Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I open this meeting of the planning commission at 06:32 p. M. Clerk, could you please call the roll?

Chair Reynolds? Here. Vice chair Allmend? Commissioner Coronado? Here. Commissioner Neely? Here. Commissioner Rudulovich? Commissioner Roethlisberger? Here. Commissioner Santana? Here. Commissioner Goodman? We have quorum.

Thank you. Please, if you're able, stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. Seeing no changes to the agenda. The agenda is approved as published. We do have one set of minutes to be approved, a certification of the 08/25/2025 regular meeting minutes.

I'd ask for a motion and a second.

I move to approve PC resolution 10 dash twenty twenty five recommending approval to City Council of Code. That's the wrong one. Sorry.

Let me go back to the Okay.

I moved to approve based on the clerk certification August Littleton Planning Commission. Second.

We have a motion by Coronado, second by Roethlisberger, and I will set up the vote.

The vote is five in favor. The motion carries.

All right. Next section on the agenda is for public comment. And if you would like address the planning commission for public comment, please do sign in on the public speaker form before the call to order of this meeting. It's an opportunity to discuss opinions regarding issues that are not part of the public hearings on tonight's agenda. A separate opportunity will be provided for those public hearing items. Each speaker is limited to three minutes, and please keep those comments civil. We do have one person signed up for the public comment, Pam Chadbourne.

A tall person must have been here. My name is Pam Chapborn. I live a block or two from here, and I want to talk about the need for city planning in Littleton. City planning is not just something that examines individual projects. It really is a management function for the city in the comprehensive plan is actually supposed to reflect.

Plans for the city in an integrated way over time. We're supposed to update it every five years, and we're a year in the whole. And so planning commission. I'd like to see you call for demand for that update to the comprehensive plan to start as soon as possible. Staff needs to do work to bring, data of merit to the people who are going to generate the next update.

And to my knowledge that hasn't even begun yet. Major decisions are being considered by the city in the meantime, and that is a failure of management. Specifically management is an institutional or enterprise level endeavor. It must be done at that level, and it must understand, it must integrate all of the projects planned, current and future, over time with some kind of planning in time, schedule, that is, and cost and scope and risks with mitigation. That's the fundamental job.

I haven't seen that done in Littleton, and it especially has been bad in the past six, eight years. Ironically, after entering our comprehensive plan and unified land use code process. So we need we must have at the management level, we, the people of Littleton, need to see those products through the next planning process with alternatives. There need to be some different scenarios showing projected outcomes with different pros and cons. And so we, the people, can then make a more informed decision about them.

And I'm going to guarantee, I mean, that will engage the public. The city says, oh, the public isn't engaged, and we to hire two new community engagement folks. That isn't it. If you give people information, they will engage, and the city has markedly not done that. So they complain about the Geneva Village and quote quote North Gateway thing, which is an example of a failed planning process. There is no integrated plan because part of that talks about selling this property as well as Geneva Village, And suddenly the city government goes somewhere on Arapahoe County's property, but there is no definition of it. There are no pros and cons. It's an incomplete scenario. And. We have that alternative.

So that's an example of our failure of planning. Thanks.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address the Planning Commission during public comment? Seeing none, we'll move on to the general business portion of the agenda of which we have none, which takes us to agenda item seven, public hearing. PC resolution 10 dash twenty twenty five recommending approval to city council of code text amendments to title 10 unified land use code regarding the preservation and enhancement of the city's tree canopy and the tree canopy loss rate. And with that, I'll turn it over to staff for the presentation.

Good evening. Thank you, commissioners. My name is Andrea Vaughan. I'm a senior planner with community development here at the city. And tonight, I am joined by Diana Kemenell Trenton, our new ground manager of grounds, open space, and natural resources. And possibly a familiar face to some of you all returning from Colorado State Forest Service is Mary Dancer, our former forester. Tonight, we are here to discuss a bit about forestry management, but to propose some tax amendments as it relates to tree canopy requirements and the fee in lieu for tree removals. Tonight's presentation will be largely driven by Mary.

Great. Thank you. Can y'all hear me alright? Never been, called quiet before, so lucky day for you all. Good to be back here.

Thank you guys for having me. I'm gonna go over a little bit of or the agenda quick, introduction. I am the previous city forester for Littleton and left just about a year ago to work for the Colorado State Forest Service as a urban community program specialist. So working with cities that already have natural resource, hopefully, resource staff and base to be able to help them with planning. We're gonna do a little bit of a background on the forestry management plan that Littleton established while I was here, general benefits of urban trees because that is my job to talk about the benefits of trees, proposed code amendments, specifically looking at costs and in lieu fee as well as the canopy coverage change.

And then lastly, some case studies looking at two different situations, one that's a little bit more built out and one that is affordable housing. So I will ask if anything on the slides is confusing and you want me to pause and articulate that a little better, feel free to let me know during it. But if not, if you can hold your questions to the end, that would be much appreciated. Alright. So just for starters, management, of course, has to come.

We can't manage what we don't know. So it starts with collecting data, looking at that data, identifying any pitfalls, which will go through the data collection process as well as the pitfalls that were acknowledged during the forestry management plan. Then moving into setting goals, what goals we set, which ones, you know, we kind of vetted out and fell with, and then looking at the code implementation recommendations and kind of that is the last step on how we got there. So a background. In '20 I started, in 2022 with a contractor doing a citywide canopy, or a risk assessment and tree inventory.

So at the time in '22, Little Tin Hynot had an updated inventory ever,

and

it had slowly been updated. But most of the data was about ten years old. As you know, trees are very dynamic and growing as part of their nature, so that is an incredibly outdated inventory. Most folks want large trees inventory around three years. So we did that inventory to see what we had, found a lack of species diversity, which is really common in Colorado front range because it's difficult to be a tree in what exists as an arid desert naturally.

So we've had, let's see, 14% ash trees, which is fairly common again in Denver Metro, but is alarming given emerald ash borer. At the time, was not in a Little Tin, but presently is confirmed in Little Tin. And then we did the 2022 contracted urban tree canopy assessment or UTC. And let's see. Is that yeah.

This graphic is from that. So we saw from a 2013 study compared to a 2022 study that Littleton had a 5% canopy loss at the time. So within nine years, losing 5% is definitely an alarming number, given that trees grow. So in theory, we should be increasing canopy passively, but rather we saw that decrease. So that definitely put up some red flags, for staff as we were analyzing some of that information.

What got us there? Why is Canopy decreasing rather than increasing? Looking at development compared and that sort of thing. I included this graphic because I thought as plan commissioners, you would like to see what our contractor did. So 20% canopy, that 8% open water primarily made up of the Platte River there.

And the Platte being a natural corridor, we definitely had a little less tree canopy there because it is native species. So taking all of that into consideration, we were able to come through and set some realistic goals of where are we actually losing the canopy and where should we be prioritizing gaining canopy in a sustainable spot. Let's see if I have anything else to add to that. I don't. So then moving into 2023, the city adopted the first ever forestry management plan, which is on the website.

If you're interested in looking at it, if you go to Littleton and then go to forestry and scroll down to resources, you'll see that. And it just does a really big overview of this is Littleton's information. It incorporates all of this UTC information within it and then sets goals. So that was presented and approved by council in '23 with a very high and exciting goal of a 50% canopy coverage in the long term for the city of Littleton. So that is not a typo.

The number is twenty ninety, which is wild to be, like, planning out for, but trees grow slow, and canopies take a long time to develop. So looking very long term on that. Oh, let me pull this up so you can see some of the shorter terms in that. So looking 2023 was when it was adopted. We were at 20% canopy gold.

Of course, a ton of that is including private land. So that was one of the biggest hardest areas to come through. I'm sure you all are aware that Littleton only maintains, what is it, 80 acres of the land in within the city limits. So trying to be strategic in coming up with ways, how are we managing land on parks, how are we managing private property, to be able to reach that 50% goal? Because it's not gonna come just from city staff on that limited amount of acreage.

Looking for the first ten well, roughly ten years till 2030, we set the goal to just keep at 20% knowing that 7% of the, inventory came back, that the trees were considered either dead or highly hazardous and dying. So we knew we needed to remove 7% of our our canopy, the city of Littleton's canopy, as well as knowing that emerald ash borer was imminently going to be a threat to the city of Littleton, which felt like a sad prophecy because, actually, council adopted it. And within the next day, I got a call about finding Emerald Ash Borer. So that was fun timing, for my stress levels. So knowing that that was two huge things that we were going to deal with, we were just trying to keep it set.

And then looking at that, a 5% increase every ten years. So trying to set realistic goals of, you know, it takes a really long time, but if we can be promoting that in smaller bite chunks, then by the time twenty ninety hits, we should be at 50% canopy increase. A lot of that too comes I don't know if y'all are familiar. It's a lot in the urban forestry management plan, but talking about the right tree in the right place. So if we're going to actually get 50% canopy, it can't be us just bandage putting a tree anywhere we go in a unsuitable spot, under power lines, too close to structures, you know, whatever it might be, but trying to really advocate to incorporate trees into the development planning phase of construction and work, both internally and encouraging that information to be shared to the public.

Okay. So big challenges. I'll breeze through these pretty quickly because they're self explanatory and kind of already hit on it. But emerald ash borer, potential for 14% of the canopy. And, again, the majority of those trees are on private property.

Highline Canal, I'm sure you are all aware of water issues and all of the other stuff going on with that. But knowing that those are aging trees and it's primarily a monoculture, meaning that it's mainly made up of cottonwoods. So as those trees are getting old and as they are naturally dying out, we're going to have that area that has been a naturally shaded corridor due to the water way loo potentially lose a lot of its shade. And then just the general declining canopy of the city of Littleton, deferred maintenance, lack of standards written in place, lack of, like, current regulations around trees, both for internal work as well as development work, leads to trees not being taken care of because it costs money and it's work. So knowing that we had to do a decent amount of removals just to kind of get to the get to the baseline.

