Historical Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

02/06/2025. We could start with roll call.

Yes. Good evening. Call the roll for, board member Sanchez.

Present.

Board Member Bevin.

Present.

Board Member Brito.

Present.

And Chair Hernandez.

Present.

We have a quorum and Board Member Rabachek is absent.

Excellent, thank you. We also have announcement of appreciation and an update on our membership. Board member Jones has resigned as well as board member Borthwick. So, in recognition of their years of service and contributions, we wanted to formally recognize them. I can read these aloud or we can file them but we will very much appreciate their participation and we'll miss them and wish them all the best.

So, I'll pass those down to held out. Next agenda item is non agenda public comments. Do we have anybody wishing to speak? Any matter not on the agenda? Okay, great. Next item is minutes. We have a couple of minutes in the rears to approve 11/07/2024 and 12/05/2024.

Yes. These minutes reflect meetings where different members were present. And normally we need a quorum of the members who were present to vote. In this case, I think it is fine to maybe just adopt them by consent and we'll put them in the record.

Okay, great. So do we need to have a motion then?

Sure. We could have a motion.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll I'll make the motion. I I move that we approve the meeting minutes by consent of 11/07/2024 and 12/05/2024.

Is there any discussion For a second?

Go ahead and say. Okay.

I seconded. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. And there you have it.

Thank

you. And that brings us to the regular agenda. The first item on the list is a review on the new urban forest plan and implementation and I believe we have a presentation.

Yeah, we'll promote our presenters there. Should have our sustainability manager joining, but I'm not seeing her yet. Liz or Ryan, I don't know if you wanna start for us or if we should give Danielle a second.

Probably give Danielle a second, but if if if we need to start, I can pitch in Liz if you would like me to.

Or should we punt this if we need a few minutes and come back to it?

Yeah. She said she's signing on, so maybe we should give it a minute.

Yeah. Technical difficulty.

Yeah. Hey. So my screen's not showing. Should I be seeing something? Check

with the studio staff, see if all the screens are on.

The studio staff able to confirm if we have all the screens on down here? It looks like one of our screens isn't showing the presentation. Thank you. Or perhaps a different seat. These are not.

Yeah, those are both dark.

You guys have it.

Right? Mhmm.

Alright. Our presenter is joining.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Hello. Is this Danielle?

Yes. Hi.

Welcome.

Alright. Well, good evening, members of the historical advisory board. I'm Danielle Mueller. I'm sustainability and resilience manager for the city of Alameda. And I'm looking forward to presenting to you tonight, the draft urban forest plan. Next slide. This was a team effort among a number of different departments in the city, and I'm joined tonight by Liz Accord from Public Works, and was led by our, technical consultant team at Dudec. And Ryan Allen is joining us here tonight. And we were also supported by AIM Consulting in our community engagement process. Next slide.

So the purpose of the urban forest plan is to update the master street tree plan to include trees and promote an increase in overall tree canopy, to develop a forward focus plan with policies based on the current needs of the city, to develop the resources necessary to effectively manage the urban forest and implement the plan, and to partner with the community to effectively steward the urban forest. As you are well aware, the trees have many benefits to all of us in the community, including, providing shade, fresh food, excuse me, capturing and slowing rainwater, making our communities healthier, and providing habitat for wildlife, providing connection to our neighbors, excuse me, and cleaning our air. Next slide. To date, we've engaged we've engaged with the community quite a bit through the development of this process. We, convened a working group, that met about five times over the planning period and helped, steward the development of the plan.

We conducted an online survey, with over six I think 700, responses from community members. We conducted, workshops excuse me, pop up workshops at a number of different community events, including the Bull Hole Circle Immigrant Park opening, storytelling and drum festival, and the spring shindig. In April 2023, we had a student letter writing activity where students wrote letters to the mayor and city council telling them what they love about trees, and drawing pictures with showing their favorite tree and why the urban forest is important to them. We had an urban forest summit listening session in May 2023. And today and this month, I guess January, February now, have been meeting with boards and commissions and, had a work a workshop with city council last Tuesday.

So here you can see the boards and commissions we've met with. We did also have a public workshop, in person and virtual at the January. City Council on Tuesday, we're here tonight. Next week, we'll be with the Recreation and Parks Commission, and the plan is available for public review until February 14 on our website there. Our plan is to, incorporate the comments that we hear during this period and come back to City Council in 2025, with a draft for City Council's adoption.

Next slide. So the urban forest is structured into two volumes. The volume one is the strategic plan, includes the Alameda's current urban forest and management practices and plans for the future as well as how we develop the plan and engagement and how we're going to keep the plan current. Volume management practices, includes all the technical detail standards and guidelines for how to effectively manage the tree inventory and urban forest. Next slide.

The community jointly developed through the engagement process a vision for the draft plan, which is Alameda's urban forest is a collection of healthy, diverse, resilient trees supported by sustainable resources and management practices that enhance our quality of life, provide habitat for wildlife, and support adaptation to climate change for the benefit of all community members and generations to come.

Next slide.

Showing here three well, I'm going to go through four goals that are laid out in the plan, as well as the city's commitment to maintaining those goals. The first goal around maintaining and growing a health and diverse forest and increasing our tree canopy cover, both in individual census tracts and citywide, and then developing the financial and human resources necessary to effectively manage the urban forest and implement the plan.

Next slide.

And then our third goal to increase protection for public and private trees and to partner with an engaged and informed community to effectively steward the urban forest. Moving beyond those goals, we have strategies and then actions laid out in the plan. I'll cover those a little bit in a moment. As part of the plan, we developed a du deck, completed a canopy cover analysis looking at the percentage of land area that's covered by trees and branches when you look at it from above. Citywide, our canopy coverage average is 11.2%.

It ranges from about 5.1% to almost 21% by census tract. And you can see on the right, Dudec also prepared a priority planting score that looked at both the canopy cover and the demographics of the community, the population, the land use and social equity and developed a priority planting score. The darker colors being a higher score and a higher priority for planting and improving the canopy cover in those census tracts.

