Ann Arbor Environmental Commission Meeting 1/26/2023

001all this meeting to order at 701 p.m um welcome for the January 26 2023 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call well please call [Music] 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 again that's a toll-free number 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 922-969616 or four this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city's website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 6 ATT channel

00299 and online at www.a2gov.org watchctn okay could you read the land Heritage statement sure thank you I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa Ojibwe and badewadmi and Wyandotte 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 um thank you could you start the Roll Call sure uh we

003will start off with council member Ackman here in Ann Arbor great thank you uh chairperson Brown here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner kalawart here thank you uh commissioner Dale here I'm Ann Arbor thank you uh council member dish here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Gib Randall here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Graham I'm here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Gruber uh commissioner Merson here in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner mursky all right uh Vice chairperson Mitchell here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Needham commissioner nedric here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner oriel here in Ann Arbor thank you and commissioner Wayne here in Ann Arbor thank you uh and that is a quorum great thank you Sean um so let's move on to the

004approval of the agenda do I have a motion to approve the agenda um from darma Ackman seconded by Lisa dish um and he suggested agenda items I hear see none so all who approve the agenda as submitted raise your hand or say aye aye any opposed I see no hands no abstentions no extensions either so the agenda is accepted unanimously um let's see the next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from our last meeting on January 12 2023 which was our planning meeting um uh do I have a motion to discuss the minutes do we have them even yeah they were in the agenda there's a link on the agenda um that you can open I mean what I do is I go directly to the registrar and open them all

005there you know and just to see if you know if the public facing part is all correct um I looked over it it looks fine to me um let's see you don't have a motion to uh accept the minutes from our last meeting um Shannon seconded by Dharma Ackman um any discussion okay um Let's uh whoever approves of the minutes as submitted please raise your hand or say aye aye any opposed when I hear Cena no abstentions so uh the minutes are approved as submitted um next item on the agenda is public commentary um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 -788 -0099 and enter meeting ID number nine two two nine six nine six one six four four again that is um call phone number

006888 zero zero nine nine and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please take your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established so is there anybody on the line yet Sean there is

007not okay well we'll wait 30 minutes or 30 seconds um is there anybody there yet Sean there's not okay then let's uh move on uh there is no unfinished business um uh this month so let's move on to new business so the first item is a report on air quality monitoring uh conducted by uh City staff um by Sean Reynolds actually so Sean you have the floor great thanks Steve all right I'm going to go ahead and share my screen for the presentation uh that was sent out as an attachment as well all right hopefully everyone can see that all right right not hearing anyone say that they can't so I will assume they can oh yes I can share it I can see it perfect thanks all right uh yeah so I am going

008to give a brief report on the air quality monitoring work that we have started in the office of sustainability and Innovations uh and talk a little bit about some of the data that we've gathered so far uh so as a little bit of background uh in a20 strategy six uh enhance the resilience of our people in our place one of the actions that is outlined under that strategy is to implement sensors monitor heat air quality waterways flooding um specifically this action calls out collecting data and using sensors to proactively understand risks and mitigate vulnerabilities and it also says that we should use real-time information to help protect the public from acute and chronic disruptions uh I will quickly mention uh that it does uh note waterways and flooding uh those are already handled under our

009storm water department they have sensors on uh the creeks and on the Huron River but there was not uh there were no monitors for heat or air quality operated by the city prior to our work on uh so before last year there were no publicly owned air quality monitors anywhere in Ann Arbor there are some privately owned air quality monitors um including some that are purple air monitors uh if you have a purple air monitor all the data that comes that is publicly available by going to their website uh so there was publicly available data from these privately owned sensors uh but purple air primarily only measures particulate matter it doesn't measure many of the other pollutants that we can see uh so there really was not any publicly available data on any of those

010other pollutants uh and in fact the closest publicly owned monitor is actually in Ypsilanti um and then there are also several over in Detroit uh those are all operated by the state of Michigan uh so why did we feel that was important to start monitoring annivers air why do we put this uh as a strategy in a two zero plan uh well our network of air quality monitors is going to provide us with real-time air quality data that is going to allow us to manage acute and chronic air quality events so we're going to be able to see when we have air pollution that can or that might be or might pose a risk to human health and let folks know when that is happening uh it's also going to help supplement our carbon emissions

011information uh that we are gathering with our greenhouse gas inventory that we do annually um so these sensors do measure carbon dioxide I'll go through everything they measured later but that is one of the the things that they measure um so it'll help us to see um uh to supplement the information we have on carbon emissions in the city it's also going to allow the office of sustainability Innovations to track uh changes in air quality that are associated with the implementation of our 184 strategies uh so I'll show you a map a little bit later of where we're monitoring but one of the stations is in the Bryant neighborhood um that uh for those who don't know is the neighborhood that we're working with to try to make them the first uh fully decarbonized neighborhood

012in America uh so we're doing a lot of work in that neighborhood uh and we want to see if uh that work that we're doing is having any impact on the air quality there um so that's uh one of the reasons we put an air quality monitor in that neighborhood all of the state that we're Gathering uh is also going to be able to be used for research um that is both from the city staff side and also anyone else who wants to do research um so this could include uh the University of Michigan professors or students um be able to access the data to research purposes and then also uh we want the data to be fully transparent and accessible by anyone which will help to increase public awareness of Health threats related to

013air quality so uh what are we monitoring uh well we are using AQ mesh sensor Suites uh this here is a picture of what those look like uh the ones that we have are entirely solar powered and all the data that they get is transmitted to us by cellular networks so they do not have to be plugged into anything which is really convenient for uh being able to place them we can put them pretty much anywhere as long as it gets enough sunlight to power the solar panel that uh charges the battery that it runs on uh the ones that we have are measuring a few different things so they're measuring particulate matter I mentioned this earlier as something that purple wear um the the purple air monitors measure um particular matter for those who

014aren't familiar uh the easiest way I have to kind of visualize it when I think about it is if you think of dust particles in the air those are a type of particular matter they're much larger than most particulate matter that we're concerned with um but if you think of anything that's not a gas that's floating around in the air that's particular matter I mean that's measured at two different sizes so anything less than 2.5 microns and then anything less than 10 microns the different sizes should have different impacts um so for example smaller particles are more likely to get into folks um lungs and potentially causes uh and then we are also measuring uh gases uh those are carbon dioxide as I mentioned earlier also carbon monoxide nitric oxide nitrous oxide um or nitrogen

015dioxide sorry sulfur dioxide and ozone uh and then as I mentioned earlier we also wanted to be monitoring heat uh so these also have a temperature sensor in there as well as the relative humidities around an atmospheric pressure uh so where we're monitoring uh right now we have three different units that are up the first of those is that the Ann Arbor farmers market in Cary town we put one here because there are a lot of pedestrians out and about in that area for the Farmers Market on Market Days as well as for the other shops in the area um throughout the week but there's also a lot of Roads surrounding the area and a lot of vehicle congestion so we wanted to see if there were any potential Health impacts to pedestrians in that

016area due to vehicle traffic uh the second one that is up is at as I mentioned earlier the Bryan Community Center um again we put that up to keep track of any changes in air quality in relation to a20 programs um but also that neighborhood is a an area that uh is simply uh more likely to experience air quality issues um it is uh very close to the interstate as you can see here from the map um it is also very close to the landfill which is done in this area and very close to the airport that's over in this area uh so it has a lot of potential sources for poor air quality issues excuse me Sean Could you um it's just I'm sorry to interrupt but um John mursky is trying to get

017in and I think you might see him waiting yes thank you so much I will promote him to panelists right um China I sent the thing to promote you to panelists so you should be able to join us panelist now um if not uh Rita please let me know I guess but I'll keep an eye on it too um all right uh the um third one that we have Up is on Main Street at the intersection with Washington uh in downtown Ann Arbor uh this one we put up again uh like with the farmers market we wanted to see if there were any potential conflicts um between pedestrians and uh vehicle traffic uh but uh we also specifically put one here because this intersection is one that is frequently closed to vehicle traffic especially in