Okay. So the code, if you as you remember from the first slide, we went from identifying the issues, trying to or identifying what we had, seeing some of the issues, and then looking at what we can do to change that. So all of that is kind of backstory that led to the code updates. Started working through recommendations to just enhance the ordinance's effectiveness. So trees and vegetation were already in both title 10 and title eight, but trying to find ways that, it was able to be practically implemented and practically understood.

I think a lot of times, you know, code language can get really dense and cumbersome, and we wanted to make sure that we could do a way that, hey. This is actually if this code is followed, we can meet our goals of increased canopy. And then amending the current ordinance to better align with industry standards, both in language as well as best management practices. City of Littleton, specifically title eight, had a a lot of language that was just not used anymore, things like tree trimmer versus arborist. You know, pretty small things, but things that definitely would kind of catch an eye of, a lack of professionalism and keeping up with the times.

And then that led to ultimately the tree manual, which you all have seen, and that's why I'm here today. And its main goal was to serve as a best management practice guiding document. So it could be referred to in eight dash four and ten dash one dash three, the Grainscape of ULUC. But it it was made to be kind of a a helping aid, guiding document for either property owners or builders or whatever it might be, and then incorporating, but not actually holding the oh gosh, like, enforcement weight to it, but kind of acting as a vector in between that of we can pull from this knowing that it is the best management, and then we can incorporate that as fitted into eight four and ten dash one three. So let's see.

I don't think I have too much more to add on that. We'll talk a little bit more about it, and I'm sure you guys will have a little bit of questions around that. But that's the that's kind of the backstory of what got us to the tree manual. So a lot of talk about trees. I understand that is not why you are all here, but that is kind of my MO and why I was brought in for this.

So talking about the benefits of trees in urban scapes, specifically in urban settings, is something I'm really passionate about. Because if we're going to have a resilient community, then we're gonna have to have a resilient canopy just with basic things like storm water reduction and heat island effect and all of that. So this graphic here is showing just a few high level benefits of trees and urban scapes. So a lot of them, I think, would kind of come to mind as filtering particulate matter and exhaust, and then cooling streets and we'll have one more slide about that reducing heart rates, protecting biodiversity, and reducing obesity levels by encouraging activity and people walking and, safety in walking. Storm water is huge here.

Of course, Littleton has had its fair share of sinkholes, so trying to figure out ways how can we incorporate vegetation to actually be benefiting our infrastructure and naming and calling out trees as public infrastructure, not just as a benefit or a fund separate asset, but actually part of the public infrastructure, and making sure that we are equitably distributing that infrastructure as we do with the rest of our city assets that we give to the public. And then, of course, increasing property neighborhood values. We'll hit on a few different case studies for that just as examples, and then reducing stress through pheromones that are through trees. But that is a very separate talk. So looking at closer to look at heat, this is a graphic of the urban heat island effect.

You can see you know, it's pretty self explanatory, but it is pretty, alarming in the amount. There's differences in ambient pressure, but when we're talking about streetscapes, like dark asphalt parking lots that are not shaded, there can be an ambient temperature change of up to 20 different 20 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's very substantial looking looking at some of that data, but then also just kind of what you would expect that goes with it. You know, when you've driven from a rural rural area into an urban area into Downtown Denver, the temperature goes up. And not only is that something that we're you know, it's not pleasant or we are liking, but looking at it much more from an actual public health standpoint, it's not something that we really have an opinion or an opportunity to act like not everyone deserves access to cool areas where they're living.

So if you are someone that does not have a car and you are walking, then immediately your risk goes up. And that was a lot of what the urban, forestry management plan looked at was overlaying our census block groups with vulnerable populations and prioritizing canopy, both preservation and retention there, but as well and also increasing, so planting new trees. So the number one heat related illness in North America or the number one what is that statistic? Somewhere in there. Heat is the number one, like, public illness. Do you know what I'm trying to get to? It's already in the plan.

If I had to take a guess, it's it's likely something I've seen before as well, which is heat is the largest natural disaster that Yes. Kills more than floods or fires. Heat kills more people every year.

That was it. Thank you. Heat related illness causes more death than any other natural disaster each year. So definitely something to be taken seriously. And then just to be able to take an overview of this map, the way that we did the forestry management plan was dividing each section into their neighborhoods.

So you can see on the left, the neighborhoods that we were using, and then on the right, seeing the heat red, of course, being hotter, blue being the coldest, and seeing those gaps in there. I think something noteworthy is, the downtown area or the downtown neighborhood considered. Of course, like, Stern Park And Heritage, we know, and Kettering have higher canopy, and you can see it. But thinking about something like downtown where so much business and so many people, that is the kind of entrance way into the city and seeing that it is so hot. And there's other maps showing the canopy as well.

But we're seeing. Okay. A quick slide on the economics of urban forestry in Colorado. This is Colorado specific. It was from a 2021 report, that was done through University of Nebraska and the Arbor Day Foundation in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, trying to put, quantify value onto trees, looking at the property values, investment, employment, well-being, and the economy, and how trees add to the economy.

So taking those five different sectors, delineating it, being able to see what's involved for the state of Colorado specifically. So you can see the jobs. I think the one that I'll focus on for this group is the 365,000,000 annually to property values across the state. There is definitely an understanding that when you see a tree placed in a proper place that is adding to the house or adding to the shop's aesthetic, people are drawn to that and like that. But it's more than something that you're seeing and enjoying and liking.

There's actual money associated with that. And there's a ton of studies with it that are interesting that we won't go into. But this was something we were using as trying to promote canopy for the city of Littleton in a more robust, sustainable way of saying trees are more than an aesthetic. Trees are more than this kind of second thought. They are something that needs to be integral into our planning and into our local economy.

Okay. This is a picture before it was removed. They're on Main Street. You can see the lights holding up some of those dead branches. And I think I included that picture after the benefits the economic benefits of trees because there's you know, you can read the stats and you can read the studies.

But you can also look at that picture and be like, I don't want to sit under that tree. Like, this isn't something that makes me feel, like, excited to come walk in Littleton, you know, do that. So there's there's that intrinsic understanding, and then there is that very quantitative understanding. But I do wanna be diligent as someone that studied forestry to not get caught up too much in the numbers of just, you know, that reminder of, yeah, like trees actually are something that we're looking for and want to be around when they are well maintained. They are providing value, and they are providing a pull factor.

So the urban tree canopy assessment found that little 10 19.5, I've rounded up in some of those same 20% canopy cover, provides $11,000,000 in benefits to the community. That will go into more detail in the next slide. But good for business, there's the summer cooling costs. I like the stat of one well placed tree can reduce air conditioning cost alone up to 50%, much less if we're using them for things like windbreak or shading over asphalt to reduce the concrete and asphalt replacement rates and then the property values that we've already hit on. This is the benefits of trees broken down, that 11,000,000 figure, just seeing how it came from.

And a lot of that is from carbon credits. But trees are one of the or arguably are the only city asset that actually increase in value over time. So of course, we're wanting to plant new trees and everyone loves that, and that's great and important. But the preservation of our current trees really is of utmost importance if we're going to be able to actually harness and benefit some of these stored benefits, thinking about things like carbon sequestration and where you would, you know, in theory, be able to, like, buy carbon credits. It's the same of the cities wanting to kind of bank some of that in our existing canopy.

Okay. That's why trees matter. That's all. I won't go into it any further. And I'm sure you won't have questions on it, but we can talk if you want to on that. But we're gonna address a few of the concerns that came up in the last meeting when this was presented, and they wanted to just give a few case studies that could kind of help quantify it. So the first is the fee, the in lieu fee cost. I will start by clearly saying that the in lieu fee cost is not created, was not ever intended to serve as a penalization for decentivizing folks to develop in the city of Littleton. It was served as a way to incentivize the preservation of the existing canopy. So I have a lot of examples.

And the first or the one that I'll share is just outside here. We were built. They were expanding a sidewalk, and it was going to go straight through three mature fir trees. I asked if we could move the sidewalk. A few things came up.

It became difficult to move the sidewalk. And I said, that's okay. These trees are large for did the measurement, put $250 per inch, and it came to be something like $12,000. Turns out it was cheaper to move the sidewalk than removing those three trees. So that's that is a tactical example of what we're trying to do, find that canopy in loofy, right, that diameter fee high enough that it's reasonable and we're not, you know, shooting anyone in the foot of their development, but making it high enough that they're we're incentivizing creative ways to preserve the trees rather than just what's the straightest way to get this done.

Okay. So here's an example here. It's hypothetical for the sake of this. But looking at the trees, this is what is require or what we're asking contractors to do to provide this list. So they'll have species, diameter at standard height, condition, if they're retaining it or not, and then the replacement inches that we're requiring.

So you can see here, we are not requiring any replacement inches for trees that are dead, dying, in poor condition, or invasive species. So the blue spruce in very poor condition as well as the Russian olive, that is an invasive tree, you can go ahead and take those off the list. And then looking at the rest, 28 inches. So then on your right, you can see the new planting hypothetical. You have 20 inches.

So you would take eight inches that you're due times two fifty dollars, and it comes to $2,000. Importantly, this is my, as a forester, worst case scenario situation. No trees were retained. Nothing was done to preserve the existing canopy, and it still only came to $2,000. So looking at another example or same example, but if you were to retain just that one tree.

So that 12 inch bur oak, then you've lost the you've gone down your in the in the green four inches. So then in this situation, one tree was retained. We're still not charging for very poor or for invasive trees. We're still encouraging folks to plant new trees. And those are reasonable size trees.

