master Gardeners was a former um Marine so he worked those
046kids hard that worked really well good so I had I had two questions really and the first one is um what do you think um any what do you think can be done to encourage landlords to put in Rain Gardens because as you mentioned I mean there's really no ins Center for renters to do it Renters of houses build rain Gardens often like grad students so many grad students have taken the uh Master rang Gardener class and built the rain Garden for their for their landlord either their landlord reimburses them or they just do it you know at low cost um but apartment buildings I have not cracked that nut I don't think this is the right tool I've never succeeded in getting an apartment building to build a rain Garden not once well that's
047if anyone has ideas feel free to toss them out there even people like so a master rang Garden will take the class they're all excited they live in an apartment they'll try to get their apartment building no it's never worked I don't know so so my final question is that you know a couple years ago I was in on New Haven Conneticut and I was walking taking a walk outside the hotel and every couple of blocks they have a curb cut with a rain Garden installed in the sidewalk and yeah and um I know the city of Van Arbor at one point or maybe was the county drain commissioner put in some um something similar along Miller Avenue on that long uphill grade you know between I guess I guess it's new or 7th Avenue
048to Newport or something like that yeah and um but I I they don't seem to have any enthusiasm for continuing that I think it was because they weren't the uh they didn't get buyin from the local homeowners to do the maintenance so there's public grain Gardens along roads on Miller and Madison and um uh I'm forgetting the name of the oh stone school road so those three places are there are roadside rain Gardens that said and you should actually really have Katie come speak she takes care or she contracts out the maintenance of those rain Gardens um as well as a lot of rain Gardens in parks on city property city van Arbor property um who's that uh Katie YT Che is my colleague and I can share with Ain her contact information and so
049she has a pretty interesting analysis of like how much different kinds of rain Gardens cost to maintain and when there's small rain Gardens strung out on a ribbon like that it's pretty costly so that might be more the reason um that said people build rain Gardens that capture the the sidewalk water in their own little um easement now that we have a new um uh flood plane person I haven't asked Melissa if she's G to allow us to do that Jerry Hancock used to say yes and don't ask me again um but the I'm not positive like what Melissa's new take on that is but the larger rain Gardens in Parks they do capture a lot more water so I don't know it's kind of a cost benefit analysis but it would be interesting to
050hear what she has to say about that thank you Rita thank you um Susan that was great and inspiring and just at the right time of year um I um I have a bunch of questions so I'm going to try and go fast um one is a measurement one and I think this is may be unanswerable but what the heck um do you have a sense of the volume of rainwater that's managed by rain Gardens over a denominator of volume of storm water yeah let me um I do uh it's some Millions let me keep asking questions and I'll find for you great um is there a measurement of flooding that we can use to kind of maybe Focus some in or whatever to encourage people to develop their rain Gardians for flooding you know
051I have just been playing around with that idea and I'm gonna try to get our GIS folks to do an analysis of not the people who are being flooded often when I visit them they do not have enough room in their yard to capture all that water it's too late so what I want are the people Upstream who don't have a FL flooding problem to build rain Gardens So and I've had a lot of success in focusing on a particular neighborhood doing Outreach to a particular neighborhood and it creates excitement and it creates um Synergy that happens so if I knew which neighborhoods contribute to flooding then I could do that so that's one of my like pet projects actually all right so here maybe this can add to it um we've talked a lot
052in our biodiversity work group about pollinator Pathways and how to develop that I would say we haven't gotten to a point of like making any real recommendations but the kind of things that you're talking about especially any easement rain Gardens would be super but anytime there's a um contiguous space of neighbor's yard to neighbor's yard that's an opportunity for a pollinator pathway and the more pollinator space we can get the better in my opinion um oh yeah and you're talking about connected spaces yeah yeah so it kind of goes with that Barn raising concept and also you know the linear um connected spaces so that's that um and also I was thinking you know when you're you're um the guy who is slipping on his sidewalk right now we're all slipping around on sidewalks and
053I've noticed in particular just before this last snow some very interesting um pooling and icing patterns in my neighborhood that it feels like oh man what's happening is there a way to do prevention on that you know using those icing patterns on public sidewalks as indicators of where something could be applied and you know I don't know how about you know like we want to knock on doors or what whatever but it certainly would help in another way in that prevention way that you just mentioned oh I have ideas about this so number one I keep trying to get a photo because right now like there's you'll see like the sidewalk and there'll be a frozen puddle and I really need a good photo of that because I want to do a social media please
