Environmental Matters Committee - Regular Meeting

Calling to order the January 8 meeting for environmental matters committee meeting. And starting at top, all the members are present. And the I have a motion to approve the agenda as introduced. So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. And I have a business miscellaneous for election of the chair. Is there a motion

I'll move for Alderman Savage to be elected as chair of the environmental matters standing committee.

Thank you. Any discussion or other nominations? Okay. Notice that.

I second. All

those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Aye. Appreciate your support. And the down to we all we have are oh, I forgot. Didn't even modify the agenda, but we need to remove oh, it's the ID six two six. It's stormwater fee incentive rebate program. Public works is gonna join us, I think, next month to get a fuller update on that. But for this afternoon, we're gonna start with ID 426, which is Hawkins Cove. And so the staff, please join us at the table.

I'm excited about this. It feels so good to be on the environmental committee. This is great. I'm happy to be here.

Thank you for joining us. I thought it'd be a good idea for the new committee to get briefed on various programs. So for our next for a meeting next month, I've already invited, Planet Zoning, Brian Adams, the Urban Tree program. I thought that will also dovetail well with the Watershed Restoration Fund. So thank you. So you're here to discuss Hawkins Cove. So, yeah, what do you have for us?

So hello. I'm, Mike Rossberg. I'm the stormwater program manager in, Public Works. I've been involved with this project since probably the past four years or so. And, but since then, I've passed it along to Anne, and I've been working with Eric on this project. So I've still been involved and and and and will be with the project but overseeing, Anne's work. So

Hi. Anne Roederer, Stormwater, engineer public works and project manager for this project. And, do we have the PowerPoint or the PDF in place somewhere? We don't have to open it yet. I just wanna make sure that if we don't, then we need to Yeah.

We'll probably put up here shortly.

Okay. Great. Okay. Just check just check-in so

that we can

keep moving.

I'm Eric Lashinsky, chief of comprehensive planning, and I I've been working on this project for several years as well. Like, Mike, primarily from, in conjunction with the Esports CNI project, which is, you know, our our ambitious revitalization of, Eastport Terrace and Public, Harbor House, one of the largest public housing community in the city, which I know Alderman, Conte has been very very involved with. And it also just dovetails with our efforts to make public water access more equitable and just generally connect the city's parks, to the waterfront. So and, from public works has really taken over as a project primary project manager, as we kinda move the project forward.

Okay. Well, we'll just get going then.

Yeah. You can get started while they work out the technical issue.

Okay. So thanks for the opportunity to talk about this project. I think yeah. So we have a list of a 100 CIPs, many, many, many projects in the works, but this one has risen towards the top of the priorities, for for this year, the upcoming years because it has been long, in the making, and, it has really a whole slew of different, components and benefits that it could provide, to the to the community. So, the prod, do you wanna talk about the location?

Yeah. The first slide, in the presentation

You have your packet so you could

Yeah. I have

this the map that shows Trucks And Park and, Eastport Terrace, Harbor House communities. I mean, this was really just meant to reinforce the strategic, importance of this site being a a connection between, where people live and where they recreate and and reach the water. And Parks And Parks is our largest city park. It's had an incredible amount of investment over the years. All the different asset, the swim center, the skate park, the tennis courts, boat ramp, so nature trails throughout.

So this is already used. I mean, the the trail connection that connects Hawkins Cove to trucks is already it's just not a formalized thing. And, the waterfront at Hawkins Cove is also, in disrepair, and that's what we'll talk about primarily today. But, next slide.

So, unfortunately, your packet is the the expanded version, and and we're talking about, focus slides. But if you go now to yes. It's in there. But you can this gets you the opportunity to skim.

It's called design

project project overview about

the heading on it.

Eight to ten in.

What was the header?

Design project overview. Sorry. I was talking.

It has an it has an aerial image that shows the Hawkins Cove shoreline project with this trail.

Yeah. I'm I'm distracted by the green waste slide. Oh, okay. Alright. Well, the

the Yeah.

There's a lot of good content in there, but it it takes it's like an hour long presentation, so we didn't think that you needed all of that today. So on the design project overview, we try to highlight the the main components of the project. So the project has actually kind of spurned to a new project out of it. That's maybe not the best word, but we'll go with it, which we're calling the Truxtun Green Network Connector, which is a trail that that exists informally today, but we're formalizing it and, making it inaccessible, you know, permanent trail with a boardwalk, through that connects this Hawkins Cove site. Not quite to Trucksun Park to but to Primrose Circle, and then the next phase of it is intended to to connect over to the the trail where

The nature net trail network

The trail head.

Yeah. Trail head. By the

skate park.

By the by the pool area, by the skate park. So that's that's a project that's sort of spun out of this project, and that's the Green Network connector, which will be a timber boardwalk with trail improvements and wayfinding and educational signage. If you go there now, which I'm sure you you have been there, there's a sort of half broken sign that only really the only really the insiders understand that that's an a connection, but it is really a valuable connection between Esport and and that the park and then further over to the Spa Road area. So it's you know, it it it could be critical and really connecting neighborhoods. Other components, in the Hawkins Cove restoration project include a shoreline restoration.

Oh, got it.

Yeah.

Shoreline restoration, so there's significant degradation at the shoreline, and so there will be a living shoreline installed and and vases removal and replanting and really trying to improve the functioning and resilience of that shoreline. A pier extension, a replacement of the existing pier and extension out into navigable waters, although we need to do some dredging in order to to bring that into a navigable navigable channel. This

Yeah. They're going to the big

this is

the slide we're on right here.

Yeah. Okay.

Just a couple of things that my colleagues said they may not be completely aware of, but the area where the proposed boardwalk goes through is actually conservation easement. Part of it's conservation easement that's owned by the city. Mhmm. Maintain I guess, overseen by the Conservancy Board.

And is that

the Yeah. This is the whole strip that goes down, actually, the August Wood. It includes the old railroad right of grade that used to come right of way that used to come through there. Mhmm. So there are a lot of future potential, you know, rail connections. Yeah.

Yeah. It But this

is great. Just have

to several different proper properties and, yeah, it it does it really is a connector.

It's I used to live right over here, and I had to carry my bike into the ravine over the concrete that was thrown in the stream. So this is really gonna be

Yeah. I mean, I see the mids do the run run that existing trail, but I think they're really the only ones that are party or dumb enough. I'm not sure which to to do it every day. It's it's it's pretty it can be depending on the time of year and the level of vegetation, it can be a little rough. So yes, so the shoreline restoration is one key component and we'll look at some closer up images of these of these different elements.

Replacement of the existing pier with an accessible pier and floating dock and, again, moving further out into the cove to get to navigable waters, although we have to do some dredging to bring that navigability in some. And then there's a storm water management component and accessibility insight improvements in in that park park like setting. It's really sort of it's going to be a street and park essentially like like the other ones that we we have throughout the city. It's not going to suddenly be, you know, swing sets and and a a big recreational spot. So we are in the bigger presentation, but I think next slide is fine.

Thank you. So this is just a summary of really the the kind of trying to explain the major priorities of the project and how they interact. It does have a lot of elements and benefits both from an ecological health side from restoration, trying to provide some resilience for that shoreline and address the existing habitat but mitigate the extent to which we're disturbing it. You know, there's sort of a delicate balance there because the existing habitat, while it it's different than it was maybe, you know, two hundred years ago is a valuable habitat at this point. So the set there'll be sediment management and stormwater management from our storm water management efforts and then hopefully benefit to the aquatic habitat and the upland habitat.

And then there's the public act public water access and recreation access component of this project, which is both the the connection to the the large scale park, but also this immediate connection for really the I think it's the most densely populated area in the city. Am I correct?

I don't know about densely, but but it is it is a it's the most important gap in water access, in the city. I I if you look at Eastport, it's hard to believe. You know, Eastport generally has quite a lot of access, but this is a very noticeable gap between Trucks And Park And Burnside Street. So it's really it's it's a pretty important project from that perspective.

Yeah. So we have, you know, a lot of water privileged residents, but we also have a lot of residents right there that, don't don't have great water access, and I think this will fill that big gap. It might not necessarily all run out and buy, you know, kayaks and and sailboats, but they'll have that immediate blue space access. And then these those two benefits really kind of come together towards just generally improving community health through creating that community corridor that's connecting neighborhoods, providing more opportunities for environmental education and stewardship, a non vehicular transit opportunity, better access to nature, social connection, wider quality. So it just all comes together.

So those are the three big priorities, and it's the the components of the project really work to find that best best balance between them. Next slide. So yeah. So this is the longer presentation, so we're gonna go ahead and just skip one. But if you are curious, you can go back and read these.

But, basically, what this slide is telling you is that this project has been through a full design process with lots of input. Next slide, please. So this is just a little more detail on on the specific components. This is a closer view of the of the living shoreline element. This area has been the recipient of decades of erosion upland erosion and really needs needs some help to build up its its resistance and health at this stage.