Two inches is nursery standard. And then that goes into $0 being due. So just wanted to provide an example of kind of what it looks like and what I was working with seeing this. Usually, it worked that folks were able to retain the trees, or they had a certain situation where they were privately, their landscape architect was already wanting to plant new trees in a situation. And so we didn't have many situations where money was due.

Do you want to start on this one? Or do you want me to do this one and you start on the next one?

Yeah. I'll do this one. Okay. And then here's another example of the 30% canopy change. So 20% to 30% is indeed a it is a substantial change, and it's not something I'm trying to be dismissive of by any stretch.

But that is, as far as different municipalities go, fairly standardized. And I put it there at the bottom, but acknowledging it does require more intentional planting. But it results in a healthier, more resilient planting scope and site development. And a lot of times what comes to fruition is that one of the trees doesn't do well or one starts lacking or one dies, and then you've got that extra kind of backup from one of the trees. So it's a little bit more of trying to, look at it holistically in the long term.

So you can see the lot example. Trees needed. If we're doing only large trees here just for simplicity of a graph, you need two trees, two large trees at full canopy growth to take up to fit the 20%. It would be three to four trees in a 30% canopy. And what I like in the 30% canopy increase is that you're not only seeing a few more trees put in, but you're building in some species of diversity that comes with it.

Because you're not only gonna plant three large shade trees or four huge large shade trees because there's not usually going to be space for that. So you see that layering of some large shade trees, some small ornamentals, and then we're increasing biodiversity and interest of the spot. Maintenance, 30% does require more maintenance. Resilience has a higher resilience. So if we've got one tree gets knocked out, you haven't lost 50% of your planting.

Ecosystem benefits is pretty self explanatory where we're gonna see a greater greater bang for our buck in the 30% as far as and all of the benefits of trees, biodiversity, shade, storm water, cooling air, that kind of thing. And then the long term growth is the biggest negative, I think, in 30% is careful siding and needing to be very intentional on the species that you're selecting next to each other to prevent overcrowding. Because it might look really good today, but then it's overcrowded in ten years. So those are some of the pros and cons. From my opinion, I definitely think that the 30% is worth promoting and worth doing.

And Andrea is gonna do a few examples of what that look like in a blueprint type of situation, but just from a science background side of things of the benefits of trees. The 30% does prove to be more fruitful in a resilient planting plan.

Thank you, Mary. So like she said, we did want to just kind of run through some case studies of what staff has actually reviewed with the tree canopy and what this looks like. So the new Montview Flats development by South Metro Housing Options on Wrap Street does have a canopy coverage and open space requirement as per our downtown zone district standards of 25%. But we can see that they meet that pretty well here with just 22 with 22% coverage, total with a total planting of 23 trees and only seven of those being large shade trees. So we can see that with a requirement of 25% combination of tree canopy coverage and open space, trees really do help kind of push the needle on applicants meeting these requirements.

And then the next,

we have

Littleton Brewing, where we do have a canopy coverage requirement of 15% in the Centimeters Zone District. And that through planting 13 trees on-site, the applicant was actually able to exceed that up to nearly 20%. So we wanted to kinda show that our in our examples, as Mary was saying earlier, we are just trying to bring the code up to really more industry stand standard and that we have we are seeing examples where canopy coverage is actually not hindering applicants. Many of our applicants do see the value of trees and are actually exceeding what our minimum requirements are.

And I'll add to Littleton Brewing that canopy coverage was exceeded with only planting three large shade trees. So, of course, the more shade trees, higher the canopy percentage coverage is. So it's pretty impressive for it being, you know, a third acre lot and being able to reach that much canopy, with the majority of them being ornamental or in a few conifers for screening.

And on the following slide, can see staff wanted to make clear what it is that we proposing tonight. We wanted to provide that mix of education along with the code amendments. So we are proposing a canopy loss fee rate increase from a flat $500 fee to $250 per inch per replacement tree as well as increasing the tree canopy coverage for the MFR, NCCM, and BC zone districts as seen on your screen.

So moving forward, these are my recommendations as a consultant for the city of Littleton, but who also had my fingers in the process throughout it. Finalizing title eight, making sure that all of that gets pushed through finalized because right now, we're getting some contradictory. As we're as we're raising the bar, we're kind of contradicting ourselves, trying to make sure we get all of that language the same. And then finalizing the tree manual, determining where we want different things to be housed, making sure that it is clear on what best management practices and best, like, recommendations are versus what enforcement is looking like, and then determining where forestry enforcement is best housed. Staff is limited on being able to conduct that level of enforcement, so making sure that we're not overloading one, division or department, unrequitably to another.

And then I put that little extra bubble. Littleton cannot afford not to protect their current canopy given, kind of where we're heading in canopy loss predictions as well as these hotter summer temperatures coming up.

And so tonight, staff recommends that the planning commission recommend approval of resolution ten twenty twenty five to the city council. Thank you. And we are here for questions if you have any.

Any initial questions for staff? We'll start down here.

I don't know if this is working. There you go. Thank you, miss Dancer and staff. I want to just preface. I guess in the last example, you might want to run those slides back, the Montview and LBC numbers. It seemed to me that Montview didn't quite make the coverage requirements of 25%. They they got to 22, and that was okay.

So the downtown zone districts are different than the rest. The downtown zone districts are a combination of open space, public amenities, and tree canopy. So it's a combination of all of those combined for 25%. With tree canopy coverage alone, they were able to get to 22%.

Okay. And would this zone district be raised beyond 25% under

the This one would not be impacted by the proposed amendments. Those downtown standards do kind of live very separately from the rest of the zone district standards. So if we were to move forward with taking a look at the downtown zone districts, we would really wanna take a look at that as a downtown really as a whole.

So this this 3% miss here was just given?

No. No. No. No.

Not a miss. That is so they exceeded their open space public amenity entry canopy coverage requirements of 25%. They met 22 of that with tree canopy coverage alone. But it is a combination of open space and canopy coverage. Whereas in our other zone districts, have open space requirements, and then we have standard tree canopy recover requirements. Those are separately. Those aren't able to be combined outside of the downtown zone districts.

They had significant open space that made it exceed the 25% over and above the 22% that

And that's then that's unique to the downtown Yes. Parcels. Okay. And then LBC got to 19% over its 15% requirement at the time.

That is correct.

And that is changing?

So staff is recommending that the the canopy requirements be increased by a minimum of 5% in each zone district. The Centimeters zone district would see an increase from 15 to 20% with this proposed code amendment.

So under the new numbers, you would have made them have to get another tree?

They would have had to increase just a little bit. And in terms of how that might happen, Mary may be able

to speak best to that. For them already having received 19%, and we're looking for 20%, They had 13 total trees, but only three of those at maturity are shade trees. So they could have swapped one kept 13 trees and added one more shade tree, had nine shade trees, four or four shade trees, nine ornamental trees, or cut out two trees, but just had larger mature species.

Well, okay. And then, back you were speaking about the value of to property values, private homes. The $365,000,000 is added to the value of property in private homes. It it seemed to me when we're looking at the canopy requirements in the code here that none of this applies to private homes. The multifamily residential CMU that nothing in this amendment process addresses private homes.

Did I get that right? The great value to for the city or to property values is are we not going to make any requests? I mean, I think the vast majority of land in this city is actually private home.

You're right. Right.

I mean, by 85%. Mhmm. And if we want to increase canopy, is it not make sense to include private homes in the equation of canopy requirements?

Yeah. I think that's a great question. As a tree lover, I'm like, absolutely, increase private homes. It becomes a little bit of a slippery slope. And the conversation that we had when we were deciding canopy coverage requirements was where is overstep from local government.

So I think trying to educate tree benefits will kind of speak for themselves. And so I think trying to educate folks and encouraging them to be planting trees, the forestry subsidy program that Little Ten has can go towards planting or preserving a current tree, with a very small percentage that goes towards removing hazardous trees that code is requiring. But the majority of it is going towards preserving and planting new trees. So rather than and I necessarily disagree. But I think focusing first on development, I think creating kind of the standard of tree retention.

This is a tree Littleton has been a Tree City USA for thirty six years. I think that a lot of the the residents already have a lot of care for the the urban forest and their trees. Supporting them to take care of them, supporting housing costs are expensive, how can we lower education costs rather than increasing, How difficult it is to own a home here? That was kind of the balance of the conversation that we had. I don't think that it would be off the table as far as a recommendation in the future if the city of Littleton is able to provide substantial support to be able to offer those prorated or discounted services to the community, would be my opinion on that.

But just you mentioned that requiring trees on private homes would add to the cost, And that equally applies to private development of all kinds.

Right.

And it just that was a concern I raised at the last hearing, and I don't see that really addressed. We continue to it seems like this set of amendments really puts the onus on just the commercial development side. When you're building a new home on a private site, you could be asked to put in a certain amount of trees because you're building a new home. But we're hesitating to do that because it adds to the cost of home construction, and that has its negatives. And I raised that question at the last hearing because I think it has the same basic effect on all development.

And it's just a concern I would like to see addressed equitably in what we do here. And not it's just too bad. I guess I wanted to make sure that we were only we exactly are not going to do it on anything but the commercial development. The other question I had was, you showed photographs of the tree canopy in the Main Street area. It seemed to me that nothing in these code amendments really directs planting in the that was the public right of way, basically, and the city removed those trees because they're city basically, city property.

Mhmm. These code amendments apply to new development and wouldn't actually put new trees on Main Street or anything like that. Right? It doesn't address Right. Public right of way planting.

No. I mean, this could certainly be met through a combination of public right of way plantings. We do have street tree plantings in these zone districts as well as in the downtown zone districts, which, again, are not affected by this proposed amendment. There is no new proposed development on Main Street, and that would be incredibly difficult. It is our historic preservation district.

Much of the code does not necessarily the standards for new development are much harder to meet in the downtown, again, because we do not have new development in the downtown zone districts. But this code amendment is not looking at those minimum planting requirements within the downtown. It is focusing more on, those higher intensity, zone districts.