054do please do and send one to me um because I want to do a social media post that says like right here if there was a rain Garden there would be no ice here um and then if you want to this is the way that I have figured out that people will come to rain gardening if you want a particular person to is you don't actually talked to them you just put a postcard in their mailbox and then I think we've talked about this before and then um and then when they come to you and they see your rain Garden sign and they're like hey so I had this idea about a rain Garden do you know anything about that because you have this sign you can say oh yes I do here let me
055tell you all about it right cool yeah I like it um okay so I just have a comment on the I think you implied that the utility fee in an arbor might be a cause to kind of incentivize people to do rain Gardens and I'm sure that it does it does it does but I want to comment also on some of the other places that you identified have like the out in the county they tend to have bigger Yards More Green Space more natural infrastructure as same as like the Arbor Hills area of an arbor where there tend to be very large yards that probably either do it naturally or or have already had those installed um so just thought I'd comment on that oh you know one thing I'm so glad you mentioned this
056because I did not point this out is that people get a credit on their storm water fee if they build a rain Garden so they get some of that money returned to them so yeah so actually when people see that line item and it says you know storm water fee if they build a rain then they get a certain amount off and it's like $10 or something like that what if you put on could you get someone to put on that Fel line a a rain Garden rebate with in parentheses with the amount and if it's blank maybe that would get people to oh hey I'd like that right right right right I think the storm water fee though actually does incentivize people even though it's not that much money people are like yeah I
057want to get yes I want to do it okay have you and also so I'll let this be my last one oh no I've got another one really good um encouraging homeowner associations to um you know so it's not like landlords it's a different group um seems like those yeah I've given talks at quite a few homeowners association and to be honest the ones in an arbor are very open they love the idea people build rain Gardens is no problem but outside of an arbor like in South Lion sometimes that's a conflict but it's not it people here like to hear about it and it you know we can do an a activity with our homeowners association or you know something it's more Rah okay all right so my last one um this has to
058do with sidewalk design and I've noticed in my neighborhood that the during of heavy storm very often the water on the sidewalk Slants toward the street and just goes down the street and Into the Storm sewer and so I'm wondering about is going to be tricky but like this very slight slant could be directed possibly in some places to push water in in a direction that could support a sidewalk reain Guardian yeah yeah and that's sort of like subtle subtle grading is uh it it's so tiny that the it's good for the homeowner themselves to be like okay like it's the sidewalk cening this way so I should dig down this part right here and capture the water here like and in some ways it could just be invisible no one would even know that
059you built a rain Garden there and yeah yeah yeah that's it's kind of fun actually after people build their first rain Garden then sometimes often they start looking around they're like what other water could I capture what about the sidewalk yeah right okay thank you very much thanks Rita Olivia hi thanks Susan this is a great presentation um actually the same exact question as Steve about landlords um as a renter who's lived in a few different houses with landlords of varying you know rules about landscaping and I know the current place I'm at the the rule is like no changes to landscaping and I'm like chomping at the bit to put rain Garden um so I was just also curious about you know how you guys work with landlords and dealing with that because I
060know there's lots of young people who are not homeowners who would love to do some gardening um yeah yeah I um maybe it's because people talk to me who do have their landlord's permission but I'm thinking of one person on Liberty that she she's a PhD student and she built a rain garden and she ended up fixing it's you know one 100y old probably 120y old house house and the there was the drainage wasn't working you know with old houses sometimes it's gets all messed up and the drainage wasn't working so like there was water right next to the house and it was getting into the basement and like it was ruining the house and she told the rank the landlord what she was going to do that where she was going to fix all
061that by getting the water away from the house and build a rank Garden away from the house and he gave her all the money to do that I mean it was just raw material and she had free labor so um like that sort of thing will happen and I know when I rented my landlord wanted us to landscape but sometimes they don't and then yeah it's just Case by case yeah it sounds like actually you know someone to tell me who your is does your landlord own a bunch of houses or no it's a single house but I might email you because we actually have a lot of problems with water flooding into the basement because it's a an old house on the old west side oh so this sounds like an opportunity okay you'll
062have some ideas yeah yeah well we and I can talk and I give you a consultation about what the solution would be and if you want me to write you an email that says as we talked about this would fix your problem um then you could show that to your landlord and say oh this is you know something that we could do why don't you at least pay for the raw materials and I'll make it happen and then I've seen that work at least yeah I was thinking about um I forget who mentioned it earlier but like pairing people who wants to do labor with people who can't necessarily do labor and I wonder if there's an opportunity to connect with like older folks or people who just have physical limitations who you know wouldn't