Next slide.

Also completed a canopy increase analysis, showing how we could achieve a 20% tree canopy goal through growing our existing tree inventory, planting new trees in various city and non city sites and then, also preserving the existing trees that we have. We know that we'll need additional funding to plant what would be 9,600 trees over the thirty year period and manage that larger forest. Next slide. As part of the work, Dudec updated the tree species list for public trees, identifying species that are appropriate for Alameda's current and future climate. The species list in the appendix of the plan includes very detailed information to assist the city in selecting the right tree for the right place and also included consideration of trees that are appropriate for planting under power lines.

You can see the website here shown here from Cal Poly is we've created a list of Alameda trees from our appendix that's sort of a visual representation of the species list, it's a great way to visually see the trees and click on them and learn more about the trees and their characteristics. Next slide. So through the public, engagement process that we've had so far in the plan, some of the key things that we've heard, from residents are about, maintaining, retaining the major streets and neighborhood trees recommendations, identifying opportunity sites for tree plantings and parks and other open spaces, providing more flexibility to plant larger trees under low voltage power lines and iconic corridors and considering undergrounding plans, add or remove specific species from the list, more focus on natives and providing a procedure for planting species not on the list, providing additional funds to remove pavement from tree wells in census tracts that have a high priority planting score, increasing tree protection measures and ensuring adequate replacement ratios, and, some comments about accelerating tree planting and considering a more aggressive canopy cover goal. Next slide. I just wanted to highlight some of the key actions that are maybe related to HAB purview around preserving the health of London plane trees.

We have some discussion in the plan about London planes being not well suited for Alameda's future climate, and they are currently a very large portion of our tree inventory as well as making up some of the iconic corridors like Central Avenue. The second action is about standards for tree protection and mitigation measures in new development. And the third action is about canopy preservation and replacement considering expanding our current tree canopy protection ordinance or tree protection ordinance to preserve healthy mature trees and require replacement or mitigation when trees are removed. And then lastly, coordinating with AMP to protect and preserve trees in the public right away when they conflict with infrastructure. Next slide.

So that's all we have tonight. This is just a review and comment is, so we welcome your comments and questions. I just wanted to give a shout out here in the photo to Ila Vassali, who's an intern in our, in our team, who was part of a tree planting effort at Main Street Lanier. You may have noticed there was 56 trees planted there in December with high school student volunteers. That was really great to see them out there and really adding some canopy in a place that really needs it. So thanks for your time and we're available for your questions.

Great, thank you. I really appreciate the presentation and all the work that you and others have obviously put into the plan and process for collecting everyone's comments. Let's see, I guess I will open it up right now. Are there questions

or comments from anybody? Do have any questions, Josh?

Just a quick question. When we were talking about the new trees that would go on like private properties that would get taken into part of the calculation as well. Is that correct?

Brian, do you want to answer that?

You're referencing a calculation for increasing canopy cover?

Correct.

Yes. So there's around 4,200 identified vacant sites in the city's inventory currently. So there will be a need for additional trees to be planted on private property to help achieve the canopy cover goal.

Okay. So guess if it's does that include like like a homeowner now is doing like a new backyard and they put in new trees? Does that get calculated in and and how, I guess, does that get counted if if that's not typically something the the city would get involved with?

Yeah. Yes. So I would say right now there's not a, a as far as I understand it. A defined method to. Record trees like that that are going on private property but the idea moving forward would be to establish a tree giveaway program working with some of the local community based organizations and nonprofits to distribute trees to single private property owners that are interested in planting a tree. Then moving forward, we would we would be able to track at where those trees were going at a minimum.

Okay. Thank you.

Could I just add one thing to

that Sure.

Response? In terms of the tree canopy cover, that, calculation is is really is citywide and just looking at an aerial view of the city percentage of land. So it's different than our, inventory of trees that the city maintains to track, you know, individual trees that the city plants. But it looks at, from an aerial perspective, what part what portion of a city's land is covered with tree canopy.

Thank you so much for your presentation. In reading the plan, it was nice to see that you have historical context in there about Alameda's historic tree coverage and even communities that haven't, sorry, is that working now? You hear any of that?

Yeah, I could actually, yeah.

Okay, that's good. I was just saying it was nice to see that there's some historic context in there about tree coverage in the past and communities within our city that may not benefit from that. One other observation I had regarding the the London planes, which have been subject to some public comments. Just walking down the street in the past week, I noticed that during the winter months, those trees shed their leaves and they allow sunlight to cast across buildings on either side of central kind of early in the morning or late in the day. And contrast that with summer, they block a bit of sunlight during those early and later times of day.

And one of the things that owners of historic properties often have to wrestle with and I guess even newer properties in the Bay Area is a lack of air conditioning. So having that kind of relationship between the way that historic buildings function and how the environment can kind of help them condition air, if you will, I think is important. And I'm wondering if if there may be a way to weave in some recommendations for trees that may be optimal for those kinds of corridors where early day or late day sunlight may be more substantial. Just from perspective. I know a lack of AC can really be a pain when it's quite hot here in the summer.

And I know a lot of occupants of buildings, whether they're tenants or owners, they may have wood windows but they may not function as they did historically. So every little bit of benefit from nature I think is can be pretty impactful. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I had a question sticking with the theme of the, by the way, thank you both for your presentation as well. With regards to the London plane trees, could you give us an idea like in those historic quarters like on Central, what's the average age of those existing trees and what is their expected lifespan? Did I understand correctly from your report that those are sort of nearing the end of their lifespan or could or does it vary by by block?

I wouldn't. I I don't know the exact planting dates for them. I I could look back in the inventory. Know there I know there are records for when they were planted, but I'm I'm not aware of when that would be. Trees in urban environments, especially the trees on the London plane trees like down Central Avenue.