And I'll add to that. The forestry management plan is the internal has houses part of the internal planting goals. So anything that would be right of way median strips, pocket parks, parks that the city's maintaining. Not in code. That's in our goals, not in the development code. But any new builds that are happening within the city of Little 10 park amendments, the tree preservation, and tree credit is all associated within that.

Sure. But things like the penalty for removing trees, I mean, the diameter of the trees that were removed, let's say that we had a business improvement district that maintained our downtown, and they removed this level of trees, the fee there would have been 34 times eight inches times $250 They would have been levied quite a fee for that action that

For the diseased honey locust downtown?

Oh, I guess it wouldn't because they were diseased.

Right. So, yeah, for for something like that, they would have been those trees were deemed a hazard and were required removals, and that was at the city of Littleton's expense. Yeah. Given the sadness of the situation, the city took that.

I guess that's all my questions.

Thank you. Thanks.

Hi. I was just hoping we've kind of walked through the why, but I was hoping we could walk back to what we're actually changing. Is it just the chart in terms of Canopy coverage? And then also just wondering, you you know, just relative to similar communities like Littleton, what what precedents are or what precedents are there for this sort of these sort of Cambridge coverage goals and anything like that that we can speak to paint a broader picture?

Thank you. So

I think Mary's doing some background research on the second part of that question. But what you see on the screen is what is being proposed to be amended today. It is just that table in 10/01/1936 as well as that in lieu fee.

I have this pulled up, and I'm trying to find it. Give me one second. But I would say as far as other communities, having canopy percentage goals is very common. The percentages change depending on it's incredibly nuanced in what the city is maintaining versus what the public is maintaining. So for the city of Littleton, any tree that is in the right of way adjacent to a private property is the private property owners.

So that tree would be part of their canopy preservation and part of the retention goals for that. Looking at some extreme examples, like the city of Austin, Texas, they require and city of Portland require permits and removal for any tree on any public or private property. So if you're a homeowner and you have a tree that is bothering you because you wanna build a deck or, you know, whatever, fill in the blank of what your reason is, the city of Little Tin would not be impeaching on anything in the backyard. They would only come in to the point when it is in the public right of way. So a median strip tree in city of Littleton's case.

Like areas, there is in the forestry management plan hold on. I was trying to multitask, but I don't have that in me. In the forestry management plan, it compares similar situations, to what it what our canopy cover goals are. It's on page 25 if you're interested. But looking at, communities with similar sizes, it shows their different goal the canopies that they have.

So it ranges from 26% to 19%, being from, like, California to Illinois. It gets kind of it gets kind of nuanced in the climate conversation. So looking at what different cities here are doing, it's really variable because so looking at someone like Aurora, they have canopy percentage goals and requirements, but they maintain trees in the right of way, including, like, 20 feet into someone's front yard. So, you know, pros and cons, you don't have to pay for any work being done on it, but the city can also remove the tree in your front yard without you having autonomy in that. Ultimately, what we felt through when we were having this conversation was we wanna find the balance of how are we supporting the general city of Littleton.

Like, how are we supporting Littleton as a whole rather than getting too caught up in the weeds of certain things in that kind of back to the previous point of focusing on development. That is why we chose development. So we're setting these goals based on industry standards that other like sized cities are doing that have codes with the right of way clause that Littleton has. Is that too broad? Perfectly broad. Thank you. I I will look up and see if I can get I had a few examples of folks that have 30 can

give one little example. I used to live in South Miami. And I was having a child. And I was building a pool in my backyard, because it is hot in South Miami. And as I was building my pool, I had two trees that had to come down in my backyard. And I had to be permitted, and I had to pay for each of those trees to come down. It cost me $1,000 And this was twenty years ago. So it's very common in other municipalities, and we aren't doing that in private property. So I think it says a lot for the city.

Yeah. A couple questions. So, I guess. It sounds like I mean, we are doing this to private property, just not Individual home private property.

So as of today and not included in this proposal, the NB zone districts are not included. So ACR, LLR, SLR, MLR are not required. They do have minimum tree plantings that they have to meet according to the zone districts, but they do not have tree canopy coverage requirements as of today.

Yeah. I mean, I'm going to argue that I think that all of these are private property.

Yes. They're all private property. I apologize. There may have been some interchanging of language up here, but it is the zone districts that we're looking

at. Yeah. Okay. So why did multifamily residential go up by 10% versus everybody else by 5%?

Mainly just because it was an area that we saw that there was a potential for canopy that wasn't being met. So looking at some things that were in, like, commercial and the corridor, there it was harder to meet the canopy goals there, which is why they were inherently lower. And then we saw multifamily residential. There was a lot of potential planting places that weren't being used. And in our urban tree canopy assessment, they did a very high level potential planting location site. And most of them were falling in residential, where there's locations that don't require, you know, digging up hardscape naturally.

What specifically makes made the commercial areas harder? I think preexisting con preexisting hardscape primarily. So basically, they just because they have bigger parking lots.

Because it was already built out. So then when it's looking at multifamily residential, there was already green space within that.

So but but what's are we comparing the ages of of when because I know Littleton has some older multifamily residential Mhmm. That doesn't have much in the way of off street parking because it was built so long ago that it wasn't really a consideration to put in significant off street parking. And now we've got these commercial developments that did put in significant off street parking. And we're kind of retro act it sounds like we're kind of retroactively targeting these multifamily residential builds because of how they used to be built rather than how they need to be built now.

So we are not targeting any existing development. This would only be for new development.

Sorry. We're basing our targets based off of how things have been built in the past regardless of how things need to be built in the future.

Right.

So we we do require now significant off street parking for multifamily residential if it's not within the transit oriented corridor.

Mhmm.

Right? That we are basing our areas where we could plant trees based off of multifamily residential that was built fifty years ago before we had the demand for parking that we have now. It seems disproportionate to me that we said, oh, well, you've got a lot of green space right now, so you could plant more trees. Except if that same build was to be done today, it wouldn't have it would require significantly more hardscape because of those parking requirements that have been levied since that building was built.

Right. That makes sense to me. I think my tree answer and I'll pass it to you if you have a more development answer. But the tree answer would be, we need trees where people are most concentrated. So looking at the overlay of vulnerable populations in Littleton, which is a map that's on the forestry management plan, it's pretty similar to the heat map that was on one of these slides, if you want to get to that.

Yeah.

By looking at that, we were just trying to encourage excuse me, not encourage require shade in areas where people are living. Because that's where we have vulnerable populations, and that is where we have issues with tree inequity as far as canopy coverage goals. So I hear what you're saying, and maybe you have more to speak to that. But from a tree only perspective, it was looking at how are we making sure that we're taking care of you know, trees don't matter if we're not prioritizing our citizens. So how are we taking care of the citizens first and foremost? And that is often where, you know, you're living and spending the majority of your

time. Sure.

But that might be really oversimplifying it from a community development, so

I'm

sorry

if so. I worry that we talk about how expensive housing is. And one of the things that and it's come up before, and it came up, I think, too, with the South Metro housing options that they were doing on or, you know, the rezone they did on West Littleton Boulevard where we were talking about parking minimums. Right? And I think in that case, they had a you know, their lender was requiring them to do additional parking minimums beyond slightly beyond what the city was.

But there's a certain amount here where every space of land that you devote to something like off street parking is going to drive up the cost of housing because it's the land, there's a big land cost, right? And saying that we have to keep a certain amount of this open or we're going to wind up basically with trees in parking lot islands, which I suppose meets the canopy requirements, but it's not necessarily what it it's not I don't know that that's necessarily the benefit to our citizens either. Like, when we're looking at this Montview Flats, right, I guess what I'm I guess what I'm what I'm getting at here is does multifamily residential have a flexibility option like this downtown does where I can say, alright. I'm not getting to the 25% with tree canopy coverage, but that's because I'm gonna set aside this amount of space for a picnic area or a bocce ball court or something that's going to benefit and be a citizen space?

I will speak first to saying parking lot trees are actually incredibly valuable for a city because anything that is providing that shade coverage over a dark impervious surface is lowering the ambient heat temperature by that's where you're seeing that huge, fluctuation gap that, was in the urban heat island effect. So though it's not a tree that we're gonna play on swing on, like, it's not like a childhood tree, they're incredibly valuable for a city's development when they're given a certain you know, the proper root grow root zone to grow in. So that would be the first thing I would say. The second thing and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Huell UC has a clause that if it's or maybe you correct me if I'm wrong. The the Huell UC has a clause that if it is impossible to meet the canopy goals, like, because of slope, like extreme slope or I'm remembering extreme slope as the example that was given in anything that was Title 10, then you're not penalized for that.

Right. I don't know the exact language. I'd have to go back and find it. But there is discretion.

Yeah. Thank you.

But again, does this going back to this Montview Flats example, it was supposed to be a 25%, right? But it got to 22% and that

was I would like to correct that. I'm sorry. Before we continue down this question. Their canopy, they do not have necessarily a minimum canopy coverage requirement. It is a combination of open space, public amenities, and canopies. So they were able to meet their get near the minimum of the combination of those three with tree canopy alone. They far exceed that with the rest of it.

So right, let me rephrase then. For a multifamily residential, can they meet that 30% through tree canopy open space and amenities like Montview Flats could?

So in the MFR, the open space requirements and the tree canopy coverage requirements are separate. But the code does have exemptions. And to just read off what it states, One of the exemptions that applies is that the tree canopy coverage requirement cannot reasonably be met because of a lack of rooting space or soil to accommodate healthy tree growth. Another exemption exemption is the planting of additional trees will require removal of existing pavement used to meet other code requirements, and the exemption is the minimum necessary to meet these criteria. So certainly, there are some site constraints, there is flexibility in the code for applicants that are not able to meet the minimum requirements.

