Shoreline Regional Park Community - Regular Meeting

All right.

Welcome. I'm now going to call to order the Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 meeting of City of Mountain View's Parks and Recreation Commission and Urban Forestry Board. Allison Flynn, will you please conduct the roll call?

Commissioner Bryant. Here. Commissioner Davis.

Here.

Commissioner Sylvester. Here. Vice Chair Sommer. Here. And Chair Mitch.

Here. All right. We'll move on to our First item of the night, which is the minutes approval from the June 17th, 2026 meeting. Before we get into that, I just want to see, is there any public comment on the June 17th minutes?

All right.

No public comment. I'll bring you back to the commission and see if anybody wants to make a motion or discuss it.

All right.

We have a motion by Commissioner Summer, a second by Commissioner Davis.

Okay. Commissioner Bryant. Yes. Commissioner Davis. Yes. Commissioner Sylvester. Yes. Commissioner Summer. Yes. And Chair Michener.

Yes. Passes. Now we will move on to oral communications from the public. This portion of the meeting is reserved for a person wishing to address the commission on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are limited to three minutes. State law prohibits the commission from acting on non-agenda items. If you're in a room and would like to speak, please fill out a blue card. If you're online, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom and Allison Flynn will recognize you. So is there anyone in the room who has public comment on an item not on the agenda? Anybody online? All right. I will close public comment. Moving on now to item 5.1, the heritage trade removal application appeal from 961 Eichler Drive. Let's see. I think I can first introduce the two attorneys that are here today helping us out. Assistant City Attorney Francesca Serrano will be representing city staff. And Senior Assistant City Attorney Dave Wilgus will be representing the Urban Forestry Board. Just to go through the process real quickly, this will start off with a staff report. Then the appellant will have 10 minutes to make a presentation. The PRC will then have an opportunity for questions. We will then open this up for public comment. Following that, it will come back. Staff will have an additional two minutes to make any additional remarks. The appellant will then have two more minutes if they choose, and then it will come back to the PRC serving as the Urban Forestry Board for a deliberation motion and a vote. On this item, I... from reading things, I believe the owner and appellant is the same person, and it is Elizabeth McAninch, if I'm saying that properly. She's online. She's online. Okay. All right. With that, I will turn it over to Forestry Manager Russell Hansen for the staff report. Thank you, Commissioner.

So again, we're here on behalf of the property owner for 961 Eichler Drive. The tree in question is a large oak tree out in front of the property, as we can see from the aerial image presented on the screen now. It is in the front yard of the property. Again, Quercus callowii, black oak, about 20 inches in diameter that has good health and ultimately fair structure. We'll get into the structure as to why we gave it a fair rating in a second here. The applicant on the application listed the following reasons is that the tree is in poor health, the tree is in danger of falling, the tree is diseased with pests, insects, or beetles, and the tree is growing in close proximity to structures and causing damage or will in the near future. So when we took a look at what was occurring on the property, the picture on the left is representative of a sewer lateral repair that was done for the property. It did involve, I don't want to say extensive, but significant, I'll say root pruning. of the tree itself, given that it took kind of that almost the one entire side towards the left of the property line and then wrapped back along the front. We estimated not quite 50%, but as much as 50% of the potential root system, the critical root zone, definitely was impacted by that work. I'll get into a little bit more detail. On the right, you can see after the trenches were backfilled, kind of what it looked like. The picture on the left that we have here does show the root pruning that took place. We estimated that there were at least 12 unique roots that were cut. All of them typically were fairly small. I'm gonna say less than three to four inches in size. So while they would have an impact on the tree, we feel like it was far enough away from the tree where the tree has a fairly good chance of recovering from the damage. The picture on the right talks about live crown ratio. Ultimately, we typically like at least 60% of the foliage on the bottom. 60% of the foliage on the majority of the tree with only about 30% at the bottom of a mature tree is what we typically like to have removed. It really is just dependent on the size of the tree, et cetera. But as you can see in this case, that almost 60% of the lower foliage was removed. from a prior pruning as well as the most recent pruning that kind of occurred. You can see the two cuts in question. In these photographs, there's one to the kind of left side of the picture on the left there where I have my cursor located, that ultimately that was one branch that was removed. We'll guesstimate, don't know specifically, but guesstimate as much as three to four years ago that that branch was removed. And then we have the picture on the right, which is another one on the opposite side of the tree. That was again, both of these I'm gonna put is about 10 inches or so. But ultimately that one on the left side was a more recent cut that occurred when the new owners, I believe, took control of the property because these are new owners within the last couple of years that have taken control of the property. So ultimately, when we look at what kind of was proposed and what occurred, while we absolutely understand the root pruning has an impact on the tree and it's going to need to be monitored, I think one of the things that's been, I'll say a little bit of a saving grace for us, is the delay from June till now. You can see the tree has leafed out fairly well. It's got decent size leaves. Everything looks like it's doing pretty, pretty well. know it's going to have to be monitored we're going to have seed long-term impacts from that root pruning but we feel like it has a pretty good chance so again bottom line for us we did not find the condition of the tree required removal even though there are some challenges we did not find that removal of the heritage tree was necessary in order to construct improvements as the sewer repairs were already done and the roof repair had already begun Those were really the only construction impacts that we were aware of that were occurring. Third one, tree and structure of the canopy. Again, we put, I shouldn't say structure of the canopy is good. Structure of the canopy is actually a little bit closer to fair in this case because of that crown raising that had occurred. But again, not terrible, not poor, I'll say. So we didn't feel like that criteria was met. And then the last one that we didn't feel like it needed to be removed for good forestry practices because it was not competing with any other trees. It does provide value. It does provide aesthetics and benefits to where we feel like it contributes to the canopy rather than distracting from the canopy or otherwise. So we elected to deny the removal based on those findings.

All right. We'll now move on to the owner and appellant, Elizabeth McAnich.

Hello, good evening. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Hello, Mountain View Urban Forestry Division. It's my honor to speak with you today. I'm Lizzie McAnich. I'm relatively new to Mountain View. I purchased this home about two years ago. It's my first home and it's an eggler, which means it has a partially flat roof. So the flat roof portion is right under this tree. The tree is only located six feet from the house and it's a tall tree. I would say about 60 feet tall is what the arborist estimated, but feel free to correct me on that. And it is deciduous, it does have a lot of foliage, the drops on the roof, the flat roof. And when I moved in, as documented in the inspection and roof inspection report, there's extensive damage to the structure of the home. So I had to replace the entire roof. and about at least half of the ceiling over those portions right under the tree. And there was extensive water damage and wood rot in those areas right in that corner where that tree is. And I had to do all that at my personal cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I would hate for it to get damaged again with my new roof in the fall. I would hate for it to get damaged again. My new home that's been refinished because of this damage that's been sustained because of the tree itself. It's too close to the house and that area on the flat roof. Unfortunately, flat roof. And the tree is partially hollow. I don't know what you guys call that, but you know, when you tap it with a mallet, the lawyer just... Presented one of the limbs he guesstimated was cut off three or four years ago. That little limb, that bleeding hole, is hollow when you tap with a mallet. And I'm very afraid that it's going to break and fall on either my house or... or because the roots were cut now on one side on the sidewalk and potentially hurt a pedestrian or a car. So these are my main concerns. The structure and home damage is well documented in the sale and the inspections reports. And my new roof, I really want to take good care of. And I already know that the tree is damaged. So I would love to replace it with some healthy trees that will be healthy and long live for the neighborhood and the landscape and safer for my home integrity. Is that it? That's it. If you want me to play a video of what it looks like in my house, inside my house when it's raining, I can, if I can share my screen.

It's up to you. You have seven minutes left. So whatever you want.

Okay, let's try to share it and show you a video. So this is my house right under the tree. The floor is all covered in stain and the walls are dripping stain. The floors are all stained from water dripping through the roof, through the stain. The bathroom, the floor is covered in stain from the roof. And the walls are, it looks like they're bleeding from the leakage and you can see the stains on the ceiling. So I'd really like to stop damaging my house and I would like to prevent future catastrophic failure of that street. That's it from me.

Okay, thank you. And you'll have another opportunity later.

Thank you.

Something comes to you. Okay, I'll now bring it to the,

urban forestry board to see if anybody has questions for either staff or the appellate care who goes first commissioner summer question for the city's urban forester russell hansen so i recall that the uh black oak in its native situation is often very base shaped with the lower branches kind of died off and then the upper part is the shape that this tree is. Is that the case in the urban setting in your experience?

Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to those valley oaks, it is something that is mostly genetic. It absolutely is impacted by other shading trees or otherwise that can change that shape. But when they are out in the natural environment, they tend to be very well spaced. You don't get a lot of dense black oak forests, shall I say. And so it's one of those situations that, yeah, as a result, they tend to start upright. And then because of the weight of the branches, et cetera, they tend to go from that base to kind of an arch to a little bit of a groove. But, you know, absolutely, they do maintain their lower branches in that natural environment, depending, again, on kind of the sun that they get, the water that they have available to them, et cetera. But that is absolutely something that will occur. That lower branches, those lower foliages, as they are shaded by that upper canopy itself, those will start to die back and have less and less present.

Okay. All right.

Then my other question was about permit that the owner obtained from the city to do that trenching. Can you talk a little bit about what type of conditions the city put on that work?

So I'm not sure if the property owner pulled the permit. I am fairly confident that they did. But ultimately, in terms of conditions that are put onto those, there aren't a lot. That is one of the holes that we have with public works with some of our other departments that we need to do a better job kind of attaching conditions to the permits that they are generating. But ultimately... I don't believe there are going to be many conditions that were on a permit that she may have received for this typically a building permit is ministerial.

So they're not going to be doing anything then but instead of conditions city doesn't have any types of standard conditions requiring free protection or avoidance of severing large roots and that type of stuff?

Not necessarily for a sewer lateral repair. No. Absolutely. But I was going to say, for the larger building permits where they're actually doing the remodels and so forth, absolutely, those are some of the conditions that make it up to those.

Wasn't there a remodel that maybe it was just finishes and appliances?

In terms of this property itself? I am only aware of the sewer line and the roof. I am not aware of any other remodeling or otherwise redesign of the property or the building.

So for a sewer line, ordinarily someone would be obtaining what kind of permit?

I don't know the specific name of it.

Yeah. Okay. All right. I'll come back to that in my comments. Thank you.

