Committee on Sustainability and Parks - Regular Meeting

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Give it another 60 seconds, Metro TV. I don't need to say this, though. right good afternoon everyone today is today is september 3rd 2026 it is 303 p.m and it's the regular schedule parks and sustainability committee um today we have uh some special discussions and join me in chambers today we have Councilwoman Betsy Rui. We have Councilwoman Crystal Bass. Nobody on virtual. I am Councilman Khalil Bachon. I'm the chair of this committee. We have an excused absence for my vice chair, Councilwoman Paula McCraney. We will get started with item number one. Special Discussion, ID 26-119, Urban Forest Master Plan Overview. And it looks like we have Miss Cindy Sullivan with Trees Louisville here. Please, if you don't mind, come on up and give us your overview. Name and title for the record, please.

push there we go my name is Cindy Sullivan and I am the president and CEO of trees Louisville and I'm here to talk to you guys today about the genesis and the process of the urban force master plan so the story starts in 2023 in December the Metro Council dedicated, allocated $200,000 to Trees Louisville to conduct an urban forest master plan. So what is an urban forest master plan? What is our tree plan? We're looking, it's basically, hang on a second, let me get my folder.

While we have that small intermission, we have been joined by the famous Councilman Anthony Piacentini.

Thank you.

And you would think that I've done this before, but anyway. Urban Forest Master Plan is basically a huge community engagement and awareness mission, right? So we spent 19 months and had many, many meetings and the reason that we were doing this is because we know that we've got a problem here in louisville with our urban forest and the urban forest is is extremely important to the health and the quality of life of this community there's impact on on public health we know that louisville is dealing with heat stress more frequent and severe storms droughts and floods and more from the changing climate. And we're looking to revitalize our city. Since 2020, we all will admit that Louisville, particularly the center city, needs some work. So for existing residents to stay competitive in the economic realm and to attract new residents and new businesses and to retain that talent. And then there is the sad story of redlining from the 1930s, and we know that Louisville is, we are working always to prioritize and address and remediate historical inequitable practices in marginalized communities. It's a bedrock principle that for Louisville to prosper, every single neighborhood needs to thrive, and that's what we're working for. So the Urban Forest Master Plan was a partnership with Metro Parks and, obviously, Metro Council and lots of other city agencies. We, again, hired a consulting service, Urban Canopy Works, a female-owned business in northern Kentucky, Newport, Kentucky, and they spent several months doing research and analysis. They looked at tree canopy trends, not just in Louisville, but with our peer cities and best management practices in other cities. And we looked at planting strategies, invasives, natives, impact of climate, previous efforts, and review of operations and policies. So that took up quite a bit of time. And the map that I'm showing you indicates your... the percent change in canopy from 2012 to 2019. The biggest losses are the darkest burgundy colors and the biggest gains are that dark green. And you can see, we didn't gain very much between 2012 and 2019. Can I ask a question? Sure.

So I'm gonna point out the southwestern part of that map there. Biggest losses, I mean, Let's use the very bottom left-hand corner there. There's not been that much development since 2019 to now. How are we losing that much percentage in trees?

This was actually 2012 to 2019. And so we were still seeing losses from emerald ash borer that took out millions of trees. There's also, and it does vary in that area between minus 19 and minus two. So that's quite a bit of variation. That could also be storms. It could be other disease problems. weather conditions, all those things. It's not necessarily always development. And then the discovery period of the Urban Forest Master Plan. This is a very busy slide, I know. I don't expect you to go through all of this, but just keep in mind we were very busy for those 19 months. We had an advisory group of 115 people that met three times for two-hour workshops. We had an equity council that was composed of people from West Louisville and Southwest Louisville. because we know that those are the areas of lowest canopy. We did a survey. We had one-on-one interviews with agencies and other nonprofit organizations. We tabled at events, and we met with more than 500 people at various conferences and social and civic meetings. So it was very involved. We even had a banner, a poster up at the Lynn Family Stadium during soccer games. So what we found during this process is canopy cover does show significant changes by neighborhood. Some are as low as 13%. Some are up to 66%. So I don't have to tell you probably that 13% canopy is in west louisville 66 is in east louisville our current system of street tree management is not equitable we know that because the system results in less trees and those existing trees to be in poor condition in lower income areas and you can look at the pictures and there's a couple of residential streets but i also want you to pay mind to the top photograph that's Frankfurt Avenue this is one of our biggest economic corridors and this because the adjacent property owner is responsible for that tree maybe they don't know that they're responsible or maybe they just don't want to do it but this is not the way we want our economic business corridors to look so that's I think really important to point out and then that there were also lots of people during the meetings that called for more coordinated efforts between agencies trees are public infrastructure they are vital city infrastructure and that's something that we all need to realize and success looks like being able to walk and bike and take the bus under shade and not be heat stressed when you're moving around the city and um You know, again, these are some of the conditions that were found. Street trees not being maintained results in more storm damage and higher cost and management decisions are made by people that don't have the expertise that urban foresters, professional urban foresters do. And that increases inequity throughout our city. And lots of street trees are in poor condition and many residents don't want new trees. So improving the canopy is difficult because trees that are high risk or in decline scare people. So the goals of the master plan were four. It all came down to having access for all, so to prioritize every neighborhood having at least 30% canopy. There needs to be a mentality change so that we recognize trees as vital city infrastructure that they are. People need to be able to walk and bike comfortably in their neighborhoods and to get to and from work. And then we also need to create a long-lived, a high-quality and sustainable urban forest to ensure that people can get to where they need to be and that it lasts for many generations. So the plan was led by like Trees Louisville and Metro Parks, but there were lots of other departments within Metro government that participated. You can see that list. Other agencies also were involved in the decision making process and the findings. And then there were two council representatives on the advisory group, in the advisory group, and that was Councilwoman Betsy Rui and Councilman Andrew Owen. So the path forward, I gave, everyone has the handout. Thank you very much. So there were 20 findings, 20 different findings, and there were then 10 strategies developed to work on over time, those strategies. And each strategy has several different action items and I will tell you that we are very proud of the fact that since last September we have started and sometimes even completed more than half of those 33 action items. So there are lots of organizations and agencies in the community that are working very hard already on implementing this plan so we're very excited about that. There's one other thing that I want to mention before I wrap up. given that today has a heat index of 111 degrees. UofL just announced yesterday the release of an updated Louisville heat mitigation study. Dr. Brian Stone from Georgia Tech University did a study in 2016 and then returned this year to do another study. We are the first city in the United States to duplicate those studies. and his findings are very significant. He found that we are definitely getting hotter, and again, there's lots of inequity, and he also states that trees and urban tree canopy are the most efficient, economical, and effective means of reducing heat. Just planting 50% of available spaces within a neighborhood, for instance, can reduce the heat by seven degrees. And that's from his study that I sent all of you guys a copy of that. The press release so that you can access it should be in your inbox by the time you get back to your offices. And that's all I have.