018the summer months uh and so we wanted to see if there was any difference in the air quality uh on days when the road was closed to Vehicles versus States when it was open uh and we have plans to install more of these uh we hope to have at least 10 uh in the network uh by the time we're done um probably more than that but at least 10. uh I marked a few locations here peace Neighborhood Center uh Burns Park and green Baxter Community Center uh these are all sites of future resilience hubs that we are working on developing uh in our office uh in collaboration in collaboration with each of those places and we want to have uh air quality monitors at each of our resilience hubs so we will probably be putting

019some in at those three spots uh and then like I said several others across across the city all right uh so as far as uh the data goes um like I mentioned we want this to be completely transparent so all the data is publicly accessible uh there are a couple of places you can go that I'm going to share in just a second uh that um uh show this data so the first page is a2gov.org air quality uh and at that on that page you'll find a map of all of our sensors uh showing the aqi from the previous 24 hours aqi is air quality index I'll talk about this a little bit later when I'm showing the data but it is the epa's reference uh kind of way of um of reporting air quality

020and it is it combines a whole bunch of different gases and then looks at whichever one has the highest concentration uh and then uh signs of value based on the concentration of that highest um and it is reported in 24-hour increments uh so that live map shows uh the the most recent 24 hour aqi uh and then it also has a uh on that web page there isn't like to download the data uh in CSV format if you're interested in doing any research or playing on with the data any uh and then we also have worked with our it Department to put together an interactive uh data visualization tool um so that is at a2gov.org air data uh and I will show that as well in just a second um but it's a really great

021tool for uh showing graphs of the data over time um really quick before I move over to that I just want to touch on what we've seen so far of our uh very briefly um the highest aqi value that we've recorded as of when I put this presentation together the other day on the 19th uh was an aqi of four at the main and Washington since they're um for January 16th 17th um that eqi was due to particular matter of less than 2.5 microns that was the largest pollutant but most of the time the aqis that we're getting from these sensors are in the one to two range uh so I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing this particular screen and switch over um and I will send the promote to panelist request to

022John again see if he pops in um and I'm going to go ahead and share my screen for the web pages that I was just talking about all right uh so this first page is the uh Slash air quality page that I talked about first um so you can see here that we have that live map I was talking about so each of these dots is one of the sensors so we have Bryant done here showing an aqi of one um also an aqi of one at the farmer's market and then you'll see um the main Washington one again that aqi F4 uh to uh give a little bit of explanation more explanation about the aqi levels uh I'll go ahead and open this uh so this is a table from the EPA so you

023can see there are six different levels of air of aqi uh ranging from good to hazardous uh levels one and two good and moderate uh those are you know typically acceptable air quality levels there's not really much risk for for anyone at those levels uh once you get to an aqi you have three uh you have some risk to members of sensitive groups so folks that have asthma for example or other respiratory illnesses once you get to an aqi of four then members of the general public might start experiencing um uh negative effects from prolonged exposure uh and then uh five and six uh you get to very unhealthy and hazardous so as I mentioned earlier most of what we're seeing is in this eight by one of two which is good but we are

024occasionally getting these three as m4s uh so we are going to start working next on a way to make sure that we can make that information um not just available but that we can actually alert folks um when we're reaching these uh aqis that we want to let folks about uh so I will pop back over here really quick um and show uh that here is also the link to download that uh raw data and CSV form that I mentioned earlier and then I am going to pop over to this time uh so this is the other website I was talking about um so this is the one that is slash air data at the end uh this one gives a nice explanation of what we are measuring and how we're measuring it um so

025again it lists those pollutants that I mentioned earlier uh it talks a little bit more about the aqi um so aqi is actually calculated using five different pollutants so that's ozone particulate matter carbon monoxide sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide and like I mentioned earlier that's not the highest concentration determines the value of the aqi so those values can actually range from 0 to 500 but then those are subdivided into the different levels of aqi from one percent um and then it has that same table that I showed earlier and talks a little bit more about the units of measurement uh and then if you scroll down it actually shows the sensors themselves and what their their most recent observation was uh the North Main and Washington you can see is offline we're having some issues

026with that sensor uh we think that there's a loose wire or something we need to get out there and check on it but it keeps kind of going offline for a little bit and then coming back online most of the time when it comes back online it backfills all the data that was uh blocked was offline which is good um but occasionally we have lost a little bit of data from that one so we have to get out there and see what's going on there but the other two you can see are actively recording uh and then if you come down here um at the bottom of this first tab there is the daily aqi so again this is the aqi over each 24 hour period um at each of the sites uh you can

027see that that North Main in Washington has been showing an aqi of four uh lately when it's been reporting um but the other two sites you can see that the aqi has been to or less the last few weeks at least uh there's another tab up here um for pollutants so this one shows individual pollutants over time um it takes a little bit of time for the grass to load sometimes uh but this first one shows all of the different pollutants at any given station you can actually change which station you're looking at if you click on this little arrow over here it opens the sidebar um so you can see right now we're looking at the farmer's market but I could change that to one of the other ones and then also you can

028actually change the time range uh to right now I think we're set to the last 10 weeks um yeah sure it's the last 10 weeks but I could change that to the signal um but for right now we'll just look at this one um so this is the farmers market over the past 10 weeks um you can see this uh bar up here this horizontal line that is representative of the uh aqi of the level of three or higher um so again three or higher is when we've seen potential health effects to folks so we want to know if um or when uh these uh sensors are reporting an aqis or higher so we have that line there to really demonstrate to folks um whether the the pollutant concentrations are high enough that they would

029uh be equivalent to an aqi of your higher uh and then if you scroll down you'll see that each individual pulling has its own graph um this in this case separated out by the three different sites um so again you can see that a particular matter less than 2.5 uh was what was causing the aqi of or higher at the name of Washington and here you can see the main in Washington is the orange graph so you can see that it quite frequently got over this point which would be an aqi of three um but uh the and nowhere else is it really peeking over that um and if you look at all of the other pollutants they don't ever get to a point that they're high enough that it would be an akui three

030uh and then we also have carbon dioxide and nitric oxide down here at the bottom those are not uh involved in the aqi calculation uh so they are not scaled to aqi like the rest are I think I forgot to mention that sorry but these are these other ones are scaled uh so the data is um relative to what aqi value that concentration would um would give you um but these ones that are not involved in the aqi calculation are just the raw data with the raw units uh and then finally we have a weather tab here uh which shows the temperature relative humidity and atmospheric pressure um again at each of the the three stations um so like here with the temperature for example you can see that severe depth that we had around

031Christmas time um and with that uh that is a brief overview of what we've been doing and what we've seen so far so I will go ahead and stop sharing and I see hands oh Steve do you want to kind of moderate or do you want me to just consult no no go ahead Sean you can mod you can handle a q a great thanks all right um I see Anne's hand first hi thanks thanks for this presentation I I was just a little bit confused about the the nurse there the eight aqi you showed the the scale the green and the yellow and the orange and it had like the green was like zero to fifty and then you said aqi of four and I wasn't clear how those correlate to one another yeah

032uh so um the eqi is a little tricky there's a complicated calculation like um but I'll try to simplify it um basically it's uh you look at those five different pollutants that I mentioned um and uh you look at their concentrations over the last 24 hours so again it's over a 24 hour period uh and uh you find out which of those had the highest concentration during that 24 hour period and then you look at the concentration of that loot and if that concentration is over a certain value then um so like each value of concentration corresponds to a value on the aqi yeah yeah I think actually what my question is does an aqi of four correspond to one of those colored bars uh yes I see sorry um yeah let me go ahead

033and share that graph again really quick our table sorry yeah uh yes so an aqi of four would be this fourth level here unhealthy red um so that's the value of 151 to 200. okay of three is orange two is yellow and one is green okay that that really helps because I thought like uh one two four that was all well within the green so that was why I was confused yeah yeah sorry about that yeah and then my my next question is just then like it's wonderful to like you know get these numbers but then you're like okay why do we have such high you know um small fine particulate in the air that that uh Maine and Washington streets and so what do you you know what's the next step then of you