Have a lot of things working against them that. Certain there what their lifespan typically typically would be like in a natural environment. Very small planters spaces and soil volume. You know restricts as root growth and tree health- they're frequently pruned- a lot of them are for. The over at clearance for the utility lines- so those are some of the factors that kind of contribute to.

The health conditions of the trees and their lifespan. But I again, I don't know when they were planted. So I'm sorry. I don't yeah. I don't know the answer to that specifically.

And so just I understand that their conditions in under which they're planted will affect their lifespan, but on average, what would be an expected lifespan for for London? For

again, it's a difficult question to answer because there's so many factors that can go into it.

Sure.

I would say a long lived tree in a street tree in an urban environment. You know, I think sixty to seventy years is a pretty good long life for a street tree. There's some research that's been done that suggests on average the lifespan for. Urban trees and newly planted trees is is much less than that. But if you have a healthy established tree, you know, I I think that would be a. A good outcome.

Okay. Thank you.

Other

questions? Well, have a few and again, thank you so much for putting this together. Some things that struck me as I read it and I've read the older plan but it's been a while so I didn't have time to read your plan and the old plan because it was quite a lot of reading. But I remember in the old plan it talked very specifically about the word Alameda and Encinal and it talked about the heritage of those names, those words defining us as a place where there was a huge forest of coastal oaks. And I thought that was I remember that reflecting on that previously to all this conversation and that was something interesting to me as a new Alamedan not seeing all these coastal oaks.

Yes, we have some but it's interesting to me that coastal oak replanting isn't part of necessarily the plan, even though protection of coastal oaks is obviously a priority for the city. Some things that were perhaps incongruent were the 25 foot height restrictions that I saw mentioned which would preclude us from planting things like coastal oaks because they're obviously gonna get bigger than that.

Can we

Am I

Can I clarify something you just mentioned? Yeah. So the 25 foot height restriction or is strictly for trees being planted under electrical lines. There are no other restrictions within the plan that limit the height of a tree that's being planted. We have spacing recommendations so the parkway with Sir tree well sizes. That are recommended for individual tree species. But outside of electrical lines, are we're not restricting. There's no restriction on tree height.

Okay. So it's only in relation to to electrical lines?

Correct.

Got it. And there was something about electric versus high voltage versus some of the communication wires. So I know there lots of different lines out there. Could you just clarify for me what those restrictions are?

I I can do my best based on some of what AMP is discussed on or answered on these previous this question on previous meetings. But, you know, essentially, we're wanting to keep at least a minimum of, like, four foot clearance from those Electric lines and those are state standards that need to be implemented so. Recommendation from app and then and what we suggest in the plan. Is to plant trees that will not reach the utility lines as opposed to like you have on Central Avenue planting trees that would grow into them and then conducting some very.

Hystic.

Odd printing practices, you know, to to try and keep the tree clear of the utility the electric lines. You know, with that, there are some safety concerns for Branches breaking and striking the lines. As well as just you know the structure of the tree it's not a not a natural form. And it creates you know. A poor poor structure and can increase or decrease the safety of a tree too.

Got it. Any other questions?

I did have another one. Did I understand correctly that there's a part of the plan that sort of encourages increasing the number of protected species on private property? Did I understand that correctly?

Danielle, do you want to?

I'm sorry, I had an interruption. Could you repeat that question?

Sure. So I was under the understanding that there was an effort as part of the plan to increase the number of species that are deemed protected species? Because currently it's just coast live oaks, right?

Right. So currently, live oaks protected as well as certain corridors as you're aware. So one of the recommendations in the plan is to expand the protection, of other trees beyond coast live oak. And there's a number of different ways that we can do that. We could look at specific species.

We could look at, tree, size. And there's you know, we've been we've done some research to look at other or tree protection ordinances in other cities. And there's a lot of different ways that cities go about what those ordinances look like. That is one of the recommendations coming out of the plan is to go and do that work and develop an ordinance and then bring it back to the public for consideration.

Okay. Thank you.

And just a timeline question. So I think our old plan was developed around 2008 or 02/09. That about

2010. Uh-huh.

About right? And then the one before that was maybe ten years before that in late eighties.

Okay. Yeah. Don't

know. I'm just, you know, I'm just wondering what our cadence is going to be to as part of the plan to review its implementation and revise it because if we've had, you know, it was like ten years between plans and now it's a little more than that, you know, like, I just didn't know if that was built in somewhere. I didn't see

The plan includes a recommendation for a ten year update. And I believe for, some reporting on progress every two years, I think it is, in the plan. And, we've had discussions about certain provisions like the tree species list, maybe something that public works wants to be able to maintain a little bit more frequently so that as we learn more about species and how our climate evolves, we can keep that list current.

That's that's great. Because this is intended to be a thirty year plan. So that's

a Yeah. So the looking out to a third the goal being, you know, 20% tree canopy cover in thirty years is kind of the goal. But, the plan in terms of the management practices and implementation of the plan, that's viewed as a ten year plan.

Got it. And that will all sit within public works as far as implementation. Is that the current imagining?

Public works is responsible for the maintenance of street trees and the public right of way and parks, the recreation parks department responsible for trees in, parks. So we don't envision that changing. But, yes, going parks and public works responsible for the trees.

Got it.

And then, of course, planning, building, and transportation is responsible for implementing the city's, tree protection ordinance.

Okay. What's that? Well,

well, thank you. I think next we may have some public comments to review.

Yeah, starting to get some hands raised.

We really appreciate the presentation. We're gonna see if we have any public comments.

First speaker is Alex Baer.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes.

We can hear you.

Or we could. Are you still there?

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, now you can hear me. Okay, great. I would like to say I'm curious if there's any provision for noting which trees can handle more saline. Because with climate change and saltwater intrusion, if we end up with more seawater underneath our island, our trees can't really handle seawater necessarily. Also, since this is the historic board, I live on Burbank Street and our palm trees are apparently rated SG, significant grade.