Thank you so much. Real quick, I have been joined by Councilwoman Jennifer Chappell. And also I have to read this meeting is being held pursuant to KR 61. and Council Rule 5A. We have been joined virtually by Councilwoman, my Vice Chair, Paula McCraney. Any questions for Cindy? In the queue, Councilman Piagentini.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we discussed this, but I'd just like to reiterate some things that we discussed, I think discussed privately in a public forum here. I think there's some great stuff here. I really don't have any problem with the plan per se, right? We're going to talk a little bit about, I think Parks is going to come and talk about the fiscal impact statement here, but this is a resolution. Essentially what we're saying here, and I just want to make sure I got your intent, What we're saying here is that, yes, we appreciate the work that was done here. There's a plan behind this work, and that we agree with the plan. Doesn't mean we have all the budget sorted out. Doesn't mean we have the whole plan sorted out. We still need to work on all of that. But we're saying that, at least from a strategy point of view, We agree with these fundamental principles and action items, and some of it may be able to get done very quickly, some of it might take longer, and that'll have to be sorted out through operating budgets and all that stuff. I think that's what we're getting at here. Does that make sense?

That is perfectly correct, absolutely.

Terrific, thank you very much, appreciate it.

Thank you, thanks for your support.

I'm gonna ask a question. To kind of piggyback a little bit off of Councilman Piagetini's point, though, you've gotten half of this list already completed.

No, in progress. Or in progress. Not necessarily completed.

What does, why do we need to move something forward as far as a resolution if you're already doing the work?

Well, that's a good question. It's, I think, a show of support to get the other half done is part of it. And I think, I mean, this is a comprehensive plan that Metro Council requested, and we did a great job getting it done. It was a lot of hard work, and I think there's a lot to be said for that acknowledgement that this is a good plan and that you're behind it.

Cindy, would you like to touch maybe a little bit on some of the financial barriers that you're going to, and roadblocks that you may not have with this current plan and what needs to be done to execute?

Well, let me say one thing in regard to financial barriers that, well more than one thing, that's really quite important is at Trees Louisville we realize that improving canopy is extremely difficult when people have high risk trees or mature trees that look scary and dangerous that are dropping branches. That is a real and serious barrier to canopy improvement. No one wants new trees when they think of trees as being dangerous and shady and causing them a lot of work. So one of the things that Trees Louisville, one of the action items that Trees Louisville has implemented, is implementing, is we have a grant from a local foundation to help private citizens with trees on their property deal with those trees. So our team of certified arborists will evaluate those trees using the tree risk assessment qualifications that we have from ISA. And if the tree needs to come down, we will pay for that out of these funds. If the tree needs to be pruned, we will pay for that out of these funds. So that is action item. Let me see if I can find it. because I'm not looking at it. I have to put my glasses on to do this.

8.1.

Just for clarification though, when a homeowner agrees to say taking out a tree through that grant program, they have to promise to plant one or two trees in replacement and that's facilitated by Trees Louisville and their native species They have a care plan. Is that correct?

That is correct. It's not a tree removal initiative. It is a tree canopy improvement project. So we will help you if you've got a bad tree, but you have to sign a contract that you're going to maintain the new trees. And then the second part of that grant is also to find ways to repurpose that urban wood to try and help put more funding into our community forest. So there are lots of higher purposes for urban wood than just mulch and animal bedding, furniture, lumber, biochar. There's lots of things that you can utilize to, you can use that wood for to a higher purpose. and perhaps create a funding stream.

Thank you. Councilman Piazzutti.