034know how you determine what's causing that yeah definitely um so like I said our our next step definitely is figuring out how we're going to get the alerts out to folks um but we are also looking into figuring out um what the causes are um particulate matter typically is uh from Cars uh burning fossil fuels um engines burning fossil fuels it's it's what's released in car exhaust um so we expect that that particular matter is likely coming from traffic at the intersection um but uh you know we'll we definitely need to figure out how to do some digging to figure out exactly what is causing it um and if it is vehicle traffic then maybe we have some evidence for reducing traffic in downtown um all right uh commissioner Gabriel I see your hand uh

035you're muted sorry about that um and I had the exact same question as you did and I think to to avoid confusion in terms of have the page and all that kind of thing if you just I don't know if that that colored um kind of Road uh diagram is yours or from somewhere else but somehow indicating the aqi in relation to that would make it just a whole lot more clearer for people being able to navigate that whole system because it was you're sort of intimating it based on the color and but um that would be really helpful I think for people just to user friendliness wise to be able to make that um more clear um my my other question is do you measure uh volatile organic compounds or vocs through this program

036or not uh no that is not something that's measured by the the sensors that we got this is something something spot in Ann Arbor in West Park where there's place where um the creek comes through um and it is you walk over and you have to hold your breath it is so strong when it's raging out of that thing and um we've talked to people at the city before it means water quality testing it's like nobody seems to want to take it on but it's so distinct and so many people from that neighborhood know what's going on with it um and it would be a way to be able to kind of acknowledge like what's happening in certain hot spots of areas um so I guess that um sort of relates to climate and that

037it's you know it's clearly some sort of gasoline some sort of oil something leaking is obviously a problem that's an issue with water quality too and you know maybe we can talk about this more um with the water quality group but um there's different ways of of being able to detect that stuff you know an air air is one way right so um it's just something to consider I guess in all of this uh too is and I I get it you can't measure everything um and I think it's cool to see what you are what you are measuring um but it's just something to consider as as a um an issue that happens in in all over but you know definitely in a few spots in Ann Arbor I've noticed it quite a bit

038before so something that I think the Public Notices a lot of these things we don't notice unless it's you know whatever asthma rates go over some is really sensitive may start reacting that many of us can pick up if it really stinks of gasoline or oil so it's something to consider thanks though for your work this is interesting to see yeah thank you I appreciate that um and I will say that uh the uh sensors unfortunately like life had so many you know actual sensors in each monitor um so we kind of had to pick and choose but we do have the option of for future monitors to to switch it up and change other ones if we have a spot where we at least we want to measure vocs for example we could easily

039get one that would match our videos so I appreciate that thank you um all right commissioner Oriole of your hands yeah thank you for the present I just wanted to make sure that I understand how this system does its measurements so you mentioned that OSI collects the highest value over a 24-hour period at each system is that correct uh yes so these the monitors are actually they're collecting data pretty much continuously I think it's uh every five minutes every 10 minutes something like that we actually get a data thing um but for the aqi purposes that's calculated over 24 hour periods so we're actually taking that data and then we're taking getting the 24 hour average 4-H pollutant and then putting that into the aqi calculation okay I see that was my main question I

040was curious to know how often the measurements were being taken by the system um and just to end on a quick comment I am really I'm really curious to see how this data will be uh visualized and shared with the community you know what key trends we'd like to the community to see and how it would be visualized in such a way that the aqi is understandable uh for for everybody and uh perhaps even translated in different languages based off of the community in Ann Arbor so I'm looking forward to seeing how that will um develop yeah thank you I appreciate that um I see your hands um yes Sean thank you so much that's uh that's an excellent project um I would I just missed when was the installation date for these monitors uh

041so they're actually installed at different times um the farmers market one went up first that was in I believe uh May of 2022 uh the Bryant one went up a little bit after that so probably June and then the one at Main and Washington I think went up in around October oh okay so you have less than a year of data yes so far um I had another the other question was what about calibration um how often are these calibrated and uh me for example I bought a purple air monitor a couple of years ago so I think um you know the Ecology Center has been using these devices more in Detroit Indiana in Ann Arbor so I was wondering um if there if the city if there was a way people could maybe calibrate

042their purple air monitors against the city's ear monitors and how the cities um air monitors are calibrated against the epas um more elaborate gear yeah great question and thank you for bringing that because I actually forgot to mention um that the the data we're collecting is these monitors are not considered to be EPA reference monitors um so it is it's not considered to be uh you know accurate enough uh for EPA use but we do uh they um have been calibrated against an EPA reference uh sensor that is over in uh Detroit uh I forget which which part of Detroit um but uh we went over to one of those and we put these up next to it for um two or three weeks um and and took a look at the measurements and compared

043them to to kind of calibrate it um so it has been referenced next to an EPA sensor um and uh the company but I believe recommends to do that once every two years something along those lines will will be frequently taking them out there to to recalibrate them um and folks are welcome to bring their sensors to one of our sites and calibrate them against ours if they'd like to okay um thank you yeah thank you uh council member Desh sorry lowering my hand and muting I haven't mastered that at the same time um I just wanted to make a comment about the Maine and Washington reading and I think it's a good bet that that's traffic it's interesting that it was those days um it will be really fun when you have that up

044for the majority of the football season because there will be a lot of traffic on Main and that is just another argument for taking over control of Main Street from MDOT yep thank you appreciate it um and uh Vice chairperson Mitchell oh you are muted thought I did that um my question is whether there is a possibility to use some mobile testing for some episodic concerns that might come up um I don't know what those might be but I'm you know when I hear about the West Park situation it might be interesting to have something that we could move around according to something that's brought to people's attention um is is there a spare unit or or something available that that could be moved yeah that's a great Point um we have discussed uh we

045haven't uh looked into it fairly yet but we have discussed getting um another type of sensor these are relatively small but they're not particularly portable especially with the the solar panel and everything um so it would have to be a different sensor um a more portable one but we have discussed getting some more smaller more portable ones um and having uh folks um be able to take those out on their bike rides or on their walks um or you know wherever with them um to to measure air quality as they move um and so that would be a really great way to to get um that more uh small scale data I see uh commission or chairperson brown is holding up a portable one that he has um so it'd be something like that um

046we have discussed um you know uh bringing in the 10 000 degrees initiative a little bit that I run uh we've discussed having a survival study of that so having interns go around and check up on the trees that we distributed already um and I think it would be a great uh opportunity to kind of combine projects and have them wear those as they're biking around the city to check up on the trees um just to get a sense of what air quality is all across town okay so I wasn't thinking of moving them and measuring but I was thinking of having them having various locations where you could test during the course of a day so I'm not familiar with the testing process but that sounds very interesting um yeah okay thanks yeah thank

047you and yeah I appreciate that that's I hadn't thought of that but that's something to keep in mind too um let's see here uh commissioner mursky thank you um I apologize for joining late I had a bad day identity theft the last whole day um so a quick comment and a quick question the comment is that PM 2.5 is primarily coming from trucks diesel trucks and cars and also very old Vehicles so that's really what what's probably driving the TM 2.5 the question that I had is um and I'm hoping someone recollects this more clearly than I do my recollection is that in kitchens with gas burning stoves EPA criteria pollutant levels are four times higher than the limits that are allowed outdoors and there are no limits set indoors does that sound right to

048anybody um they can be up to like 250 parts per billion for nox for example for Knox and uh that's the one that I think is usually mentioned by the EPA is the nitrogen oxides because that's a particular irritant for asthmatics so that's all I I'll interject so Sarah has her hand up shot yep uh did that fully answer the question um John uh I don't know if Sarah had one something to add to that but um yeah I think it's something maybe that it would be good to bring back to the commission what exactly the the numbers are because we're obviously worried about indoor um pollution but uh or outdoor pollution but most people are indoors a hell of a lot more and if we're worried about these pollutant levels and they're much much

049higher in natural gas burning homes than that says that really we need to be focused there or continue to be focused there go ahead Sarah yeah thank you yeah I just had a quick question so I wasn't familiar with the aqi analysis and I just kind of looked it up um so you said you guys took 24-hour averages was that just for like the particular banner and then I'm here it says like you take different averages for the different compounds depending on their toxicity yeah so it's the averages are uh different depending on the pollutants okay it's reported over a 24-hour period um so okay yeah I apologize I misspoke earlier but it's very complicated I'm a toxicologist so I like to think about it um and then the other thing I was looking at