I will too. You asked most of the questions about the sewer line that I was going to have. Am I correct that the house is about 50 years old?

Yes, 54 years in my estimation.

And so you are currently putting a new roof on the house, right?

The new roof is on as of a month ago.

And by the way, welcome to Mountain View. Thank you. Thank you. It comes with a lot of maintenance, but yeah, it's a big deal. Do you know, Lizzy, if there had been a prior roof replacement?

Yes. I believe it was about 20 years before mine, so maybe 21 years ago.

Which would be, I think, about what a typical wife roof would be.

Yes. I didn't expect it to be raining inside my house when it rained, though, when I purchased the home. That was a shock.

i think that's all the questions i have any questions on this side um yes question for russell hansen um you mentioned the 50 you think about 50 of the roots have been removed up to yes up to um how do you think that'll impact the longevity and the stability of this tree i know it's hard to guess but Generally, what kind of impact would that have?

Sure. So again, I'm just going to come from the standpoint, it is very dependent on a lot of different factors. But ultimately, what I would say is that I think the prognosis for a tree like this is fairly good. Ultimately, the tree is still fairly young for a big black oak tree. And where ultimately, it's likely to be really fairly vigorous or otherwise, and it will repair some of that root damage and kind of regrow those roots over time to where the tree should recover enough and be fine, you know, 50, 100 years plus, I'll say.

And you mentioned the tree is pretty young. It looks pretty young. How old is it? Would you guess 20 years?

Maybe a little bit more. I'd say 20 to 30. Maybe even a little more than that, but typically about half an inch to an inch a year is what I look at for diameter.

And I don't know where this question goes, but there's mention that the branch, one of the branches that had been cut, that area feels hollow or sounds hollow. Is there any more information about the extent of that?

No. Ultimately, the property owner did submit a report. If she wants to kind of speak to that, I'll let her do that as well. But staff did go out and use a sounding mallet. And ultimately, while it did identify, yes, there is a presence there. Somebody gave his presence. we did not feel that it's extensive enough to where it created any real major structural issues. It is very, very common, especially in these black oak trees, that as they mature and they get larger and larger, what we call the heartwood, centerwood, that as it gets older, that starts to die off. And you will have these trees almost completely hollow in some cases, but they stay standing for a very, very long time. It really just depends on the overall structure, the weight of the branches, all of these other little factors as to whether that decay becomes a big issue. We do have, through our industry group, the ISA, there are formulas that ultimately, when we have an idea of the decay and what the dimensions, et cetera, are, we can run that formula and get kind of a judgment as to good, fair, or et cetera. Because this is not an open cavity, it would require what we would refer to in the industry as a resistor graph. basically a fancy drill, put it up against the tree and it prevents you from putting more or less pressure. It's got a set push on it. And then the drill as it goes into the tree reports on a graph how much resistance is occurring. And so by taking those resistance readings, we can determine how much is sound wood, how much is decayed wood or otherwise. But in this case, the arborist report didn't provide that because of the way we sounded the tree, we didn't really feel it was necessary. because it can be very expensive for the average homeowner to do that. I'll say $1,000 to $2,000 to kind of do that testing as well as generate a report based off of the results.

That's actually very helpful. That was my next question. How much would that cost? But you mentioned if there's hollowness, it also depends on the overall shape and condition of the tree. This tree is borderline fair?

Correct.

So would that impact... how the hollowness will affect the longevity and stability of the tree.

I would be more concerned if there were other branches, other large scaffold branches that were closer to that decay. But because of where that's located on the trunk, we've got a good distance before we have branches. So I don't think it's going to have a significant impact.

Thank you.

Do you have any questions?

Yes. I was wondering about the shape of the tree. And Assuming that the tree is currently healthy, that it is recovering from the cutting of the roots, as the tree grows, it looks splendid at this point, visually. Probably not pruned the way one would have hoped it to be pruned for aesthetic value. In terms of growth, do you expect it to grow up, sideways? I mean, it It looks like it needs to fill itself out visually in some way. What would you expect?

So black oaks ultimately are similar to a lot of other oaks. When they are over pruned, they will produce what are called water sprouts or epicormic sprouts. Those are very randomly kind of spaced throughout the tree. Sometimes real tight little areas where they'll come off of old branch cuts or otherwise. Other cases that literally just sprout out of the trunk or up. I can't tell you exactly how it will regrow, but yes, I would expect that this tree would produce some new growth along that trunk because that's kind of the tree's natural defense. It's very difficult when the sugars and starches are produced in the upper canopy for the tree to transport those all the way down and continue to grow that trunk. because that's what's required. It needs sugars and starches to lay down that new cellulose and all that other new material that forms the trunk. So it's very difficult. And so the tree's natural response, they've evolved such that they will likely produce sprouts, but I can't even guarantee that. It is heavily dependent what's gonna influence that at some of the root pruning. may delay that sprout growth. It may go, well, I'm not really sure how much energy I got. And so it may not produce those as early as they typically would. They take a season or two for those to start to form. But yes, absolutely. The black oak is one I would expect some of those sprouts or regrowth to start to occur. Thank you.

Okay. I have a few questions probably for the property owner. So when I looked at the 2024 roofing inspection photo, it shows other trees that were next to the home in the picture that was in the roofing inspection photo. When were they removed and were they also contributing to debris on the roof?

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, but my neighbor who's very, very close by my house has a big row of trees that I believe you're referring to.

John Gerstle, I was just looking at a picture that's fine. John Gerstle, So. John Gerstle, The sort of. John Gerstle, So there was a pretty major cut that was made. John Gerstle, On the trunk. John Gerstle, You know about the 12 foot by level. John Gerstle, When so. John Gerstle, In piecing together, it seems like it was done after the original city decision. So I just wondered, can you tell us about the timing of that cut and why it was done?

Yes. So just to clarify, you're talking about the cut that was made in the last year?

Yeah, I presume. It's a pretty major cut.

Yes. So I was the owner for that cut. And I did it because that limb was directly on... the roof. It was like so close to the roof. I was worried that the roofers wouldn't be able to do their new roofing job. I was worried that it would impede the roofing material somehow. So I removed that limb to assist the roofers and their job of replacing the roof. Cause it's directly overhanging the roof, the flat roof.

Okay. Then I just, my last question, you know, I, I didn't read every single word of the 68-page sales disclosure, but I did sort of go through it. Can I presume, again, that the roof and the termite inspections were done in conjunction with the purchase of the home and that the conditions were included in the disclosures? And if the answer is yes, was repair or reimbursement for repair made a condition or funded through the purchase agreement of the house? I mean, that would typically, I think, be what happens if you found major stuff during the disclosures. But maybe you can walk me through that.

I'm not sure exactly if you want to hear about numbers, but the house was listed for X amount of money.

And I let me say this, if this is private, No, no, no.

Yeah. I offered if the house was listed for X amount of money, I listed X minus Y to the amount that I thought a roof cost. And they took accepted my offer. The owners were also terminally ill. And so they were. moved to sell the home quickly. And I was happy to take it off their hands because I wanted my first home with the understanding that it was as it is. And I love, love, love landscape. It's my passion. I had a landscape study in college. And although it's not my profession now, I want to make a beautiful landscape after I finish this home remodel. So I'm really passionate about beautiful landscapes. I didn't see a problem with the remodel at obviously a discounted price, as long as I'd be able to sustain that remodel by not damaging the newly remodeled roof further.

Well, I would hope that you made yourself whole for some of the internal damage as well during that, but that's

Yeah, I feel like they staged the house. They painted it. All those bloody streaks on the walls when it rains, they were all painted. So I didn't necessarily know about those. Then when they opened up the walls, everything was rotten. It was all water damage. So it was worse than I thought. But maybe I'm an ignorant first-time homebuyer.

Sorry. All right, that's it for Questions? Any other questions before we open it? Go ahead.

So since the site was before us when I visited the site, I noticed that the tree was making water sprouts, as you described in answer to Commissioner Bryant's question. And so knowing that, what does that make you think about the tree?

if there are water sprouts that are forming, because we went back as recently as a week and a half ago, and I don't necessarily recall seeing them.

There were a bunch of them down in kind of a plumb.

Okay, so just a small area, not necessarily kind of through the hole.

No, they were all in maybe.

Okay. So, yeah, I apologize that I missed that. But ultimately, you know, that is good. That means the tree feels like it's healthy enough that it can start to produce new branches or otherwise to try and help it to recover.

Yes.

Correct.

Whereas if it was more extensive and the tree was kind of going into that, I'll say, shelter mode, it would not be producing new growth. It would just be trying to keep what it has alive, et cetera.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Okay, so now we'll open it for public comment. Is there anybody from the public either here or online who would like to speak? I will close public comment and bring it back to staff for up to two more minutes.

Sure. So, you know, again, I fully sympathize with the property owner getting into this and figuring out the damage was worse than they may have anticipated or otherwise. But when it comes to the roof damage, staff's opinion really is just that a lot of the damage is a result of a lack of maintenance from the prior owner, not necessarily the new owner. But the old owners may have been more calendar, otherwise they just weren't able to do that maintenance the way that they needed to. So that debris was allowed to build up and that creates additional puddling, that creates additional damage. And I think it just kind of snowballed on the prior owners, and she is, as the new owner, is kind of picking that up. I would also say that just based off of the aerial images or otherwise that we have, I don't have one that's more current than about a year old, but in that aerial image that we kind of shared earlier, it's maybe 10 to 20 percent of the canopy of this tree that actually overhangs the house. That doesn't mean that any of the other foliage can't fall with the wind or otherwise it can't blow on the roof, but it's not a significant amount. It's not 50% or more of the canopy that's over the roof that really guarantees a lot of leaf debris or otherwise it's gonna build up. And so we just felt like that roof damage was something that now that it's been replaced, as long as it's maintained on an annual where they do get up there before storms or otherwise, clear out their gutters or get rid of some of that leaf debris, it's likely to not have any other issues for the next 10 to 20 years, similar to any other roof that has a tree adjacent to it, that kind of a thing. The only other place that I would go with it in terms of the root failure, yes, that absolutely is a potential. I don't want to completely discount that, but ultimately, I don't think it's going to rise to the level where this tree is likely to fall over in a storm. Given the directions of our prevailing winds on a regular basis and during storms, that tree should be okay. even in terms of falling out to the street or otherwise, I would actually say it's likely to fall the other direction if it's gonna fall anywhere because they pruned the roots off the street side, which makes it more likely to fall the opposite direction. And then as they pruned on the left side, it would be more likely to go driveway. Yes, there's potential and I will not discount that, but I just don't think it goes to the level. I think we are at the distance enough, especially on the street side, we had enough distance to stop paying green routes or otherwise than to preserve. It really is only that one site where we got within a couple feet that I would be more concerned. But given that we got it backfilled fairly quickly, that that tree is now having an opportunity to lay new roots, Chances are fairly good that within two to three years, that risk will diminish that much more to where I just don't see it as a problem for us. That would be all.