Where is the how is this requirement for the Montview flats, this you can do it through a combination of stuff? Where is that documented?

That is in the downtown zone district standards.

Is there anything that prevents us from applying that same downtown zone district to multifamily residential, that combination approach?

That would be a much larger conversation that staff has not prepared for. We do not have that code path currently. We would have to do a we would have to go back and do another code amendment in order to build that in. They are located in two very different sections of the code. Staff could not apply the standards of the downtown zone district to any other zone districts. Districts.

Okay. Because I'll I'll be honest. I big kind of the big concern here for me in a sense is that, this seems to kind of unfairly target multifamily residential. It doesn't talk about any of the other neighborhood districts. It only talks about multifamily residential, and then it talks about commercial.

Okay? And I'm not in disagreement necessarily with the commercial because I think we all know Costco has the money to plant trees and they can do plenty of those, you know, plenty of the parking lot trees and that's where we all park when we go to Aspen Grove, let's be honest, because you want to be in the shade. Right? So I don't necessarily have a big objection to the commercial applications that are being suggested here. I do have an issue that multifamily is being included when we're not talking about any other kind of residential district, And that we're not actually also applying some kind of more flexible approach that says, hey, you know, we're gonna put a big we're we're gonna put a splash pad in the middle of our apartment complex for families, or you know, in the middle of our townhome district for families.

But, oh, wait, we can't do that because otherwise we're not gonna have space for the parking lot and the apartment complex and the trees. And I don't think it sounds to me like there's an exemption in our code right now, you know, where it's like, you have to tear out the parking lot. Right? Well, no. I'm not tearing out a parking lot because this is a new build.

I just wanna put in more family friendly amenities rather than take up all my excess space with trees. And that's I don't get the you know, I I see that flexibility in the downtown district, and I think that's what we should be applying to our other multifamily residential options so that we can give them the flexibility of both, yes, having amenities for the people and the families that live there and also still, you know, still have tree canopy requirements but also then, you know, give them that flexibility to meet those needs. And not just through, I mean ideally the other thing would be trees and tree canopies, but, you know, to maybe prioritize certain things like native shrubs that not only provide that heat island, you you get some relief from that heat island effect because it's not a paved space, but you're gonna provide additional benefits for native birds, pollinators. So, okay. I think you've answered my question, I think, as far as what we have in terms of flexibility today for this.

But I know if there's a way to make that I don't know if there's a way to address the flexibility that I think we need to see or with multifamily residential in this particular change. Unless I'm missing something, so thanks.

I will speak to that quickly on the benefits of trees, and then you can speak to the flexibility of what that looks like because that's out of my understanding. A big part so there is something about the tree equity score. It was done through American Forests, and we used that a lot in our forestry management plan. Littleton, unfortunately, is not unique that our equity score is exactly. It overlays vulnerable populations using a few different things, but basically and and it overlays it with Canopy.

And our Canopy map is exactly a wealth map in the city of Littleton. So when we were looking at that, that, of course, is an issue from my perspective as a tree manager over, you know, populations as a whole. So we had to acknowledge that truth of, okay. We've got neighborhoods that are and the example in the forestry management plan, if you wanna look it up, is on page 19. But we've got a neighborhood in North Broadway that is adjacent to the Kettering neighborhood, and the gap is a 25 change.

So we're looking at Kettering that is single family homes, have a lot of canopy, quite frankly, have a lot of money to be able to take care of their canopy, and then comparing it to Northeast Littleton where we have primarily multifamily not primarily, but a large amount of multifamily units that are housing more people, a denser population, a poorer population, and therefore, trees. So that's an issue that we targeted very loudly in our urban forestry management plan to make sure that whatever we do, whatever recommendations we do going forward and I don't I cannot speak to development enough because that is, again, for sure is my background. But where I'll be very loud for as long as I can be is making sure that any of our code is not speaking or serving one population higher than it is the general population. If you are a City Of Littleton resident that's paying city of Littleton taxes, you deserve the equal amount of canopy because it's a public asset. It would be the same as us deprioritizing paving roads in certain areas because they were quieter or less didn't show up to public meetings or, you know, whatever it might be.

So I think that that disparaging gap was something that was the biggest motivator in how are we going to target these low equity low tree equity scored neighborhoods, and how can we pivot that to be able to then like, we found our issue. This is a weak point for us. How can we pivot that to be able to have code that supports it? So that was from my side, that was where the conversation started, which was before it even got to Comdev and when it actually came into code changes and that sort of thing. But that was the motive behind it, to at least share that. And then the rest of it was kind of out of my hands.

So just to clarify, I was kinda going through the code just to verify what I am what we're looking at with the MFR zone district. The MFR zone or the, yeah, the MFR zone district actually does not have open space requirements that I am at least able to find at this point in time in the code. It is sometimes a little bit of a game of hide and seek here, but we do not have open space requirements. We also do not have maximum building coverage for the MFR zone districts. We do have understory plantings that do include shrubs, and then we have some specified or tree plantings along right of way as well as in parking lots.

But here, there would not be a conflict between an open space area and the tree canopy coverage requirements. So I did want to clear up that statement that I had made earlier. And I apologize. I know there was a first part of that question. Could you repeat that for me?

I mean, I think I was just sort of generally asking whether or not multifamily residential could have the option to meet these requirements through a combination coverage like the downtown district and what prevented us from from suggesting that. Right? Because, again, I I know I understand. I'm not arguing. I like trees.

I've planted a lot of them myself on my property. But, again, I have the open space to do that. But, I think we're I think we're missing an opportunity here in a way to say that, to to apply a a combination requirement like we have downtown to these multifamily residentials to say, hey. You know, you don't have to necessarily just plant parking lot trees, but you have to do something, right, that's either parking lot trees or you can meet it through a combination of open space and trees. Or what was the third item that they could add in in that downtown? Public amenities. Public amenities. Yeah. So or community amenities, maybe. So

Okay. Well, thank you for that presentation. I have quite a few questions, too. As you can imagine, I'm a landscape architect and I've worked with the city foresters office in Denver for and against them actually. So I'm pretty familiar with forestry requirements and standards.

I think all of us recognize the value of trees in the urban environment, the urban forest, and would certainly welcome any ordinance revisions that clarify or strengthen those. So thank you for that. I did want to address some of the things because I think Commissioner Roethlisberger and Commissioner Santana had some really good points that I think may be outside the scope of this, but maybe for future ordinance or revision. One is, I really do agree that we should have some standards for single family residences for both tree preservation and new planting. I think there is new planting, I think you mentioned, the site plan review process, which we don't normally see because it's single family residential.

But in order to get to a 50% coverage, I mean, that's very aspirational. I think really not realistic. I think that's the idea, right? Because most of the zone districts don't have any coverage requirements more than 20 or 30% to begin with. And, yeah, 50% coverage would be really difficult to achieve, I think.

That said, I think it's okay to keep it in there as aspirational. And then, you know, addressing the question about multifamily residential, maybe there is some challenges getting to that canopy coverage, but I don't think it's either or. Like if you tree planting, especially canopy tree planting, doesn't require a lot of space. It does require some space for root volume, but the canopy itself can spread over larger areas. So and I don't know any I've done a lot of multifamily projects.

I don't know of any of them that would want like a splash picnic area or a bocce court that isn't shaded. So and trees provide the best shade. I mean, you could build structures that provide shade too. But I think to have, a minimum coverage of shade trees is a reasonable ask of developers, even if they're providing multifamily. And I really don't think it adds much to the cost of those.

I think that's the concern is we don't want to increase the cost so we have less accessibility to multifamily. They're more affordable. So I'm down to my questions now. I guess the first question is, to use the example of the Littleton Brewing Company and their coverages, how much of that canopy coverage that they met, the 19%, was from existing trees that were preserved? Or was it all new trees?

Great question. Give me one second. I believe it was all new trees, but Andrea sent that to me recently.

We just received an affirmative from Jared Chipman, but it is all new trees.

Thank you. Yeah, I guess that leads me to believe that, you know, the importance of protecting existing trees, a lot of people don't recognize that. And the value associated per caliper inch that you have in here of $250 per inch, it's really not linear. Once you get above a tree size that's more than four or even six inches, that skyrockets. And I have a good friend that's an arborist who just did tree appraisals in the Ravenna neighborhood.

And he found cottonwoods that were 60 inches caliper that were worth over $200,000 in appraised value. And that's per the ISA standard. So those large trees have much more value than that $250 an inch. So I would suggest and maybe this is a future revision because you have a number in here, but I don't know where the $500 per tree or the $250 per inch came from. But that changes over time.

My experience is quite a bit higher than that right now. It's probably about $400 an inch for trees planted with their warranty and all that. So you're not really replacing a tree for that. You're charging a fee in lieu, which might incentivize somebody to just pay the fee in lieu instead of doing something else, right? So something to consider for the future, I guess. And I guess my question is that your experience as a forestry that that should be higher. Yes.

I agree. The tree appraisal ISA's tree appraisal model is the most accurate you can do as far as putting monetary value to a tree. It's very involved. If you have a friend that's done it, it's kind of difficult to get the certification for doing it, but each process takes a long time. So the 250 an inch was, you know, kind of a baseline to start with that.

I will say that I have in my kind of ongoing list of recommendations is to is to change that to consider, changing that where you reach a certain heritage tree or specimen tree over a certain diameter. And then anything over 20 inches or whatever it might be is then upped the price for because of the like you said, the and for something to be over 20 inches in Colorado was kind of a big deal, or in Denver Metro was kind of a big deal. So making sure that we're doing our due diligence to incentivize the preservation increasingly with those heritage trees or historic trees.

Yeah. Where is our tree protection requirements in the code? Are they in section eight?

Currently in section 10.