So the living shoreline will happen and then the existing bulkhead, which will be removed and it'll be replaced with a nature based solution, which is the regenerative step pool storm water conveyance system, which will be treating the water more slowly and more naturally before it enters the cove. Next slide. I just talked about that, the storm water management. So that's, really removing that that bulkhead and and installing the regenerative storm water.

But I think it's this one.

For, like, the nonengineers, I think it is I thinking about the stormwater approach is, like, the the land side and the water side, two different things, and this is more of the land side. You know?

Yeah. Got ahead of myself.

Yeah. Yeah. So this is the upland start. This is this is what's treating the water before it gets to the cold, and then and then shoreline is is trying to keep things in place and protect them from from future disturbance.

A question on this. Yeah. So you're proposing to use core logs with a toe, a stone toe?

Yes.

So with the stone toe out presumably outside the edge of the the stone toe and then the four or five rolls, how far down are you proposing to take the stone toe? I'm just I'm asking, I guess. What I'm getting at is just it's a very low energy area, so I'm just curious about the the velocities that have I guess, the wave action is pointed towards the need for the stone toe.

This is what happened when you elect an engineer. Yeah. It just

It was fine. I I mean, I understand. It is I mean, it it is currently a low energy environment. I think we're trying to design something that can meet the test of time. But Mike wants to say something. He's going

I agree. I think that's I think it had brought up the what the toe looks like. I think the idea is is that this over time, we really do it's really for that initial period where these plants are getting established, we kinda designate this, an area so nothing although it is low wave, nothing will likely get washed away, but it's still a designated area that we can say that we wanna make sure as far as an area that we're determining for Living Shoreline gets established properly. And then over time, I think the way, you won't even see the stone. I think it's very and I don't know exactly what type or how much or how far out, but it's really just kinda just to kind of set it up and market to the living shoreline.

So once those plants and those low plants get established, I think it'll really be you won't you won't even see the stone. It's not like big Yeah.

It's not a

giant what

that meant.

Right.

It's just a way to, yeah, to kind of get the establishment going and provide it. Yeah.

No. And there's a little section there. Because I'd I guess I'd just encourage you to look at because if we tend to shy away from hardened approach like that Yes. Because there can be unintended consequences on wildlife as far as I know we don't have too many turtle species, I suppose, but we're gonna have some that may need to be able to access the marsh and stone. There's a stone revetment like that. I just think it might be a little overkill at the very least. I see there are at least two gaps, which is good. Anyway, just one might be a question for your Right.

Well, so we the living shoreline is, you know, is not continuous. Is a limited area. Their area over to the right in the drawing, can see the marshland area is does not have the

Right.

The living shoreline or the toe. So it's really just for that pretty small designated area where around the pier. Okay. Next slide, please. So speaking of the peer, so we're changing orientations, which is slightly confusing. I'm sorry for that. But, so the pier is again, there's an existing pier there. I don't know how long it's been there. Looks like a really long time. Mean, it's really falling apart and being eaten by the by the silt, basically.

So that will be removed and replaced with a new longer accessible pier. So part of the longer is to make it accessible, but an a bigger part of that is to to move the pier out into a spot where we can create a navigable channel. There is a pretty there's pretty low water depth to sometimes no water depth in that first few, say, 10 feet of the cove. And so we're extending it out quite a bit to achieve all those different purposes. So at the same time, we need to dredge back to create that navigable channel, and again, there's that sort of magic balance point between how far how far should the pier go out and how much that we dredge dredging is considered, disruptive to the existing habitat, and so it's, you know, it's something that's permitted by by the, Maryland Department of Environment and the US Army Corps of Engineers, and so we are working with them to find that that sweet spot between those two things.

It also is expensive, and so we try to find that balance as well, and it needs maintenance. So we can't tell you exactly when it will need to be re dredged. It kind of depends on what's happening upland and and, you know, how our new regenerative stormwater system works and, lots of different things, but we'll be monitoring that. You know, there will be an adaptive management plan for the project, but ultimately it will need to be re dredged at some point, so we want to keep that in mind again when we're deciding what the point

Question from the bottom.

So what I'm curious about, and I am not a stormwater engineer, but I deal sometimes with stormwater And I'm just curious how this is helping us meet our MS4 requirements. Is this like how are we measuring the benefit of these stormwater improvements? Are we doing it in acres treated? Are we looking at sediment? What's like how do we say this is such and such good out of it?

Yeah. So we're getting you wanna answer it? Go

for it, Al.

Okay. We are claiming restoration credits for the for the regenerative step pool storm water. And then there are also credits available for the living shoreline component. I don't there's not we're not particularly treating impervious area because there isn't impervious area. There there is a parking area and we are making some changes to that but we're not we're not reducing. So it's really those that I think those are the two main components for the restoration credit.

Yeah. And I think this this project is has lot it's a restoration. It's got trails. It's got pier. It's got the living shoreline and stream restoration. So I think, you know, I think this is an opportunity for us to meet a lot of different boxes. I think that's kind of what we're saying. This is meeting a lot of different needs. So for, yeah, for the MS four credit, we're we're just we're we're we're also constructing what makes sense. You know, we're not this isn't we're trying to get the most out of this.

We're just trying to performance restoration, living shoreline storm as as that makes sense for the area. And then whatever we get out of that is part of our, portfolio of our restoration goals. And then once, you know, there's concept level estimates as far as acreage treated that you can get for for the living shoreline and the steppe or storm conveyance. But then once we get more, I think we might have them. I just have off the top of head as far as exactly the number, but it's included in our restoration goals.

Gotcha. Yeah. Cool. I think I'm hearing what you're saying. It is not the primary thing we're designing for.

No. But it is a huge it is I mean, it's it's definitely part of it. And and what's a bigger part of it is the actual benefits that the MS Board is trying to create, like the natural the living resource response and the habitat.

Let let me drill in all that, because I think that's a great question Like, when you say the actual benefits here, tell me how you define them.

So water quality improvements, dissolved oxygen and nutrient reduction, and then also habitat and resilience, all those different the living resource response is the big new push to understand that, not to just focus entirely on nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment. But we definitely have nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment, especially sediment, to deal with on this site, and we will be working to manage that.

Yeah. Yeah. At some point, and I don't expect you to have the numbers right off the top of your head, but I I would be interested to hear what we expect those nitrate and phosphorus sediment reduction.

We definitely have those calculations. I'm sorry. I don't know them off the top of my head, but I couldn't

Oh, we're

you're gonna at some point, we're gonna come across this in the environmental committee that I'm a big believer in those those nitrogen phosphorus production. Sure. Like living resources good, but nothing can live if you can't breathe. So I'm a big believer in that. But, listen, don't have to be right now. Thank you.

Okay. So I think we have some details about the pier and the floating pier, but I know that we need to go into that right now. So let's maybe go to the next slide. Two presentation. We go to the oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, this is it's interesting. I'm looking at the because we have had some questions about the dredging, but this shows you the clear the blue line or the the extent of the proposed dredging operation.

Yeah.

And my recollection is that is that not covered by the grant money? Is or or is it?

So we we have applied for, waterway improvement funds for that. Okay. We those are pending, and I I wouldn't say that they're a shoe in at this point. We'll get to the budget in a little bit, but there are there are funds available. We don't currently have funds for that component of the project.

What's the estimated? What's the total project cost and then the dredging separate from the dredging cost?

So we have we'll get the total project cost.

Did you have that later? Yes. I'll just wait.

Yes.

Just just later.

I'll wait. But we're going to the question. Has anybody done just curious because it's always fascinated me, but has anybody done a a core sample of the sediment in that creek? Just take a look at how much legacy sediment there may be, where how far down the original bottom actually is.

We definitely I believe during the early design phases, we had we have geotech work for this area. As far as far how far out in the creek related to the dredging, I I believe you know, I I think our consultant would know more. I know that it's it it was tested to see if anything suitable, and it's really not. It it's nothing is really I guess, far as the construction of this project is worth saving for this. But I I I it's a good question. I we could probably get back to you as far as the geotech work done for the dredging. I just don't know.

Yeah. I'm just interested from a standpoint of I'd like to get a under conceptual understanding of how much sedimentation we've experienced over the years.

Yeah.

And when we look at that core sample, how much of it is from runoff? Is is it from just sedimentation? How much of it is from leaf deposition? How rapidly has that occurred? I mean, I know, know, how many years you wanna go back, but, you know, back when eighteen hundreds, this was cleared for agriculture. It had a lot of erosion, but I'm and then we had development after that. I'm just Yeah. Because I have anecdotes from neighbors who grew up on Back Creek and tell me, oh, back when they were kids, they had water that was five feet deep with crabs and SAVs and probably similar here. You know, now it's a mudflat, but not even

Right. Right.