Now the appellant, you have up to two more minutes if anything else you'd like to add.

I just want to state, I want to thank everyone involved in this. There's a lot of focus on my tree. I really appreciate everyone's input and expertise. I personally am dedicated my whole life and career to safety, and I don't like the subjective terms, oh, it could fall. It is hollow. Half the roots have been severed. To me, this just adds up to a potential for disaster waiting to happen, whether it's a disaster on sidewalk or on my house. And I like to mitigate that and start fresh with new trees.

Thank you. All right. Now it comes back to the Urban Forestry Board for discussion and then a motion and a vote. I don't know who would like to go first. I have to go last.

I'm happy to go first. So I, too, regard this as largely an issue of neglected maintenance that unfortunately has snowballed and has become a problem. I did want to ask you one other question, Mr. Hanson. Is the litter of black oak leaves any more deleterious to roots or structures than pine needles or is there anything about the oak leaf that makes it any more hazardous to litter than any other? Property owner that has a Dave Kuntz, fee nearby and Scott litter on their gutters such and and that is a. Dave Kuntz, requirement of. Dave Kuntz, The bond going maintenance. Dave Kuntz, So that's that I do have a really strong concern that Commissioner summer really initiated, which is about the sewer and. Dave Kuntz, The it's germane to this, but it's also germane. to many of the other cases we're hearing. So I think this really needs to be addressed. And Allison, I'm going to ask you to pull up that element of the heritage pre-ordinance. So the heritage pre-ordinance, pretty clear. We get part of the ordinance in our packet, but there's more to it that often isn't included. And not to catch aspersions on this homeowner, but I think What we have is a violation of the archives. You can go to the next slide. This is section 32.25. And let me go one more out. And I highlighted some elements. And if you could pop it up, it'd be great. So any person that has possession of a heritage tree has the responsibility to take care of it. And not doing so is a violation. And there are a number of things that are called out. But very specifically, I wanted to touch on this issue of excavating around the roots. So the ordinance is clear that there shall not be excavation adjacent to the heritage tree that can cause material damage to the root system. And that the existing ground surface within four feet of the base of the tree shall not be cut, filled, compacted, prepared. So I'm not sure if this is a contractor issue, a city inspection issue, but clearly there's a disconnect between the ordinance and how sewer lines are being approved, inspected, and constructed. So regardless of what other motion we make regarding this property, I'm inclined to make a motion for consideration that the director be requested to have a consult with the community development director and talk about, I'm not sure that the city planners and inspectors are even aware of the ordinance that prohibits construction within four feet of the roots of the trees or in the drip line. Elsewhere it even talks about in the drip line. So there is water under the bridge, so to speak, and it keeps occurring. We've seen this on a number of heritage tree appeals. And the problem is, so a homeowner damages the roots and the trees compromise that, you know, a greater candidate for removal. So you can kind of instruct your way to a justification for free removal. But fundamentally, and I'm not putting this on Mr. Kanitz. I really think this is an issue with the contractor and the people doing the sewer work and permitting. Ultimately, there is a broken process here, and it's going to compromise our heritage trees. And it's a clear violation of the stated ordinance. So that was my primary comment. And I'll make motions later. Doug, do you have any specific comments to this situation as it stands?

I mean, you don't have to.

Yeah, so yeah, I think it's unfortunately, and I feel badly for the homeowner, I think it's a neglected maintenance. 50 years that has manifest in these problems. Unfortunately, at a great expense, but they're being corrected now. There are some questions about the aesthetics of the tree. I know that by the letter of ordinance, aesthetics can be a consideration in our deliberations. I really don't think they're apropos. I really think as we face this and other heritage tree deliberations, it's the health, the structure, is it infested? Is it interfering with other construction? Those are the germane issues. Trees are living things that have shapes and forms that change over time. I don't think this is the ideal form of this tree, but I certainly don't think that's a form that would warrant taking it down. And so my inclination is to support the staff recommendation, although I have also great sympathy for the homeowner, but also to come back and really harp on this issue of the city's oversight of So close to heritage streets.

Thank you. And thank you for your research on delving deeper into that. I mean, you're not even that deep, we should. But I encourage everyone to Yeah, I mean, if it's, if it's appropriate, maybe you could, well, Allison already has a copy of that, but maybe it can get distributed later on. So we can see. Thank you.

Go ahead. Next. Um, yes, thank you for sharing that, that I think I agree that there's something broken about the city's process and approving whatever permit this was, I assume it's a building permit. It looks like it says the director or the community development, it looks like the CSD director could also impose conditions, if they're the one who permitted to, that's who I think they're talking about that director. Um, I would like to see some type of standard conditions for all permits that are related to work near heritage trees. And I would like staff to report back to us about how this process works and how it's supposed to work. But in general, on that now, the actual tree, I'm, I'm really glad to see that the owner is maintaining the building and investing in the home and I think that what had happened maybe due to the health of the previous owner that the annual maintenance and debris removal just wasn't happening. And debris removal in the fall and winter, you know, from a roof and a property is a common maintenance task for everyone. It doesn't matter if you have a big tree on your property or not. Things blow in and it's just a common task. It's part of owning a home. And when that doesn't happen, it can result in the kind of water damage this building had, which is very unfortunate because it's too bad that it's reached that point. But I don't think that I see this as something that the tree did. I think it's something that the people didn't do. And so I'm going to be supporting the staff recommendation. And I agree with the staff's analysis and rationale that's expressed in the resolution.

Okay.

I'll be brief. First of all, second, welcome to Libby and the congratulations on your first new home. But I'm really sorry that there were so many unknowns in that. And I do have a lot of empathy for for that um I'm going to also second what my colleagues have already said about our own permitting process having issues that the permit for the sewer was approved without awareness or under or appreciation for the heritage tree ordinance that is something that we need to look at seriously and make sure it gets resolved um so with that said um I am a little bit worried about the long-term stability of this tree it looks like there's going to be ongoing monitoring needed for it at least for a while to make sure that the roots grow back and it's the tree stays stable i appreciate what you're saying about the safety and your concerns and i value that um with that said i think i'm leaning towards accepting the staff recommendation um but i'd like to hear what my other colleagues have to say

Mr. Bryant.

Yes, thank you. So, uh, I sympathize with finding water in the walls because I also own a home that was built in the 1940s and I tried to take out the window and discovered I had to take out the walls instead. And that had nothing to do with trees. So an old house is an old house. And after I put in a new roof, it was really great not to have buckets in the kitchen anymore. Great experience not having to do that. I read the roofing report quite slowly and carefully. And it looked to me like a lot of the necessary roof work was just an old roof. It wasn't just about the debris. The debris needed to be cleared and should have been cleared. But there were a lot of problems that were not connected to that. just the roof becoming old and needing to be replaced. And really all I saw that the roofers themselves just were worried about branches brushing against the roof, which at this point is no longer an issue. I feel very strongly about our permits and whether they take heritage trees or trees at all into sufficient consideration. The ordinance seems to talk about the base. I wish we also talked a little more about the roots because the base may be here, but there's like the drip line of the roots. And I've seen too many occasions of construction going straight through the roots. And that may need to be just put into writing. I'm sure it needs to be put into writing. So I'm hoping as we work on a new heritage tree ordinance, that will be part of it, how to protect the roots and the tree itself. I don't feel that the tree right now is is a risky proposition. It's always part of what we do. If there's new signs of the tree deteriorating, then the appellant can contact the city again. And if there's a clear deterioration, this process can be gone through again at any time if there is fear of fear of deterioration. I am ready to support staff's recommendations. I feel they're well thought through. The tree has been checked over twice, once when it was bare of leaves and once when it had leaves. So I feel comfortable about that and I would be very happy to support a motion asking for further work on protections.

Just for me, again, the tree's in decent health, not awesome, but I think that as Mr. Hansen pointed out, my crown ratio is a bit low, but it would be higher and I think the tree would be more balanced and lusher if that major, again, I was bummed that that major lower limb was cut off. Just by my rough estimation, when I looked at the before photos from the December 25th, arborist or December of 25 arborist report, you know, and I, I sort of did some yellow highlight. I mean, that cut along might've taken away 25% of the trees canopy. And that was disappointing. Um, you know, Oaks are one of three species which fall under a special protective category. You, um, so this tree being an Oak also sort of impacts my, um, my thinking on it. Um, For the staff arborist, even though a portion of the roots may have been damaged during the trenching, oaks have the ability to sprout new roots. So at this point, we just don't know whether that trenching will impact the long-term prognosis of the tree. As to the water leaking into the home, now there's a new roof. So my hope would be that there won't be new leaks linked to this tree, especially if there's regular maintenance to keep debris HAB-Masyn Moyer- Off of the off the roof and HAB-Masyn Moyer- If only 10 to 20% of the canopy and I don't know if that's pre cut or post cut is overhanging the roof. HAB-Masyn Moyer- My hope would be that would be okay. You know, HAB-Masyn Moyer- Again, I know I'm disappointed that that major limb was was cut off. But even with that, with the reduced canopy. There just doesn't appear to be sufficient reason to remove this tree because it seems like mitigations are available for protecting the home at this point. And as Commissioner Bryant mentioned, as we move forward, if it appears this isn't a lifetime decision necessarily, if it appears that the trenching has impacted the tree's health, then that could be cited as a changing condition for a new removal application. Like the others, I'm going to move towards denying the appeal and upholding the staff decision to deny removal of this tree. So with that, I don't know if there's any other discussion or if somebody would like to make a motion. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make two motions. I would like to keep the tree clean as its own thing. Because I'm not even sure if the other motion is we should check the seat since it wasn't agendized and

that but go ahead with the trees ocean uh yeah i'll make two motions and i'll explain the second one and it will take one or two times so i'll make a motion to adopt the resolution of the urban forestry board of the city of mountain view to deny the appeal uphold the staff decision on the design of removal of one heritage tree at nine six one eichler drive to be written middle only further reading waived attachment one to memory second so we have a motion by commissioner davis

Second by Commissioner Bryan. Any discussion before we vote?