10. Yeah. Okay.

Because I was kind of horrified when I saw a neighbor recently excavating within the root zone of a Cottonwood tree. It's about a 50 inches caliber tree, and they had not only Rexfiem, but they were using heavy equipment to do that. And I don't think that but it's in their backyard. So there's no there's really no protection requirement for that. Right?

Correct.

Hopefully, doesn't fall on my house. Let's see. Are there root zone requirements, volume requirements in the current code? That doesn't change with this, though.

I think that they are being upped. I think it has been recommended that the routes and requirements have been increased specifically for, like, tree islands. But they're in chapter 10. I know the current, current soil area is within ten one three. But I think that within the tree manual, we recommended to increase those. So that'll be not today, but in on the horizon along with what

you're trying to and treat. In this code, this ordinance.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Correct.

Let's see. I had a question about you have d DSH in there. I'm familiar with DBH, which is diameter breast height. Is TSH an ISA

It's an ISA change. Okay. I also grew up with DBH. Really hard habit to break at this But it is an ISA change. So I wouldn't, care either way on changing that, but our contractor who did the code updates with appropriate language, like changing tree tremors to arborist, was saying DBH is kind of we're losing that because standard height is 4.5. So just creating that standard.

Okay. Well, I appreciate that it's spelled out here. Is that diameter per standard height?

Is that what Yes. The Standard height, yeah. Yeah.

All right.

I guess, yes, I had the same concern about the percent increasing the percentages required for tree coverage, especially on infill properties because we are looking to establish more density in some of the mixed use areas. So I think that's where Commissioner Routhisberger's concern came from on the multifamily. Let's see. How do we address the requirements to irrigate trees, especially in the public well, the city tree, public right of way? Have to be irrigated from the adjacent private property.

Right?

I don't know if you've gotten into this yet. Good luck. Is ideally, it would be the adjacent property owner. It has been kind of patchworked historically.

Historically. So there's not any requirements for trees in the right of way as far as irrigation requirements that are existing. In development, there are irrigation requirements associated. And in that situation, it would be to the

adjacent adjacent property owner. Mhmm. But currently, it's kinda mixed bag, specifically on Littleton Boulevard. It's patchy. Okay.

Alright.

Let's see. I guess that was all I had. I think, you know, some of it's addressed here. I'm I think I'm pretty satisfied with what's addressed in this ordinance change, but I'm interested to see what the future brings for making this more clear and more robust. So thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Male I did have one question since it came up a couple of times, and it's okay if it's not readily available because we still have to open the public comment portion of the hearing, so there will be time to look it up. But just wondering specifically what is the minimum tree and shrub and or landscape planting requirement for single family detached in Littleton. I've seen a variety of different cities deal with that differently. One place requires one shade tree plus four shrubs per single family detached home. And if you've got that on the tip of your tongue, please share it. If not, we can open the pub.

I certainly do. So in the ACR zone district, it is eight trees required. And I guess I while we're these zone districts don't discuss a percentage ratio ratio necessarily, but would like to kind of pair this with also the max building coverage for these zone districts. So in the ACR, it's eight trees required with a 17% max building coverage. In the LLR, we have six trees with a max building coverage of I apologize.

I had this table up and have spent some time going back and forth between code sections. Here we go. So LLR is a required planting of six trees with maximum building coverage of 33%. MLR is four trees with a max building coverage of 40 or 60% if you're a single family detached or if you are a cottage court, respectively. SLR is three trees with a max building coverage of 45% for all housing types with the exception of cottage court, which building coverage increases to 60%.

So it is scaled according to kind of relative lot size.

Alright. Thank you. Appreciate that. I will say anecdotally that meeting that three tree requirement on my 5,000 square foot lot with overhead power lines, a water line in the front yard and a sewer line in the rear yard and a detached garage would be virtually impossible. But thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you, everyone, for all the questions.

I have one more question. Okay. Commissioner Thank you. Staff, could you roll back to the slide that was the pie chart of the I think it was open space, tree canopy. Yes.

Had a question about those fade outs. This one. So we have a tree canopy there, and then the the green section, 32%, you said that was things like our parks open space. When we that you don't count the trees in that towards our canopy.

So they delineated that because though any pervious surface is better than an impervious surface, There's not a list of benefits of, grass open space shrubbery and the same, like, eco benefits as trees. So we extracted that from having, you know, grass miscellaneous, so open spaces. And I'm thinking of the example near, the Platte. That area is was primarily in the green section of it, and that is how it's made to be. So we are comfortable not trying to increase the canopy of it, but we wanted those two extracted to say, like, this is a healthy ecosystem for this situation.

Are no trees at all in the 32%

Correct.

Number? Mhmm. Okay. That's just bare dirt.

And that's done through well, not bare. Bare soil is Well, very small. Yeah. So it's it's vegetated, but it could be shrubs.

Okay. I just wasn't sure if trees were in that section or not. Okay. Thanks.

Yeah. Not double dabbling.

If if

I could add, I think that's a good point because impervious surface I don't know how you separate them because impervious surface like a parking lot, you have the tree canopies over the top of it. So your percentages really add up to more than 100%, Right?

Correct. Even

in the low lying grass areas, there's tree canopies over the top.

Yes.

So but you have to somehow divide that for the purpose of the pie chart.

Yes. It was all done aerially, so thinking from a bird's eye view. So if it is a tree, a right tree in the right place that is covering a large area of impervious surface, from this study, this would only be looking at the canopy. So if anything, tree canopy is erring on a little higher estimated, whereas grass low lying impervious surface would be a little lower. Because if you were able to from a worm's eye view, we have a larger amount of impervious surface. But with that tree covering it, since it's helping with collecting rainwater and with, absorbing heat, we're still counting that as tree canopy coverage due to the benefits of that that tree is providing.

Well, with that, I'll open the public comments Yeah.

If I may. I'm sorry. So I'd like to request a a five minute break. So when we were looking at the final packet that was posted online, one of the things that I noticed is that when you export a Word document with red lines to Adobe, it removes red lines. It just automatically accepts them. And so, our clerk has printed out the actual copies. The version that has been posted online includes the additional information, but it removed all the struck through areas. And so we'd like to give the commissioners a well, I mean, if you

need more than five minutes, but at least five minutes to take a look

at those revisions just so that you're aware of what you will be deciding on today.

Alright. Thank you. And I think I'll call for a ten minute recess for us to review this. Give us a minute per page. Alright.

We are back from recess having reviewed the red line version of the document. Do any of the members of the planning commission have questions about the the red lines?

So, just one question. Now it doesn't look like it's part of the red line, but, on line one ninety nine or that last line of the plant material standards, subsection ten one three dot six dot b under plant material standard bullet point two at the very end, where it's talking about no more than 5% of the species, 10% genus, 20% of the same family war. Like, just drops? Is that are are the trees fighting?

That's probably just an error. Thank you

for providing that comment to us.

Is there supposed to be more to that that we're missing?

Or

It's it's likely what is currently written in the code.

Oh, okay.

What line did you say that was?

199 on the printout. Yeah. Any

other questions? Alright. So continue where we were just before the recess, and I will open the public comment portion of the public hearing at 08:11PM. And we do have one member of the public signed up to speak, Pam Chadbourne.

Yeah. So am Pam Chadbourne. I'm still a little block or two from here. I have a few comments. One is that I don't see any review or collaboration with the environmental stewardship board in this process at all or in this product. And I've spoken about this before from a systems point of view. The city is siloed and stovepipe to an extreme degree and a fatal degree. I mean, we are not accomplishing the documents or outcomes or code changes we need without collaboration between all of our parts. So the lack of input from environmental stewardship board or the Highline Canal Conservancy Studies and Plans to me is a glaring problem here. I need to see those connections.

I think you do, too. I think all of us need to. It strengthens what these outcomes are. And of course, this should be described in terms of anticipated outcomes or impacts by modeling. I am absolutely sure that there are models of some type between code language and what the outcomes are, and we don't see any of that. And we've got to see that. That's the basic job of having a technical staff or consultants. That's what they should be doing. I don't see that in here, and I'm going to tell you I know I don't understand those outcomes or impacts from this code language. And that should just be basic planning process.

That is the job, to understand what the outcomes are of the proposed code language. Not my job to figure it out. It really, really isn't. And so that's another problem I have with this, too. Also, there's no wildlife representation at all in the city's products.

And honestly, I believe part of the point of vegetation plantings is to have life as a result. We need continuous wildlife habitat in the city, or we're going to have a sterile place. Maybe some of these trees and vegetation won't even survive because they won't have the corridors of continuous environments. So I don't see that either, and the city needs to get that going. I also want to see the integration of trees with the rest of vegetation, and you all have already mentioned that.

Where are the bushes and shrubs? And we live in a natural prairie and grassland. And so I want to see the city's overall plan. That contributes to green space as well. I would like a landscape manual or an understanding with a model of the outcomes in terms of heat and other things in wildlife. And so that's what I think is appropriate. I don't understand the motive for this. It kind of looks very focused on something a builder wanted. We've got to get the whole picture and work down from that. I do not want excuses for multifamily residential.

I'm absolutely certain they can provide it, and the city should be providing grants if they can't, not putting trees in multifamily residential. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Is there any other members of the public who would like to speak regarding this item? Seeing none, I will close the public comment portion of the public hearing at 08:15PM and call for a motion and a second, and then we shall discuss.

Okay. Now I can make that motion, I think. I moved to approve PC resolution 10 dash twenty twenty five recommending approval to City Council of code text amendments to title 10 regarding certain greenscape provisions and the tree canopy fee.

Motion by Commissioner Coronado. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Roethlisberger. So Discussion. We'll start with Russell Roethlisberger.