Thank you. Cindy, I want to get your thoughts on hopefully what is considered a minor clarifying amendment for the resolution. But before I make it, and I'm not making a motion, just to be clear, I'm just really running it by you, and I want to see if you have any significant objections to the way I'm wording this, right? Because when I read the, again, we did talk about how I think in the past my concern has always been that in some cases the administration will take resolutions and then start doing things without having a plan, having a budget, having supportive counsel on tactically how they're doing it and all of these things. Like for example, in my humble opinion, we need to implement all of this on metro property in right of way and then we can phase it out to areas of need where there's financial need or disproportionate impact and all of these other things. So we can do this in a very, very smart way over a period of time. Section 3 is an example. I'm going to focus on Section 2 and Section 3 of your resolution if you want to pull it up, if you've got it in front of you. I went to the actual resolution. I don't have a copy of that. Right now it reads Section 2. Section 1, the council fully supports Louisville tree plan strategies. No question. At least for me, no question. The council urges the necessary metro agencies to move forward with implementation of the Louisville tree plan. I might say something like move forward with planning for the implementation of the Louisville tree plan. And then in section three, something like, here it reads, the council requests the administration follow the Louisville tree plan strategies. 100%, but we know there's a financial impact. The way I might reword this is to say the council requests the administration follow the Louisville tree plan strategies in its planning with implementation contingent on future approval through a Metro Council budget or operating plan. Again, I'm just spitballing something that I've come up with. I wanted to hear from you if this still aligns with what your intention here is because I think it's important to communicate to the people that worked on this that we appreciate this work and we do want to adopt this plan. I know I do, right? But I also want to be realistic with people about, you know, look, there is a financial impact. This is not all going to happen overnight. I think we all realize that. And everything in Metro is contingent upon, you know, budgeting and all of that stuff. Any thoughts about some of the recommended or my idea on amending that section here?

Those language changes I think are absolutely fine with me. Your spitball hit right there.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

I think that's perfect because that's the intent.

Right, yeah, and I think so too, but I think it's – that's the only concern I have is that it's misconstrued as itself being the authorizing document versus this is the authorization for us to say we are adopting this and we're gonna work to implement it, but we still need to go through the regular process to make sure all this is implemented. But I appreciate it. I appreciate your work on this. Thank you.

You could make those language changes and then you would also be a sponsor, a co-sponsor. There we go.

Thank you very much. Perfect.

Councilwoman Bass.

Trying to read my own notes over here. So part of this plan, I know that, is any of this to look to be contracted out in order to get it done? Or is this all going to be done in-house? Do you know?

Oh, no, sure. There's contractual agreements in place right now. And I think that those are definitely going to continue.

Okay, so we are contracting it then. That's not to say that... On page six, I had wrote down where you all were talking about the dark red areas with the higher percentage of areas. Is there something that shows, like can we get where it shows exactly what the results of that was, how they came up with that, like the decrease in those areas or what the cause was?

Yes, definitely. I'm glad you asked that too, Councilwoman Bass, because you can get all the information from the Urban Forest Master Plan on the website louisvilletreeplan.org. So it will have information on the urban tree canopy assessment, where these data came from, as well as some more of the processes and the research that our team did.

Okay.

LouisvilleTreePlan.org. It will also have a listing of the action items and who actually is working on them and what the progress is being made.

And then just to kind of touch off of what Councilman Piagentini said about our own properties are in dire need of tree canopy work that has been years and years in the making. And some of the examples of pictures of trees you showed in residential areas that we are going after the adjacent property owners for our own properties look like that. So I'm just trying to figure out how do we as council pass along to this person that they're responsible for this tree that looks this way, yet our own trees look this way. I think it's a bad practice. I think it don't look good. So I just think we need to figure out our own properties first. Then we can educate and help with the others.

And I think that that's action item 1.3. We'll address that over time. I think that it is important for Louisville Metro government to take over the maintenance of right-of-way trees, to set a good example, for one thing, as you say. And it improves the equity, and it also puts in the hands of professionals the maintenance and the care of those trees.

Yeah, because I mean, we know it's expensive. We have a lot of big, older trees in our area that are unfortunately in right-of-ways, in seniors' yards that are on set incomes that they just don't have the funding. And I think that's a lot of the problem with the... with the tree canopies in our area that, you know, I mean, the last big storm we had hit my area very, very hard. And a lot of it was old, big trees that haven't been maintained in maintenance over the years that caused these issues, so.

Yeah, and one of the things that I have preached my entire career is that if you've got trees that you are maintaining regularly, if you can get a tree professional to come in every two or three years to do some maintenance, you will have a tree that will definitely be strong and will live as long as it possibly can, you know, complete its life cycle and give us all of the ecosystem services that that trees do provide, and that is so important. I couldn't agree with you more.

And I agree, but when you're trying to talk to an 83-year-old that's on a set income that some of these tree quotes they're getting are $7,000 to $10,000 for these massive trees, so that's a... It's a tough pill to swallow.

Yeah, and I think I've asked every one of you guys to keep a running list of your constituents that call in. We had, to your point, a couple of weeks ago, we looked at a 72-inch oak in a neighborhood in District 3, I think, and the estimate to remove it was $30,000 because of where it was and how big it was. Yeah. who could afford that right right so we have to we need to figure it out sure all right thank you and maybe that's oh go ahead go ahead i was going to say maybe that's a good segue and to having parks come up one more okay did you write down those notes on how to change that language

Yeah, I'm very curious. Thank you, Councilman Pugentini, for your obvious support of this. And thank you, Cindy, and everybody at Trees Louisville for all your work on this. And this is really important. And as we're finding from the discussion over here, it seems like one of the most important steps here and ultimately probably the most expensive one is taking over street trees and being able to maintain them and keep them healthy Cause that's also part of changing the mindset because a lot of people, they don't want to put a tree in because yeah, it comes down to it. Then how do I pay for taking it out or managing it? And so, yes, we have to have a funding stream. I'm just curious. You talk about developing a funding stream, um, with dead tree parts. so do you i know one of the issues that we've got with trees that are street trees and stuff is too many times to get things nailed in them do we have the technology available in a sawmill nearby that can detect that so we don't screw up blades that is a challenge when you're working with urban trees absolutely and and yes we are working on that i mean um we

part of the team at Trees Louisville is going up to Baltimore and D.C. at the end of the month, and we're gonna look at the urban wood reuse project that they have there, and they actually sell urban wood to room and board that they use to make furniture, and that's a national furniture company. So it is possible. If we can if it can be done we can get it done.