Seventy years ago, it was Can we

move two slides forward since we have since we have the bigger slide deck? We'll just use them. So here's an image from 1957 and 1970 of images of Placot from those two years. So looking back a little, so there hasn't ever been this highly navigable channel, deep water, deep cold water channel there. And I have a map from 1932 that shows one foot depths out to 20 feet from the shoreline.

So it's it's some of that is lore, and some of that is true. But, certainly, the habitat has changed, and there has been an enormous amount of of filtration in in the roof.

Yeah. In fact, I I think Alderman Thorpe has grew up on the cove and, like, has kind of substantiated that too. His recollection, always pretty shallow.

But yeah. So we definitely we don't I don't know about the cores. We could look into that, and that's kind of before my time, but, it's a good question. But it's definitely been a a point of much discussion and consideration about what the right amount of dredging is. And, no, unfortunately, the material that's there is not adequate is not good for substantial for beneficial reuse, so we'll have to ship it away and we want to consider that too when we're thinking about how much we're removing.

I mean, know the county has some disposal sites. Can we use those?

Yes. Yeah.

Why is it not beneficial? I mean, sounded like the Baltimore Harbor where it's full of chromium or something. What's

It the has to do with the composition of it. It's not that it's, yeah, it's not that it's completely polluted, but it's just not

Gotcha.

Not good quality.

Sure.

If you go to the next slide. So, the other land side components of the project are sort of more pragmatic, some parking improvements, ADA parking, and an ADA accessible route, drop off and turnaround area, and, adding in some some minor park like amenities, some seating, some waterside seating, pagoda did we call it a pagoda? Pavilion.

Pavilion. Just a Pavilion. Picnic pavilion.

Yeah. And but all of that is done with a pretty light touch to to minimize the environmental impact.

Can I make a suggestion for the I love the I love these ideas, and I love the idea of the kayak rack? But I don't wanna say we should maybe double the kayak rack in the sense that, like, make I wanna make sure that we have part of it, kayak rack that is dedicated for the the lower income, you know Mhmm. Underserved nearby residents. And, you know, and and I think then think maybe we could have a separate one that's rented out or I don't know how supposed to use it, but I know we talked about adding for you. You're down you downtown, talked about adding a a kayak rack that is gonna be, I think, by was it?

Park. But, anyways, good idea. Might be worth more discussion with Park's about. Would they be taking over this

Yeah. Park?

Yes. So this will become part of part of Park's responsibility, and we have ongoing conversations with them. And we have a meeting with them on Monday, so we'll

talk about it. You

have anything more you want to say about these? No. No? Okay. Alright. And then we're gonna yeah, next slide, please. And then this is just a slightly closer up, although it's a broad geographic area, it's hard to get really close-up, but view of the trail connection and, you know, an image of the idea of it. Do wanna talk through that?

Sure. The boardwalk is the main idea is to make it accessible, you know, to all users, walk people walk, people are biking. It's gonna be 10 feet wide. So the image in the upper right looks like it might be more than 10 feet. That's just a precedent from somewhere else. But, essentially, this is gonna be wide enough for people to go in two directions, and there's a kink in the trail that you can see on the plan where it does kind of a dogleg sharp turn, and there's a way for cyclists to get off of the trail and sort of do a bypass to get back on the trail. What do you mean? There's a dogleg.

It's just that still flat, accurate?

Yeah. Well, it's actually it's the it's the boardwalk trail that has railings, and you can see it. You you'd have to do, like, almost a 90 degree turn, and so sort of to, as a benefit to people who might be on a bike so they don't have to get off and walk it or and they can basically, go straight and, meet up with the trail at a point where it's at grade, and so there wouldn't be any railing, and they can kinda come back to the trail. And that that point about the trail being at grade you know, at the grade level, at some points points, it'll be elevated on on pilings. That's important because, you know, we had some questions about whether this is gonna block wildlife, and they will be able to go through where it's at grade.

It won't be a obstruction to them. So the other thing I think is interesting, the, the design team found a route that, you know, if you go to that trail today, it it goes has some steep terrain and definitely, is not ADA compliant today. They found a route where they could maintain that, lower pitch, without really, having to take out any significant trees. So that that's a really good thing.

Yeah. So the layout looks a little arbitrary, but it's not. It's very carefully navigating contour existing contours and, you know, some significant grade changes to maintain that accessibility and also working around the trees, some of which are, you know, substantial trees. There's also some minor trees.

Yeah. Okay.

Next slide. Now we're going skip that one. Keep going.

I could speak briefly about this. This is a separate initiative that I'm really excited about that we've been working on for the last year. That is a citywide signage improved signage initiative focused on both water access and trail access, and this is the one. Yeah. No.

No. This is it. This is it. This we're we're actually, doing this signage redesign effort under the Access Annapolis brand and to really put emphasis on the importance of making our public spaces more accessible and inclusive and inviting. And this is, this was, like, low hanging fruit that came out of the public water access plan.

You know, this, we found that so many sites have outdated signage. The standards that we had in place for signage typically require two posts, and they're kinda very large signs, which with some of our street end parks mean it's challenging to even find a location to put that sign. You're hitting some underground utilities in some cases if you don't thread the needle. So these would be new signs on a single post, much more efficient with the amount of text and, very consistent. And, Hawkins Covey, one of the first sites to get the new signage.

We're actually nearby. We're laying out the signs for the Spa Creek Trail right now because that's an existing trail that doesn't have great signage and out you know, outdated signs today. So, you'll be seeing these show up pretty soon.

Exciting.

And we'll also be working with Greg and Parks to, establish some educational signage along along the way at probably at the Cove and then somewhere somewhere on the trail.

Yeah. This signage initiative has really been kind of a cross departmental initiative. So public works, park rec and parks, transportation have all been involved in this.

K. We're gonna skip forward several slides and go to the project schedule. What's that? What?

You said we're skipping over the plant palette?

We did. Did. If you wanna geek out about that later, we can we can do that offline maybe. So this is our target schedule for these two projects now. The the Trucks and, Green Network Connector Trail, has just been submitted for for grading permit review, and we we are hoping to bid that out and get that started for construction this summer.

That project is largely grant funded, and so we do have, schedule expectations around that funding, and, so that's that's a high priority for us, and hopefully should be achievable. The bigger lift is the Hawkins Cove schedule, which has been the permits for, the joint permit application through MDE, through Maryland Department of the Environment, and the US Army Corps has been submitted and is in process. It's not a short process, but we are hopefully reaching the tail end of that. And, then we can, finalize our bid documents and send that out to bid. It will have to go through certainly also the city approval process permitting processes, and we're aiming for construction start in 2026.

That will be a longer construction project, And so target is spring twenty twenty seven for completion. You look like you have a question.

No. I'm good. I wish you luck with it. I hear those city grading permit reviewers can take a long time.

Well, I will review that. So, alright. Next slide, please. And, here's the other other, hurdle for us is is the funding. So so the project is fully funded for for design.

Both projects, were funded for design through an assemblage of grants and some some city funding, but mostly grants. And I have the details of that and you have the details of that in your package if you want to look at them. But for construction we have, a deficit of about $950,000 to achieve construction at this point. We have two grant applications submitted and pending, both with DNR. One was I mentioned to you was for the purine dredging for the which is the bulk of the cost, the bulk of the expense of the project.

And then we have another application in for water quality improvements through DNR, Grant's Gateway, the Trust Fund. So we're waiting to hear on those, but neither of those are a guarantee. The Trust Fund one in particular is a very, very hard grant to get.

Yeah. Probably only harder this year because I don't think their funding is looking so hot. Mike, can you just repeat what you just said about where the how much the gap is? Did you say a 150,000? I just didn't

950. 9 okay. That thousand. It's the red number I at the

thought you said $1.50 and I was confused because it didn't match here.

$9.50.

Did that include the did you say that included the the funding for Yes. Central time.

Yes. So the total cost is the 1.921 for design and construction for Hopkinsville. And we've we have 974,000 of that are allocated through various sources already, so we're missing about about a million.

Got it. To be and dredging

round numbers. Yeah. So those are the different components. Those kind of the breakout of the cost of the different components.

Yeah. Thank you. That's very it's written out very easily to understand. Did you say that?

So other potential sources that we're looking at, we are part of the Severn Hole Watershed Partnership, and we have prioritized this project for funding through that initiative for, this year. I don't know if they're gonna do that, but we shall see. And then there's the DGS consolidated bond loan potentially, and then there's city funding. Those are those are our current options besides the two that we've already applied for, but we're also open to other suggestions. We've applied for several things and not gotten it.