And I would like them to be some kind of palm tree in the future, should they need to be replaced. I note there's no provision. There's one house that has two trees in front of it. They're not palm trees. Supposedly it's to mark the speakeasy. And I know there's another street somewhere that has the same thing. And this is the sort of thing that I think it should be that whatever tree you replace the palm trees with, those trees should be different. And we should keep that kind of historic bit. Cause I think that would be cool. And I don't think we need to keep necessarily, Oh, well we planted tree whatever here, we need to replant that with tree whatever.

Because tree whatever was planted one hundred years ago, we didn't know what good street trees were. And our climate has changed. I think we should be willing to say, well, let's replace the trees on given, say, with something more appropriate once they're all falling over. And I don't know that there's much in the plan on provisions for replacing trees that are on the protected tree named streets. And I know there's a whole bunch of them.

And I think it would make sense to have a few new ones out farther on the West End. There's downsides to having monocultures of trees, but I think it's nice to have one street section that's all the same tree because it looks cool. And also, for the coast live oaks, our island used to be all coast live oaks south of Eugene Sweeney Park. It would be great to plant more in our parks and places where you can put a really big tree, because they are fun trees, they're fun to play around with, and they drop all kinds of leaves and acorns. And they're messy as a street tree, but in a park, they're great.

And I would love to see more of them. And they're also great bird feeders because they're a native plant. And so, yeah, thanks for all your work on this. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Christopher Buckley.

Christopher Buckley, Alameda resident and member of the Master Street Treatment, pardon me, the Urban Forest plan working group and has also donated about 300 trees to Alameda that have been planted various places over the last twenty years. I sent a letter to you and to other groups, including the city council. I'd like to go over some of the points in the letter. But first, I'd like to respond to a couple of the things that were said during the discussion between staff and the HAB. With regard to the age of the London plane trees on Central, it looks like it was around 2018 they were planted it also appears that was when.

Various other significant tree plantings were done such as the oaks on Alameda Avenue. The silver lindens on Union Street among others. With regard to line clearance, the state standard for secondary or low voltage electrical is not there is no standard. It's okay to be zero but you must keep branches away from the lines if they're abrading or exerting tension on the lines. The standard though for high voltage is four feet.

So I wanted to make sure that was clear. AMP is proposing four feet, it's kind of mixed signals for secondary in general which seems excessive. Going to some of my comments, jumping to Page three, comment four gs. Minimum planting area sizes for sidewalk trees in the matrix should be retained. This is in the master street tree plant matrix for sidewalk planting sizes.

The UFP appendix C matrix has radically increased the planting area sizes or at least appears to for many species that performed well as street trees in three foot and four foot wide planting strips. For example, the planting area widths of Pin Oak and Silver Linden are shown in the UFP matrix as greater than 10 feet compared to three feet in the 2010 Street tree plan. Implementation of the urban forest plans in area sizes will effectively limit the size of street trees to small species. So those planting area sizes and the existing plant should be retained. Second going to item one comment, twenty ten street tree plant species designation for major streets and neighborhoods should be retained.

These designations were designed to result in the right tree for the right place based on factors such as existing trees soil characteristics and salt air exposure. So that's been already done although needs to be updated based on new information. It was also designed to create an important urban design function by using street trees to create a defining image for each major street and to a lesser extent each neighborhood. So Central Avenue has been cited as one example. Another example is Santa Clara Avenue, where the twenty ten street tree plans proposing all evergreens, which is what was there historically. I've run out of time. I wanted to say something about the, electrical line issue and the 25 foot clearance, but I guess that's not possible.

Yeah. I just have a question. Is it okay for me to ask a clarifying question?

Yes.

So Mr. Buckley, thank you for your letter, which is thoughtful as always. I had a couple questions because I'm not sure I got my notes in the presentation. I believe you mentioned what was the perceived date of planting for those London planes. Could you clarify what date you believe or what the source of that information might be?

I can't give you a specific source, but my understanding, and this is just from your research and reading done over many years, is around 2018.

2018?

Yes. So that's pardon me. 1918. I'm sorry.

Okay. I was like, wait a minute. Those are fast growing linen plants. Right.

So basically, they're they're about a 100 years old, maybe a bit over a 100 years old.

Okay. That sounds much better. And then another thing that I wanted to make sure I was understanding correctly, you were talking about the 25 foot height differences versus state regulations saying that we had a four foot separation by state law on high voltage lines but you were saying something about other lines not having that same could you could you clarify that for me?

Yes this is in California Public Utilities Commission general order 95 that sets forth clearance for you to overhead utility lines for all kinds of things just trees but trees are part of that.

So that again I'm sorry I just I'm trying to write it down.

General order 95 from the state public utilities commission.

Okay thank you.

And what that says is that for the high voltage lines that Alameda has we're talking about a range is basically between 750 volts and I think it goes up to a much higher number, maybe a 115, I can't remember. But Alameda's high voltage lines for the most part are 12,400 volts. A notable exception are the transmission lines which are very high voltage along Buena Vista Avenue, Clement Avenue, and several other streets along the Northern Waterfront which are around a 115,000 volts. So for those 12,400 volts, the Public Utilities Commission recommends for pruning a four foot clearance. AMP is wanting to do a six foot clearance.

For low voltage electrical or so called secondary, which if you look at a utility pole, you have high voltage at the top. Next lines are secondary electrical. Some poles don't have high voltage, it's just secondary electrical. The state does not mandate any clearance at all there, but they state that those should be kept clear of vegetation, especially vegetation that exerts tension or abrasion on those lines. Typically those wires are heavily insulated and the winds insulated ones are called tree wire because they're intended to be resistant to tree to tree branch abrasion.

And until recently, the city has not and amp has, you know, groomed minimally for those, but amp is now talking about providing greater clearance. And four feet has been thrown around, but one or two feet has also been thrown around for one and for at least the insulated lines. So but the statement that the that the state is mandating a four foot clearance for secondary is incorrect.