050the different like weather um items you guys are tracking um I know that like sunlight can impact ozone formation um obviously like wind can impact the air quality as well are you guys also tracking those physical parameters uh those unfortunately aren't aren't measured um that's that's a really good point though um and uh I'll do some digging and see if those are sensors that could be added on that would be really nice to see yeah yeah there might be like supplemental data from different monitoring stations within Ann Arbor but I would think for like your long-term tracking you know how you said like you wanted to look at like changes over time and things like that all those like physical parameters will wonk up how your analysis comes out so it'd be good to have

051more data more supplemental data right definitely and we do have a network of weather sensors um that I think measures uh things like that I don't know if it measures exactly like daylight or wind um but but if it does then we could certainly use that data even if it's not at the exact spot there sounds good thank you for your presentation really interesting yeah thank you for the questions um and uh two person Brown um yeah thank you Sean I think um if there's no other questions I think we might move on to the next uh agenda item thank you all um so the next item on the agenda is a discussion of the draft natural features ordinances um uh by the working group leader Chris Graham so Chris you're on the floor and

052I share my screen Sean yes I will make you a co-host so you can do that at it so I will read a draft resolution and this is a graph something we can work on over the next month or two or whatever it takes us to get through this um this package of amendments actually is a pretty major recommendation to the council for some changes to our um development code in the city and so the resolution is fairly important you would like me to read it Stephen I can whereas the city of Ann Arbor has declared a climate emergency and adopted a climate action plan which at least acknowledged the importance of trees and called for the protection and enhancement of our tree canopy where is Doug Ptolemy and Richard dark in their books bringing

053nature home and the living landscape brought far more recognition to the need to use our communities our backyards to support the diversity of life including Birds pollinators caterpillars trees and native plants whereas such restoration work is important is as important as as carbon emissions and reduction in reducing in the reduction in protecting Earth human life-giving biome whereas annivers fortunate to have natural areas of public and private Woodlands especially native Forest fragments that are on that are our own refugees refuges of native species they are models of native ecosystems we can bring to our backyards whereas we are fortunate to have a natural race program in our city which for 25 years has worked to restore and sustain the diversity of native species on our natural areas their work can guide our efforts whereas for 20

054years protections for our natural features in the city have been part of the site planning process for development which has indeed reduced loss of natural features whereas it's vital to protect as many old trees as we can especially natives they sink the most carbon and recharge the most rain to the soil whereas the original natural features amendments were adopted in the early 2000s much has since been learned and now more is needed therefore be resolved that the environmental commission recommends to council that these new proposed draft amendments the unified development code be accepted then promptly sent to the Planning Commission planning staff for review and consideration resolve that since plans are eminent to condense the city's Master plans one of which is a natural features master plan into a single document likely much reducing the

055presence of the city's concern for natural features to a few abbreviated pages that the council asked for CPC to consider the matter without delay uh resolve it since these matters involve issues not generally are fully in the Wheelhouse of planners that the planning staff along City forced to be asked to collaborate members of the environmental commission and its natural features committee to work on changes as may be important to them resolve the council asked the CPC and planning staff to concurrently Begin work in collaboration with the EC and the NFC on a best management practices handbook resolve the cpcbs to transmit the revised proposed amendments to the attorney's office for reveal at the earliest possible date again with requests to them to review without delay resolve the council asked that the attorney final CPC and

056EC EC review of the proposed language the recommendations to be made to the council to adopt these changes into code resolve that the final draft language be brought back to council within this calendar year I will move it I hope someone will second I do not intend that we vote on this this evening there is much discussion and I hope suggestions and changes and other people to consult with before we um have a final package to send up to the council I don't know if it'll be next month I would hope but uh if it's too that's okay um before we have a final vote and send it up to council okay yeah here I hear the sense of urgency Chris and um um and I would agree with it um it's a complicated package

057um it looks like you've ordered things in a very logical way so the resolve Clauses like um prioritized in terms of the order of things that need to be that you think need to be done to go through the city's process the Planning Commission and the staff and Council um the attorney's office some are easy some of these sections are easy amendments um the um The Landmark trees which becomes landmark and Heritage tree section is more complicated because we're adding a new natural feature and that's Heritage trees these are native trees that have a certain threshold of size and the mitigation requirements the the cost of taking them is increased from what just the simple Landmark tree was doubled actually um most complicated of all is the Woodland section when we originally wrote these um

058amendments we didn't do anything special to protect Woodlands um that is to say the same mitigation requirements that applied to trees apply the trees in Woodlands and um what's become clear over the last 20 years is that our native Force fragments are extraordinarily important to us they are a serious component of the scenery of the city and fall especially when the colors turn they are um as I've said our refugees of our native species um they are a facsimile of the ecosystems that existed in Ann Arbor in 1824 when Europeans arrived here and began to take the place apart ecologically right right you're preaching to the choir here Chris I think um I think though um I assume that um that a certain number of the city's offices have already reviewed these suggestions you know

059like Parks natural features the city Forester the first the natural features committee works for the environmental commission you guys are the first there are some people that have contributed clearly but uh there's been no formal review throughout the city yeah okay uh Sean you have your hand up yeah just um an opportune time to note that I did get a request specifically from nap staff but I'm sure there are a lot of other staff as well that would like to review these before it goes on the council so I just wanted to put forward that I did have a request to have staff review it I'm I'm hoping that will happen thank you again to send it elsewhere myself tomorrow or Monday okay do you have a list of offices you'd like to send it

060to and uh are you are you anticipating like a kind of sign-off process like um the different departments can just check off um whether they're my uh whether they're perfectly satisfied or uh probably more properly done by the Planning Commission than the planning staff who have uh a lot more anchors in again the natural features committee it doesn't work for the city it works for the environmental commission so our job is to pass it on to the council and for the council to trigger the review process um but informally and to try to get the language to improved before it even goes up the council is a good idea so we'll do it I agree I just remember what we went through over the uh over the chapter 40 the title free chapter 40 revisions

061I still haven't seen it back yet that's correct so uh Shannon you have your hand up I'm a little confused about the order um because it seems like you would that's are you thinking that it would go to city council so that it can then be reviewed by these others or that it would go to these others it seems like city council is the last step that gets you know worked into city code commission is advisory to the council we have only one route that we can take our recommendations and that's through the council goes there first then the council disposes of it how they will hopefully they will send it through the process which goes down to the Planning Commission and the blaming staff we we don't have any ability to ask the attorney

062or the Planning Commission directly to do things okay so it has to go by along the environmental Commission so your your hope is that we get a bunch of Staff inputs so that it can have kind of a um like a for a vetting essentially um now or later either way I I just doubt that city council is going to pass this without they want to ask changes and things like that that would need to happen um they get a resolution here which asks them to send it onward and put it in the process formally yeah okay and so um so Steve when you've done the other ones is that what has gone on to city like you had staff do it first and then it's going under city council and then it's going back

063to the attorney or like how is that working with the other chapter that you all are working on well it's prudent to pass things through staff um it's you know just to get their input but uh you know Chris is right that um we need to we need to uh our resolution needs to be addressed to council to instruct the city to instruct the city uh managers the administrator to to do something so that should be uh you know more specific in the resolved Clauses yeah okay uh maybe listing the Departments that they that we think should we should review this package and what order they should be reviewed in um that's my uh that's my feeling okay so that's that's a process question that I have and then there's just a bunch of kind

064of like editing kinds of things there's certain things that don't feel very ordinance like in terms of the language of it um sentence fragments you know what I mean things that just don't feel like they're part of our normal code they are not hyperbolic at points you know and so it's like how does it how does it get sort of tightened up and um more kind of consistent with the kind of language that we have throughout the rest of the UDC um so because it seems to me that there needs to be a level of editing first on that and with that and then it goes to staff rather than having them you know what I'm saying like there's it's a huge effort that you've never taken here I mean it's admirable it's a but