It's been it has been a difficult year for for grant funding, but we're still prioritizing the project. So next slide. Next slide. So that's it. As I mentioned, we're submitting for the the the trail has been submitted for trading permit review, and we're hoping to start construction in in the summer. And Hawkins Cove has a few more permitting hurdles to get through as well as funding hurdles, before we can proceed with construction.

Any other questions from the committee?

One of the things I'm going to be paying attention to with our projects is the ratio between design and planning funding and construction funding.

Yeah.

Right? Like, and this is absolutely not a criticism of any individual person. But just in general, our projects, we end up spending so much of it on design is

And it's one of my my favorite metrics as well.

Well, so, it also, thank you. So maybe you will note the answer to this. Would you say this is like one to three from looking at the budget book? Would you say that's pretty typical? Or is this something that we're spending more on design, less than typical? How's it just ballpark, how does it compare to other projects that you work?

So I don't know the metrics of all the projects, because I'm relatively new, but it is something I mention every time I get onto a new project. I think that this one is pretty high. I if we didn't go through the extensive history of this project, but it is it is extensive, and there has been a huge amount of outreach and different design phases and effort. So I think it is on the high side. But I would say that it would be great to do that analysis across all the capital projects and understand it and, you know, be able to have a thumbnail number that we can use a rule of thumb number that we can use for project costs

moving forward. Alderman Huntley. I'm Jackie Gyle, Deputy City Manager for Resilience and Sustainability. Part of the reason there's been some design extra costs is this project has gone through so many iterations and additional add ons and ideas for additional funding that and then we had the green connector, and and all of which makes sense and in the end is going to be a real asset to the community and to the city as a whole. I mean, this started, I think, in one of the first things I hit running when I became deputy city manager was it was January 2022.

It originally started as a $130,000 Chesapeake Bay Trust grant award. So and then you see how large it's become, and it's it was just for removal of the bulkhead in the living shoreline and for dock repairs at that time. And you see how much larger and more extensive it is now.

Yeah. Yeah. Page four goes through the history, and and, yeah, it's 2021, so it's even even more. Yeah.

Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Like I said, I think it's just something we want to keep our eye on, not for any individual project because lots of good projects do require more design. But as a whole, how do we keep those costs down so we can spend more on getting stuff done?

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. And on that topic, what's the total square footage acreage of disturbance,

roughly?

I don't know the answer to that. Trail, I don't know. Okay.

I'm asking just because, you know, this came up with you remember, like, the hilltop lane over It was going to be a CIP project that was, like, you know, 1,500,000.0 or something like that. But we ended up figuring out a way to to lower that using I think I think you ended up getting a blanket permit from county for stormwater work, and I'm glad Eric's here too because I think I may have mentioned you too, but I wanna expand that approach for stormwater project so that we don't have to always do it. We could do an in house design. We could do field engineering. Right?

Similarly, for transportation and cycling, would really love to get a point to a point where we can just get in bike lanes. We get bike paths even without having to go through an extensive design engineering phase because, you know, we have standard details for a reason. Why not just use the standard details for a lot of this work? You know, again, we've we've we're starting to do that more with the storm water in my my day job. Right? I'd love to see that approach taken on some of the transportation angle because then you don't have to spend all this money and time on just overdesigning something. I'm not saying this is overdesigned at all. I'm just

Yeah. Saying I will say that the the trail component of this was by far the most straightforward part of the design. Trailer? Yes.

Yeah. Oh, sure.

That said, all of this is within the critical area and there are pretty extensive design. This is for Harry. There are pretty extensive permitting requirements. Right. That's That do require a lot of technical Yeah. Backup.

But that's our critical area. Right. I mean, I know it's based on the state model and they have to agree to it, but we're the ones who

Well, no. I mean, we have to get the state, the MDE and the US Army Corps permit. Those are

four. Yeah. I guess part of the service to the wetland.

That's right.

But like as far as the critical area. Greg, those are based on prone. Yes. Iteration of

there's several different layers of permitting in this project. But, yeah. And then Like it. Yeah. We didn't even talk about the harbor master permitting, which is, again, that's us, but it will be a a lift.

Because, I mean, they they do have, like, Forest Conservation Act. It needs to be improved, but it has some built in exemptions for restoration activities. I don't I'd like to see again that idea expanded to some of these other projects. Just planting a seed. Noted. Interested in. Thank you all for your time. This

has been very interesting. Thank you guys so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So we've about half our time left. We have two presentations left. Four? Yes. I am. And you got her too. Alright. So, mister Meekins, if you could join us, if and to you and us, I'm gonna try to keep this to half an hour because I know miss Scott has a lot of information to get to.

Absolutely. Nice to see you all, new members of the committee and older older people. My name is Mike Meakins. I'm a senior planner in current planning, planning and zoning. I believe alderman savage asked what about a year ago for updates periodic updates.

Yeah. Yeah. So a little context this predates even me on the council but actually, it may have been started by mayor Litman when he was on this. But, in any case, years ago, the department started giving updates to the committee as far as development projects because we often get a lot of questions for those, and it obviously directly ties to Forest Conservation Act, critical area laws that we are keenly involved in and care about. So this is just an opportunity for us.

Typically, it gives an update on things that have changed, and that's what he has highlighted in red. But if you have questions about any kind of development going on, now's a good time to ask. But he may need another meeting or two to get a response. Yeah. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you for that opening. First question is I did email, what's on the screen. I am old school, so I brought hard copies too. I don't know if anyone would like hard copies. Yes. You'd like.

Yeah.

I

think we settled on you coming maybe every two months or so. But You know, Okay.

Three months. We said quarterly. But it, you know, it's it's at the committees or the chairs request. I can be made available. I mean, this this document lives and is generally updated within a couple weeks of the invitation of to come speak before the committee. So, you know, it's it's at your at your call, but I think we did originally say like quarterly every three months.

Thank you.

So briefly just to describe what you're looking at. They are major what we identify as major projects within the city generally. Some of them are residential, but, some of them are commercial, or the majority of them actually are commercial. Anyway, just to highlight what Alderman Savage said, and give you an idea of what you're looking at the color code. There's a chart on the back of the or there's a legend on the back, the last page.

But what I've done in the past since I've come here maybe half a dozen times is just highlight what's changed from the last meeting. And so everything in blue, there's really no change. Everything that's not highlighted in in white with the red text are items that have been updated since the last iteration or the last meeting. So entirely up to you if you want me to run through everything I can or I can touch on the updates that I have. And then if you have any other specific questions for anything else, I'd be happy to try to answer.

And as Alderman Savage said, I if I don't have sometimes if I don't have the answer now I will have the answer for next time.

The sake of time I suggest just go through your updates and then if. Of the questions that we can go back some.

Sounds good.

Alright.

So top of page one is the AutoZone project which is 1942 West Street. It's the demolition of two buildings and a for the ultimate construction of an AutoZone Auto Parts retail store. That demolition, if you've driven down West Street possibly, you might might have seen it, is under is underway. And just for context or history, this is where the Chris's Charcoal Pit restaurant was. There were several other store storefronts in the strip mall, and it was damaged by the tornado.

Well, completely just not not completely destroyed, but damaged by the tornado some, I don't know, five years ago. So it's the redevelopment of the site. It's a 7,400 square foot building associated parking with underground structured stormwater management. It's gone through the planning commission or went through the planning commission and got approval. Everything has been approved minus the grading permit.

The building permits been released. The grading permit is actually just will say right around the corner to be approved. They're just working on agreements and bonds and basically the tail end of the permit process paperwork. So that will, like I said, demolition has already started, and that is the redevelopment of 1942 West Street.

And good and bad on this one, get on my soapbox, it's not directed at it's it's it's, it's not directed at staff, but, good and bad on this one. The bad is just and mister Meeks has heard me go off in this before, but, you know, this part of West Street, it's very auto centric. We're replacing asphalt with more asphalt. It's unfortunate, but that's kind of the pattern of development that's on West Street until we break it, hopefully, with some kind of transit, that's gonna enable better and smarter growth. But, so, you know, it's just until we change that and open up the pedestrians, it's gonna be dominated by cars.

So I do cringe at this, but I get it. It's not staff's fault. But I do think the good is that I think staff was able to, with the planning commission, get them to take an consideration and think build out or protect part of the weed that goes the wheel trail weed trail that goes behind that. Is that correct?

Yeah. Correct. There's a there's pedestrian bicycle access point that the developers agreed upon along with the property owner to provide access to the W E Trail. So that's a plus I don't know if you want to talk about I can talk about but to your point the vehicular mindset of cars on West Street but the mitigation that was also proposed and the developer didn't have any pushback with it with basically trees in the buffering the rear of the property and the landscaping and trees immediately adjacent to West Street. So, excuse me, that was you know that was not exactly ideal but it was definitely a plus I would say.

You know, it's not a it's not a perfect world.

Yeah, from what recall they wanted a very large parking lot so that they could turn around their delivery truck.