063even think to go to a Master rain Gardner Workshop because it's like beyond their capabilities um and pairing them with someone who would want to do the physical labor for them um kind of similar to the Detroit model you were talking about where you know kind of like communities helping out their neighbors you know who can't do that that kind of work um because I know there's quite a few like elderly folks just on my street who you know have pretty big yards and they've lived in these houses for like decades um but at this point you know they're probably incapable of of such work but feel like maybe there's a large portion of you know older folks who when even think of this yeah it's an inter yeah I'll have to think about this
064more but how to actually yeah like bridge the gap right it's interesting yeah because there are definitely es actually often older people will take the master rain Gardener class because they love gardening and they're really interested but the actual implementation is you know do they really want to take on a big new project like that yeah yeah yeah but how to how to do it it's interesting yeah have to think about that more yeah maybe it's like connecting the young people who live in apartments with the old people who have houses that they they can't build the rain Garden right that's a good point okay I'm writing down thank you so much oliv you yeah thanks uh council member Malik thanks so much Susan for your presentation this was wonderful um I don't have a
065rain Garden myself yet um but I believe I might be on your list sered so I really have no excuse um I think I may be on your list serve from when I got a rain barrel two years ago perhaps um I don't know if those are the same list serves or not but um my question for you tonight and I'm sorry if you may be already touched on this I cut out and Miss part of your presentation when I switched from phone to laptop but um for houses that already have a rain Garden installed if they then sell their house to a new buyer is there any way for you to kind of you know provide resources to that new homeowner that now has a rain Garden but maybe has no idea what it
066is or you know uh to continue providing maintenance and upkeep because I'm I'm curious if you know houses turn over if rain Gardens kind of persist across owners um or if you have any data on that maybe already that's a really good question oh and you're making me realize we don't have a mechanism like if someone has a rain garden and then the property sells often that new person will Google us and find me and get a consultation which at which they ask us how do I maintain this rain Garden but there's not a formal mechanism and but I mean we know where the rain Gardens are so in theory we could make one that's interesting um yeah and actually sort of like new residents to an arbor even that group of people we would
067love to focus on them because often people will buy a new house and then get all ambitious about new projects so the both of those things but oh I'm gonna add that to my list of things to coordinate with an arbor with yeah that's a good idea like when the place because we don't necessarily share our map with the city van Arbor has their own map where people are getting their credit um and it's kind of two different Maps actually uh but we could do an a a mechanism where when that particular house sells they get a notification or I don't know yeah even if we just had the list we can send them a postcard that's a good idea I'm writing this down great thank you Olivia did you have another question or is
068your hand still up no sorry I always forget to lower my hand that's okay uh so Susan on the um slide that showed the Equitable area and it did look like the the upper third topend houses were behind and putting in Rain Gardens is there something we could do to motivate that segment of the population to start putting more in I know right um let's think of a way I think that um those are folks that are here we go um those are folks that are hiring someone else to work on their yard um so I wouldn't be surprised actually we did a news survey because I'm working with um uh University of Michigan School of information Capstone project student group and they did a survey and of and people answered like I don't remember
069exactly how they worded the economic strata um but many people said they were high income or moderately High income so I though that sort of contradicts what this map says and people the landscapers when they tell me how many rain Gardens they built last year they don't give me the addresses I haven't quite figured out how to like get them to fill out a form like that's just you know I'm lucky that they tell me how many they built um so I wouldn't be surprised if that's where those rain Gardens are going okay and one other question on this getting volunteers I I know the city has a snowbody program which you know building gra Gardens sounds like like snowbody but slightly different um and so somewhere in the city there might be a mechanism
070for that I don't know if maybe give 365 would be a good touch Point um because they they do have gardening in their their scope so that might be a place um and also I would think the conservation stewards program would have people a list of people that might be interested in helping out and some of them are in an arbor oh that's true yeahuh they could do that as their Capstone project uh council member Corell I'm so sorry that I've I've had my camera off because my cat will just not leave me alone not trying to be not at all trying to be unprofessional and Susan you know that I Susan's my neighbor she lives down the street yeah so I was gonna say this kind of the same thing that Brooks and Olivia
071suggested is that we have snow match in an arbor and this just feels like such a great opportunity to connect um people who are interested in understanding more about this and have the physical capabilities and the time even like I don't think that we need to bind it by um age or capability or whatnot but there are people I think who might be earnestly involved in this or interested in this and maybe you mentioned Susan you don't see you don't see people who have young children doing this you don't you know like there are a lot of barriers that seem that seem as so that if we could find the right way to find somebody who's interested in learning but doesn't have a job or a yard with somebody who does have a yard but