Commissioner Bryan? Yes. Commissioner Davis? Commissioner Sylvester? Yes. Vice Chair Sumner? Yes. And Chairman Scherr?

Yes. Thank you. The second motion. Go ahead.

Can I, if I could, I don't think you need to make a motion for this. I think you can just request that the director look into this? Is there a problem with the motion? I don't think it's necessary and it's not on the agenda.

It's not on the agenda. It relates to this item. There's a omission in the city's process. If you don't want me to make a motion, I won't. I've requested other things in the past that haven't been followed up on. That's why I'm insistent on motions. Let me formally request. I don't want to make work for anybody. I think there's a lack of understanding within the community development department that this ordinance even exists in these details. I will request with the director of community service department schedule meeting with the director of community development to share the details of the ordinance and the commission concerns and ask that that information be promulgated through their inspectors and plan checkers so that what is clearly part of Mountain View's ordinance is acted upon appropriately.

And I will give you a verbal update at our next meeting. Thank you. And I'm I'm fine with that.

I request an addition here request. So adding to that verbal update at the next meeting would be a description of what the process actually is for something that is a involves, you know, like, let's say a sewer lateral replacement, which is going to require trenching, what, what types of prep, what types of standard measures the city requires of the African in order to be their case.

Thank you.

So I would like to add on something. So I would have been happy to support a motion because the motion puts it in writing in our records. And the way we have Our minutes done, have had our minutes done for a long time. Basically, our conversations do not, do not, do not kind of get embodied on paper. It's just a discussion among the PRC. What would be the problem with having an approach?

Well, I think it could be detailed, if that's your concern. And I think the problem with the motion at this point is that there's no, it's not on the agenda, there's no notes to the public that this action is being taken. No public comment on this particular subject matter.

I took notes on, I have word for word what you both said, and I can include that in the

Karen Hollweg, That only suppose one thing we could do is request that a discussion of this matter be. I could make.

Karen Hollweg, We could we could request agenda for future or I could add to this. Karen Hollweg, Discuss with the Community development director 961 which is on the agenda and other. I'm. Trying to let it go I trust. Director Marchal will follow up, but I too don't see the problem with the motion because it is our own way of actually formalizing it.

So asking for the item to be agendized seems like a way to make it easier for Director Marchal and for the PRC to make sure that it comes up and also is given enough time. so that you can tell us what the results of the talks were. The PRC can make comments, and then we can take it from there. So it doesn't need a motion. But if it's on our agenda, it could be an information discussion item. And I think that would make all of us feel good that it's on our work schedule.

Yeah, I mean, I would be more comfortable with that. Is that something we can do?

The question is, if you're looking to make that motion, I would suggest doing that under our last item, item six.

Okay, but we can do that, then we could ask that this be an agenda for a future meeting. It could be an information item. Thank you. And now, thank you very much for still, I would still include maybe some of the discussion.

Maybe under The one part we haven't done yet.

Okay. So that closes this one. Thank you for participating. Thank you for buying in Mountain View. I'm sorry that there was so much damage to your house. That's that's not good. But I wish I wish you the best. And again, if this tree We'll see. We'll monitor it. And if the roots are causing a problem, then we'll be back. Okay. Thank you. All right. We'll now move on to item 5.2, which is heritage tree removal application appeal from 777 San Carrizo Way. And since this is a separate hearing, I'm going to, again, introduce the attorneys. We have Assistant City Attorney Francesca Serrano representing the city staff. And we have Senior Assistant City Attorney Dave Wilkis representing the Urban Forestry Board. The process on this item will be similar to the last one. We'll have a staff report. The appellant will have 10 minutes. The PRC will then ask questions if they have them. There will then be an opportunity for public comment. Staff will then have an additional two minutes. The appellant will have an additional two minutes, and then it will come back to the PRC serving as the Urban Forestry Board for deliberation, motion, and a vote. On this building, I'm going to check in with folks. But I see the owner is Brian Tang, and the appellant is Jennifer Lee. But I'm going to assume, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, that you're together.

Yes, we are spouse. Together, yeah. And he will be taught to be a spouse.

So yeah, so this, so then you'll be serving as the appellant on this issue. Okay, with that, I will turn it over to, to Mr. Hanson for the staff report.

Sure. Again, thanks, commissioners. Again, we're here for 777 San Carrizo Way. The tree in question, as we can see on the image here that's presented on the screen, is not technically, I believe, a street tree, but is very close to the edge of the street. in terms of its location, but definitely in the front yard. The tree itself, again, fairly good health and structure, has about approximately 55 inch diameter and it is a Sequoia Sempervigran or a close redwood. The applicant on their application listed that the tree was in good or fair health, but that it did not have proper growth space, that the tree removal was necessary to construct improvements, that the tree was interfering with utility services, and the tree was growing in close proximity to structures and causing damage or will do so in the near future. So when we look at the actual tree itself, this is an image taken from just standing in the street looking back. The tree itself is over here on the kind of left-hand side you can see in the image. Big thing here that I just kind of wanted to point out is it is a large enough tree and the buttress root or that root collar, that root flare where the trunk goes into the ground has grown to a size where it is definitely causing the surrounding landscape or otherwise to swell slightly. So we estimate, you know, six to 12 inches ultimately that that overall soil profile has been raised out there kind of, again, closer to the street. You can somewhat see again kind of the differentiation as it slopes down to the right here to where the lawn is more flat. 90% guarantee that is mostly directed at that tree roots that were causing that lifting or otherwise. As far as the building permit itself, here's some of the information that was presented. You can see in the drawing on the left or the left portion of the drawing there is the home as it exists today. On the right hand side, as you can see, is the proposed construction. I've highlighted them. When they did the drawings, they were done in that darker, bolder black. I've highlighted those with red boxes to make them kind of stand out. But ultimately, the tree itself is kind of up into the left or down, excuse me, down into the left, out in front of the property back here. So there really isn't significant change to the home itself where the tree is going to be impacted.

It's the top right.

The garage is the top left. Got you. Okay. Okay. So ultimately there is some construction that is occurring out there in the front. I believe in the report we talk about that even the new construction was still going to be about 16 feet from the property or from the building itself. So again, there is some construction in that area, but ultimately, thank you for the correction. It is not close enough that we feel like it's going to have a significant impact upon the tree. When we look at the utilities, the only utilities that we were aware of is that there was a gas line that was running kind of parallel to the sidewalk there. We didn't get an exact location on the lateral that runs up to the home. So I can't speak to that. But the lateral along the street itself is about a foot and a half. And then we've got water and sewer that we can see in that lower right as well. Those are kind of the water and sewer line that go up to the property. We estimate those to be, I'll say, seven feet or so from the tree. Typically... Typically, you'll get an opportunity later.

I didn't know if you wanted clarification on the lateral, because I know where that is too.

Okay, share that at your point. When you get an opportunity in a minute, go ahead and share. We'll get through it at this point. So those were the laterals. Those were the utilities that we were aware of at the time of our inspection. We get a little bit closer here to the yard as we get off of the street into the front yard. Bottom left, you can see the root collar itself. is kind of again flared out, but it's a significant distance from the home as it exists today. As we go, oops. In the staff report, there were some additional photographs that showed some tape measures where we had kind of measured it out. Ultimately, again, I think it was about 16 feet, 15 or 16 feet is what we called out for the distance to the new addition. Again, as we look back, let me just go back. and talk about the aerials, if it extends out as the drawings, we'll kind of estimate it here, you can see where the garage is on the top of the drawing there. Where the garage is located here, ultimately it's extending out almost parallel. This is simply a front porch, correct?

Yes.

Yeah, so that would have a slab or otherwise, but ultimately the way that we measured it at 16 feet was the main structure itself, not the actual patio or... anything else out further. So bottom line when we got to this one that we didn't feel the tree condition itself because it's fairly good health and structure didn't feel like the condition rose to the criteria of removal. We did not find that removal of the heritage tree was necessary in order to construct improvements because ultimately I see that's wrong opposite side of the structure. is that it's that 16 feet from there. So I apologize for that mistake on my presentation here, but would be about 16 feet from the new addition. We found that the tree's canopy is good and otherwise provides a benefit to the neighborhood. And that ultimately we didn't feel like it needed to be removed for good forestry practices. So I will stop there. You guys will have your opportunity for clarifications. No, that's okay. Thank you.

Okay. So you're done?

Yeah.

All right. You guys have up to 10 minutes.

I think I need to share my screen for this.

Since I think we're sharing, I'll just give you a wait when you're at five minutes, and then again, one minute just to .

It's not letting me.

Is that because I'm still?