Okay. So it's not that I I don't think multifamily residential can put in trees. I think they should I I I do think that I do think that on some level, it's kind of not right that we are singling that one neighborhood district out versus the other neighborhood districts. I think for an update, I think if we're going to update multifamily residential, we should look at the other districts within that neighborhood district umbrella because multifamily residential is part of section ten four two, which is our neighborhood districts and uses. So that's multifamily residential, acreage residential, large lot residential, medium lot residential, and small lot residential.

So I'm not sure why we've gone through this update to single that, you know, to one, not include all of our neighborhood districts given that there is so much private residential land and why we've singled out that one type of private residential land rather than addressing all of the residential land. I understand that it's that our current tree canopy coverage is not equitable. I think that I think that that's something that it feels like we are we're just making that harder though to some extent is that new multifamily residential is going to be more expensive because they are going to have to deal with this 10% increase versus a 5% increase. And addressing that equity is something that kind of has to happen on a retroactive scale, not necessarily going forward. So I guess what I'm thinking at this point is that I would like to remove the update to the multifamily residential minimum tree canopy coverage until we address it with all residential district updates.

And then if we remove and potentially floating amendment to remove that from this change, keeping the neighborhood commercial corridor mixed, business commercial, and all the other red lines to this resolution, but potentially just, yeah, again, like I said, addressing all of our residential tree canopy requirements in a comprehensive way.

Alright. Yeah. I I agree that this ordinance is an incremental change to our policies. It clarifies updates and strengthens our current code. So I'm generally in support of this ordinance.

But I do agree that we can go much farther and this is just one incremental step in improving the city's requirements for landscape in general. If we want to meet those goals that are established, especially for shade coverage. I think we have to go much farther. Trees should be recognized as infrastructure and should be invested as such. I do believe that development should carry the cost of that, and I think grants where they can't.

And I also agree that it's not just about trees, that it's about the whole site, its design, its ground covers, its shrubs, its habitat, its responsible ways of paving, sustainable ways of paving. And also that these should not just apply to new development, but to alterations, significant alterations. And maybe they already do. But some of the discussion about like, well, there's no new development downtown. Well, there's a lot of renovation alterations going on there that could carry some of that cost, especially where the city doesn't have to cover it or that general city taxpayers shouldn't have to cover that.

So I generally support it, but I think it's just one step in the right direction.

Thank you.

Commissioner Santana?

Thank you, Craig. And, Aaron, I shared those concerns. First thing I'd like to say is I I share the values we're talking about here. Trees are a positive and important part of the city and its land use. I agree with the intention to increase the amount of trees found within the city.

I don't want anyone to debate that I don't share that view. However, I find the the approach here problematic, and I'm gonna give you some of my thoughts on why I don't like this approach. This puts a heavy onus for the mitigation of tree canopy loss on new developments. And by heavy, I mean extremely heavy compared to everyone else. And it does so in a way that, to me, doesn't seem equitable.

I mean, commissioner Roethlisberger mentioned MFR being the only residential new build zone that was an example of that. The exemption of our DTN zones is another. This is a I agree with commissioner Coronado. This is a step and but piecemeal, and it seems unbalanced to me and not equitably applied. Secondly, I find the use of penalties rather than incentives.

I mean, this case, rather than incentives are the mechanism of action, whether it's fees for removal of a tree or the sizing penalties. It's basically a penalty system. I find this approach to be heavy on the stick and very lacking on the carrot. I would prefer to see the old canopy percentages maintained rather than raised. The example shown with LBC and the and the low income housing project were just barely able to make the cut of the percents that they were required on the old code.

They did meet it through the jujitsu of open space and canopy combinations in in the South Metro Housing Options study, and the LBC did just make their cut by a few percents. But should we raise these numbers, these become even more difficult to achieve. And that is that is something that concerns me because it's already difficult enough to develop in Littleton. I think there is a lot to be said for the value of shade and the value of trees in in the abstract, but there are always trade offs. I mean, buildings are shelter and provide shade, and they also cast long shadows.

In any urban heat scape, there's there there are trade offs. When we when we keep things far apart because we have lots of open space requirements between buildings, we increase the amount of car driving required to go between spaces. We we gain a lot in terms of value and walkability when buildings are closer together and those open spaces are closed. Even the example of removing three fir trees and moving the sidewalk, You know, one of the principles of a walkable city is that there is not a lot of deflection in walking. Straight sidewalks provide I mean, our main street is a good example.

You don't zigzag around. If you go on Curtis or other streets where we've taken the sidewalks and moved them around trees, they become a kind of obstacle course for people with disabilities, and walking becomes slightly disincentivized. The more you do that, the more people choose other modes, often carbon generating modes. So it did cost $12,000 to take out the trees, so we deflected the sidewalk. I find those moves to be not always as straightforwardly valuable.

And again, it's justified by a fee structure instead of other concerns about how we build a place, an urban place. I would have preferred to see when I say that we maintain the old percents, what would we one option we could do is to give those who invest in our community bonuses for going beyond. In other words, we maintain the same numbers. But if you put more trees in, if you increase the canopies to those percents, could be a reduction in your developer impact fee. Because the argument is that trees provide value, both personal and social and environmental value, but they also provide monetary value.

So the city is gaining monetary value if somebody puts in 10% more trees on their site. So why is their developer developer impact fee could be reduced by the value of the trees they're adding. Say they go 30% more trees than they were required. You create a system where people look for ways to lower the cost of their project and do the right thing. This system is not directed in that way.

More critically, what would move the needle for far more in the quality of trees and canopy coverage would be a program of infill on existing hardscape, on existing parcels, such as the giant parking lots we see around Woodlawn. I would have greatly preferred to see staff look for a program that brings trees to the to the things that are not being developed because development is a very small percentage of any particular moment in a city's year. So most of our land is basically an approach of infill on those existing parcels, Whether that's use of developer impact fees or other things from a new development to go in and put trees where we have so many vast expanses of asphalt would have been a great thing to do. And possibly, because the majority of parcels are not being developed, it offers a much bigger range to make movement on tree canopy in the city. Commissioner Coronado mentions that trees are a kind of infrastructure.

Well, I agree in in theory. And but in general, infrastructure costs are not carried by developers. We we, the city, consider infrastructure to be the purview, whether it's sewer lines or power. Those are things that are not burdened on the new development. They're building a a housing unit or a new store, and we deal with the infrastructure around it.

And that's something I I think that it's where there's a wrinkle in all of this is that the valuable space for trees, for human beings, for vulnerable populations is not in the parking lots, and it's not in the backsides of buildings. It really is in the streetscape. It really is in the forward infrastructure part of the parcel, and that is a kind of right of way or easement that's often in the city's control. Whether it's Littleton Boulevard or Main Street, the city has a a great deal of zonal control over that, and that's where the most valuable trees are. And, again, I it's good that we're asking new developers to address that, but I this doesn't really bring

a

comprehensive attempt to improve the really important spaces for trees. So I don't know. I I find I agree with commissioner Roethlisberger that that MFR should be removed if we go forward with this until we have a a a full and equitable expectation around all residential. But more importantly, I just I don't The approach here does not seem right to me, and I'm not feeling inclined to recommend council to approve it. So that's my thoughts. Thank you.

Yeah. From a community health standpoint, I really appreciate the attention to addressing urban heat and an increased canopy coverage to, you know, combat that. I think I didn't agree with commissioner Coronado's point about this representing incremental progress. But relative to, you know, long term sustainability of planting types in in Littleton, I don't know that I'm wholly convinced that canopy coverage is the main issue versus other low lying vegetation types. So I think maybe that that's something we continue to look into.

But, generally, I'm looking forward to becoming more informed and looking forward to continued discussions on, you know, whether, you know, punitive measures or in incentivization is is is more effective in this space. But, yeah, it's I think I'm leaning towards approving based on this idea of it being incremental progress, but I think there's still a lot of questions for us left.

Alright. And guess as as I I look at this in the percentage of tree canopy coverage, I sort of looked at, you know, what what is the actual multiplier of the requirement? I mean, we talked about it's going up by 10%, but what is that? For the multifamily, that's 1.5 times the amount of canopy coverage that's required for some of the other zones. It was 1.3 times.

And then for business commercial, it was two times. So business commercial is proposed to go from 10 to 20%, so doubling the shade canopy requirement. And sort of the discussion about multifamily and concerns that it's going to be a significant burden on these types of developments. I thought the slide that staff put together with the 11,000 square foot lot was was very helpful showing that it goes from basically two shade trees to three to four shade trees. And, you know, I looked up how much would an autumn blaze maple, and I apologize if that's not on on our plant list, cost, at two inch caliper, that's about $1,200.

So for the 20 to 30% increase on an 11,000 square foot multifamily lot, that's a total cost of 1,200 to $2,400, to increase the tree canopy. So, yes, that that is a 4 figure sum, but in the grand scheme of the cost of development, the cost of land, it's somewhat of a pittance. The example of Littleton Brewing Company was also helpful. Essentially, that site, they could have met the proposed requirement by simply swapping out one ornamental tree for a shade tree and would have been able to accomplish the goals of the proposed regulations. So I I guess, yeah, I I appreciate the concerns about about equity.

But when it comes down to the actual numbers of additional trees that would be required, it's relatively small, particularly for these infill sites that we're hoping to see develop. So I will be in support of the proposal, but, yeah, are there any amendments proposed?

Okay. Yeah. I'd like to propose an amendment to remove the increase. To the multi family residential minimum tree canopy coverage from this change. Until we can address that as part of our neighborhood district's tree canopy.

Second. Alright. So a motion to remove the increase in the multi family residential made by commissioner Rothesberger and seconded by commissioner Santana. Any additional discussion on that one?

Yeah. I guess it's kind of a question for fellow commissioners or staff. The other zone districts in their neighborhood commercial corridor mix, they include residential as well, don't they? It's big part of the mixed use.