Got it. So so this is really just the high voltage. The other lines this is a local suggestion that AMP is making but isn't necessarily required by state law. It's just maybe a blanket statement on all lines period without differentiating while these are high voltage, well that's internet.

Correct. And actually Internet and other communication cables, telephone, those are much lower voltage. So if you look at a utility pole there at the bottom, the secondary electrical comes next and then the high voltage, if there is high voltage, is at the top.

Got it. Thank you for that clarification

sure and one other thing is the state also makes clear that the that local localities they're free to have greater clearance if they want. But you know, these are the state minimum recommendations.

Thank you. Were there any other questions for Mr. Buckley? Okay. Thank you so much. Are there any other public comments?

We have no other speakers.

No other speakers. Well, thank you. Discussion?

Okay. I'll go. Well, again, I think that this is a fantastic effort to put together and update the plan. I understand that its goals are pretty broad, but I do think that a lot of the aims that the first public speaker mentioned about sort of increasing trees on the West End and addressing saltwater concerns and sea level rise. I think that all several of those points that she made were are addressed in the plan.

So I think that that's I'm happy to see that. I think just the other thing from a very personal standpoint. So thirty years seems like a long time but I remember twenty years ago, one of our neighbors lost a street tree. They planted a Ginkgo. It's now about 40 feet high.

In in those twenty years, it's flourishing. It's beautiful. It's on a three foot planter strip. It seems to be playing very nice with the power lines on the and we have anyway, it was a yearly tradition to take a picture of the kids in the neighborhood when all the leaves were on the ground. And so it's anyway, it's a wonderful the thirty year timeline is a really nice, I think, window in which to achieve a lot of the goals of the plan and have it be successful because a lot of growth can happen and a lot of these trees can reach maturity.

So I think that, yes, that's great. Again, I think to the first speaker's point there, I do believe that the matrix does have sort of, if I understand correctly, the goal of sort of presenting guidelines to assist for the city to make the decision about what trees are appropriate based on the conditions. So I think that that's all good. One thing that I do that I didn't see and it may just be that I didn't make it all the way through the plan is that I do know that there are different neighborhoods. So we deal quite a bit with houses that are one or two blocks apart where the water table is affecting those lots very differently.

So I do think that that should be part of the consideration in terms of sort of understanding that sometimes those situations are very localized even within a very small radius. There can be a very big difference in terms of how much groundwater one's gonna see versus another. So if that hasn't been addressed in the plan, I would certainly encourage us to do that. Lastly, yes, sorry, go ahead.

Well, was just going to ask, I know there was a diagram of soil type, very broad like purple splotch, loam, sand, etcetera, clay. As a local builder, I've seen wild variations within those big splotches. So it is a lot, to your point, lot more local than you might otherwise imagine.

Let's see. I think the other my last point. So I I believe that and if I understood correctly that there was also some recommendations and maybe mister Allen can clarify this if I if I misunderstood. But I believe that in the plan, there's also recommendations for trees that are within that or underneath power lines that would affect them. Did I understand correctly that there was a provision that that trees planted there potentially if it's one that has broader broader canopy and not such a vertical upright canopy that those could potentially exceed the perceived height or did I misunderstand that?

Within there there are speed tree species in the list that are recommended to be planted under electrical lines

Okay.

Specifically. But then if it's not specifically called out for that, they're all the trees can be planted everywhere, but then a subset is specifically recommended for other electrical lines.

Okay. And so in that example, those those trees could exceed the 25 foot limit because their growth pattern would allow for the tree line or for the power lines to coexist without having to prune excessively and as frequently. Is that is that the goal?

You're saying that the a tree planted under the electric line could exceed the the limit, the 25 foot recommendation?

Yeah. That was my question.

That's currently not the way it's described or included in the plan that the species are intended to meet that maximum height.

Understood. Okay. Thank you.

Discussion?

No. No. I I am curious. We do have heritage trees and when those trees are removed, are there specific mitigations that are specified for those situations because I'm thinking of streets like Burbank or on the East End where I inevitably end up returning to the island on my bike a lot. Certain times of year the ginkgo leaves are all over the street.

It is a pretty special experience. And those trees do add to neighborhood character. So it is this kind of tug of war against resiliency and urban design, neighborhood character. So I think that's something that if there's any clarification from staff or on on how we would deal with that. It's something I'm I'm not so familiar with yet.

Mister Allen, can you speak to that?

On selecting species to maintain neighborhood character?

Yes.

Yeah. So that's that's certainly something that's been discussed and come up a lot. There are, you know, some streets in the city that have a. A defined look and that tree species is not the right place for it, And there's you know evidence you know lots of infrastructure damage and things like that. Or maybe that species just not suited for the future so.

There there would be some instances I think where the city will need to consider what a new look for that street might be and. Phase that in over years and years so we're not having a drastic overnight type change. But it's certainly something we've heard a lot in the from the public comment and and a desire to make sure that city staff are making decisions to maintain that look and feel as much as possible.

And if I could ask a follow on, I noticed and I think one of the letters that it specifically called out the loss of street designations or specific neighborhood designations that were in the old plan and more of a conversion to a like, well, here's an appropriate matrix of trees and let's decide but or and how is that how can that be reconciled or what's the plan around you know, coalescing certain looks and feels in those Thompson Avenue. Look at all the Ginkgo's. Oh my God, it's raining yellow. This is unbelievable, you know, and maybe that's not the right tree for thirty or more years from now. But those are very character defining assets to the city that would be a shame to lose.

Definitely. And, you know, the the approach that was taken in the UFP is to to provide, you know, flexibility for city staff to be able to make decisions now and in the future. But it's been. It's clear that there's a desire to retain some of these designations and have some structured species recommendations or or defined list for certain corridors. I I think that's something that we're gonna be discussing as we go back and review all the comments that we've heard from this process.