072doesn't have the time like I'm I I would be really interested in having a conversation with you around that and figuring out how can the city support that because we do have um models that seem to work well and maybe we who's the staff person that um runs snow match love to hear I don't know how it works behind the scenes I don't know but I will find out and I would love to have a conv with you offline because this feels like something that is such an easy thing to bring people together around not only like beautification of their yards but environment environmental sustainability and all of these things like I feel like we have the right resources and the right interest but maybe perhaps not the right match and so if if you
073want to talk about that offline I would I would absolutely love that I think it's such a cool idea and I appreciate that bricks and Olivia brought it up before because I was just one you were talking I was like that's why I don't do it I don't have time to do it right and so yeah anyway I I thought your presentation was great thank you so much for for the information that you provided and I I'm hugely supportive of finding a way to bridge that Gap that's let's talk I want to interject real quick on Jen's points and circling back it it's just it seems like a really good community building exercise like you know like hey this neighborhood do you guys like want to connect with others in your neighborhood who are interested
074in building rain Gardens and like get the conversation going like somehow encouraging conversations in in the neighborhoods and potentially just like organically creating those connections between people who can and can't have who had different capabilities you do um so a lot of the public rain Gardens especially the really high-profile ones that like along Miller um and along Madison are and the um the DDA those rain Gardens are people see them all the time they're part of you know the welcoming to Ann Arbor those kind of R rain Gardens they're not only do we hire um contractors but the people can volunteer to adopt a rain garden and because they give it a higher level of care because they're you know they're deadheading flowers and you know doing stuff like that and um how Katie runs
075it is she matches people so you don't you're not just out there toiling away pulling weeds by yourself you have a buddy and then you know maybe a group of people and people often make friends and you know it's a community building kind of a thing so that's that's worked out really well actually Chris gr hi everybody Susan how long have you been working on the rain garden stuff 10 years no oh well I just want to say what you've done here is legendary it's sought after by other communities it's truly outstanding and it's really a model for outreach um for us who have other things we are thinking about doing as well one idea that might be to bring recognition more recognition is to um invent a plaque that can go on buildings on
076houses um celebrating the installation of a rain Garden um it might carry on to the next owner and they'd Wonder well what does that mean and and they'd call you up or hopefully protect it better um I also have always been bothered by the relatively poultry amount of money that one gets a credit from from the city I understand the stormw waterer funds truly important but I also understand building these things is not inconsequential to Property Owners um especially if they hire it done um maybe there's room to do a little bit better about this I'm addressing those comments through a couple council members here um I just I'm so thankful that you came and you started doing this that the county really stepped up to all this and it was really support you all
077the way along it's uh really terrific thank you thanks for your kind words I don't know if you noticed in the uh um way back in this graph right here [Music] um you can see 2010 that was my first year with the county and I tried something different not this one and it did not work and Harry shean my boss said well what are you g to try next year so I have always been very thankful that he has uh let me experiment you know and try a few things see what works see what doesn't and you know different things work and then we keep just doing more of what works more of what works so thanks he's another extraordinary County employee you're fortunate to have such a great boss Steve yeah I just had
078one more thought and that is that um you know um back in 2019 or so there was a public announcement that the city had come to a consent decree with eagle about nutrient pollution to the hon River now I looked around and at some research papers and in the Upper Midwest it seems like roughly half of all the nutrient pollution comes from storm water and the other half comes from the wastewater treatment plant so this could have a role in um you know in um in um in having the city meet its obligations to reduce its uh phosphorus pollution to Theon River I mean especially if I I believe like the road roads ins sidewalks the public infrastructure uh contributes a little more than half of all the imperious surface in town so this makes
079it um this could make it more economically attractive to actually do more rain Gardens that capture run off you know from roads so I don't and this isn't the only tool like I know downtown um gosh I'm not going to be able to remember the name of the road but um in front of the Embassy Hotels right there there's underground infiltration areas that rain gens take a lot of Maintenance and those some of those other methods can work well for because like roads the road is a big contributor to of pollution and residential rangu guards don't address that not a solution for that um because that's not where the water goes you know that's downhill of these so um but like what are the things that are actually um uh in our budget to but