I Would love to see that.

Yeah, it's pretty exciting and I will say to that. I mean The Morton Arboretum is a bit of a different situation because they're not talking about urban trees But when they lose trees in the Arboretum They cut slabs and cookies and they've made hundreds of thousands of dollars from those sales. So fingers crossed We can get something done

Okay, thank you very much, and I look forward to voting yes on this.

Thank you.

Thank you, no further questions. Thank you, Cindy, for your presentation. Up next is item number two. We have ID 261236, financial impact statement overview. Michelle King and Dr. Masudeh, Louisville Parks and Recs.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Michelle King. I'm Executive Director of Louisville Parks and Recreation, and I'm here with...

I am Misuda Osorio-Coldo, Assistant Director Overseeing Urban Forestry Division with Louisville Parks and Recreation Department.

So we are here today to give a presentation walking through the financial impact study that was prepared at the council's request. And I'll start out with, and Mr. Day and I will be kind of transitioning and tag teaming throughout the presentation. But I wanna just set the stage for what we're presenting here today, the financial impact study. Talking about what we are presenting and what we're not here today doing. First of all, we want to make sure that We are explaining the study that was prepared per your request. We'll identify which of those urban forest master plan actions were included in the request and why that was. As Cindy just informed you all, there are 33 actions and obviously you can see that there were not nearly that many included in the impact study. We'll also describe what are the assumptions and the types of resources that we included in our analysis. And we're hoping that what we can provide for you today gives you some context for your consideration of the plan and its potential future implementation. What we're not here today to do is to represent any specific endorsement of the plan or an implementation strategy for the plan. Often when departments bring you this kind of information with all of these dollars and figures attached, it's an appropriation discussion or a budget discussion. Obviously that's not why we're here today so just reminding folks that we're here at your request because you asked us for information so that you could inform your discussion and that is our number one goal here today is to make sure that we're providing clear information and making ourselves available to answer your questions about what some potential strategies for implementation would look like. We are not necessarily here to recommend any specific model of adoption. As we've mentioned before, there could be different ways to implement the strategies and actions that are contained in the plan. So we wanna talk you through what it looked like when we tried to put some dollar figures to those actions. So as we mentioned, the financial impact study, we worked with the action items in the plan that one would have responsibilities for Louisville Metro government, as Cindy talked us through. This is a community-wide canopy plan, a community-wide forestry plan. So not all of those recommendations are ones that that require action by Metro government or even with those that do require our action, they don't necessarily all incur a financial impact. So we winnowed that down to looking at seven different actions Six of those are included in the total resources, the dollar figure that we ultimately came to at the end. Those are ones where we know that there would be financial, identifiable financial impacts to Metro government. One of those, we also said, hey, this is a financial impact to Louisville Metro government, but we've already incurred it because it's one of those actions, those 17 actions that is already underway. It's already been funded. and is nearly complete. We'll talk about that later. So those other 26 out of the 33 actions, they are not included in this financial impact study. They either weren't our responsibility or they wouldn't have quantifiable financial impacts. All right, so just as an overview here, we included some existing resources, so personnel in in particular that are already budgeted and part of our operations louisville parks and recreation of course houses the urban forestry division we have the charge to care for parks and parkway trees we also have a team of horticulture professionals that care for natural spaces within our parks our landscaping beds and also take care of the thousands of young trees that we have planted across parks and parkways over the last several years. So that $2.1 million is included in the total. We'll spend a lot of time here today talking about what new resources need to be added in order to meet the charge of these six different actions that we were included. So this is just a bit of a summary slide. There will be new costs that recur annually. There will also be new equipment needed to fulfill the charge, in particular the street tree maintenance and care So those we've included here, they show up as a total, but they don't necessarily have to be a cost that is incurred all at one time. So just wanna make that note as you step through this. And then there is one impact that we said would be periodic, and that was the recommendation for an updated canopy assessment every five to 10 years. So it's not a one-time cost, but it's also not an annual cost. So this is just a quick overview slide before we start diving into each of these. These are those action items that we looked at. Action item 1.3 is obviously the one that has the largest financial impact. As we step through these, we're gonna save that one to the end as we talk through just because I think that's probably the one that is the most complex in its analysis and certainly the one with the largest impact. The cost that you'll see on this slide, you'll notice that that doesn't all add up to that 13 million. These are all the new costs that would be incurred. So again, we're really gonna highlight those new costs, but we will show you where those existing costs come in. I'm going to turn this over to Masude now to take us through some of the specifics. Sure, thank you, Michelle.

So like Michelle mentioned, we are going to start with the easy action items. So one of them is action 2.1 to add higher level urban forester to the system. The plan is not necessarily pointing out what department, but the main idea here is to be able to have a professional expertise when it's about capital projects or street designs from the beginning of the projects to make sure that trees are included in those projects and for the future the maintenance plan is also considered so one higher level urban forester is being recommended and we In the model that we developed, we thought an administrator position would be appropriate for that purpose. And then we are hoping that coordination across planning and infrastructure efforts throughout metro government agencies and connecting to urban first semester plan with the implementation and the partners would be also a task of this position to perform. And that is the cost of $113,000 to Metro. This is the annual cost, operating cost. Action 3.1 is calling for a code enforcement capacity increase. So we projected that an arborist would perform this kind of task And again, the purpose here is to add a field inspection component to existing codes and regulations for development plan implementation. So the plan is understanding there are currently, there are staff members to review the plans, development plans, but not necessarily do you have staff members to follow up with the implementation and make sure the plan is being implemented, corrected the way that it was developed.

just add at that point because we are talking about development plan review with that position that was a cost that was incurred but there were a number of action items included in the strategy that talked about code review so those weren't included in the fiscal impact because that wasn't something that we could identify but that position that looks at the implementation of development plans and ensures compliance with the development plans that are approved is part of a larger discussion in the forest master plan around codes and the land development code particularly. Correct. Thank you, Michelle.