Yeah,

think in my experience at least our neighborhood doesn't have sort of like an overwhelming uniformity in terms of street trees. But what we have found is that the city has always been very amenable to sort of when a street tree is being replaced because one was lost that they sort of take the input of the neighborhood and as long as it's a tree that's recommended and it's part of the matrix, they're willing to sort of acquiesce a little bit the Initial preference? Yeah, to the preferences of the people in the neighborhood. So I think that, yeah, it's certainly been, they do a very good job of sort of trying to make people happy with what they replace it with.

I have one more in the spirit of adaptive reuse, guess. For projects that might result in the need to remove certain trees that may not be designated heritage but maybe they're a mature tree that provides canopy, I would love to see some sort of recommendation and maybe it's not in the urban forest plan, but maybe it's a broader city goal of relocating that tree to a site in need, especially in a neighborhood that doesn't have the coverage, whether historically or currently, that other neighborhoods might. I just wanna put that out there. California has a history of moving buildings, but we can also move trees, I guess, if if the site is sympathetic

to If it's possible.

Yeah, if possible. For sure. That's

all. Well, I have a couple comments or things that I noticed. Some of them are broader questions. First and foremost again thank you. I wholly and completely support this plan.

I'm glad that we're doing it. I'm sorry maybe it's taken as long, maybe we should have done it a few years ago. If I had my druthers I would say let's go with the option three funded at full urban forester levels. I'm really excited about the idea of having adequate staff and funding so that not only can we maintain the trees that are already in the inventory but we can better assess what's happening and then also make forward progress on the planting. As far as the what's happening, I would love to see more analysis and data around what our trees are, what our trees are suffering from.

I know there's the anecdotal, well it looks a little sad but I'm not an arborist. Does that mean? Or yeah, these London planes aren't so great anymore but maybe that's just normal as part of their life cycle. And obviously there's a lot of resource that you guys will draw on both the city arborist as well as others. I very much support the idea of the diverse forest but again back to what other folks have said, the maintaining those specific characteristic areas like Central or Thompson, I think that's a good idea and I would hate to lose some of that from the last plan and the new plan.

So ways in which we could maybe recapture some of that I think is worth exploring. On the height restrictions and the tension between AMP and infrastructure, I would say and I believe you guys are going to be going to the public utilities board on Monday to talk about this. I would say it would behoove us all because this is a thirty year plan to push AMP to provide undergrounding schedules and plans so that as new trees are going in, they're not being torn up ten years later because there was a big undergrounding project going on Otis and nobody thought to ask. And or if there's places where undergrounding is occurring, we don't need to restrict ourselves to 25 foot heights which is a small tree. That's a small tree in Alameda.

Honestly, maybe a lemon tree is 25 feet around here. So I understand the tension but I disagree with it as a blanket. Thou shalt not have 25 foot taller trees anywhere around a power line, especially in light of what we heard from Mr. Buckley that is a blanket rule like that versus, you know, something specific to high voltage actual danger you know lines. So I would love for there to be some differentiation.

If we could have bigger trees, we should have bigger trees. And then I'm really excited to hear that there's a reporting structure. I would love as a historical advisory board member to understand which trees are historic in Alameda, are protected in that inventory and how they're doing on a regular basis. As in if we're waiting ten years or twenty years to hear about it and the trees are already on the rough and on the way out, it's too late. If we're analyzing this as a city, if we're collecting data and making assessments in an organized way and we're hearing about it, then we have an opportunity to take action as a community.

But bravo and I'm so glad you guys are doing this. Okay. Anything else? I think that's all. I think that's all. On to 4B.

Thank you.

Item 4B is a certificate of approval. And Mr. Buckley, you're our presenter.

Yes. Good evening. Steve Buckley, principal or planning manager, and here to, discuss, your next item, the Building 116 demolition out at Alameda Point. The applicant is the, city of Alameda. This is a city owned building, within the, former Naval Air Station.

And, with me tonight is Annie Cox, project manager. Gonna run through a little history, of, the base planning and how, this building kind of fits in with that, and then we'll get to the recommendation. So familiar, but I just thought this would be kind of fun. So the area at Alameda Point is almost all fill, man made fill. The area on the map here that's in pink is kind of the original island.

And so that's the original urban area. And so this is kind of a whole man made new environment. This is roughly 1938 when base was pretty well underway. A lot of the fill was there. It's all flat. And started to take shape with some hangars and barracks and office buildings and warehouses. And this is in 1945, at the end of the war. It was busy. It's full of planes. It's full of buildings.

It's full of cars and people. There were just a lot of things going on here. And then you can see how it was all infilled. Again, lots of barracks had been demanded to accommodate all the people and office buildings and shops and warehouses and things like that. And this is kind of after decommissioning.

So a lot of things had sort of outlived their usefulness and had been removed or decommissioned. And when the city then started to take over the decommissioned base, this is sort of where we stepped in and had more responsibility. The blue arrows here are the original sort of framework for the campus plan. They called it total base planning. That's right.

Base, total base. But basically they were using sort of City Beautiful and traditional zoning and planning frameworks to lay this out with axes for sort of a beautiful alignment. Although it was obviously interrupted by a bunch of things along the way as they, like I said, had to just build as much as they could as fast as they could. But in terms of the zoning, they kind of ended up with this delineation of the administrative core, the operations areas, which is the hangars, residential area with the single family homes up at the Northeast, and then the shops area. And so the building we're talking about tonight is in the administrative core.

And it's also one of the contributing buildings to the historic area. So this is the historic district that was created just before the base was decommissioned. There was a series of reports that you've heard about before and probably read. But this is kind of the final map of the designated contributors to the district. That's the green.

The non contributing is kind of the brown. And the yellow hatched areas are sort of leftover non contributing areas. And so you can see still primarily a lot of contributing buildings. But there were several contributing buildings, including this one, that were identified as sort of less contributing. They had been developed as sort of semi permanent buildings.

They had already been in existence for fifty years by the time this work was being done. And they just weren't quite as substantial as, for instance, this building that you're familiar with, which has been rehabilitated concrete with steel sash windows and really pretty elegant kind of rehab. Also, you're familiar probably with the city hall, the core administrative building. Sort of got the modern features going, horizontal lines, vertical features as highlights, rounded canopies, corners. Even the fire station had some sort of that horizontal detailing and steel sash window patterns and a lot of floor area.