and my wife, Jen, and I, we both are Bay Area natives and we've lived over 10 years. I was actually born up in a hospital, so we've always been here. Very proud to not be residents. And honestly, like whatever happens today, we're both very excited to be here just because like it's like a full circle moment. So first time we've ever gotten to be a part of this. Today, we just want to talk about this tree because I think what we want to make sure we're getting straight is like what we're trying to do versus what we're not going to do. If you go to the next slide. I wanna open by just saying, like we absolutely support the green canopy. We support trying to preserve trees. We literally planted 23 new evergreen trees like this year, just a couple months ago. what we're trying to do today is not for blue trees, because we care. What we're trying to do is just make sure that we have the right tree in the right place and get rid of something that is potentially a huge light hazard and replace it with two or any number of trees that can fill the canopy and replace everything still. To basically say, take no immediate visual impact to the city, no visual impact to the canopy, but still So I want to cover four things that I'm hoping I can prove today with all the various facts that we found. Number one is the primary concern that we see is that the tree actually faces imminent gas line compression. We are 18 inches away from it. It is an enormous tree, and this is a huge light hazard for every single person within vicinity of falling and within a gas explosion, all six of whom have signed a petition that they fully support that this is a sheer concern. I'll go through a couple of those as well. So I know this was a question earlier. This is the gas line that we were talking about. It's about 18 inches away for the gasoline. If you look at the pink line, that's the lateral that goes to our house. It's directly under the trunk. So because of that, we all know, obviously, with redwood trees, the actual roots themselves are very shallow. So there's a good chance that it's all within the top three feet where 90% of the roots are going to reside. Now, if you look at what's already happened, our main water line was actually destroyed as well as the sewer line when we were originally pulling a different line to our ADU. And what we saw was that it was already damaging the pipe, so we had to replace it. And so I know it was one of the concerns like, yeah, we repaired it, but I want to be very clear, right? Just because we repaired it doesn't mean necessarily the problem didn't exist, right? It still did cause the damage. And it is something that can also happen to the gas line. We checked with an ISA arborist. They specifically looked into this. It was in the original report. And his primary concern is that while we don't have to wait for puncture of a gas line, you literally can't service it. The entirety of that perimeter of the drip line is all going to sever structural. So you can't get under there to do any sort of maintenance. And then if you look at sort of the US Department of Transportation's guidance, one of their primary concerns is how do you ensure that trees can be serviced and accessed? In this case, yes, it's not causing anything immediately, but you literally can't touch it. You can go to the next slide. One thing that I want to flag is if you look at PG&E's own central guidance, this is from their website, their own guidance is 10 to 14 feet from gas lines. When we talked to them, what we found is that PG&E, obviously they have no skin in the game for you, they have no skin in the game for our specific home or our street. What they're asking for is we want to smell gas. The inspector has actually admitted to us directly, and I quote, because the last thing PG&E wants is to have a reputation for cutting down trees, right? Understandably so. However, what that's basically saying is the public image is more important, our collective safety, right? So my ask is, let's not wait for a company that gambles with people's lives to say, oh, let me wait for my turn to be responsible. And up to the next one. I want to highlight a specific case here. This actually happened in, I believe, April of this year in San Antonio. I think the previous incident we shared in Hayward, also a gas explosion, wasn't directly caused by truths. In San Antonio, it was. This one was specifically caused by slow crack growth on the pipe. And so what I want to highlight here is that we don't have to wait for puncture, right? We don't have to touch the pipe. Compression alone is enough to press a pipe, cause a leak, cause an explosion. And so if you think of it this way, waiting for smelling gas is part of the thing, right? That's basically just saying, let's create an unacceptable life safety hazard. It's easily preventable. And I think if we look at the Mountain View standard, right, the standard is interference with utility services or danger of falling, not waiting for an active disaster to happen before something. right? So our answer is to say, okay, well, I think we should responsibly support the proper mitigation strategies, then wait for something to happen, right? If you jump to the next slide, second point I want to cover is fall risk, right? I think this is probably the most common one I'm always bringing up. In this situation, if you look at the height of the tree alone, it can reach six houses just in our vicinity, and every single one of them has signed a petition to say, we are supportive of this, this is a shared concern, this thing can fall, and I don't I'll go through a couple reasons why. Some of these I think we touched on in the original report, so I'll breeze through them. I think, Russell, you touched on this as well. We had some surface roots coming out of the ground, pushing things out of the way. Everything's rising already. Obviously, recent droughts not helping. Number two, redwoods, as you all know, depend on interlocking roots. They need that for support. There's wind, there's earthquakes, whatever it may be. If they don't have that support, they're completely unassisted. jump to the next slide. Here you can kind of see a circle of where this tree could estimate to fall. All the green stars, the various houses, all of whom have signed. I believe that's in the packet if you want to look at the petition. If you look at California form and climate disasters alone, update X in the last couple of years versus 19 years, right? It's definitely on the rise. A fall would cut simultaneously and I don't wanna highlight this point. If it falls, it can also cause a gas problem because it'll literally rip the entire line out of it, right? So this is a very important share to make sure that's called out here. Number three, coast redwoods are not native to. They're unsuitable for dry urban environments, especially when they're planted improperly on the wrong location. Specifically, I was looking through the Mountain View Biodiversity Urban Forest Plan. I think this was adopted in, I want to say, June of this year. Touched on a couple points here. Coast redwoods, right, they're not historical. They're not part of the city's historical landscape. Poorly suited for urban conditions. They need a lot of water. Very sensitive to recycled water. A lot of heat stress. drought risks and gives us more reason to prioritize things that are drought-safe. The last point here, I know there's also Action 13 of the plan, which I think is aiming to increase the species diversity. I know redwoods are one of the most predominant species right now. Switching this one out literally directly contributes to that, and that's our hope ultimately. Three minutes. I'll skip some of these just because I think we've touched on a lot of them already. Obviously, these good forestry practices are supported by multiple other bodies, right? So the UC California Arborist Committee says ecological mismatch could disrupt underground utilities, easily infiltrate and crack pipes. We also know the species would be very drought-tensitive, as you put. And if you look at any of the even surrounding cities, Santa Clara, Campbell, anything within five feet would already be a cause for removal Um, last thing I'll touch on, uh, is the, obviously the, the actual building and the improvement we want to build on the property and how this can prevent that. So this one is actually a zoomed in photo of the one you had earlier. Uh, this right here for the garage ends, this striped part is basically all the new construction. This is the tree trunk drip line. So part of the construction is actually going to directly be under the drip line, which means if you excavate anything there, you're going to inevitably separate structural roots. But the part that it doesn't highlight is, if you think of this portion, this is the only way we can build any sort of hardscaping that leads to the home. So if we don't remove this, it'll literally be impossible to create any sort of accessible, like ADA compliant, safe pathway to the home. And the roots are already just placing rocks onto the street, as you saw in both pictures. So all of this to say, again, we want to reiterate, obviously aesthetics matter and we care a lot about that. We're not trying to just cut things down. I know some of these are very jarring examples, but the reality of the situation, I think if you talk to anybody on our street, it's very unsuitable, very oversized. If you look at the pictures, it sticks out like a sore thumb. It doesn't match anything, right? It's no longer majestic in nature because everything's fallen off of it already. It's a huge life risk, huge safety risk. It's technically unauthorized. It's a direct recommendation in the forest plan to not do these. All nearby homes basically said yes to the shared safety concern. And our hope is that that should alleviate pretty much any of the concerns of neighborhood aesthetic value. So our ask, we kindly ask that you guys please just try and choose safety. Please try and choose based off of how you would perceive this in your own home. Thank you.

However this goes, that was a well-done presentation. And you'll get two minutes, two minutes more later on. So questions from PRC?

Yeah, I will ask, you said to staff, I'm so that the street does not have planting strip so is it basically does it have no street trees at all typically the layout for us in those situations we take an additional five feet of right-of-way

that most homes have 10 feet of right-of-way in front. Whether that sidewalk is adjacent to the curb or behind the curb, it still is typically 10 feet. They're all a little bit different. Some are as small as eight feet, some are as much as 12 or more. So ultimately in this case, we measured this one based off of what we know as the right-of-way and it was determined to be back.

Just outside. Yes, correct. Okay, so if I can ask the appellate, Where would you plant the tree in front of the house? Have you thought about that?

I think what we would do is, well, one, like we're open to planting them pretty much anywhere. There's still surrounding trees in that specific area. I think in this situation, you have to kind of avoid that immediate hazard, which doesn't say you can't plant it. But in this case, right, like I think we would ideally find locations directly in front that would still replace it and just create an even lower cover or whatever is recommended by an arborist to say is safe and follows good practices.

All right, thank you.

other questions mr summer the question for urban forester hanson how common is it for street trees or trees on the front portion of an owner's property to be in the vicinity of a very utility infrastructure water line sewer line gas lines? I mean, how often would we see that in a residential neighborhood?

It's hard to put a number on it, but if I were to just throw a best guess at it, I'm going to say 90% plus, because ultimately we have a very limited frontage on both properties, 30, 40, 50 feet in a lot of cases. As soon as you plant the tray anywhere, five to 10 feet, you've got water, you've got sewer, you've got gas lines, you've got all of these other conflicts. And that's of where I would go with this one is that replacement would be very difficult knowing that now that we know that the gas line is where it is, the water line and the sewer line, there's not much room in there that we could actually replant much that's going to provide much canopy at least. Absolutely a smaller crabapple type tree that's 15 to 20 feet tall we might be able to put in there because the likelihood of root damage is going to be a lot less. But replant would be very difficult because, yeah, that is a common conflict. And we use the five-foot rule as a guideline more than a regulation. Yes, absolutely, we try to avoid those when we are planting new trees. We try to identify those in located such. We can't always do that. And so when that's the case, we typically work with the property owner and try and find one where we can minimize what the risk is.

So... Am I remembering correctly that this is a city-maintained tree? It's within the right-of-way?

It is not.

Oh, okay. It's not within the right-of-way?

No. It gets very close to the roadway, but what we anticipate is kind of where the tree was centered when it was originally planted. And in this case, when we took that measurement, it was outside of what we determined. Right. The tree grew into the right-of-way, but it was not planted in the right-of-way.

All right.

Thank you. Any other? No. Any questions?

The gas line issue is a perplexing. When I lived on Snow Street, we had a ginkgo tree and a gas line under it. And the gas line killed the tree. The tree didn't kill the gas. And the gas line killed the tree. And PG came out and corrected it and said, yeah. So gas is really detrimental to trees, right? Correct, absolutely. We'll see in the tree the effects of a gas leak, probably before you smell anything.

Typically, yes. Once that gas line is breached or otherwise releases gas, that is very toxic to the root system, and it is very short. I'll say less than 30 days. Typically, it's less than a week or so that that tree will actually start to show dieback.

Do you as a city arborist have any sense of proportionality of the risk of... The PG&E people that came to our house said, ah, happens all the time. It's not a risk. We'll help you replace the tree or something like that. They flopped out the gas line in a couple days. So I'm not asking you to make a risk projection, but... Is it common to see big risk from gasoline?

Big is very subjective. So I will simply say PG&E absolutely has a program in place for what they consider to be transmission lines. much larger pipe six, eight, 12, 24 inch type pipes where they are piping large quantities of gas across state lines down through California. Those transmission lines, very, very heavily regulated by federal government, a lot more conditions or otherwise PG&E has a program in place to be constantly inspecting those and ultimately has tried to proactively remove large quantities of fruit. In Mountain View, I wanna say they approached us with about 400 trees with their initial ask. And ultimately that was whittled down to just maybe a few dozen to a hundred, I think is what, but we are still dealing with those on an ongoing basis. Currently there's one at Sand Road Park that's in a neighboring property that they approached that over about taking that one down because it is across the transmission line. When it comes to the distribution lines that service the neighborhoods or otherwise, typically a lot smaller, inch or less, very low pressure, two, three, four, five pounds of pressure, you know, completely opposite of what we're talking about with the others. And yeah, that is my understanding. That is my experience in talking with the PG&E reps. is that when it comes to the sewer, the gas laterals or otherwise that run to the homes or the distributions that run in front of the homes, there absolutely is a risk, but they do not consider it to be a significant risk. They do not see it affecting freeze on a regular basis to the point where they die or where that pipe needs replacement or otherwise. Just not my experience is all that I can tell you with that. I would be very interested to hear more about the San Antonio one to kind of understand what occurred in that situation.