Well yeah it actually stems from the delivery trucks and fire department. So the fire department wanted well didn't want but the design had to incorporate a ladder truck going into that property and if you're not familiar the property it's it's pretty much a long and narrow. To make all that turning work you kind of had to leave a lot of where you propose a lot of asphalt. Fire trucks have reversed.

But, yeah, that I mean, yeah. I mean, it speaks to there are a number of issues that we could work with. We need to try to they can they can work against each other on. But I'm gonna give the chief a hard time next to him. Alright. Thank you on that one. What what other updates you have for us?

Okay. So the bottom of that first page is Parole Place, which is located at the intersection of Forest Drive and Old Solomon's Island Road, Kinda catty corner to the grocery store is that Lytle? Yeah. So it's the it's the assembly of multiple parcels ultimately it's a it's a plan unit development special mix plan unit development now I'm sorry it's a plan unit development That includes a a. One main building that is a multi multi family above retail.

I parking a parking structure. And then townhouses 66 townhouses. So again, it's the assembly of all this. Right now, there is a strip mall. There's

So it is mixed then.

Yeah. Yeah. It is. I'm I'm sorry. I, I misstated that is mixed because of the the commercial element within that.

So anyway

zero MPD use if I'm not taking.

This is the one that, predated the updated MPDUs. There are some slated

It predated. Well, I lost one one vote, and we got zero we would've got more MPDUs out of this in the past in one vote than we got in the past twenty years. I digress. How many soapbox got? I have a you know me. I I have a lot.

So anyway it has gone through all the approvals planning commission most recently the update here is that the subdivision plat has been reviewed by various agencies in the city approved fully executed and signed and recorded. So conceivably the next step would be for the developer to submit grading and building permits for this.

Okay. Any questions?

Just one quick question on this. Residential retail units, are they intended as apartments or it's kind of or potentially both?

Apartments. Okay. So, yes. So the residential element above the 1st Floor commercial or retail would all be like workforce housing, small units, one to two occupants, and apartments. Basically rental. But the idea behind the applicant's concept is workforce housing for that.

Love it. Thank you. And we look at Mr. Leshinsky here on this project. He's got a lot of opportunities on those roadways in that area for bike improvements, especially on Horse Drive, Old Horse Drive coming up. We dovetail really nicely with this project. You wanna keep moving? Yeah. Yeah. What's the next one?

So the next one's on sheet two, West Village, which is one sixty one West Street. It's the basically, right now, it's a grass plot right next to Lemongrass And Metropolitan, and that's actually West Street. It recently so so the update basically, the idea is mixed use again, 1st Floor restaurants, 2nd And 3rd Floor, residents, and and actually had been through the approval process, through the board of appeals.

I think it was planning.

It was planning commission, you're right. Sorry. Planning commission, but that expired, so they had to be heard again and that recently took place maybe November or possibly December. I think it was November. So that's been approved.

The building permits been approved. And what's outstanding is a so the building permit, they revised utility connections and some minor elements. So they need to revise their grading permit and actually that had expired so they're they're updating their grading plan resubmitting it. And then once that goes through the review process and approved, it'll be a approved mixed use structure that's gonna be on that that vacant plot right now. So the last update that I have is a new project that just recently came in before the end of the the year last year.

It's the Thomas Summerville site at 2349 Solomon's Island Road.

Yeah.

And that is across from Chick fil A, if you're familiar with that area. Kind of a unique situation where this this piece of property, there's a large warehouse and a small showroom within that warehouse, and the property itself, again, long and narrow that stretches from Route 3 to Old Solomon's Island Road, the property is bisected by the city county boundary. And that boundary literally runs through the existing building that's there now. So Thomas Summerville and, the, design team have come in.

The boundary runs through the building?

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's kind of an oddity if you actually look at that that area of the city of Annapolis that borders Anne Arundel County. The boundary runs through that shopping center where what is it, the dispensary Gold Leaf, that parking lot, that shopping center, the boundary runs right through there. So anyway, they have come in

annex at all.

What's that?

It was just annex at all.

I I think that might be further down the road, but not it it doesn't involve this project. But the idea is the Thomas Summerville company will demo the existing large warehouse structure and redevelop that site but in almost entirely on the city of Annapolis side of that border.

Really? What are they gonna do on the counties? Put the parking on the county side?

So they don't have a so they're gonna have to go through a permitting process with the county, and I'm not privy to that just yet, but I'm sure we'll be communicating. But the idea is to relocate everything on to the city side and then possibly there's there's no proposal for anything on the county side other than revegetating the existing portion of that property. But down the road, could they do something that's entirely possible. But their proposal right now other than linking storm drains to the existing charge surgery network that is in the county, The entire project including the access points- the new building- which includes the warehouse- parking associated improvements and stormwater management that entire the entirety of that is located and proposed on the City Of Annapolis site. So it would be the corner of Old Silent with this Island Road and drawing a blank is that Summerville Road?

Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, it it really just came in. It it will eventually go to the planning commission. But right now, it's going it's in the first review just to iron out major any major, design changes. And, I have Eric Leshinsky, my expert witness that would like to say something.

I I just wanted to say that from a bike and walking mobility per sect, this is a much more exciting project, frankly, than the, parole place because it has a tremendous amount of frontage both on Old Solomon's Island Road and Somerville. And in a study that was done about five years ago now that was looking at originally how to extend the Poplar Trail to meet the South Shore Trail at Route 2, essentially, the the West East Express, Turning from West Street down Old Solomons to then Summerville was seen as, even a longer route to get to the town center, like, a more feasible route because Old Solomons has ample space today. It's got shoulders on both sides and Summerville also. And so that is gonna be something we're gonna put in the review for this project that I think would be a pretty straightforward aspect of it.

So it's it's gonna still gonna be a 100% commercial, Yeah. You're gonna look at

It has the potential to have a really nice, you know, 10 foot wide shared use path separated from the street. And there would still be a gap between this property and West Street where the the shopping center is, but we can fill in that later when that project happens.

You guys are gonna be on, you know, tested here because our side is gonna have to look better than the county side of this property.

Yeah. Now as Eric said, think it's a great opportunity to improve this pedestrian and bicycle networks in this at this corner. And then you know eventually on the road I would think shopping center at the corner of West and Route 3 would when it's redevelop incorporate those those additional network.

Yeah. And and I mean, I think that at some point that intersection is gonna need a traffic signal. Yeah. Old Solomons and West It's pretty dangerous. I think that's gonna probably be coming out. The MDOT's doing a I think I heard you

say circle. Oh, so is that

what you I missed that. Circle. We can certainly suggest that to MDOT.

Actually, both yeah. Actually, both that's a good point. It might be good to factor that in right of way in with this new proposal in case we decide to put something at Summerville in.

Sorry. I'm stuck on stuck on something else you said. You said the intersection of West Street and Route 3. Two. A route Go.

Did I say 3? I meant Route 2.

That makes much more sense

to me. Thank you.

Yeah. Apologies. Thanks, Eric.

Thank you. Anything else on that one?

No. That's that was, that's actually the last one and, you know, available for questions on anything else. But that would be, that would be my typical presentation for the committee.

Thank you, mister Meakins. Any other questions for mister Meakins on any of other projects?

Yeah. I did have Alright.

Thank you.

I wanted to check-in on this loss of Eastport Landing. I know this has been a long time project, but I was just confused where, in the last two sentences here, it says, buy must be recorded and the building permit must be obtained within five years of 10/16/2024. So tells me it expires October 2029. And then the next sentence is, the site design plan will expire if a building permit is not obtained by 10/1625. So the site design plan is now expired, but the building permit is not?

Is that the situation? Can you just help me square those two dates? That's what I'm trying to get at.

Yeah. No. I I understand what you're trying to get at. I believe that's a typo because this basically this project is basically it it has expired. They have not their their site design review their site design review would expire if your building permit is not obtained by 10/1625.

So that never happened. So, that that was one thing I was gonna bring up at the very beginning of this. Some of these some of these projects on this list are going to be deleted because they've either in this case expired or they've been completed.

Gotcha. Okay. And then I think that answers my question. I was just going to give you a heads up that I think very soon we'll see an application for the project where there's an abandoned gas station on West Street right now near Westgate Circle. So hopefully, the next time you're back here, maybe that'll be on this list.

We actually to we actually had a pre application meeting, within the past month, regarding that. So nothing nothing formally has been submitted, but we did we did have a virtual pre application meeting to talk about some of the issues and talk about some of the the track and the process that the applicant had questions on, which is something that we offer routinely. And so, yeah, you you could be right. It could be a month or two. But, yeah, if we do this quarterly, very well could see that on this list.

Thank you. Any other questions? Hearing none. Alright. Thank you for your time, mister Meegan.

Alright. Thank you.