080then to go on and and maintain in the future there's other like you know infiltration things like that's a big underground infiltration it actually happens under the road and you don't even see it it's like invisible um so there's this isn't the only tool in the tool box but you're exactly right like the roads that's our next big challenge okay does anybody else have questions for Susan why we still have her well thanks for coming Susan it was a great presentation I appreciate it awesome thank you thanks for having me and so nice to see you all some of you I I didn't know Jen Cornell that you are um the representative on the environmental commission from city council so lovely nice nice to see you all so next order of business is report outs
081from work groups um so I'll start with biodiversity we had a meeting on January 10th I think everybody was at the meeting and mostly we had a i' say a rather spirited conversation on the comprehensive plan and what's happening with the natural features document that is being rolled into the comprehensive plan um and everybody's watching the updates in the comprehensive plan and not seeing anything about natural features which is Raising concern um and a couple of people offered to write up a mission statement or something along those lines to to forward on Chris Graham you have your hand up I do I just came from a neighborhood version of the comprehensive plan meetings this one with Paton Gill and Burns Park folks and there was genuine push back uh about the plans and uh upzoning
082and residential neighbor especially R1 and R2 um but in any case no comment until I made it about natural features again and I'm I'm I'm hoping to try to draft a resolution for us for the next meeting to send onward um to urge I guess would be the right word the Planning Commission to uh get busy and get natural features truly included in um in the comprehensive master plan in a way that they really work and the thing that we haven't ever done is regulate especially large trees on single family properties on Residential Properties all of our natural features ordinance changes done in the early 2000s protect very well and it's worked very well natural features on properties that require site plans none of this residential stuff goes through the site planning process doesn't go
083before the plan commission large trees on single family properties do not get protected when properties are upsized they should be we shouldn't be giving away our natural features anywhere we'll work on it more next month thank you next circular economy Steve yeah hi um yeah we had a meeting yesterday actually and um it was um it was kind of a loose discussion the um first thing is just there's an announcement the an arbor got A $999,000 plus grant from Eagle um to uh you know to uh for circular um economy action plans so that was a welcome um resource and um and then um there was also some discussion about education you know education about Recycling and composting and whatnot because it always um um it always seems like um um we haven't really it's
084not clear what you know what metrics have been developed to figure out what works and what doesn't in terms of educating the residents you know about what's recyclable what isn't the city's contamination rates okay but we're in the process also of um of regionalizing the solid waste management as well you know where um where what you can recycle differs depending on what Community you're in and then there's also of course with wara um there's a there's there's going to be an out building of um you know drop off centers so um so we were kind of looking forward to what um what education could be done at the local level and coordinate with the county and um so I think it would be useful if we had uh like one of the one of the
085more recent environmental commission meetings kind of um um to have this on the agenda of one of the recent meetings uh about how do we how do we find education about Solid Waste um circular economy how can we increase U uh what metric how can we figure out what the proper metrics might be to measure that and um and um build like a three to fiveyear program at least that would have some continuity you know that wasn't um that maybe wasn't so dependent on um you know in budget Cycles um the solid waste fund was mentioned uh there's quite a surplus in the solid waste fund so there might be a possibility of uh I I'd like to explore the possibility at least um um I didn't hear any objections about this in the in
086the circular economy workg group meeting but maybe try to find out if there's some possibility of of getting an endowment um set aside for the solid waste fund um so that there was a stable set of annual funding you know for supporting these kind of education efforts and uh and building up some more metrics and tracking progress on on on goals so um and then the other thing was that um um Maisy is going to uh work on uh we going to talk about um working with the city try to see what can be done about social media um social media communic ation uh between the city and the residents um The OSI department is leading in that respect so you know we have a we have a representative on the working group from OSI
087um City lebl the Blan so um we'll look we'll look into that in you know the near at the next meeting or you know in the between now and the next meeting that's it thanks Steve um for water quality I don't see Sarah nedrich online does anybody from the work group attend do they have anything they want to report out our last meeting was January 17th so I believe Steve gave the recap from that meeting at our last environmental Commissioners meeting but we have our next meeting tomorrow so we'll have more to share at the March meeting okay thanks Hank um Steve do you want to report out on the water storm water meaning you want to oh uh let's see oh yes um I should mention that um yes Sarah nrich is the um