065it's a massive effort with all kinds of interlacing you know this is something that I work in you know frequently with my job outside of environmentation and it's confusing to me you know and I work in this you know so it's like thinking about how all these pieces and parts interact you know I mean you know you pull one string and then all of a sudden all these other pieces start um you know getting getting unraveled and yanked on on things and so I think I I would um I think it needs some level of um of kind of figuring out and tightening up and and making more consistent with the the kind of language of the rest of our ordinances before it goes on even to staff in some ways to sort of get

066it to that point and then then it would go to staff I mean um it's it's tough too because I mean just I mean Lisa can tell you too the bandwidth that Planning Commission has right now to be able to work on something like this in terms of that level of editing is not it's not gonna it's like that need that level needs to be done um at a different place rather than with them um because it's it's been very difficult for Lisa and I do things that we really are care about it's really been hard for us to be able to get things on the group agenda for for our for what we're trying to work on for the next two years um so um uh now if something comes down from city council

067saying you have to work on this then that's different right that gets sort of automatically put on our plate um but those are some of my initial initial thoughts so if I can respond please the current code has language in it it has the same problems you're suggesting that is to say it's not typical code language and the reason is that natural features are not in any way called out as a thing that can be regulated in state law whereas almost every other aspect of zoning in our code is called out and enabled by state law the language that's in the code currently was originally called guidelines it wasn't put into an ordinance because we were afraid that this level of Regulation this kind of Regulation would be easy to sue against um what was

068happening back then was we would have major projects happen that would tear down a lot of trees and fill in wetlands and the public would rise up and say no you don't and then council members would spend the next six or nine months in a negotiated very complicated set of meetings between the developer and themselves and those of us who opposed destroying natural features to finally get an agreement on a development and not made nobody happy although some natural features were saved in almost every one of those cases these guidelines which were very wordy like this set of documents is and like the current code is were put into the code when we Consolidated all of the development desperate development statutes ordinances into one if we're going to lose the master plan we really need

069to have enough language in the ordinance so that when you go to court you have the justification and rationale for why it's important to have protection for Native Forest fragments why it's important to have protection for Heritage trees why they're important to us that's what a master plan does the guidelines were developed to to help the planners figure out how to negotiate with developers why why it says why and I I agree this is not normal code language but especially if we lose the master plan we need to do this to some degree [Music] there's always a there's always a way to say things less and fewer words but uh the substance of the explanation needs to be here because it's not going to be any place else and I I hear what you're saying

070and there was I I get it that there were there were the sections especially in the sections where you were describing each of the areas that were that was that's in the existing code I would say that these um sort of take it further down that road in terms of the way that they're written and so I would encourage that same tone that you have from the last time and and to be able to kind of tighten it up so I get it that it's not like this many inches and blah blah blah it's not it's not like that you're trying to describe why but that it's it's still kind of um feels it just has a different feeling about it in some ways than than the one from before and I'm not saying that

071you that you know it's it's it's not okay to state things in a way that um indicates how important things are to us but there's I think there's I think that the the style of the one from before um sits better within the context of the code than the style of the ones that are in front of us right now and I think the content can still be in there but that just stylistically again there's you know they're set in Frets there's not complete sentences you know what I'm saying there's just things that need to be kind of tightened up and smoothed out and figured out um and uh so that it just feels more cohesive or maybe you can zoom with me and show me exactly where give me some examples anywhere and then

072maybe we can work on it a bit right as I said it's always they're always shorter ways to say things okay quite difficult to do that like writing poetry all right okay yeah hopefully you two can do that offline um John you have your hand up thank you briefly um just from a process point of view I I second Chris's motion I think we really should have a second to before we go into discussion of the resolution so at least from a process perspective um we have that on the table so there's a motion in a second and now it's open for discussion um secondly I just want to affirm some of the things that that Chris has said it's at least been our understanding so Chris and I and Wendy Carmen have been the

073ones working on this off and on for probably the last two and a half years and um our our sense was twofold first of all that uh well maybe three three things are worthwhile make uh stating that we were a little bit more verbose than probably what is appropriate with the sense that um having language uh in in ordinance has proven in multiple court cases around the country um important because it really sets the justification for um the ordinance and then the ability of the the municipality to defend the the order the ordinance or the the code um secondly um we are not regular code writers and so um we you know we we took it to a place where we thought the content was all there and we applied I would say the third

074principle and that is um we felt that our work on this to the point where we felt it was perfect was likely to be dramatically edited along the way by Planning Commission by legal by city council and so we could stew over this and do all the editing um that maybe Shannon might think is good but then have um what we put together be taken apart and put together completely differently by staff by Planning by city council so rather than the perfect being at least our perfect being the enemy of the good we wanted to get it to this this group so that we could discuss exactly these things and decide how to do this because we've been we've been tweaking this Chris how long have we been tweaking these probably for just what what

075you see in front of us has not changed dramatically in a year in a calendar year's time I would say I mean there's been there's been some minor changes so that's why we wanted to get this in front of you and finally get some input and hopefully get it to others who are professional code writers and would have a sense of what is going to stand up legally what is the kind of thing that planning and the city is likely to adopt as opposed to those of us who do this you know once every couple of years where we help write um you know ordinance language So Lisa go ahead well um thanks I wanted to um just acknowledge the incredible work that you guys have done this is incredible and it's important um I

076think your instinct to stop here was excellent because I think you're right you guys could hone and hone and hone and it probably wouldn't be helpful um I I think we it would be a good idea to think about process a little more deeply and actually possibly um check in with a couple of staff and maybe Mr Mr dehoney on what course this should take um you are right that as an advisory body to counsel um the resolution has to direct counsel to direct blah blah but um my I think that as I've seen these things um that come out of commissions to council usually they don't even get voted on they get bounced right back to staff and then back through the appropriate commissions so and typically and this is enormous and it's a

077multiple departmental effort right this is going to take you know yeah the planning people yeah the legal people and some of the you know the the the grounds people the people who are proven our forestry yep yeah exactly right so that is really hard to do in the city because it's very hard to get them to coordinate their efforts and their schedules and their attention so I don't know which staff group should get it first but I I think that it does not make a lot of sense for environmental commission to vote on this and send it to council before there's been some staff input on it but I would I say that tentatively because I think it the best thing to do is to check in with staff and Mr dehoney and figure out

078where it's going to fit and just a couple of words of caution uh the planning department is about to get you know all engaged in the comprehensive plan so there you know for a large project like this is going to be there I don't know what kind of Staff capacity there would be right now um so yeah and um the um you know the OSI staff has a lot of work on it's late as well so I don't know where it would go fall in its priorities so um I think our our best bet is to to to try to figure out how staff wants to treat it and then in terms of formatting it is really helpful if you're modifying a section and not just generating all new stuff to have a redlined copy

079that is the way we are used to seeing things on planning and it is really hard for anyone whether planning commissioner or even staff member to receive a document that says we're modifying something but it doesn't show the text um that's you know that's being proposed to be eliminated and what's new and so that at a very minimum would need to be done before this even went to staff because that's asking you know too much for them to to do to see modifications that they don't know um what the Baseline was so um I I would definitely recommend as Shannon did some excuse me commissioner Gib Randall did some editing first and in the meantime we can do some nosing around and see how staff and the city administrator would like oh yeah to get

080this treated and the other thing that flew on my head earlier was and of course council is about to go through the budget process and so there's not going to be a whole lot of room for anything as huge as this until after the budget is settled so that's kind of um uh where we are but I think that there's some room to get this in shape so there's some you know there's some lead time well well you know your key actors are busy with other stuff foreign echoing what others have said thank you so much for all the years of work that sounds like that you've put into this um I'm wondering if you can help by my understanding by like what's the scope of this I mean this is not my area but

081I'm trying to understand are we talking about everything within the city are we talking about City lands are we talking about private lands and developers who's impacted my sense is it's everybody but I just wanted to hear a little bit about that for the moment it's anyone who has to go through the site planning process for a project in the city which is all commercial projects and anything larger than a single family two-family house project this is a site planning all the all of the UDC is the site planning process so this is for projects like Concord Pines on Earhart Road you have your hand up um quickly Chris I don't think you included it in your resolution but there was a resolution passed by city council albeit a year and a half two years