Action 5.1 is calling for a workforce development program. We were back and forth with this action item. It doesn't have to be Metro government implementing this action item. It can be Metro government or partners or combination of Metro government and partners working together. So we have a great experience with this kind of program. Currently we are managing our LIFI grant program As you may remember, we received $12 million in 2024, and Workforce Development Program was a part of that grant. So this is the third year we are in that program. And the program is running two sessions in a year with six to 10 people in each session. And we kind of took that model and put that into our proposed model here. And the cost annually is going to be somewhere around $550,000 with two sessions with 20 people total. that program so action 6.2 is canopy assessment we so far we have done two of them as Cindy mentioned earlier the first one was it just like tracking the canopy differences between 2004 2008 and 2012 And then the second study was to see the difference between 2012 and 2019. And current the trees Louisville is also conducting the third one to track the differences between 2019 and on. So the $150,000 cost estimate here is based on the first assessment done in 2015. The cost was $150,000 to Metro government. But we also do understand that the technology is improving and the cost might be much lower than what is mentioned here. 6.3 is tree inventory, which is not included on this slide. As we speak, we are conducting our metro's first ever tree inventory, digital smart inventory. That inventory is being done, the resource group, and we're very proud of using high technology, and that inventory is gonna be wrapped up within a few months. But it's very nice to know how much work we have. So far it was reported that they already scanned and inventoried 100,000 trees in parks and streets. and then they are estimating possibly 70,000 more trees to be scanned. So we will see somewhere around 150,000, 160,000 trees in our system, both parks and streets. Action 8.1 is suggesting tree assistance fund for private properties. We put $100,000 in the model that we developed. This number is again a studied number. In 2020, Metro Council budgeted $200,000 for public tree assistance. So currently, unfortunately, we have run out of that fund. But between 2021 and 2026, we were able to help 50 residents, somewhere around 45 trees to be removed. And all of those trees to be removed also had replacements, and we did some trimming work. So based on what we experienced, we estimated $4,000 average per assistance per person, which is very modest, yes. But we thought maybe with $100,000, we could help 25 residents with that kind of average cost.

Obviously, as we heard from the conference, Obviously we heard from the conversation earlier that that range, that cost can range quite a bit. So this is just a guess based on previous experience with that. We'll also point out, as Cindy mentioned, Trees Louisville has a grant. They are doing this kind of work. So this is another one of those actions that in implementation could be a Metro government-led action, it could be a community organization and partner-led action, or some partnership between those two. So I'm going to start with this one and then hand the numbers over to Masude. So action 1.3 is obviously the big ticket item here. And I just wanted to make sure to review what we're talking about here. This is going from our current responsibility, where a street tree according to the plan is, as it's defined, is the responsibility of the adjacent property owner. I just wanted to point out, the plan refers to street trees, but in its discussion, it is clear that the plan street tree is the equivalent to what our Metro Code of Ordinances refers to as a public tree. So that is a tree with a base wholly, or in part situated on Louisville Metro government owned or controlled land or in public rights of way controlled by Louisville Metro, excluding parks and parkways that are under the jurisdiction of Louisville Metro Parks. So I just wanted to make sure that we understood that when we say street trees in the context of the master plan discussion, that is the equivalent of what our ordinances refer to as public trees. So according to action 1.3, the responsibility of the street tree care and maintenance would shift from that adjacent property owner as it is now and to Louisville Metro government. So obviously there's a lot of different ways to look at that and so Masude and her team put together a plan that would implement that and we'll step through that in a couple of different ways and then we'll talk some about the potential ways that may be considered for implementation.

Michelle, do you mind showing that slide with the division of the areas so that we have some kind of idea what we're talking about when we put it in there? Let me go back out. Okay, sorry. That's all right. So the plan, the model we studied is based on Uh, three different management, um, zones, regions, however we name them. This is almost like public works model. Um, and, um, the team and I just really took our time to project what is needed to implement, uh, the care and management of street trees. So as a side note, currently in parks and parkways tree inventory, which was done years ago as we work on those trees, we developed our own inventory, but it is limited to parks and parkways only. We do have 35,000 trees in the system, just parks and parkways. So as I mentioned earlier, we will be looking into having the responsibility of 100 50 to 170,000 trees, combination with parks and parkways and street trees. So the model we developed is basically calling for three different districts for street management and expansion of parks and parkways in each district for streets only, having two teams and each team consists of three arborists, one supervisor, and then one manager. So when you multiply it with three different regions, we will have, with the administrator managing the entire program, there will be somewhere around 31 positions.

I just want to point out that all of those details that Masude is going through right now, including this map and these data points and more, are all in the spreadsheet that was attached to the memo that you received from internal audit. So all of the details about the positions that would be included in those teams, the districts that were identified, basically it's how this model was built out to quantify costs.