So, yeah, you can have my understanding is this. You can have, you know, residential within that mixed use. What I'm specifically talking about is in our code, you know, when you get to section, 10 dot four dot one or ten dot four, really, you know, when you're talking about NB neighborhood districts, that includes acreage, large lot, medium lot, small lot, and multifamily. So those are the districts within the neighborhood code. So that's why I'm pulling that out because there's one aspect of that neighborhood code section that's being addressed, and there are four others within that same section that are not being addressed for some reason.

And I just think that from an organizational standpoint, those all belong together.

Thank you. I think I can sort of understand the perspective of seeing multifamily as more of an opportunity for more canopy coverage, but I think we heard some examples today just, you know, just in terms of sewer lines and power lines and everything else that complicates those sites. It's just as complicated or can be just as complicated. So I'm starting to get aligned to that perspective of it being, you know, slightly punitive to the to that zoning type.

So and and I just wanna one other thing I wanna I'd like to see with this, right, is when we talked about that neighborhood or that downtown district and how we can we can meet this through a combination of open space. We can do it through native shrubs. We can do it through community amenities, that kind of thing, rather than just saying, oh, it's just trees, right? Because I expect, and I would hope, that that's how we would address it for all of our other neighborhood districts as well, right? Where we've got maximum building size, right?

So that automatically pushes some kind of open space, right? And we should have that for all of our specific neighborhood districts to say, you need some amount of open space or tree canopy and and and just enable a little bit of extra flexibility so that, you know, hopefully they can make all of these, you know, neighborhoods a little bit more welcoming and amenable and flexible in terms of how they implement this. Again, should they have power lines and sewer lines and everything that makes a good deeprooting tree impossible, but doesn't make something like, you know, a a bunch of Apache plumes or native native shrubs more more available.

If I may, and I apologize if I'm not fully understanding the example provided here, but if there are constraints on the lot, that is certainly included in an exemption written in the code today. So if there is an easement, for example, this is something that we actually deal with in a variety of our zone districts where we do have quite large easements that maybe even cut through at an angle. We certainly do work with those property owners to find enough flexibility in the code, and there is an exemption already built in should there be a sewer line that makes it impractical for a tree to be planted. Those exemptions already exist in the code today.

I understand that. I think that is actually beneficial in a way here too, right, is that if we say it's tree canopy or nothing, right, that you have to have a certain amount of percentage of tree canopy, or, you know, and then we'll exempt 10% of your tree canopy if that site isn't available, right? As opposed to saying, you know, okay, well that can't be paved over either. You have to still meet it, or you know, you can still meet it then through, you know, shrubs or, you know, or just open space or some other amenity rather than just saying it's trees or nothing. Because that is I feel like that's more in line with the approach of what we're doing with the other neighborhood districts where you've got a maximum build size, right, and you've got a certain amount of open space that's then kind of required by default, how many trees are required by default, just to give people just to give these neighborhood districts, you know, to include multifamily residential that for some reason doesn't have this same, you know, restriction in terms of ensuring a certain amount of it is open space And and just in the way that that can benefit your development too, right, to have, you know, a central you know, I think, like, for cottage courts is probably the easy example where you've got a nice little green a shared green space.

Right? Maybe it doesn't make sense to have, you know you know, I mean, maybe you got space for a couple trees, but maybe then you wanna implement the rest of that through, you know, low lying shrubs or native grasses or something like that. That's, know, a pollinator garden in your front yard rather than just shade trees. So I think that I'm getting a little bit off topic here, I apologize. But I think that I think what I would like to see for multifamily residential anyway is, one, to see it addressed with the rest of our neighborhood districts.

But then two, to pull in some of that flexibility that we were talking about with our downtown districts to ensure that we're getting this open space, these environmental needs that we need met, but not just limiting it to tree canopy or nothing for multifamily residential either.

I will speak to why the tree canopy was brought up to the multifamily residential specifically because I think that has been a reoccurring issue. And though there is benefit and we need low lying shrubs and grasses and native plants and everything else, the environmental benefit that comes from trees far outweighs a shrub when we're talking about carbon sequestration, storm water absorption, shading, reducing heat island effect, etcetera. That being said, and as has been for mentioned, it is an ecosystem, so trees can't exist fully by themselves. So if we have only trees and we're talking about these trees and tree pits in downtown areas, that's not a wildlife corridor. That's not a habitat.

We're not seeing pollination there. But the the system that's happening, the microclimate that a tree provides is what is providing the benefit, of creating things like pollinator habitats and corridors and, you know, that kind of thing. So first, speaking to that. Second, the reason that multifamily was called out specifically at least for a canopy increase, with the caveat of I have not had my hands in, like, the residential at the residential situation codes, was because simply because of the high density involved. So we were trying forestry was trying to say, people need trees.

How can we support a big group of people needing trees? And I think it's great, and I think we can increase property values and everything else that comes from single family homes. But as far as, like, making a difference, I think that we really need to see it is the residents and the multifamily units that are being punished for the developer not wanting to plant extra trees. So we are trying to call that out and say, hey. We're talking about 1,200 additional dollars for you to plant a tree that potential to shade the roof of this large surface area building with a high density population in it.

So that's that was the push for it. And I don't think at all that this is the last step that needs to be done in residential settings and, you know, that kind of thing. I think that it is a step of Littleton didn't have any tree code. And I pushed back from my perspective a little bit in hearing we want to incentivize folks to be doing certain things, and we don't wanna be penalizing people. And I hear that, and I also am not someone that is, like, wanting to get involved in code enforcement.

But quite frankly, it wasn't working, and we have the data to prove it. So us being friendly little tin staff was meaning that we were losing five per 5% canopy every ten years, and that is not sustainable for the growth development that's coming in Littleton. So incorporating other vegetation and doing all of these things, all of it really matters, and I'm not trying to be dismissive by any stretch of that, including affordable housing. Absolutely. But how are we doing it sustainably so that people can live here in a long term?

Because we're talking about fifty years ago, we didn't have these tree requirements and vegetation requirements, and it's a prairie land and all of this other stuff, but we also didn't have the population density that we have. So the shade that comes from trees is one of the benefits in absorbing. It's not only shading. It's different than a structure, building, or a sunshade because it's not blocking the sun. It is quite literally absorbing the sun back to fifth grade science where it's photosynthesizing, and that is you know, it's giving us oxygen in return.

So I think that is why trees are so harp like, well, first off, I don't have enough of a background to speak to pollinator gardens and, you know, like, all of that as well. But why trees were so highly prioritized was because of the unique benefit that trees provide that their vegetation doesn't. It is not a silo, though. Like, that needs to be incorporated in the understory, and, you know, it needs to be holistic there. So I think that there is opportunity.

And from a lot of times, what we've argued from a city's perspective is how can we get park spaces with open fields, open areas, open space located close so that that's a walkable distance. But what are we doing to shade the popul like, shade that large surface area? Yes. Like, where people are sleeping, where we don't have AC units in a lot of houses in Colorado. Like, what are we doing to protect that?

And then from a developer standpoint so that we kind of are keeping in check some greed that comes with that, and then stepping back. What the city is doing in return is trying to create equitable, accessible parks for their constituents. So I think I I definitely hear you, and I don't necessarily not being in development, don't have a really strong opinion on what needs to be involved in code percentages wise and where multifamily needs to be housed and all of that. But my push for it is simply the population density of how can we protect a large population of people easily. And that was why multifamily was called out.

Not to say that we shouldn't also call out the other ones and probably get involved with your neighbor that is excavating the historic con, but one step at a time kind of mentality. If that is helpful in the tree, why I feel like it came up kind of a lot in the discussion of why are we calling it multifamily? Why are trees getting a higher acknowledgment? Thank you.

And we are pushing for more pollinator gardens, just so you know. That's a very big push for us.

Thank you. Appreciate that we are pushing for more pollinator gardens. Any any other discussion on the amendment motion, which would, remove the change from table 10 dash one dash 3.6 e for to the multifamily residential. It would keep multifamily residential at 20% minimum tree canopy coverage. K. With that, I'll this is a vote on the amendment.

The vote is two in favor with three against, with Neely, Reynolds, and Coronado voting no. The motion fails. Sorry. The amendment fails.

Thank you. Appreciate the clarification. That does, take us to the the main motion. Was there any additional thoughts on the main motion? I'll I'll just say I appreciate the the work both the consultant and staff have done on this.

And, you know, it's a tremendous effort to do an analysis of an entire city's tree canopy. And as someone who's never done that sort of thing, it sounds really daunting. So thank you for taking that on. And I do appreciate the the proposal to increase that incrementally over time and that this is one element of a lot of changes related to our landscaping and vegetation management throughout the city. So just appreciate the effort there. And with that, I'll trigger the vote.

The vote on the main motion is three in favor and two against with Santana and Rothless Burger voting no. The motion carries.

Alright. Thank thank you everyone for the thoughtful discussion on this. Really appreciated it. You know, it complicated topic. Alright. We have the reports and comments section. Any report from the community development director or staff? I saw a head shake. No. From the city attorney, city clerk.

Just to follow-up, and I think it was mentioned during the presentation. But in terms of title eight four on trees and then the tree manual, that is something that is a work in progress, and it's a lot of different moving parts as we kind of correspond it to the leads, which is now adopted versus the proposed tree manual that our consultant gave us a few years ago versus what we want, what we would like title eight four to be. So I know that we talk we discussed that at the study session on, I think, July 25, and so that is forthcoming. We just don't have a timeline just because there are so many moving parts, and we we definitely wanna get all of the impacted stakeholders involved in reviewing that doc those documents.

For me, there is no meeting on October 13. We will see you on October 27.

Thank you. Appreciate that. I I will be out of town that day. So I will be back for the twenty seventh. Any reports from members of the commission?

No? Okay. And no report from the chair. So I will adjourn the meeting at 08:50 p. M. Thank you all.