San Antonio, Texas?

Texas, yes, correct. But ultimately, I'd like to learn a little bit more about that one because, again, they're so far and few between where we hear about trees causing these issues. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I just don't see it as a big risk when we do our evaluations.

Have you considered rerouting the gas line?

I think that when we asked the arborists, they wouldn't be able to because they'd have to trench into it.

We'll just abandon the lot of place and route around it.

Because the whole thing is pretty much underneath it.

Cap it.

We've never pursued that.

The lateral is still under the tree. The lateral going to the neighbor's home is still under the tree. So I don't know how you could reroute the lateral from the side, like the one parallel to the sidewalk.

Just correct terminology. Distribution line?

The main line.

Yeah, the distribution that runs in front is what she's referring to. The lateral is what we say runs from the distribution to the house.

Sorry, the distribution.

So the distribution line is still a foot and a half from the trunk, between the trunk and the sidewalk there. Multiple homes, correct.

Other questions at this time? Questions on this side?

I do. I feel a little out of my element asking about gas lines, but I realize what's important here. Do we know how deep this gas line, specifically how deep the distribution line is and the lateral line is?

The PG&E guidance is maximum, I think, 36 inches.

Oh, right. But do we know where the existing line is? Because they're not always.

The only way for us to do that is to either interstate, I think that's what it's called. But the recommended actual height is 18 inches to 36 inches. But it's a very costly thing to do. pursue just to see.

PG&E will not provide. They will not do that. You have to do a potable excavation where you dig down and identify where that and take your own measurements. They will not do anything.

They won't do anything other than come by and be like, I'm just going to guess. Fine.

Yeah. Seems like I'm missing piece, but that's Do we know how close the roots are to the distribution line? Eighteen inches. Eighteen inches right now. In the cities that have the five-foot measurement, like San Jose, Santa Clara, and Campbell, where you have to be able to let the roots away, you said Mountain View has guidance? Yes. Why does it not even have an ordinance?

Simply because of the conflicts that would be created.

The way our city is built.

Yeah, when we start talking about pedestrian triangles of safety and utilities, we would ultimately have no street trees in our city. Very, very limited amounts.

And that's specific not with sewer or other utilities, but specific to gas?

It varies depending. Yes, correct. San Jose, it's 5, 10, and 15 feet here. In general, it's 5 and 10 feet that we use.

Okay. The guidance from the cities is also the line to the trunk, which is even shorter in this case.

And I noticed that on the property, it looks like a palm tree sprouting mixed into... That's the neighborhood.

It's like... just on the neighbors. It's like leaving out.

Oh, okay. So the tree is fully on your side, but the palm tree and the other stuff is actually on the neighbor's side of the property? Yeah. Okay. I thought you had mentioned something about debris falling from the tree or looms falling from the tree. Did I misunderstand? Oh, no, no, no.

I don't know if we saw the picture. It's in the report, I think. If you look at the grading, I think it was Russell's photo also, like in the grading, all the stone and everything that's in there have all just constantly rolling.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Okay, so it was specific to the stone and the soil. And can you tell me a little bit more about the 23 trees and plantings?

Absolutely. So that one, we actually lined multiple parts for our yard just because our neighbor also loved it. He was there when this tree was planted. And he's also supportive. They didn't realize it was going to get something. And it's actually not even the max. But we planted a whole bunch just because some of the one on the side had recently also died and ours was kind of more sparse. So we filled some of that and then some just in the main part of our backyard to just extend that. We also have like Another large orange one that unfortunately died a few years ago. And an apple tree.

What kind of trees are the 23 planted? The evergreens?

They're Italian cypresses. And then there's the dwarf cypresses in some smaller areas. And then, yeah. So they're just cypresses. They just go straight up. Yeah, because the neighbor had to cut down a few trees a while back. And they're just very bare. So we just added them.

Okay, thank you. I think that's it for now about five more questions. No. Do you want to go first?

Okay. So again, to the city, urban forest or handsome. So not every free situation comes to the urban forestry board. And my first house in Mountain View, on on Pettis had a giant Redwood and it was a new house that was constructed in the city imposed a bunch of construction requirements so that the roots would not be disturbed. Things like cantilever foundations and installation of permeable pavement for the pathway. And so I'm wondering if you can tell us more about the kind of requirements that the city does impose on building construction in order to preserve heritage.

Sure. So again, it depends on kind of the type of construction and the type of permitting and everything else that's required. But ultimately, yes, that is something that we've been working to close the gap on. in our building department that there are inspectors that go out and monitor these, I'll say remodels versus complete reconstructions. And so absolutely there are typically conditions that are placed on that to put tree protection in place. In an ideal situation, yes, it's out at the edge of the critical root zone, out at the canopy of the tree. In other cases that prohibits kind of movement on the site to actually achieve construction or otherwise. So those pre-protections can be moved back in closer to the trunk. It really is done on a case-by-case basis as to what we try to do. But in an ideal scenario, we absolutely are trying to do out at the end of the critical root zone. And then absolutely similar to what you talked about on the one on Pettus, if there is construction or otherwise, that's some of the things that we talk about with these applicants. We just had one recently, a second one on Franklin that you guys dealt with back in June. We had another one where they were doing a rebuild remodel and we went back and forth with them constantly on trying to come up with a solution because of the way they were constructing. They needed to have a main beam support buried 18 inches into the ground. There was just no way around No matter how much we went back and forth with building, et cetera, it just became a very, very big problem for them. And so in that case, we ended up actually approving the removal of that tree. So it really, again, case-by-case basis, but ultimately we are always trying to find creative solutions. And then, yes, where possible, implementing things like the permeable papers or otherwise that are going to kind of ensure that long-term success after the project.

So that with a permeable pavement would allow someone to construct a path over the roots and it would still allow, you know, the moisture and air and it really wouldn't destroy the roots, it floats over them.

Well, again, I don't want to use the term float over the roots because there is going to be some excavation that is required. Again, I'm not sure final construction, what they're doing, drape changes or otherwise. So it's tough to judge in that regard. But typically for a paver, You only need about four inches of base material and then the two or three inches of the actual paper itself. So it's far less impactful where concrete, you're putting in six inches of concrete, at least six inches of base rock material or otherwise, far more excavation into roots that are going to impact the tree. So yes, when we can propose that, we would because it will limit the amount of damage to the amount of impact. But there's still going to be some impact. It just may not be large structural roots because those may be a little deeper in the soil. Again, depending on the terminology of the soil.

And that type of path would be ADA compliant.

Not that a private owner has to be, but it would still allow for... My understanding is yes, pavers are part of the ADA compliance, yes.

And then what about... So it sounds like staff is looking at the structural package where they're know delineating the grade beams and versus a slab foundation and and everything and you would be working with their engineers to direct them toward i mean i'm just trying to understand typically with the property owner we will ask them those types of questions and try and get feedback let them work with their contractors their engineers or otherwise

and kind of coordinate that as well with building. So we're not building experts. And so, you know, what homeowners may tell us may or may not be the only solution. We want to also confirm with our building department. So yes, there is typically collaboration between the three to understand that better.

Okay, so it sounds like, you know, this is something that happens regularly for the urban forestry staff is this type of consultation.

At least I'll say three to four times a month we run across permits that we're dealing with construction or otherwise.

Thank you.

So let me go. So I just have just want to get in a little bit more. I'm trying to understand the PG&E city relationship on tree removal stuff. You know, and I submitted some of these questions in advance, but I'm going to ask them again. You know, does PG&E proactively make removal requests or notifications to the city in Mountain View, even if there's not an active leak. Does that happen?

Yes. Again, I refer back to the transmission lines or otherwise. And no, PG&E does not, in most cases, for homeowners that are dealing with lateral light issues, simply because that is property owner responsibility. that PG&E will absolutely get involved with the leak or otherwise, but once they do that, it's, hey, hire your own plumber to come in and fix it in a lot of cases. And they don't typically for private property fees, we don't get a lot of that except for those transmission lines. Okay, so add something.

If it's in response to that question, it's every three years, they will like monitor, they won't proactively do anything.

but that's it but if what we're saying right is like a gas line that you can damage this in a week three years is not gonna cut right and even then yeah so i mean if if pg e were to directly tell the city that a tree was a hazard and pg e requested the removal of the tree would that be a a condition for reapplication because it's a change in condition or would the tree just get removed without even having to go through the application process? I mean, for example, if this, you said there was a PG&E guy who said bad tree or something like that. I mean, if this guy was willing to put his money where his mouth was and send a notification to the city, I mean, then what happens?

Right. So ultimately, the city does allow by code. If we come across something that presents an immediate hazard, it can be removed immediately. There is no permit requirements or anything. All of that will get waived if we have an immediate hazard. You use the term hazard. That's why I say that. Getting PG&E to create that or to actually put that in writing and state that is going to be a bigger challenge. But ultimately, if there is no immediate hazard, but there is a hazard that when they kind of explain and document and provide the reasoning behind that requirement to remove, we would be inclined to listen to them.

You know, we're not going to fight against hazards, I'll say, known identified hazards.

In this case, again, there's a lot of potential, there's a lot of risk, but I don't know as though we have a hazard specifically.

And then I had the same question as her on just how deep the gas line was compared to the roots. Because we talk about a shallow root system, and I was just wondering if the gas line is actually below. But we don't know for sure. Again, with the root system as it is. And there is a slight lean towards the tree. I tried to be like a human protractor. And I was thinking maybe 5% to 8% lean or something like that. I mean, do you feel that the tree is currently in a stable position? Yes.

I believe that it's grown that way for some time.

And that's .. Do you have more questions?