These buildings are a million square feet of barracks, office, shops. And so we're dealing with a lot of sort of variety and yet contextual consistency. And just one more, again, the sort of moderne covered entryway with a curve in the corner. And some sort of wide open spaces in between. But this is one of those wooden buildings that's not quite as elegant, not quite as substantial.

If you look at the foundation, it's actually a raised foundation that's sort of on little piers. There isn't really much to it. And so on this map here, I've highlighted in red six buildings that were identified for demolition before the base was handed over to the city. The one circled in green is the one we're talking about tonight. And you can see they're sort of scattered. They're not really on the axis. They're not really consistent with some of the layout. They're sort of remnant buildings. They do contribute. They are historic.

They're part of the district and they are contributing buildings. So, that was considered when the Navy, consulted with the, various parties. So they consulted with the national, state, and local historic agencies, including the city. And, they all agreed that these six could be demolished. And so there was an MOA, Memorative Agreement, that was entered into, and there was documentation prepared and filed, that approved the demolition of these buildings.

However, that actually didn't happen before the land was turned over to the city. They were still standing, and so, they were considered in the EIR that the city prepared ten years later. And, again, there was a recognition in the city's EIR that, some buildings would be demolished, that there would be impacts to the district, and these individual contributors, but that that would ultimately be probably okay in the scheme of things given the overall resources in district. And so this is the building. It's at the corner of Todd And West Midway.

West Midway has been reconstructed and reopened, and so that's a new street. The building this is the aerial from, September showing, unfortunately, the collapse of a section of the roof and sort of ongoing deterioration of much of the rest of the roof. The building, again, now is thirty years older than it was when it was designated for demolition. And there's been no use really in the meantime for for many of these buildings. It's unfortunate to see it go.

But in the scheme of things, as I said, it's already actually been approved for demolition. And we're coming to you now because, since the Navy didn't, follow through on its plan, all of the land that's been transferred to the city is now subject to your jurisdiction. So this is the current condition. As you can see, it's it's deteriorated. It's been subject to vandalism.

And really the exterior and the interior are pretty far gone. It was built as, again, a sort of temporary building at the time. And so now eighty years later, we're recommending that you approve demolition. These are just some other pictures. This is the roof collapse that, brought this forward as really a pretty urgent matter.

It's since been fenced off so that at least if it collapses further, it won't fall on anyone. Hopefully, no one breaches the fence. But it's it's been red tagged, by the building official, declared an unsafe building, recommended for demolition and or stabilization if possible, if there were a desire to reuse the building. But it just doesn't seem feasible. So these are the various red tags on every door in the building.

And you can see how you know, these openings have been breached by vandals and and folks who, just wanna see what's inside, and it's really not safe. It is boarded up for the most part and so we've done our best to try to secure the building. But you can see here on the right side it's already sort of collapsing in on itself. And on the left side how the walls are bowed. So with that we are recommending that you make the findings to approve demolition that the building no longer retains its integrity and or that it presents a hazard.

That you can also make the CEQA findings related to the prior approvals, the documentation that's already been filed by the Navy, and the findings in the EIR and the city council's, findings from ten years ago and that you approve the demolition with conditions related to air quality, water quality, hazardous materials. And as I said, Annie's here. She's managing contracts and maintenance and working with me on this project. Great. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you so much. Questions

for Mr. Buckley? I do have one. Do you know why it was that the navy didn't proceed with the demolition? Was it just a matter of they ran out of time or before the handover? Or what do you know what what their why it didn't go through? Mhmm.

I don't know specifically. I do know it's expensive. What we're finding with lead abatement, asbestos abatement, all kinds of other conditions that we find with the vandalism and so on, that it's very expensive once these buildings start to fail to deal with what the Navy left behind. And they may have felt like it was in their interest just to leave it behind.

Okay. Yeah, I have a question regarding the nineteen ninety nine MOA. I think it listed six buildings. And is there a count of how many of those are still left, including Building 116?

SPEAKER Five of them are left. The one next door, 130, was actually demolished a few years ago. Similar situation. SPEAKER Okay.

The one thing I'm curious about and I see here that the Navy prepared HABS two which as I recall that would involve preparing an outline format report, large format photos typically by a professional photographer and then reproduction of plans if they're available. And in looking at the Alameda Point EIR from 2014 or 2013, believe at least the draft, that also listed HABS2 level mitigation. So those do seem to line up. So my concern, because you can't really tell from the MOA, it just says HABs, is one, is that information on file with the city? And two, does it line up with the EIR's mitigation measures?

So based upon what we're seeing here, it does. And that would be congruent with mitigating the impact to a less than significant level under CEQA.

Yes, that's correct. It's consistent with the mitigation measure from the EIR. Annie and I have sort of dug through the records and haven't specifically located that report, but it's referenced elsewhere as having those three elements of the photos and the summary and the documentation.

Okay. And I do recall in the 2005 report prepared by Pageant Turnbull, they do note that the buildings at that time were still standing but they were recorded. So it's good to have clarification. And I think from a historian's perspective, if these scenarios are coming up in the future, if there's any way we can have that documentation appended to these types of packets, that would be really helpful just so we have, we and the public has 100% concrete information in front of them. I know through looking for these documents for all sorts of projects over the years, they're hard to find and my understanding is also that the Library of Congress that actually runs the HABS program is so full that they're being selective about what HABS goes there.

So even finding them at a local repository after X number of years can be difficult. So yeah, as long as it's HABs level two, I think that would pass the test here in my opinion. Other questions?

I just had a just confirmation question. So obviously, this was a semi permanent building to begin with. And when it was transferred to us, this was a layaway level six, as in it had no planned use. I'm just confirming what I was reading in the documentation.

Right. That's also true that it was it was basically mothballed and with no intent to reuse it.