082ago directing the administrator and City staff to provide support support for review of of these types of ordinances if I recall correctly Chris can you share the the language with us or and I don't know if it because it was passed along though if it's even relevant anymore because obviously priorities and staff capacity and everything else has changed in the meantime council members have changed there were two really that were important one maybe five years ago uh that asked the environmental questions to review the status of the natural features ordinance in Ann Arbor we don't have one of those we had a set of amendments like these are to various chapters in the code the wetlands ordinance the development ordinance chapter 57 and uh um the second one and we did that and it was

083a multi-page legal size document that came up to the environmental Commission maybe three years ago maybe four three I guess the second more recent Council resolution was to ask ask the environmental commission to do more to protect Heritage trees the third thing that happened was climate change arrived in Ann Arbor at long last and we decided we had a climate emergency and Mr dark and Mr talmy's books arrived at the printers really indicating how important the connection between sustaining species on this Earth of ours is to what we do in our backyards and the four things put together resulted in [Music] the ideas that are embodied in these four ordinances which is to tighten the mitigation requirements for taking especially large and old trees and taking native Force fragments and another category qualified Urban Woodlands

084we have a seriously nice not native but nice Woodland on a property that's being developed so there's some motivations um commissioner Dale you have your hand up yeah I have a follow-up question about the scope so I understand that it wouldn't um it wouldn't apply to single family residences to you know someone removing trees on their own property um does it apply to right-of-way public right-of-way does it and does it apply to Ann Arbor Public Schools because like the public schools are also exempt from zoning right so so those would be other cases where it doesn't apply correct does not apply to schools does apply to any City projects on public land does not apply to the university does not apply to single-family houses yet we would like to do a step two here where

085we do some kind of many natural features requirement for people redeveloping single-family properties so that trees get protected we're losing dozens of old threes a year on projects on single-family properties and we think we can do something with a grading permit that's similar to what we've required for um uh storm water retention yeah I can say I've seen it in my neighborhood like crazy you know between between just the removal of um of trees on the lawn extensions and people removing things on their own yard it's uh the the landscape of my neighborhood has changed significantly in the last couple years as far as Street canopy cover well again the entire thrust of the way this works is not to have a permit to take a treat it's not to say no yes or no

086in every instance of every tree it's to give performance standards and most of all on single family properties to make sure that mature trees aren't lost not because they were cut down in order to do an addition but because the contractors drove over the roots and killed them which is the way most of them are going unintended loss is huge but that's another that's another year that we get into a single family property okay uh commissioner Ackman you're happier hand up yeah I just wanted to check out what uh council member dish said about the redlining and this is probably largely a function of me being new but I feel like I have no context really for this like how much it differs from what we do today in Ann Arbor um and that would

087be just really helpful because otherwise I just feel like I have no no basis um I'm also curious whether you modeled it on other municipalities or kind of what was your what was your inspiration what were you using to guide this uh I have done Red Line versions of the woodlands and the tree sections and they are Byzantine because the language was so much updated in both of those sections the others are easy um you might not like what you asked for we'll see um in the case of modeling out other communities we were the model we invented this stuff in the early 1990s nobody else had been doing it and again I say again the state enabling ordinances statutes for zoning don't talk about natural features we we put another line in our development

088ordinances a petitioner shell to the fullest extent possible minimize the damage to natural features nobody else's code has that we've gotten away with it because the trade-off of being able to negotiate a good deal about protecting natural features at the planning staff level before a petition went up to the Planning Commission for approval solved the problem of controversy and instead of long drawn-out process where people are fighting about protecting every natural feature they could that got negotiated in based on the standards the guidelines the language the original language that you're seeing in return the developer got prompt decision time is money for those guys and and only when we've overstepped our bounds a little bit have we gotten sued most of the time it's just been wonderful in the case of Concord Pines on on

089Earhart a lot of very nice trees were cut down there they couldn't all be fit on that property as replacement trees even under our current code and we're strengthening it um they had to put into the tree fund a quarter million dollars Plus plant a whole lot of trees on their property so uh we've had some high impact over the last 20 years and done it very smoothly but as I say it's not enabled in the state statutes for us to do this which is why the language okay so does this need to be um maybe emphasized in more detail in the city's policy agenda with the state legislature that whatever reforms on the UDC code should either allow more local control or to maybe explicitly add natural features protections well I did look at

090that document and it's really a big mouthful as it stands good sure sure Chris well um it looks like you have all the content there um what I'm hearing I just want to propose something and what I'm hearing is that maybe um maybe we should um as a final first we should have maybe expand a task group to look at this and uh and uh revive and do all these revisions and redlined revisions uh Chris you were mentioning that you already did this for woodlands in the tree the tree ordinance and it wasn't an ordinance you have a redlined copy of the current code not one I've done in against the current language um and whether I've kept them from several versions ago or not I don't know but uh it's doable Microsoft Word will

091compare two documents pretty quickly you'll see it's a little scary well this seems like a potential Way Forward um let's see I would ask anybody to make suggestions if they're so inclined I see John commissioner mursky's hand is up um if I think we could get support from Tiffany I forget how to pronounce Tiffany G I think whatever her last name is sorry um that that would be great and I don't know that she is going to be all that wrapped up in some of the other uh kinds of things that planning and Council and things like that budget the kinds of things that most council member dish and council member Ackman and commissioner Bramble mentioned and I think her support would be don't you think Christopher really helpful um at least in the interim

092well she has been maybe Remy will help too yeah but I mean she hasn't set in on recent meetings and probably I don't know certainly months maybe a year he has a set of these documents however and asked for them so so maybe if we can get some explicit support through the administrator for some capacity from her side that will that will greatly help in the kind of editing that commissioner Gib Randall mentioned redlining and things like that it would help to have a planning staff member too I mean the buzz cell is going to be there okay so um so are we thinking about um recasting this resolution to city council that they recommend that the city administrator carve out a certain amount of time um from Tiffany G and uh and uh somebody

093from the planning department I commit to a certain amount of time over a certain period of time to to uh to get these drafts in shape for uh further consideration for consideration by Council if you want to do it informally before we send drafts to the council that's fine with me I'm I'm it probably takes the chair of this commission or council member to make the informal to open the informal doors I in a the words in our Charter for the environment commission are pretty black and white we we environmental commissioners Commissioners work for the council we have no standing in the city otherwise commissioner Ackman you have your hand up I'm new here so I'm going to be also asking council member dish I mean we have our staff person here on the commission

094Mr Reynolds it sounds like he's indicating that some staff wanted to see it does it make sense to have you Mr Reynolds talk to uh Dr Stoltz or Mr dehoney about how we should handle this at this stage councilmember just does that make sense or as a first step I I think um it's great Mr Reynolds that you um already reported that you guys wanted to take a look and that nap wanted to take a look I think councilmember Eckman you and I should speak to Mr Dahomey okay and uh and have you know if he says it's okay we can then reach out to staff in other sections and then the department heads or section I don't know what they're called section head section leaders their grad students um they can figure out uh

095they can decide where they can put it on their you know the their work plans right and um because I think that it wouldn't be very useful for it to come to council before it's been vetted at least by some of the key staff and definitely the attorneys because all Council will say is we can't even talk about this until staff has seen it and then the relevant commissions you know discuss something that looks more like something that's that's something that's already been vetted by staff something that's that you know and so this is an incredible it's more than a conversation starter it's a it's a remarkable effort but there are um ways that it will move more quickly if we do things in the in a in a proper order so but that's a

096conversation um between you and me and Mr honey it doesn't need to be and shouldn't really be a resolution from the environmental commission instructing Council to tell staff what to do because we're we don't really they don't like us when we do that no they don't um uh commissioner dish you have your hand up oh no oh okay so um yeah that sounds like uh that sounds like an action point and um so meanwhile what can we be doing to help you to help the natural features working group to advance this um and um you know and whatever whatever Direction seems appropriate here in terms of uh just reorganizing the documentation uh I their input would be number one on my list I I'm again I'm I'm fairly well persuaded that we need more than