Deputy city manager Guild, are you ready to present on your

Yes.

Updates from your office?

But first, we do have public works here to provide an update on the SPA road project to be funded through EPA hopefully. So there was a public meeting last night and they're here to provide some information about that project in the application. So I'd like to bring them up first.

Great.

They have they provided me with a one page bullet points on it and it's very good as a way of summary and reference. So Alison will send it to me and then I'll send it out to you.

Hi. Good afternoon. Allison DiManio, department public works engineer.

Hi. Good afternoon. Alyssa McDaniel, grant administrator of public works.

So there was some questions regarding, a community that was held last night. So, yes, we held a meeting sorry. The Resilience Authority held a meeting last night for the community. It was at the Bush Library from seven 06:30 to 07:30PM. City staff was there for support.

The we feel the meeting went very well. We had a good resident turnout and also representatives from other community groups like Play Annapolis and Severed River Association. Currently, we have no additional information to present that council has not already heard during the ordinance zero twenty twenty five presentation. It was essentially the same presentation. The news for funding from EPA grant came out 11/20/2025. It was expected to come out in September, and we had a small government shutdown,

so

it was delayed. So notification came out 11/20/2025. The grant application is due 01/28/2025. EPA condensed the application time from previous years. This meeting this meeting is the EPA requirement for the Brownfield Cleanup Grant, and It was hosted by the applicant, the Resilience Authority.

The city is not the applicant. We're a responsible party, so Resilience Authority has to be the applicant. We are gonna have additional Resilience Authority is going to have additional community meetings as we move through the process. The site is part of EPA's voluntary cleanup program, and so we won't be having additional community meetings for that volunteer cleanup program. And once we obtain brownfield funding, additional community meetings will be required to meet those funding requirements.

So Resilience Authority actually posted signs on 12/22/2025 on the site and throughout other areas of the city. City of Annapolis did a share alert on our social media 12/23/2025. Really Resilience Authority has also placed information about the meeting on their website, and a website has been created specifically for this property. It's sparoadproperty.com. The website we posted the information on the website 12/22/2025 for the meeting.

We you can also find multiple piece of information on there. So if you go to the the website, again, it's sparoadproperty.com. The community meeting presentation is available. There is a draft of the EPA Brownfield cleanup narrative. Please keep in mind that this is a draft and is still going around for technical providers for review.

The final draft will be posted after submission to EPA. There's also the draft APCA, which is the analysis for brownfield cleanup is on the site. There's a contact form for any community members. They can fill in their information. That email comes to us.

Public works, we're also keeping track of each of those community members so we can have an email list to send out any future information to them in specific email alerts. The phase two assessment is also available for download. You can also navigate to the Sparrow property site through the City Of Annapolis site. If you just search Sparrow, it'll take you to a landing page that'll navigate you there. You can also navigate to the Sparrow property site through the Resilience Authorities site. If you go to the Resilience Authorities site and search Sparrow, it'll send you to a landing page which will direct you to the Sparrow property site. Those are currently all the updates. We are just going for EPA funding for Brownfield.

Allison, two things. Can you introduce yourself? So especially our new council member knows who both of you are. And then if you could provide just a quick overview of what this project is about so that, alderwoman Conte can be up to date.

K. So, again, Allison DiBannio, Department of Public Works engineer. The Sparrow Site is a brownfield site that requires environmental cleanup. It's been under assessment for quite some time. It was an old Ascent incinerator site and dump site is that is why it's requiring the brownfield cleanup.

A portion of the site also holds Weems Well And Field. We want to remediate that portion for public use. And currently, we're trying to determine what the use is going to be on long affronted properties. Is that do you have additional if you have specific questions okay.

Great. Good. That's right. I think that not only will I push these bullet points out to the entire city council but also highlight the spotcreek.com link because it does have great information on it and anyone who's not familiar with the project can find everything they need there.

Yeah. And I know we haven't met in however many months of three, four months, but I don't believe the council was notified of these meetings. So I guess moving forward, if the new council could be included in the loop by I I guess in this case, you let the results authority know and make sure they add us, obviously, there's a lot of inherent interest on the body on this project, especially this committee. That'd be good. And so net what are the next steps then? This is a couple of other public hearings to meet the grant requirement.

Yes. Exactly. So it it's an EPA requirement for this grant program that the lead applicant has to host a community notice meeting, where they just let the community members know that they're applying for federal funding for this project.

Okay.

And alderman Conte, I did wanna say thank you so much for coming last night. We appreciate your support.

Alright. Great. I'll do

Just a point, alderman Savage. There the bullet points do identify that this notice about the meeting was provided to city staff and alderman on January 5. I didn't see it.

I I did a search. I you know, I I got it on January yesterday. Yeah. Or maybe it wasn't fifth.

Several days. Fifth was Monday.

In any case, two day notice is not sufficient. In the future, if they could just give I know it's a new council, so I understand.

But We'll we'll make sure, we'll work with the resilience authority to make sure for any future

Yeah.

Meetings that you guys are notified when the public notice goes up

as well.

I appreciate you taking the time to come out today. I know it was planned. Thank you. I thought we're gonna no more questions on this. Right? Okay. We're good. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Jack, you wanna go into yours? Sure. Half half an hour. Okay. Alright.

So this, resilience and sustainability highlights for January 2026, I I put these together for Alderman Willen Conte's benefit, in advance of these meetings. I usually get them out further in advance, holidays, and, staph illnesses sort of snuck up on us this time, so they can digest them. It is a long document. These are not all of the projects. Either have, primary responsibility for and or are involved in other projects.

These aren't all of them, but I try to highlight the main ones. And the reason part of it is so long is not only do we have updates in here, but I always leave the project description here because I do not expect everyone on City Council to be conversant as I am with these projects. When you see an update, you can refer back below it as the project summary so you know what I'm actually updating. And this one's particularly long because Ashley Diaz, one of our environmental program managers, attached a sample of our newsletter. We just started doing a resilience and sustainability newsletter.

It's bimonthly in November. So she has the November newsletter here and the, January newsletter, which both can be found on our landing page on the city website.

Jackie, could you summarize your staffing?

Oh, so in our staffing, so I'm, in charge of resilience and sustainability, and I work across all departments, programs, and activities of the city to make sure that we are putting an environmental resilience lens on in everything. So I work with all the departments virtually in the city, mostly the operating departments such as planning and zoning, public works, transportation, rec and parks, office for emergency management. But I also work very closely with the office of law and police department and fire department, of course. You know, they're electrifying as well now and becoming more energy efficient. They're they're part of the the plan and and willing participants.

They they've come around quite a bit in the last few years, I'd say. And then my staff is made up of two environmental program managers, Dylan Laconich and Ashley Diaz. And they're both one is here with me in City Hall, one is across the street, because we're out of space here in City Hall right now. Hopefully we'll all be moving downstairs when that is in this building and when it is remodeled and finance moves out. So I'll just hit some of the highlights of the highlights.

And of course, at any time, please call me, text me, you know, with ideas, concerns, questions, or Ashley or Dylan. I have them kind of split up between Dylan is mostly energy efficiency, solar, building energy efficiency, that sort of thing. And Ashley is more on the habitat, stormwater, natural resources side. And she's also doing the bulk of our communications and engagement work. She's even supporting other departments such as Public Works with their outreach and education.

So I've divided this highlights document into sections and the first one is energy efficiency, clean energy. I have more projects underneath that. I wanna move to the second item on here, which is incorporating resilience into building energy performance standards or BEPS. When you add resilience, you call them BURPS. The city had well, the resilience authority on behalf of the city had applied for depart US Department of Energy, a federal grant for the city to work with other jurisdictions and technical support partners to develop a model code, building code, that built resilience into it focusing on buildings under 30,000 square feet, mostly residential.

Maryland state law already requires resilience requirements into buildings that are 30,000 square feet and above. They mostly are commercial buildings and public buildings. This project was focusing on your smaller buildings, mostly residential. However, we got caught up in the new administration's grant termination frenzy. And they terminated our grant, although we had already started work on it.

The technical consultants were already working and incurring fees and sending us invoices. We were able to get invoices reimbursed through September 30, and we now have invoices that go through October 9, which was the official day the Resilience Authority was notified of termination. We're So trying to get those reimbursed now as well. When we anticipated that the termination was forthcoming, our technical partners worked as fast as they could to give us as much product as possible. Some language around model code with resilience built in, what it might look like from insurance and technical issues, and the resilience authorities gathering that information to provide to us.

There is an appeals process associated with this. It's an informal appeals process. The Resilience Authority has already sent the initial letter for appeal in. There is no designated time for the federal government to respond to us. So we're working on what do you do next?

Because we we sent in the letter timely in November, and it hasn't been that long yet. So we are discussing already, you know, next steps. What do we do next with as far as appeal goes. So I will update you further on that. What was going to be produced from this project was a model building code that we would not be obligated to implement but which could serve as a starting point for planning and zoning to tailor a building.