Got it. And those other buildings among the five, I guess, that are in this bucket, are they're all right now in a similar state of non use, as in they're not being maintained, they're

not being occupied, nothing's really happening or? Well, mostly. There is one, the ambulance garage, which is currently being used by a landscaping contractor for the city who stores equipment, materials in there. So there is a garage that is still being used basically as a garage. Two of the buildings, the larger buildings, are actually now owned by the Alameda Unified School District.

There was a land swap a few years ago. They ended up with a couple of the buildings. The city is actually obliged to maintain those buildings for ten years just to make sure they're secured. So even there, we're still involved. Even that's, kind of a burden cost wise.

Got it. Are there any other buildings in that cohort that are just wayward orphans out there waiting to fall over? Well, I mean, I said that jokingly but if Alameda Unified has a couple and then a landscaping company has one, we have this building which is obviously too far gone for anybody to be interested in, Are there any other about to be this kind of problems is what I'm asking about?

There is the one more. To make six, there is one more, Building 75A. And it's kind of off by itself right now next to the O Club. And I think it's mostly fine. Again On its way. There's a lot of intrusion by folks who don't belong there. And so it's hard to predict when there might be a fire or something else.

Got it. Got it.

So no. I was just gonna clarify that of the six, one is already gone. So 01:30 has already been that was the one that went away in 2018.

Right. Then we have the five, the garage for the, got it. Thank you. Any other comments or discussion? Well, thank you. I think we have a public comment or do we have any public comments?

Give folks a chance to raise their hand if they'd like to speak. Seeing no hands.

No public comments, discussion?

Yeah, I guess, you know, given the fact that the it seems like the legwork was done on this back prior by the Navy and I know that they were fairly good about the overall historic inventory that they prepared. I've always been impressed by sort of the level of detail that they put into that documentation. So I guess in my opinion, that not only had they already deemed these buildings as insignificant and and not worthy of preserving and that in addition they had already applied and come before the city and and this board. And it was deemed at the time that they were approved and they were granted a certificate of approval. I guess I appreciate the city's effort and the building officials' effort to come back before the board and make sure that we aren't overlooking anything.

But to me it just seems quite obvious that there's only one sort of path forward, right? I would agree with I think what you were the point that board chair Hernandez was raising, which is that garnering interest for somebody to purchase the building and rehab it and put it back on its feet is quite unlikely. And just don't see that the fight is worth that effort.

I think this building is an example of how deactivating a building, even one that although it's contributory was deemed not as excellent a contributor or an architectural example within the district. It's a utilitarian building that was built in a hurry because that's what needed to happen. And that's the case at a lot of former military installations. It's not uncommon, I found, to see these types of buildings go through an MOA where they're kind of written off, for lack of a better term. In turn, you get to focus on the other buildings at that district that have a unified design.

They support the total base design. So I I think losing this one, it it's not a a huge loss of the overall district, but I think it is a signal that there is loss of buildings happening out there. And as Alameda Point continues to develop with new buildings, including housing and R and D spaces, places that are becoming a hub on the West End for the whole island for people coming in on the water taxi or either of two ferries that are kind of that's a unique situation in the Bay Area. I think I'd really recommend pushing towards a heavier focus on adaptive reuse and really thinking about ways to highlight the opportunities that are out there. There's some large buildings, some of them like Building 8 are so substantial that I understand that they already they were equivalent to current seismic code and they were built back in the 40s because they were built to withstand a bomb blast.

I mean that's pretty incredible how those have survived. But yeah, mean now is a really important time to look at this place and think, Okay, we know that these ones will get demolished but there's a lot of other vacant buildings out there. So I'm not sure if this board has interaction with base reuse or if there's some sort of way that we can coordinate that even for things like tours and education to developers. I think that's really important. There's a lot of moving parts just like that base had back in the 40s right now that will help it continue.

So that's my soapbox spiel. Thank

you. Other comments or discussion? I guess I would just follow it up with thank you for the well put together documentation, legal review, and obviously it's a shame to lose a building but in this case, it seems very crystal clear as to what need to happen or what needs to happen. I just hope that we can avoid being here again with other buildings and again anything we can do whether it's adaptive reuse or just making sure that the buildings are used even in the most modest way so that there's someone there checking, noticing the leak, stopping it before it snowballs into what we're seeing here with this situation.

Yeah, maybe I could put in a request to Ms. Cox that you be our eyes and ears and that you make us your advocate when you need support for maintenance because that's to your earlier point, Josh, I think that it makes it doesn't take long for a building that gets neglected to fall into this kind of disrepair and I think that, again, this building obviously was the Navy had mothballed it, they had turned their attention away from it and I think that it would have been a lot to ask for the city to maintain it but there are definitely other structures out there that are in dire need. So again, please feel free to come and have us be your advocates.

Thank you. Any other comments, discussion? Do I have any motions?

Yes. So I'll go ahead and move, to approve the resolution, the city's draft resolution for demolition of Building 116 located at 2501 Todd Street.

Any seconds? Second. Call the question?

Yes.

No, we got a second. Go ahead.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Adopting motion? Aye.

Aye. Motion passes. Thank

you. Thank you.

Next we have board communications.

Well I'll just jump in to thank our newest board members. It's a pleasure to have you both. Looking forward to working with you and yeah, thank you.

Thank you for the welcome. Thank you. It's great to be here.

Thanks. Staff communications.

I don't think I have anything. I do intend to keep sending you emails about training opportunities and other material that I come across. Feel free if you find something that you think your fellow board members would be interested, send it to me and then I can distribute it. And so we're just hoping to have a good new year here.

Oh, and one question on staff communications. I don't know if you've noticed, but Steven has arranged for certain documents related to our board be posted now on our page on the city website. So things like our basically our charter, know, certain foundational documents to what we're gathered here to do are now available both for you and the public easy access. So thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Anything else? I guess let's adjourn this meeting as of eighttwenty six today.

Very good. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.