Yes, if I could. So unlike sewer lines, which are very attractive to trees, trees like what's in there, there's nothing in a gas line that a tree wants, right? So is it true that a tree isn't inclined to mess with gas lines? In most cases, yes. So they're not going to invade it. So the risk issue is more of a load issue. Is that right? Technically, a load compression issue, yes. And actually, a strong root system would help mitigate that. That would distribute load, not concentrate it, potentially. you might do the opposite right because if it's stronger it's compressing it has more to push against uh yeah i just don't understand the gas issues well enough um is there a way to uh understand the compromised gas line. I'll let either one of you answer this slide. Can you tell through a pressure reading or something that a gas line is compromised?

I suppose potentially, yes, you could, because that would be the result of any kind of compression or otherwise, is it may reduce flow. But again, because these are so low flow, low pressure, they're going to test it and it's going to come in lightly where the pressure needs to be because of the volume of the pipe itself with the pressure, any compression isn't necessarily changing that pressure past there kind of a thing, unless it's extreme where it fully compresses it and limits it. But again, I'm similar to you, not a gas expert.

Put it to PSI. It'd be hard for the gas just to come out and pretty much contain itself.

And my understanding is when you typically find out about it as a homeowner, if you do have reduced pressure or otherwise, furnace kicks on, the pilot light's fine, but as soon as the furnace kicks on, it tries to draw enough pressure and it's not there. The furnace will shut off. So you start to get other things that will malfunction. Water heaters are similar. It could be gas water heaters. You'll start to see things like that when the pressure is dropping to where it can't support the utilities or the appliances within your home. Excuse me.

Can I add something to that, please? So based off of the San Antonio, Texas incident, it was a slow crack growth on the pipe itself. And so this was actually in a home community, like a residential area. And they also didn't detect any of the pressure things because it was a slow crack growth. Um, not like it's like going to be like an immediate detection, but like this still resulted because of the roof growing slowly into the line. Um, and that's what resulted.

Also exploded in two spots.

Yeah. So it exploded in where the home was and then a few minutes later or 30 minutes later, I exploded in another hole because it was related to the main pipe. So, you know, like, I don't think I want to wait until my stove stopped working to get rid of it.

Um, this doesn't solve the question about the distribution line, but have you considered tapping your lateral and going all electric in your remodel?

Uh, we are already all electric in our eighties and we do want to go all electric, but it doesn't change.

Yeah, that's you could catch a lateral and not have gas flow into your house, but it doesn't the distribution line on the street would still be a problem.

Yeah. If you look at the photo from the, I think it's in the package, if you look from the San Antonio one, it's the same thing. The house is far away, right? Blowing up a distribution line, blowing up a lateral line, the whole thing is gone.

Again, not a utility expert here, but I'm just trying to think of some mitigations.

Any other questions?

All right.

We'll now move on to public comment and see if there's anybody from the public, either here or online who would like to speak.

Nobody online.

I'll close on public comment and we'll go back to staff for two more minutes.

I don't have really anything for that. I think you guys have done a good job of questioning. All right.

Two more minutes for you guys.

Um, so I just want to close, like, I think we used all the same language, right? It's like a lot of people just intend to do this. Um, you can't wait for it, right? Like you can't, you can't measure it. There's no way I can stick a gas line into the ground and measure it and see when it's going to change. I can't hook something up and have an iPhone notification to tell me, you know, run in the next week. Um, like I felt in general, like we're both new parents. We have another baby on the way. Um, like I hope that Like we want to prioritize safety and we want to prioritize aesthetics here. Um, we've tried to explore a lot of these things. Some things are doable, some things are not. Um, but like, I don't know how many of you are parents, but you know, I think everybody looks at their families that don't protect them at all costs. Um, and so I hope everybody takes into account the facts, um, all the risks that we share. We clearly cared a lot about this. Is this truly safe or do we need to move if this doesn't go well? So I'd be really pleased that everybody please just vote as if it was your family that had to face the consequences and an impending 30% chance that you blow up and 30% chance that you don't. That's all we ask. And we will comply with any replanting, anything that's recommended. about them. We just we just want the right one. So thank you so much for the same.

People comes back to us. Speak first.

I'm happy to start. So You said many things in your presentation. And the tree is a fact. I can see how it raises concerns, per se, because you really don't have many trees that size in your neighborhood. When I drove up, I mean, the tree stood out. It took me some time to find your house, actually. Well hidden behind the tree. And I have my neighbor planted a tree more or less at the same time as your tree was planted. And it's very close to my house and it's even bigger than yours. And I've been trying to think how would I feel? I love the tree, but how would I feel if I knew it was sitting on top of a gas line? And I haven't finished making up my mind how I would feel, but I hear your concern that that really resonates with me. And I'm thinking... I don't usually have much sympathy for we need to remodel and therefore we'll take up the tree. Or I want my driveway in this place if we take up the tree. In this case, it's a beautiful tree, but a foot and a half from the gas line would make me uncomfortable. So it doesn't sound like We can expect PG&E to come and knock on the door and say, take this tree out, because that's not what they focus on in terms of safety. So I think I would listen to the appellant and say, this tree is just too close to the gas line. I hope you can find a way to plant a street tree that will have presence, that will, you know, beautify your home and beautify the street. But in this case, I would accept the hell of this application. In this case, I would take off the tree.

Okay. Are you ready to go? I appreciate your perspective. I really appreciate your presentation. I appreciate your appreciation of Vermont Gators Canopy. I understand your concerns and you presented it well. I've listened to the city staff. To me, I do find this to be a majestic place. And the only way I would... see taking it out as if I thought it did present a real element of risk.

I just don't believe it.

If I had a stronger indication from staff that that was something I should believe, I would very much take note. I think for lack of my own gas utility expertise and is my belief that it's a pretty rare instance that a low pressure gas line is going to really manifest in a calendar like that i i think i have to go with supporting the staff recommendation but i do appreciate your position very much

Well, I first just want to say that it's wonderful to see that a homegrown family is chosen to settle down in Mountain View and invest in a house and improve it to suit their family. That's a wonderful thing, right? We all want our kids, our young people to be able to stay in our community. I'm very concerned that if we were to remove this heritage tree that is otherwise a healthy large specimen that meets every protection requirement that we have, if we were to remove that because of a neighborhood distribution line in this situation, it really means we should remove every tree. And I say that because I have a giant liquid amber, which is an even more invasive tree than a redwood, right centered on my driveway. And it's there right next to the sewer and the water and the gas lines. And if I had similar safety concerns, I would be wanting to remove that as well. And then I also had that giant redwood on our property, our first home that we purchased and raised my child there. I think to me, knowing more about trees and how they grow and why they tend to do things, I wasn't concerned about that redwood tree that it was going to fall over. But I had other people approach me like, oh, that tree is going to fall over. I think you're gonna see things that lead you to believe that. Whereas what I'm looking at right now is not a tree that is in any really a hazard. And I looked carefully in that harvest report for the word hazard and it wasn't there. It didn't note that it was close to the neighborhood distribution line, but it didn't use the word hazard. I think that the Everest was probably fairly careful because probably didn't, or they didn't have enough information to actually draw that conclusion. I feel like to turn us into, you know, utility infrastructure experts has this unreasonable expectation. And I mean, I certainly would have, I would likely have a different opinion if we were to be you know, provided information from someone in, you know, public work staff or something that it was a truly hazardous situation that could result in the safety concern. But right now, I don't have that all I have is my heritage pre ordinance, and no information that the tree is actually interfering with the utilities. There's no anything that I could latch on to. We have kind of speculation almost. So unfortunately, I think I'm going to lean towards supporting the staff's denial of the room. Best. It doesn't mean there couldn't be more information gathered and a return with that information to be more persuasive. But right now, I'm just feeling like the hazard is more generic. It's not site-specific. And I think that we need site-specific information if we're going to remove a giant, very healthy redwood tree for this reason.

First, I want to thank you for the time you put into this and the energy you put into this. Thank you. That said, I feel like this is a little like our first tree where we're finding ourselves at odds with our own city's ordinances and what we are experts on. It's frustrating that this tree is so near main gas line, the distribution line and the But we don't have PG&E here to talk to us about that. And we don't seem to have a relationship where we work proactively with PG&E or they don't work proactively with us to evaluate trees in places like this. That could be a hazard. That's either here or there. It's just a frustration that is coming up. We have this amazing ordinance, but we have a lot of implementation issues. We also have our own expertise issues that stop us. Um, with that said, I, I find that the roots near the distribution line in particular are very problematic. Um, and like Rene, I would be very, very concerned that it's so close, excuse me. And, um, I am leaning towards, um, supporting the appellant in this case.

So, wow. Um, You know, it's a tough one. You know, it's hard because this tree is so majestic. You know, it's lush. It's well-balanced. There's really a great ground ratio when we get . No health concerns, but the tree definitely stands out in the neighborhood. You know, it's just, again, we're dealing with imperfect information. I certainly wish we had PG&E here to weigh in. You know, I guess, you know, I guess I came thinking I was going to go one way and I might be going another way. you know, it's hard because I think there are probably lots of trees in the city as, as Gush or Summer said, that fall. They're similar to this. I just, I don't know that it's as pervasive as in this case. And I guess I'm also also swayed a little bit by the, you know, and I hadn't really thought about, you know, I was, I was coming in sort of thinking about, you know, roots go towards water, but they don't go towards gas and that all made sense. But then, you know, the whole compression, um, thing is, is also an issue. Um, you know, I guess, you know, another little part for me is that sometimes we get these, um, And there'll be a neighbor that, you know, the homeowner wants to take out the tree and the neighbor says no. But in this case, you know, we have every neighbor agreeing to take out which is an awesome, an awesome tree. And I think, you know, I think I have to look at the stars on your report, but I think it's all there. It's every neighbor that would directly appreciate the tree is hopefully with it coming out and probably a lot of these people have been there for a long time and have loved this tree for a long time. So again, I came in, I was gonna go one way, but I think, um, You know, it's a tough one because precedent is a tough thing. But we do look at these case by case. And I guess I would be leaning now a little bit towards fighting with the appellant. And, you know, I just I hear the safety concerns and also just the support of all the other neighbors. It would have been nice if HAB-Masyn Moyer- shown up tonight. HAB-Masyn Moyer- To speak, but but um you know that that that impacts me as well, so I guess I would again it's really difficult because it's it's an awesome trees. HAB-Masyn Moyer- But i'm also. HAB-Masyn Moyer- You know, appreciative of the things that you've done on the property to plan other attorneys and. HAB-Masyn Moyer- I would hope that you'll do a nice job. HAB-Masyn Moyer- With the placements.