088is the commission's representative but I'm her alternate um you know the city has um through the leadership of gen LW and you know on City staff um the city's uh you know working on a storm water management plan and so um we are a member of that um of that work group um um you know that consists also of some you know other you know the other The Usual Suspects um except we except uh we just had our first meeting um in late January but the uh the only the only real takeaway from it is that there really aren't weren't any members of the developers community and homebuilders you know present or the the people who might be impacted um you know in the private sector and so uh we thought it might be a
089good idea to try to invite somebody uh to come and and at least give their input you know because one thing I've learned about these kind of things is if you don't get the entire stakeholder group together at the very beginning um things get torpedoed pretty easily later on so it's good to get them involved at the beginning just to just to make sure their concerns are heard and addressed you know before uh you know before it's uh presented as you know is an ordinance or something like that that's all okay thanks Steve uh so for energy John mky emailed me his report so I'll just read that um he said City staff and contractors provided an update of Ann Arbor's home energy rebate program the presentation can be accessed using legistar and more info
090on the right rebates can be accessed at one of the city webs Pages uh there is an application form key takeaways where the were at the city and as contractors are applying Lessons Learned to continually improve the program Commissioners provided several ideas for further possible improvements and most importantly there are still significant available funds for most rebate programs in fiscal year 25 which ends June 30th 2025 one exception is rebates for ebike purchases which have been exhausted this year but will resume in fiscal year 26 Commissioners are encouraged to use the program themselves and to share details of the program with their networks in addition the commission was provided a written update on and and a brief summary of the status of the city's home energy re rating disclosure her program program requires that a
091home energy score and be reported be generated before single family homes are listed for sale and then be provided to prospective buyers through the multiple listing service uh the update is accessible using legistar and other details on the city's web page one of the osi's web pages um next would be parks and hi uh we met back in January um we uh had a presentation on foresight Park and improvements that are going to happen there funded by a development that's going in adjacent to it we had a presentation from uh Skyline crew team which is uh currently rowing out of um Concordia College and are looking for a new home um and we approved two amendments to contracts with the gallop Park Bridge hopefully that will complete the cost of that bridge uh and then
092the uh one big update is just that the B the Barton embankment project is going to be starting in March and so um access to the Barton dam for pedestrians will be cut off at that point for about two years and that is it thanks an anything from counil I I would just say quickly um just to reiterate I what you shared from U Mr mki is that um we heard loud and clear that folks in multi- um family units are you know the whole restriction around rebates they were exhausted before we could when we heard that feedback before we could figure out um you know how to sort of bridge that Chasm so that people who live in apartments and other multif family dwellings could access that rebate program um the city OSI is
093planning to go back to the wait list uh that was established once the um rebate program was exhausted and see what that looks like for next year and then see if um how that might look in terms of extending it to other properties but that's something that we heard quite loudly from um citizens who want to tap into that program and go into more uh environmentally friendly ebikes and whatnot um and it's something that the city is paying attention to so I would say that it's a work in progress but it's something that's on our radar just to reiterate that thank you and then kind of connected but not on the exact same topic um the city also announced rebates for electric lawn care equipment um some of you may have seen this uh so
094not exactly connected to the home Energy rebates but obviously still kind of in the same buck um and this is you know in response to the city's um gas Leaf lower band um that is uh slowly getting phased in so more information to come on that too as we roll that out further thanks it's awesome to see the demand it's so awesome to see the demand so I don't have anything else to report from chair Aon do you have a report out from staff a quick um uh event from OSI in the written report is the um the second sustainability Forum series which will be uh next week on Wednesday February 26th from 6:00 to 7:30 um which will be on circular innovation in an arbor food and beverage sector um so please um go
095see that at the library and then um I had the same update as Ann on the Barton Dam and bment work uh I mostly wanted to highlight that just that because the city has four four dams with aging infrastructure so I this is you know a two-year project in the immediate Horizon but we're going to see a lot more of this just really expensive like infrastructure updates I think as you start to stretch out the the planning Horizon um so yeah thank you hey thanks um so our next meeting is on March 20th does anybody have future AG agenda items they' like to request okay uh next would be public comment this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 enter meeting ID 954 3473 9065 to
096raise your hand press nine to un mute press star six City staff will select callers to raise their hand one by one using last 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 a delay up to 30 seconds uh Aon do we have any callers no callers okay does anybody else want to bring anything up before we adjourn is there a motion to adjourn I see one is there a second okay I think we're done see you next month thank you Brooks you you bye thanks Brooks