And it was going to be tailored to Annapolis from the beginning, so very easy for us to decide do we want to turn this into code. So we could take what we have right now and still work with that or see if we can get this termination overturned. Next up are LED streetlights. We have a number of funding avenues that we have obtained for LED streetlight replacement. We're already working on some of them.

Some of them have already been replaced. We've identified other streetlights to replace under the various funding mechanisms we have. And one that we looked at is d under on page two, LED streetlights. At the bottom, there's d, ownership of city streetlights. In the twenty f y twenty six budget, resilience and sustainability was funded to do a study of our streetlights and if it made sense for the city to own all of them and maintain all of them and replace all of them with LED.

That project was completed by Tanko Lighting, which is a company that does this sort of analysis and then works with jurisdictions on implementing their plans. Came it their results of that study showed that the city could save a significant amount of money into the millions over a long period of time, like twenty years, and the next step would be for the city to actually do a more comprehensive analysis and then start to negotiate with BG and E on obtaining the rights to the streetlights. So the city owns some of the streetlights and maintains them. BG and E owns some of the city streetlights and maintains them. And then the city owns some, but they were not maintained by categories of them.

In the third category, BGE maintains them or somebody else? A third party.

Okay. So most of the street lights are still owned by BGE and maintained by GBGE. A small portion of them are actually owned and maintained by the city. So their analysis showed how much we would save over time. I was asked not to divulge the results of this this study by the acting city manager yet to counsel.

I need to speak to her more about that because the study was is finished. It was funded by city council as part of f y twenty six, and we have that report in hand. And soon as I'm allowed to, I will share it with city council, and you can actually see how much we would save over time and what the calculation is for the city to buy and maintain our lights ourselves. Buy them back from BG and E, that is, our street lights.

So comparing to how much we pay BG now?

Excuse me?

Compared to how much we Yes. Pay

And it is significant, the savings. I mean, we're talking in double digits millions over a twenty year period. Some of the lights are more expensive than others because they're in the historic district. And then the Cobra lights, the ones that are kind of curved that you see outside of the historic district, are much easier and cheaper to replace. But we've looked at option different options for the historic street lights that either have the acorn on them or the tobacco leaf. And that's rig and and historic preservation is very particular about the design and keeping that design. You have a question?

Well, curious. Well, I think it's the my purse my 2¢ is that I think if we actually got to a point where we could own the lights, it opens up some other avenues for us to explore as far as I was just listening to New York Times podcast about they were talking about Pittsburgh who implemented a light pollution study and and, associated improvements, which ended up saving them a significant amount of money. Remember, they even said they gave they gave the mayor or council, I think, had the power to dim the lights during

Yes.

The street lights during certain

can events. Dim them and you can bring them up to full capacity. So if you wanted to light up the street if there was an emergency and you wanted to do evacuation, for example, you could really bring the light up. If if residents are complaining that the lights are not the right, you know, they're too bright, they're coming in my window, they're keeping me awake, you can make them softer. Not only the you can only make them brighter or dimmer, but you can make them softer, and you can change the color.

So it's not as much it's, easier on your eye. So there's all sorts of things they can do, and they do that remotely. So it would just be a call from the city at any time of the day to the manager who, you know, that they're available apparently twenty four hours a day, and you can they can do it remotely. I'm gonna say something else about this study. Oh, Maryland, I believe last year the General Assembly passed a law that gives local jurisdictions the right to buy the property, buy back their lights.

So BGNA could not say no to us. We would just have to negotiate on the terms and the price of that. So we have a number of LED projects going on that are all grant funded. On the third page at the top we have the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and climate action plan. The greenhouse gas inventory was completed last fall, actually at the end of last summer.

I've been tweaking it a little bit and asking our consultant, Karamita, to make several changes for clarity and to provide information about how they arrived at their emissions data. So as soon as we get those revisions done, that will be made public. We'll put it on our website, and we'll share it with counsel. Meanwhile, our consultant, Karamita, continued to work with stakeholder groups it had established around different types of emission sources. And this involves staff time as well as environmental organizations and other stakeholders identified through the process.

They have completed the stakeholder interviews and are now running everything through their formulas to come up with, and they, which included, part of the stakeholder process was to include recommendations, like how we could achieve reductions through transportation or energy efficiency in building or with multi mobility kinds of approaches. And we have different pathways for that. We're comparing this against the 2006 baseline to achieve 60% reductions against that baseline by 2031 and net zero by '24 '45, which is in line with the Maryland priorities and goals. So we're we're staying consistent with that. So we we plan to have the climate action plan draft available probably within the next month and a half, get that up on the website, invite public comment further public comment on that, and then have the climate action plan done for April, first month, first day to roll it out during April.

And this will allow us, the city, to prioritize projects against the climate action plan once we finalize it, including budgeting, what projects we might wanna put in there and budget against going forward.

Yeah. And an interesting tidbit from some of the presentations I've seen is that because for those who don't know, I get I did the climate footprint back twenty years ago originally. Back then, the the highest user of energy, you know, essentially emitter of carbon dioxide, what what was the built environment, what buildings have in the city. But now, according to the preliminary data, it's actually the transportation sector that is the largest contributor of greenhouse gas?

It's still the built environment, but transportation is very high up there.

I thought it showed when I

thought it did too, but I looked at it again. And we'll see and I did make some changes to it, so we'll see where it comes out eventually. And the final one. I thought it would be transportation as well. But transportation did not come down even with some of the improvements that we've made over time with micro mobility and different routes, and we've added some electric vehicles.

But we do its problem is we we just started doing that, and we just got the two electric buses. We have two more on order, so there hasn't been enough time and data generated to show any impacts from that right now. Plus, the fleet has grown, so we've added a lot of vehicles. And most of the vehicles that have been added in the last ten years are hybrid. They're not all electric.

We only have a handful of all electric vehicles in the fleet the immediate fleet that are ones we use for enforcement patrols, that sort of thing. The police vehicles are all hybrids, the patrol cars. We don't have any all electric there yet. Transport and the fire department chose not to pursue a grant last year. That's something we we hope to work on more.

Chief O'Malley is open to that, to working towards electrifying the fire department, and chief Jackson is also open to more electric vehicles in his fleet. In fact, one of the main sites that we're using with grant funds, from various different funders is to electrify the police force, provide them the EV charging infrastructure first. So we're gonna we will be putting in fast chargers, at least one fast charger there, and some slow chargers at the police department. It made sense after we did an evaluation of our government facilities to do it at the police department. And, you know, there's been a lot of arguments between departments.

Do we get the vehicles or do we get the chargers first? I wanna make sure we have the chargers in place so that everyone feels confident about ordering electric vehicles. So we're doing it. We'll be working on that this spring. There's also we we had done a couple of years ago, we had a consultant that was funded through our budget, I think, f y twenty four to do an inventory of all our electric vehicles and possibilities for electrification, and that was completed, about a year and a half ago.

It's on our website. Was provided to council. There is an opportunity, but we have never done an in-depth analysis of an actual fleet assessment. And this is something that many consulting firms offer, where they if they get into the metrics and how what what vehicle should be replaced first in your fleet and what they can be replaced with, what savings you will, realize, and what maintenance costs you will incur. And it provide that is the kind of information they use to show what you should be doing each year, which would make it a lot easier for central services to present that in their budget.

It could show council if we really want to electrify our fleet and reduce emissions from our fleet, this is what we need to purchase this year moving forward. I think that's something the city really needs to do. I've never had the funding to do it, but there is a program through, a company that is working with BG and E where they will provide us with what is basically worth $25,000 in assessment for $2,500 You can also get reimbursed from that once you finish your project. No guarantee, but most likely. I mean, they have the funds until they run out.

I think this is something that's very worthwhile pursuing. Ashley Diaz, our environmental programs one of our environmental programs manager is has a lead with that. She's working with central services on that. I think that if transportation doesn't have in their it in their budget, I think that the city manager's office does. But I think it's very worthwhile spending money on so we can get a really in-depth fleet assessment that we can work with, council can work with, and see exactly how much this would

cost. So ten ten minute check.

Yep.

Yes. Just like I wanna leave a little bit of time in case they have questions.

Yeah. I just wanted to hit some of things where we have either an issue or an opportunity. I mean, I will, of course, anytime as I said, call me about anything on here. I'm gonna move over to page four to the electric vehicles charging infrastructure streetcars trolley. The Resilience Authority has taken the lead for the city, county, visitors center, and the Denker Foundation to put together an RFP for an electric trolley feasibility study.

This study, I'm not sure if you're very familiar with this at all, Alderman Conte. I did provide information about it in your onboarding documents. But this is a trolley we envisioned that would start at City Dock. You would come off our electric ferry. You can get on our electric trolley, travel up Main Street, down West Street, hook you into parole eventually, you know, into hotels and things that are down there.