097the norm in that normal level of explanation rationale in the code for this subject area again because there's no enabling legislation at the state level allows us to regulate natural features it's not there there's no defense you can regulate billing Heights and density and all sorts of stuff and that's enabled in the state statute under zoning not this and so um I'm going to be defending as much language as I can albeit there's always a way to say things shorter and more carefully but I I really need to get in the weeds with people about it so okay Chris uh what people do you think are important to get into the weeds with uh Remy Tiffany I don't think um Misty has time but maybe you do Sean um a planning staff member who's been

098working on natural features for a long time um Parks person um because uh our best native Forest fragments are on the parks and because of all the reasons I said in the resolution it's the it's our it's our Noah's Ark those things and what they do and what the natural race program does is is what we need to educate people to do in their backyards and certainly do anywhere near a natural feature native Forest fragment that's not publicly owned okay um I don't think attorneys want to work with anybody they have their own world over there but Maybe McDonald's around when we did this to begin with but otherwise I think they're all new um okay okay so um so maybe uh maybe uh council members dish and uh backman can can convey those uh

099you know those the desire for those departments to be pulled um when they talk to Mr dehoney is that um is that a good course of action yeah okay all right uh meanwhile um let me yeah meanwhile Chris I'd like you to think about um if if you really legally only had um yourself and John and Wendy um you know devoting a lot of time to this some I would hope you can recruit some more volunteers from the commission will and uh I'll go back to the larger natural features committee and include these other people on that and um and again it's difficult to write language in a committee of any size that's so yeah that's a camp so but at least we can hash over the ideas and and and make progress yeah yeah

100I have the feeling that um a lot of the content is there it's just a question of putting it in the right form and putting it through the right process right that's important yeah so um with the Parks Commission have anything um to contribute to this discussion I think so one of one of the documents in here amends the alternative mitigation plan Tiffany suggested that it's not the current code suggests that if you can't fit all the mitigation all the replacement trees on a property that you could negotiate a plan for the petitioner to work on some other property to put the trees there Tiffany said well I have no way of monitoring that I have no way of measuring that I really don't I'm not able to manage that uh what makes more sense

101is to put is to charge the tree canopy loss fee for the trees that can't be put on a property that's being developed on the site that's being developed charge account of philosophy and put it in a tree fund and use it for natural feature stuff and tree planting and one thing I put in there that it could be used for is deer management there's an off the books way to solve that problem and especially if we're increasing the mitigation requirements there could be some money going through that fund easily to pay for deer management um the fee that Concord Pines paid for all the trees they couldn't fit on their property on Earhart was a quarter million dollars so good good thing to talk to the parks people with and if we don't manage

102deer we're not going to have native Forest fragments that are any good anymore on the parks they're going to be destroyed have been substantially destroyed oh people's backyards as well that's so um not so important but what makes us mad yeah indeed okay um let's see I think it's been a good discussion I think we have some action points here that um Lisa and Dharma will talk to um maybe other council members and Mr dehoney and try to firm up a process and some letter and something of a commitment um for the time required to bring us over the finish line I'm happy to meet uh or consult the I email or help or do whatever I can I I'm ready to do stuff yeah I mean if we're asking for people's time we've got

103to put some limits or some expectations on that it will get us over the finish line and not scare people too much sorry this is a it's this is a big deal folks I I'm I is not an easy way to do it I know it wasn't easy back in 2000 but it's a core responsibility of this Commission so um all right if there are no more uh no more discussion um we'll close out the discussion at this point um the next item on the agenda is reports from committees other other commissions counsel and share so let's start with the Committees um and does natural features have anything to add uh nope uh thank you this is a big big puzzle here appreciate your time about it and help yeah I think water quality we

104have not met yet we're going to be meeting um soon so I'm not going to report anything for water quality work group as yet um what about Solid Waste John John commissioner Calvert sorry not I hear a solid waste and I'm thinking something else so um not much to update since the last time we talked about our work although we have reached out to both Anya and Maisie who've expressed kind of uh some degree of interest in engaging with the current work around the circular economy uh Macy had Lisa and I just met just before this meeting she's got some great ideas about work she's coordinating with others through the Ann Arbor Public Schools um so that was really exciting to hear about but as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago our main thing

105right now is um very specific Community engagement to help shape what we're doing and supporting the work of the University of Michigan school for environment and sustainability students who are wrapping up their work um they'll be completing their project with us in April Lisa anything else just um just to specify that what is going to be coming up is a a strategy plan for strategy five or an Outreach plan for strategy five and uh it's a little confusing because it's all plan speak but uh we are definitely that is the Outreach that John is talking about that we um there is a a person a helping us build the community team that we're going to need for Equity to be at the center of that strategic plan for strategy five which is building the circular

106economy and so we're sort of planning in order to plan which seems really weird but I think it makes a lot of sense because the city's normal planning process though it does value Equity it doesn't really know how to get the right parts of the community involved in a respectful and Empower not Empower that isn't the right way but um powerful way meaningful and consequential way and so that's the work that's happening now and expect just as we saw tonight um a strategy that's implementing strategy six expect over the next year strategy for strategy five to be developed and that will be really exciting great so uh pollinators Rita yeah um the pollinator work group has received a message from staff regarding our coming season to address where we were last year with the Nomo

107May and we'll be working a meeting on Monday to have a discussion on on directions for how we'll move forward it may be it may look different so be prepared for some changes um and uh we'll keep you posted but the goals are really the same the ultimate goal is to support pollinators to have biodiverse Landscapes that support them and that all along support all the kinds of things that we are all interested in um well thank you Rita so um and let's move on to commissions um energy Commission there's we have not met since our last special meeting when I gave it updates so nothing bad okay thank you John uh parks and I uh Parks met um last week um and let's see we've completed the pros uh plan process um and thanks

108for everybody who commented and helped with that um we had an update on the tree line Conservancy at our last meeting and an update from the parks operations staff that was very interesting how they manage 165 parks within the city of Ann Arbor on a with a just a handful of people this was pretty amazing that's it all right thank you Adam um and then planning we've had just one meeting since we had our last meeting and um uh it was one where I had to accuse myself because I worked in the project but I do know about the project so this is the um the um annivers third fire station which is over on East Sharon Parkway just where flat comes down and it's the first Net Zero fire station in Ann Arbor probably

109in the state I would imagine um and uh it's a it's got some weirdness to it because the the spot the the site itself where the fire station sits is is really tiny but it's right next to shuffler Park so I'm sure Ann knows all about this because uh um we are taking a chunk of sheffler Park to be able to expand the fire station onto that and it's Associated like there's a small parking lot and some storm water areas and things like that um and so uh we went through the Parks Commission to be able to kind of swap through some of those things um as a result of that we're putting in a nice new basketball court um on the other side of the of the creek there because mountains Creek runs through

110there um so there'll be some kind of Park upgrades in or so that kind of trade you know that's happening with with um part of that area that's coming up um for for the fire station use the whole intersection is going to be reconfigured uh through there right now the where plaque comes into Eastern Parkway it's a three-way stop and it will become kind of four way into the fire station parking lot which really isn't a place where many of us are ever going to go in but it's where fire trucks are going to be coming out so there's going to be a lot of changes in that area um to be able to accommodate this use um so that fire trucks can pull through their building rather than backing out which is what happens

111right now um so lots of changes and um pretty exciting that they were able through a combination of solar and geothermal and things like that to be able to achieve Net Zero um on this on this building hey thank you Shannon yeah I read the M live article um and uh it looks like a good number of the city's departments that really worked well together to make it happen yep yeah okay um let's see uh now report from Council uh Lisa do you want to go first yes and I'm not sure how far we need to go back in Council meetings and the only thing I can think of that's interesting to this emission but there may be more if uh councilmember admin remembers is that we did pass we approved the pros plan so

112we're really excited about that and um also just it is worth mentioning that as exciting as the fire station is it is as yet unfunded so if anyone has a little extra money in your checkbook feel free to send it in and I don't remember anything else that we've done councilmember Acton but I was I missed a meeting I think well I'm thinking of one that you actually spoke about and you spoke very well about it uh the big rebate that we got from uh putting solar facilities I think the prior plan was to basically kind of lease the panels uh but now with the new federal tax credit I think we were able to save three some odd million dollars um by changing to purchasing it outright so that's great for City buildings thank