Correct. So we can go back to that slide, Michelle, if you don't mind. So with the entire program, with streets, street trees and parks and parkways trees and horticultural program, the new recurring annual operations is going to be $4.8 million. And again, this includes street tree maintenance personnel cost, contractor planting, and three-year establishment work, and expanded parks, parkways, and horticultural operations. so for this model the new initial equipment is going to cost 5.44 million and again we have divided it between current parks parkways horticultural operation and street operation as well so basically action 1.3 total new cost with recurring expenses and initial equipment expenses is going to be totaling to 10.3 million. So what it means, this means is recurring, you know, new recurring expense being 4.8 million and when we add our current recurring 2.1 million at the top of it, we're talking about $6.9 million recurring expense. to be able to run both parks, park-based horticultural operation and street tree operation.

Did you say $9 million reoccurring?

6.97.

On an annual basis?

Correct. That would be the total personnel, contractor,

work for an entire urban forestry division that includes all street trees plus that expansion of parkways parks and horticulture when we specifically look at the only street tree maintenance operation it's going to be the new recurring cost annual cost is going to be 3.83 million again including personnel and contractors tree planting and establishment work. Just for that section on the street tree maintenance, the new initial street equipment is going to be 4.30 million, totaling 7.96 million, somewhere around 8 million. Again, just when we take out expansion of parks and parkways and horticulture operation, only focusing on developing a street tree program, basically the Metro government taking over the care and management of those trees is gonna cost somewhere around $8 million.

So as we talked about, there's a lot of different ways that we could achieve those goals. So we wanted to put some ideas here for discussion. These aren't, this is by no means an implementation plan and we aren't, advocating any of these specific ways to prioritize or to implement, but we wanted to give you all some ways to look at this, to think about that large number and how you might get there from where we are here today, which is a urban forestry team covering parks and parkways and horticulture and parks that is, it's $2.1 million a year. So some ways that we could phase this in or prioritize as it may be, there may be what service area is chosen to begin in. That might be, for example, you could start with maybe business districts, those kind of things. You might start with what kind of tree service is taken on by city, removals versus the regular pruning and things that we know may help. add to longevity of those street trees. You also might just pace this out. This gives you a dollar figure as if this was all gonna drop in one year and that is not necessarily a feasible implementation plan. So it might be a gradual implementation. How this is done could also look different. This contemplates a lot of in-house work. There could be more contractors. There's some combination thereof. We also can look at prioritizing areas. We saw in the the Urban Forest Master Plan that there are some parts of town that have greater canopy need, greater risk due to heat, and those health impacts, you could also prioritize it due to available funding. And then you can also just take a look at what our existing operations are and how those might phase in to grow to meet more of these different needs.

Or you may look into the current LIFE grant implementation model. That $12 million is being spent on tree maintenance in LIFE areas. So far, we are in the third year implementing that grant, and 1,400 trees removed from public properties. When we say removed, all those trees dead or declining trees that we definitely helped so many people. And then somewhere around 1,450 stumps have been removed. And then we had 2,700 trees streamed. So it's a lot of work, but that leafy area is representing only 23% of entire metro area. It can be a good model to be able to look into.

Thank you. I have a question and I'm gonna turn it to my colleagues. I've got a couple in the queue. And this one is for Meseta. Can you give me an estimated total of what do we have currently in deferred maintenance that we need to address in urban forestry on your end?

So thank you for the question. Emerald ash borer has been an issue for our department. What is it? Emerald ash borer is an insect basically attacking our trees and then killing all of the ash trees. So there is a big backlog of those ash trees still gradually declining or dying that we have a huge workload to catch up with. So I don't have quantified numbers with the storm damages, but we do experience pretty often storm damages that may take us from one week to even six months to work on those damages to be cleaned up and taken care of. Like for example, 2007 ice storm took us six months to clear all of those damages that was created. And then we do receive somewhere around 200 metro calls monthly these are requests coming from our partners government agencies as residents to asking some type of work to be performed by urban forestry so although together i would assume this would be our deferred maintenance backlog.

So in the perfect world, and it's the last thing I'll end it with, in the perfect world, if we were to fully fund this today, and with your deferred maintenance, that you already are in a backlog, is two crews enough?

Two crews per district. So total of six crews for street three maintenance. We will mirror the same Program for our parks parkways operation as well. Currently we have only 11 personnel in our forestry Parks forestry. So is it enough? Well, I think It can't I don't know how to answer that question. I wish in an ideal world We would absolutely need more resources, but we only also understand it you know, difficulties.

Sude, in your all's analysis, I think you told me how many passes, how frequently a tree would be seen by those.

Yes, yes. The plan is, urban forestry master plan is suggesting that we need to have proactive maintenance with a 15 to 20 year rotation. The model we developed is basically hopefully gonna be proactively managing street trees every 10 years. So each team will have 2,000 trees in a year to maintain. I hope it's gonna give you an idea. So a team of four people, three workers and one supervisor will be conducting maintenance program with 2,000 trees for their own you know, areas.

So the idea is that every tree within each of these three zones, districts, whatever you would call it, of the city would, that tree would be visited once every 10 years for proactive maintenance. And then, of course, on top of that, there would be the reactive portion.

And this is based on 120,000 trees, street trees.

Thank you. Councilman Piagetini.