This would be a trolley that could accommodate perhaps bicycles on the outside, but it could be used as an economic development tool, business development tool, and a low to moderate income development tool. So I believe that it is ready for final sign off. I checked in with the Resilience Authority today, I didn't get a response. We were passing it around over the holidays.

Yeah. Think their target was the fifteenth to get that out. Yeah. Just again, keep in mind that I think we have $100,000 of Yes. Potential one time use money that I don't think is going get used on the I was hoping to get it rolling for Forest Drive, but I don't think that's gonna connect.

And we have, a $100,000 allocated from the city and $50,000 from the county, and the denker foundation has said that they will pitch in additional funds to do this feasibility study. We're hoping to kick this off, get the RFP out by mid January and get this rolling in the spring so that we can have a report by summer. On the next page, on the city ferry pilot project, we have funding from FTA, Federal Transit Administration, for funding for the ferry. Last year, literally the day before I was about to award, the project to a ferry design build firm, I received notice that our grant had been terminated. We'll put on pause.

It was paused because we were not in the line with Trump administration priorities. We were given the option in August to amend our grant application. The directions were not so subtle. They were very clear that something that was diesel, electric, or others hybrid was much more acceptable. Otherwise, we would lose our funding, which is $3,000,000 for two ferries and landing improvements and infrastructure equipment.

We decide the city decided to go ahead and amend to a hybrid ferry, fully electric. However, we believe because the distances are so short that we travel by our ferry, we would be on electric power pretty much all of the time. It does provide going diesel, adding the diesel element does provide us some more flexibility and design, perhaps a more robust hull, which will be better for traversing the Severn River when it's a little rougher because we go out to the bay pretty quickly. And we would like to be able to take this ferry over to Carr's Beach and Hawkins Cove, which requires us to go out into the Severn. So there are some positives in going hybrid.

The county has a similar grant. They always were going to do hybrid because they are going to traverse longer distances across the Severn And then I checked in with the visitor center of Annapolis, San Arundel County, and they're getting ready to put an RFP for design build on the Chesapeake Bay ferry, which would go to all the way down to Virginia and all the way up to Hover to Grace and various points on the Eastern Shore. Annapolis is designated as three stops on that ferry. So we could have a very busy harbor with boat traffic and which is good economic stimulus as well. Let me see what else we have here.

We'll be talking more about storm water restoration projects and fees at our February meeting. We took that off the agenda for this meeting, so I will leave that alone. And I'm moving to page seven to the Severn Hole Watershed Partnership where it says update. The Severn Hole Watershed Partnership is a five year project funded by the Department of Natural Resources. It's a state grant, so it cannot be terminated or paused.

This year we received $2,250,000 last year it started. This was a very competitive grant process for only five jurisdictions were selected or regional areas. So the Resilience Authority put in the application because it could apply on behalf of the city and the county, and we brought in probably 40 other partners on this, 10 major partners. So these are restoration projects and community outreach and education throughout the entire Severn River watershed. We're we have money in hand for this year.

We're currently working on identifying projects for next year And the the following few years, we hope to at least get the same amount of money, if not more. The city came out really well in the first year. Most of the projects are within city limits. At first, it didn't look like that, but it worked out well for us in the end. And we'll see what else.

Oh, I would be remiss if I did not hit page nine in our electric leaf blower financial assistance program because I know Alderman Savage very much supports that and Alderman Huntley has his doubts, to say the least. So the electric leaf blower ban went into effect last year. We've had mostly the complaints that come from people who see violations of the ban. We have not had complaints from people who are being forced to use electric leaf blowers and give up their gas powered leaf blowers. So as part of financial assistance to ease the pain with this new requirement, the city initiated a electric leaf blower financial assistance program administered by the Chesapeake Bay Trust, which takes a 10% fee.

They wanted a 20% fee, but I worked with them and got that down to 10% and said let's see how it goes. It was not easy but I was tenacious with it. I got to use my lawyering skills which was fun. So the program we had after administration fees and some consulting that was done by the resilience authority to help develop the program, we are left with about $85,500 for actual rebates. We provide a $100 rebate on electric leaf blower to residents and a 2,500 I'm sorry, a $1,500 rebate to commercial businesses like landscapers and people that are doing gardening, that sort of thing, and lawn care.

So there has not been initially there was a big rush for rebates, we predicted it was we were going into fall and then it eased off tremendously. So far we have had I'll get my glasses off for this, but it's here in the report. The Chesapeake Bay Trust has processed 163 rebates. About 5,900 rebate information mailers were sent to residents and commercial businesses, and this is a one year agreement we have with the Chesapeake Bay Trust administering a report upon the rebate program. It's renewable if we choose to renew it and fund it again.

So we still have approximately $53,443 in this, program. I am expecting that spring will bring another onslaught of applications for rebates. We'll push out the information again in the spring and we'll see how much we have left at the end of the year. We've talked about requesting we're still discussing how much to request for rebates for next year because we're waiting to see how much money actually gets spent. But we will have to put some type of request in the FY twenty seven budget.

So you've gone through roughly half?

Yes. Yes. Little. So we'll see. Yeah. It's a little less. We'll see if spring really does bring an influx of more applications. So I think there you know, to me, this is telling me there were a lot of people upset about having to use, especially the commercial businesses, to use electric leaf blowers. But in reality, it doesn't seem to have caused them that much pain because we're not getting as many rebate applications as you might think from the commercial businesses.

So how many from this you can apply as a resident?

Yes.

Well, right?

What number I don't have here that I need to get from the trust is how many of the applications have been from residents and how many have been from commercial We'll see who is feeling more pain than the other or more interested.

I'll have to work out. I'll have to work out next year's budget with probably your fiscal

So let me go on to some enforcement. We get a lot of complaints for violations from people. Put out three waves of information about the new law and flyers through the rebate program to almost 6,000 businesses and residents. So everyone knows about it. They can't say they don't know about this.

We've put out press releases, social media, and Asana City's website. I don't get complaints that I didn't know, just that there's flagrant violations. And what are you doing about it? Have plenty of zoning and between plenty of zoning and public works, there are three additional inspectors, whether they're electrical inspectors or housing inspectors or other inspectors that are available. There's six total, six to seven of total available to do inspections while they are out and about.

If they see a violation they can issue a citation or a warning. Planning and zoning also made available overtime to those inspectors who choose to do enforcement or sign up to do enforcement after hours or on the weekends. This has become very popular with these inspectors, and they've been jumping on that opportunity for the overtime. And so I need to get, I did have a number from planning and zoning, this one wasn't updated, how many citations have actually been issued. So I'm making it right now about that.

But they're glad they're doing it. Yeah. I mean, I've been I've been happy to see actually, like, large apartment complexes near me in the condos who they have their commercial landscape properties that they hired are gone electric.

Yes. And I and I was told by

Working.

Couple of landscape businesses when the law was enacted that they saw the writing on the wall and some of them were already trying to invest in electric. They knew it was coming and they were preparing for it. But the the electric the commercial equipment is expensive, but their regular equipment is fairly expensive as well. The former city manager, Malinov, he had approved a position for to hire a person dedicated to enforcement of the leaf blower band. I had made a job description.

It has gone through HR and planning and zoning. It has not moved recently beyond HR, so I will follow-up on that and see where that is. We were going to have that start in the summer leading into fall, but it will be good to have that position for spring so we can do additional enforcement. We had money in the city manager's budget to fund that position for this year.

Alright. Well, we are out of time. Yep. Any rapid fire questions or any questions from the committee?

Yeah. I'm just confused on where that money is coming from for the inspector. It was in the base budget for planning and zoning? No.

We're taking out the city manager's budget. We have several positions that are not been filled. We had a administrative assistant for the last two years that wasn't filled. Actually, we we gave that position over to planning to central services so they could and we've been continuing to share an administrative assistant with mayor's office. That cannot connect to need forever.

If the city manager's office is really put downstairs where finances right now, we're gonna need our own assistant. It's not going to work. But there is but unused funds for a while for that position, so we had money from that. And then, we had money where we now obviously since the city manager is Mike Mellonoff is not with us and we have an acting city manager who has already been paid for her position. So we use some excess funds in the manager's budget so that we're pulling money from that.

Okay. I don't remember that coming through the finance committee. I could've I could just be misremembering, but would you mind checking on Yeah.

I'll check with that.

If there is an Feet sending it to me?

Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Acting city manager, Buckland probably has information on that.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's going to. I mean, in the alright. We are ready for reverse.

That concludes the meeting. Anything else before we go to the order? Yep. Alright. Thank you all for, we held to our time. Appreciate your feedback. All right. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. All those who please say aye. Aye. Aye. You need adjourned.