113you for reminding me I know you're we're juggling a lot so [Music] um okay um anything um anything um commissioner Eckman you'd like to add to that or no I would just say I'm happy to start giving uh reports out from Transportation Commission if you'd like I think you said that that hasn't been before uh we met last week um basically went over what our plans are for the coming year what we accomplished last year uh one of the big activities is the vision zero implementation committee so that's our transportation plan that was passed a couple of years ago we have a subcommittee that's working on the implementation of that with an external consulting firm and soon they will have a list of prioritized projects uh they plan to work on and I think that's

114that's the main thing yeah okay yeah thank you very much um so let's see um so Now's the Time for the chairs report I'm just going to say that uh let's see uh first of all that um you know that I want to mention that the city's sustainability forums have begun once again um they had one last night there was folks on the circular economy that had uh Jenny Petoskey and uh Sam McMullen in a black zero waste and uh oh I'm drawing a blank right now Sarah I think it was Hannah Hannah Loftus that's it Anna Loftus so um they gave some very good presentations and there was a really good public discussion a lot of q a that went on for uh quite some time um until eight o'clock I believe from 6

11530. um and um let's see so that's all I wanted to say at this point um commissioner Ackman you have your hand up yeah sorry just because you mentioned other things that might be of interest I'm not sure people saw this February 22nd Forum housing and transportation what's the climate connection I think it's going to be at the downtown library from 6 to 8 P.M hopefully it's on Facebook it's in a variety of different places if you want the invite I'm happy to send it to you but it looks interesting and relevant oh yeah it does thanks for mentioning that I think that's being sponsored by the climate reality project is it yeah okay Ann Arbor citizens climate Lobby yeah okay so um let's see uh so the next item on the agenda is report

116from staff yeah thank you um most of my items have been mentioned already um I will add on to the sustainability forums uh that the one coming up in March is on electrification and the one in April is going to be on renewable energy I'm sorry for those topics keep an eye out for those uh I also do have a note uh that OSI and the Solid Waste Department are working with the Bryant Community Center to hold a neighborhood's pop day uh in the Bryant neighborhood on February 4th um so this coming week uh or next weekend I believe um and we are looking for folks to help volunteer at that event to help with sorting items that are brought in and distributing items and bringing uh leftover items that might be left after the

117swap day to drop off stations for donations so if you are interested anyone on the commission or anyone who is watching this meeting if you're interested in volunteering at that event um please let me know at s Reynolds a2gov.org and I will get that onto in the event okay [Music] um so um are you asking for donations as well Sean or just volunteers to help with sorting and Bryant on February 4th uh it is just fair volunteers okay and um what time is it um I do not have that information right in front of me but I will bring it up and get back okay all right thank you Sean so um the next item on the agenda is items for the next agenda so um we've had some back uh some back and forth

118um we were we were anticipating um uh to get a report from um from the public works department on the solid waste uh budget and the plans for uh the coming year and the budget request um we have been told that uh that um a lot that um it would be difficult for somebody to present their plans for next year because a lot of them are still in flux you know there's a lot of stakeholders and things and remember Sarah Mason came and gave a short review of what they were planning back in October so however um the city staff has promised that they will get the financials to us and we can have a discussion of the 2022 financials and the uh and the budget ask as it exists now so we'll a substantial

119part of our next meeting we'll be reviewing these financials and discussing them um so um that's all I have for the next agenda besides I believe yes Chris you have your hand up I when you're done I have uh one map from the C students from last spring to show folks if you want to see it it pretty well shows the net Navy Forest fragments in the city okay and and wasn't Remy gonna come in February as well or was that March uh Remy uh will be in March thank you very much correct oh no we have um no what it is is we have uh um Keith of the wastewater treatment plant as well so Keith is going to be uh Keith I forgot his last name uh Sanders yeah he's going to be

120talking about the wastewater treatment plant so that seems like a full agenda there we have two major items uh I do also sorry um I do also have a request from uh Heather safarth to present the Equitable engagement report at the February meeting um that would be a short presentation if we okay let's add that on okay yep we could probably accommodate that Sean thank you thank you so uh Chris you still have your hand up um yes Sean if you let me um uh share the screen sure I'll also just jump in real quick that swap day is from 8 AM to 4 P.M there are different shifts but that's that's the time frame okay oh this is one one map from the C students that worked on our fourth last year the dark

121green our oak trees they are the city's native Forest fragments um this um areas um where am I Earhart this is um east of Domino's Farms along Ford Road and uh a lot of hickories in there that's the orange that's math eye isn't it my math is on Dixboro which is out yonder sorry let's see if we get math High out here I think it's the East Medical Campus south of south of there this is and you can see a lot of great native Force fragments in the East Medical Campus area yeah that's that's a park I believe over there east of uh yeah that's called Marshall Park that's Marshall Park that's Marshall Park yeah Marshall Park is up here right correct and this is the East Medical Center area South yeah East medical area

122south of uh Plymouth Road this is a parcel that was developed back before we had natural features ordinance amendments and we managed to save this native Force fragment and a lot of really nice Wetlands on this parcel after six months of uh serious work these are the Sugar Bush and other parks along Georgetown in the Georgetown neighborhood each tree by the way here has a identification so there's lots of information here Chris is this is this um a link that you could send to all of us um that is publicly accessible no this is uh me tapping into the University but it will be okay and what is it what is what is pink and yellow in here yellow are hickories pink are um everything else that's Woody um including a lot of Maples but

123it's also picking up the shrub thickets and so on which is certainly true around Thurston Pond here um will this become part of the natural features um inventory kind of like GIS interface which I actually use all the time I'm so glad that you're going to be able to have this and have access to it I think we need to do a second step with c's and get all this pink reconciled a lot better this is black Pond Woods um which used to extend out into the golf course before they put a fairway through here we have another layer that I can't seem to open that actually went back all through the old Air photos and we put a line around what were Native Forest fragments back years ago and this one went out this

124way but didn't go nearly as far south so this 84 segment has expanded since then okay Chris that's a great that's a great uh look um so uh do you have uh do you have an anticipated time when that then the Commissioners could look at it or maybe a data test and then um and then it could be made available to the published is there a Target date for that I'm not in charge it's the I.T guys and they have a full plate also but um and Jason Talent who's the advisor for the students and used to work for the city and still worked for the university is working to get the data in a form that the it guys can plug into our system it's coming I in the next couple months Steve you're

125muted sorry um commissioner Dale you have your hand up yeah I do um Chris I'm wondering because I see that that's some some U of MCA students but do do you know if they're working in cooperation with like campus grounds because campus ground Services has also been working on a massive mapping of natural features and trees and other things and um I hope they're talking to each other and working together and that yeah the group is done and it was a spec a specific project that the city engaged them to do and that was to look at our fourth canopy across the city and identify areas of grass and identify down to the species level the trees that we have in the city um there's a lot more data there that I can't show you

126I don't haven't figured out how to work all this yet but yeah maybe we can talk offline about about what's involved in that process and see if there's an opportunity to connect it with this other stuff that U of M's is working on it'd be great and maybe it already is connected I don't know but but the U of M has a lot of native Forest fragments that are very important and it would be good not to build on yeah get them restored great okay great thank you uh Rita Mitchell you have your hand up I just want to thank commissioner Dale for raising that issue because the opportunity to work cooperatively with the university on these things where we have one Community but kind of two separate administrative Parts um has been something I

127think has been challenging to us for a long time and and where we can pull together the better and natural features is a perfect area to do that yeah excellent so um so let's see let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is um the next scheduled meeting which is February 23rd at 7 pm and it will be online [Music] um so this is the this the next item is uh the second period of public commentary so this is another opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID number 922-9696-1644 again you call it 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that Embrace their hand one by one

128using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established um do we have anybody on the line as yet Sean we do not okay so we'll wait again we'll wait 30 seconds meanwhile um um let's see um do we have anybody as yet Sean we do not okay well then I will declare

129this meeting adjourned at 8 59 pm thank you everybody