Thank you. Yeah, if you can go to slide nine, please. So first of all, I mean, like 90% of this cost is wrapped up in one recommendation and all these recommendations, which is 1.3. Even in 1.3, And again, coming to my point earlier, I think there's an important line here. At the very bottom, these figures describe one possible operating model, not a requested appropriation. We know it's not a requested appropriation. But it's also one possible operating model, which is like all in right now in this one idea that they've come up with. I think this is my point about particularly modifying Section 3 of the resolution, just to be clear on this. I think in an ideal world, I think it is reasonable we say, hey, we can manage these trees. It's just not going to happen tomorrow. I mean, we're not going to have this money tomorrow. But there are parts of this, I mean, just you've said it, but we're already spending 2.1 million, right? We already have some infrastructure for this, right? We're already doing some of this work, not everything that's outlined here, not the full Monty, but The point is, I'm sure as we think through this more, as we, you know, we're going to have to get creative because we're not going to have that much money sitting in the budget this next year. Like, as we start to get creative about this, there might be, for example, the new initial equipment. I know we're spending a lot in the Parks Department generally on new equipment. How much overlap is there where we can leverage some of that to work with what we're trying to do here, right? Are there areas where there's real need and problem where we can you know, do some short-term work, right, where, yes, it's not citywide. So I appreciate that we've come up with, and first of all, I appreciate you clarifying what the financial impact statement actually says, because I think in other areas, you know, there's either no impact or, you know, minimal impact, right, in comparison with the whole budget. This is one section, which it's a lot of money, and it's one way of doing it. But I think we can all acknowledge that this is not going to be, nobody is coming here today saying, we need to spend $10 million in this next fiscal cycle to get all this equipment and all of these people and all this stuff. But it is a, look, it's an acknowledgment. If we were to do everything, including 1.3 immediately, this is what it would cost, right? So, which is again my point about I think we need to get creative, right? And I think there is progress we can make toward this. And I don't know of one program that we've done. I'm gonna pick on sidewalks as an example. We took over, sidewalks used to be managed by the adjacent property owner. We took that over years ago. We had absolutely no plan, no idea what it was going to cost. We kind of did it, and then years, I mean, we're like 10 plus years into it, and we're still figuring out how to catch up and budget for it and all this stuff. But we've made progress. Things have gotten better because we started moving in that direction. So I think it is, I appreciate the work that's been done here, but I just wanted to highlight, particularly for my colleagues, this is the big number on this particular slide of this whole presentation. But there's a major, major caveat here that I don't think can be understated enough about how important it is. But I do think there's latitude for progress and improvement. But this will all need to be budgeted. And as we have budget, we make priorities, which we do every budget cycle. we will say, okay, how does this work into the next set of priorities and how can we continue to make progress? So I think we can make progress on this. I think because we're not gonna get all the money right up front, I think everybody's gonna get very creative and I'm looking forward to the creativity that everybody's gonna bring to how can we make even more impact and not just assume that $10 million is gonna be appropriated tomorrow. because I think that will also have impact on what we're talking about here and how much we can do in the immediate term. So again, I think that's why I was recommending the amendment earlier to acknowledge that there are great things in this plan. We want to adopt many of these great things, but we're also going to acknowledge the reality that this is not going to happen tomorrow. Um, yet we should be striving for a better management of this piece of public infrastructure. So thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Um, Councilwoman Rui.

Thank you very much. So I've got three questions. Easy one, actually probably wasn't that easy to count, but how on earth did you determine the number of trees in a forested area?

The inventory is not going to be including those natural areas. It's only the trees that we either planted or they do have some kind of historic or aesthetic value, or those are the trees around some targeted amenities so that we do perform regular maintenance on those trees, not natural areas.

Yeah, so when you're talking about parks, you're talking about the trees out in the open. correct okay that's fine okay next question newly planted trees I've heard it said that the most important thing that you can do after you plant a tree and get it to survive the first couple of years is to go back and give it good pruning in the first ten years I believe and that after that it keeps the tree will be much healthier

So for parks and parkways, we do have three-year establishment period. Up to three years, we go back and water those trees. And at the end of the third year, we do prune them. And the three-year pruning cycle goes on until they are 10 years old, depending on the species and height. Then forestry operation take them over for mature tree maintenance. But street trees, we don't have such a program. urban forestry's position is only in coordination position just to be able to inspect those trees that we receive calls on and provide permit to adjacent homeowners.

Okay, so that proactive pruning would be part of the street tree plan then were it enacted? Correct. Okay, next one doesn't have anything to do with planting trees per se, but I couldn't help but notice on one of the fairly newly planted trees on Southern Parkway about a month ago, it was a lovely oak tree with about that big around, and it just fell over. And upon inspection of it, what I found was a scar from a lawnmower hit probably, just right at ground level. Is any training being done to ensure that these investments are cared for by our mowing and other maintenance crews?

Yes. It is, though, also a constant refresher need, and those accidents do happen. When we hear about them, they are helpful examples for our next training. I'll be happy to send you some pictures because I took them. It is unfortunate that that does occasionally happen. I know in our tree planting efforts, we do try to create space around those trees because it is really hard to get through all of that mowable area if there isn't a buffer around that newly planted tree. So sometimes those... Buffer strategies do fail sometimes mowers to get a little too close but we we absolutely have Training and a policy to not mow down our newly planted trees.

Okay, so as representative for Southern Parkway I will be happy to work with you on initiative to get mulch rings around those trees Sure Those green wells that you see around newly planted trees are

are helping to prevent physical damages, so we used to use those water bags, green bags. They're great, but they are not keeping the movers out, so this is a new implementation that we adopted two, three years ago. We're putting those green mills, as long as they are put well, they are supposed to protect those trees, plus keeping the water within the root system.

Yes, so I would be happy to help you accomplish that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Bass.

You kind of teeter-totted around this a little bit, but I didn't quite get the answer I think I was looking for. So the current workload that we have with the amount of people that we currently have, do you feel like we are making a dent in what we have, or are we just sustaining what's there?

So our current system in urban forestry, that's represented by that 2.1 million in personnel costs. That covers care and maintenance of our park trees, of parkways that we have responsibility for. So you think of those Olmsted Parkways are a pretty good example. There are a handful of others. And then the care and maintenance of those newly planted trees falls to our horticulture team along with their landscape beds. As with, I think, most any resource, we could do more with more, but the team does have an incredible system of planning and prioritization to get to the needs that they do see. What you see in the fully built out fiscal impact study does include and in that spreadsheet you can see what are new positions and what division they would go to it does include some enhancement to the existing parks and parkway team as and the horticulture team with the idea that in order to meet all of the goals of that urban forest master plan we would need to have more resources in those areas as well as adding completely new resources for street trees i hope that answers your question

um no let me reword maybe um currently not not this the amount of people we have and the amount of backlog that we have of deferred maintenance and current tree maintenance do you all feel we're making a dent in anything currently or we're just sustaining

We are in a position that we have to prioritize the work. That would be my answer. I can't say that we are responding every single call immediately. The system is currently operating on inspecting trees and then making work orders based on the priority ranking and scheduling those orders. request and our own inspections. The only exception to this is parkways. Just because this is an old model that we developed and we really implemented well, every year in winter, in four months, we do inspect all of the parkway trees. We again prioritize what is high risk and then try to make sure that we do maintain all of those parkway trees just because of the high risk to public because of the flow of traffic. In parks, we don't have that regular inspection system. The operation is based on co-system and prioritization. And at the top of this, we are following our tree planting and young tree maintenance program. Like I mentioned, every three, six, nine years, they go through a pruning cycle. And then when you put all of this together, we do understand the importance of prioritization.

Okay, because I feel like history is showing us that we are reactive and not proactive. So I think I'm just not convinced that we can sustain financially or profitably with personnel this plan as it's being presented today. But as we've said, dissecting it, pulling it apart, making tiny steps toward the right direction. I just know firsthand being new to council and new to my district, I see years and years of issues that still have not been addressed. So that's kind of where I was going with the current workload. So thank you for that answer.

And yes, to clarify, the current workload that we talk about does not include any of that proactive street tree work. Our leafy grant has enabled us to do street tree work that we would not otherwise be funded to do.

And leafy workforce. added five personnel to work on that, only 23% of the metro area, five additional people just focused on inspecting, plus working with the contractor, they were able to do maintenance on thousands of trees.

And those costs are not included in the current discussion, that 2.1, that doesn't include the grant-funded positions, because those wouldn't continue beyond the grant.

Thank you. Councilwoman Chappell, we are at 416.

I understand the person that has a name tag that says the Lorax right now. You're probably scared it's gonna be some long-winded remarks, but I'll save those. But I do have a request of Urban Forestry as well as the Chair. I think Councilwoman Bast has some good questions. And as a member of the Tree Advisory Commission, we were recently given a presentation by Kate Carl with the Division of Urban Forestry about the amazing work that you all do. And so I would make a request that whether or not this passes today, and I really, really hope that it does, that in a future meeting we can have that same presentation given to this body because I think that it'll help us understand more of the work that you do and address some of those questions that obviously council members have. So hopefully that can be something that we can set on the agenda in the future. Yeah, we would be very happy to do so.

that's it thank you you're welcome all right let's moving on we have held um legislation um item number three we are going to go to resolution um r142-25 resolution urging the implementation of the urban forestry master plan strategies actions to ensure louisville jefferson county metro government tree canopy is resilient protected and sustainable

I'm sorry. Sir, this is Sonia Harwood, the clerk, and I'm sorry I don't have my camera on. I'm getting ready to walk out. I thought that we were going to have, Piagentini was going to work on getting some amendments made for this?

Yes. For some reason, I assume that we were.

That would be between here and Thursday, or do you want to go ahead and pass it out and make the amendments by Thursday?

He has the amendments available at the moment.

Okay, that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry. Do we need to... I need a motion to return to the table. And motion moves.

We are available.

Vote for it, please. All in favor? Aye. And we are back on the table. So we have Anthony Piagentini in the queue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I think the conversation during the special discussion sort of highlighted this, that there's, I think, certainly the vast majority, whether or not everybody agrees with even Action 1.3, but the rest of these actions, I heard zero people complain about or say that there's some problem here. And even Action 1.3, I don't hear people saying, They disagree with it. It's concerned about implementation. It's concerned about paying for it. What we have here is a resolution that is saying we're going to adopt this and try to move to get this done. It does not say it will happen overnight. It does not say we are budgeting for this overnight. So I think it's just fair that we amend it. I'm just going to amend Section 3. After reviewing Section 2, I don't think there's a reason to amend it because Section 2 really doesn't say anything that I think gives that wrong impression. But Section 3, what I'd like to amend to, so I'm going to strike the existing Section 3 and substitute with the following language it will read, Section 3, and just for the clerk and the county attorney, I'll get you this language after the meeting so you don't have to write it down. The council requests the administration follow the Louisville tree plan strategies in its planning, with implementation contingent on future approval through a Metro Council budget or operating plan. period end quote um keep the rest of the resolution as is i i think it's fair to that this then communicates to the public uh to the administration that certainly we want to to continue moving forward on all these strategies but we also expect them to come to council with budgeting with implementation plan with hopefully more creative ideas to get some of this done uh and not just one idea so um i'd like to make that in the form of motion

And we have a motion and second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anybody opposed? And the motion moves. So now do we need to... Now we need to make a voice vote on the resolution. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? And the resolution moves. This will go to old business because we have an amendment on it. Thank you all. Have a great day. 420, we're done.