So anybody else wants to speak or somebody wants to make a motion? So I will make a motion, but I can't. So it's very unlikely to actually support taking out a trade. But one of the occasions where we were talking about taking out trees, the point was made counter to what I was saying that we were going case by case and that we were not setting precedents because I was worried about setting precedents. But if we're going case by case, I think 18 inches from a gas line is more than I feel comfortable with saying you have to live that way. So I personally looked at the tree and thought, what a cute baby, actually, because compared to my tree, it's still quite small. And again, I hope you will be able to find a way to love plant the right tree in the right place and beautify both your home and the street. How do I make a motion at this point?

Okay. So just taking a straw. It's looks like it's three to two. Yes. So we're going to have to create a motion for you. And maybe if I could work with Allison, we could put a board there. Perhaps if people wanted to take a planet break. while we do this. Sure. Yeah, that might prevent us from 10 minutes.

Good point. Let's go back to 10. I'm sorry, emotion.

Granting can be referred

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I love that. You put this poor thing out.

All right, we're gonna reconvene

and i believe uh we were at the point of making a motion and i think there's a draft of a motion up there so like what we've done is a motion to approve the appeal and overturn staff's uh recommendation because one or more of the criteria under 3235 has been met specifically um Because the tree constitutes a public good sense. If you agree with that, if you don't agree with that, if three of you don't agree with that, because you don't think it rises to a public good sense based on the whole gas line issues, we can take that part out. And because removal is supported under the other section of 3235, because the request for removal furthers the safety and general welfare of the area and the city as a whole. And that language is taken directly from that portion of the code section.

Maybe you can just expand a little on what constitutes public nuisance.

Well, public nuisance is basically anything that threatens or is obnoxious to the public in general. And from what I was hearing here, it sounded like that's where at least three of you might be going with this, that the threat of this public nuisance is much different than a hazard. It is, but hazards can constitute nuisances as well. If three of you don't agree with that, that language can be taken out. If you don't think that this instance, the circumstances arise to a public nuisance at this point, that portion can be taken out so that there's unanimity among three of you as to the other criteria there.

So I personally feel really clear about public views as part of it. I feel strongly that the the removal for the safety and general welfare of the area. No, I won't fight about it one way or another. But what would I my reason for making the motion was the the safe.

We can take that part out.

That would be my, I mean, for me, it's all about the safety and the hazards. Same. I mean, can we define the safety at all? You know, that is specifically, I guess.

You can say that safety as a whole, given the concerns with the existing

gas lines around the subject tree near the subject tree yes or with the vicinity of the existing gas line to the subject tree yeah sure well that certainly reflects my reason for making the motion Shall I make the motion? Should we talk about it any further?

You can make a motion and we'll have discussion. Absolutely. So I'll make a motion. One second. You say with existing gas lines in relation to you know, we're in close proximity.

Yeah, I think that's it.

No, how about we say what Mr. Church just said, given the concerns with the close proximity of the existing gas lines to the subject tree. That's a clue. With the close proximity instead of vicinity. No, instead of vicinity. close proximity of the existing gas line to the subject. No, with the concerns. Yeah. With the close proximity.

So instead of in, with the close proximity.

Yeah. To the, yeah. Okay. All right, so let me make the motion. So like a motion to approve the appeal and overturn staff's recommendation for one heritage tree at 777. So street way. Because one of one or more of the criteria under NBCC 32.35 has been met because removal is So we can move some words there too. That'sifying the actual 5C. Okay. Fine. Because removal is supported under MVCC 32.35 5C because the request that removal furthers the safety and general welfare of the area and the city as all given the concerns with the close proximity of the existing gas lines to the subject trade.

So I have a motion.

So I made a motion. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second.

Okay. Now there's an operating agreement. I guess we can have some discussion if there's any discussion.

Well, I'm just going to say I'm going to vote no and I'll explain why. I don't think that we have any information in the record about the specific hazardous nature of the situation other than the distance we have no expert analysis regarding the gas line and i don't think that is going to allow us to distinguish between this and other situations in the city and this will set a precedent that this this situation i would projecture again without information is extremely common so i i think we should request detailed site specific information from an expert before we take this action i don't think we would be able to

be dramatic and has pretty vast consequences. And I'm not a gas expert, and so I'm not in a position that none of us are. It's all speculation. A 10-minute review of the San Antonio situation is a completely different situation, different materials, different pressures. The NTSB report doesn't mention tree roots. So, you know, I think we're conflating fears or manufacturing concerns. And we just, we don't have the expertise. So I, Commissioner Sommer, I think we're, this is the inappropriate time to prove this appeal. I think if further corroborating data is provided, then That would be worked.

Any other discussion actually comment.

Commissioner last year's summers way.

If we were to say we need more information, what would we do. What were the next step in the process if we were if you wanted to do that is there an accident.

That's what you need to do direct staff and

appellant if they so choose to do exactly that and continue this so that you would have that information to base your ruling on i mean with the city's utility division look at this situation and give us their expertise could we consult could the city consult with pgme

I don't know how far the city would get you in terms of kind of what they typically deal with. But again, I can't speak for PG&E, but I find it highly unlikely I would be able to get somebody from them without paying them a consultancy or otherwise to come in. Even there, I think they would be hesitant. So, yeah, it would really be, you know, doing research. I had kind of asked the property owners, you know, share whatever they can for me on the San Antonio because, similarly, I was doing a quick search trying to find things, and I wasn't able to find anything that convinced me any different than what staff's opinion was originally. So, you know, we could go back. We could try and find final reports. We could find additional information. I just don't know how much I could get you, how – effective now.

PG&E not weigh in if they actually thought there was a risk. I mean, they're so risk averse to everything else.

Well, and that's where I would go is I think what you would end up getting from PG&E is something where they would err on the side of being risk averse and say, yes, it's over the line, take the tree out. I think that's likely what you're going to get just based off of my experience, but I can't speak for them.

Our definitive site specific analysis of the gas line.

We could talk with the owners, do some potholing to determine the depth of pipe. There is additional information that we could find if it worked. I don't know, again, you guys would have to be the judge as to whether it helped out a lot or not.

Well, it would put something in the record. Sure. Rather than just us hypothesizing.

So let me just ask, would... doing the procedure that you were talking about, would that per se already hurt the tree's roots?

No, because typically for a pothole, I shouldn't say no, very minimal, because typically a pothole is gonna be about 12 to 18 inches maximum, just kind of a big circle. You're just digging down to get to the pipe. PG&E has located it and set it here. You're just going down to find how deep it is, so that when they're doing construction or otherwise, they do this pot pulling so they know whether they can use backhoes. Okay, the pipes are 36, so you can dig 20 inches before you have to go to manual digging. That's what pot pulling is really about, is helping to kind of advise on how you proceed with construction.

So would the depth of the pipe be a really important piece of information in this case, given the close proximity Off the gas line, too.

Again, I can't speak to how valuable that would be for you guys. That's for you guys to judge. But ultimately, my personal opinion, it's going to provide you a little bit, but I don't think it's going to get you to the point you want to because you don't know where the tree roots are. We don't know where they are. We know they're in the soil. We know they're likely in that critical root zone. We know they're likely in the top 36 inches. But even there, unless we fully excavated everything and go to every single root, we're not truly gonna know the conflict. And that would absolutely harm the tree.

Yeah. I would love to have P. Janisse tell us this. I would love to have a graphic Sink a camera in, do whatever.

So then you can pull your motion and provide that to the staff.

This was a preamble to saying, I don't know that we can get that information. So requesting it may not be useful. I mean, it will take the burden of making a decision now. But except for that, and it does concern me to think of Bob, causing precedence, but on the other hand, it's 18 inches from the tree. And presumably, you can assume that if we push PG&E, they will say yes to get up.

That's what it sounds like. I also think, I mean, in terms of precedent, I mean, we rule on these we weigh in or whatever we do. I mean, they're onesie twosies.

And every case is a little bit different. And so I don't know that I would absolutely take this as a precedent for the future.

I mean, I mean, I wage each one separately. And I hear I mean, I hear you. I mean, you're valid. But

And the point is, there is no evidence. So there are concerns about falling branches. We hear all the time about potential, but we don't have evidence.

Right. I mean, this is different than a falling branch. I mean, if it was falling branches, if it was a gas line, for me, it's It's a different thing. And yeah, I hear your side. That's where I was going to be.

My question remains, how do we get the evidence that shows us what experts say in general that you need to pack tree roots five feet or more?

I guess what I would ask, PJ, is there evidence that this line is compromised? Not, is there some future evidence conceptual potential, but is there anything wrong with this line?

Well, the question really is should the tree be disclosed to the line? The guidelines from PG&E that you showed in the presentation I found on my own, and they are pretty clear.

It shouldn't be. As shouldn't be probably 5,000.

So I don't know the way forward here in terms of any other discussion, and I guess we take a vote.

See, because unless We have a motion and you're sticking with your motion. Yes. You're sticking with your second.

Okay, so ready for a vote? Okay, we have Commissioner Bryant. Yes. We have Commissioner Davis. We have Commissioner Sylvester. Yes. We have Vice Chair Sommer.

No.

And we have Chair Michener.

Yes.

Thank you attorneys.

Right.

Um,

We'll now move on to item 5.3, which is a park design evaluation program update. The process on this part will be the update. We'll ask our questions, see if there's any public comment, and then they'll come back to us for additional comments and feedback and stuff like that. So first time through, we're just asking questions. Second time through, we're providing comments and stuff. So this is not there's, there's not rolling it out.

This program, we already have the we already have the discussion. And you can certainly ask questions. We're ready to pull this out for you. Awesome. Yeah.

Um, okay, so I guess turn it over to our assistant community service.

Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm really excited about this. I am here with Gali Hassan. You've met her before. She's our parks project coordinator, and she is back. I'm going to just do a little quick recap, high level, and then I'm going to hand it off to Gali to take over. We brought this to you in the spring, the park it with the commissioner, the park design evaluation pilot program. We appreciate the great dialogue that we had. We took your feedback. We kind of went and pulled a couple things based on the questions that you asked, the feedback that you provided. And we have come up with a pilot program that we're excited to roll out. And we can tweak anything we want to. This is not set in stone, obviously, as a pilot program. But we are ready to get started. So our Park It With Our Commissioner is an opportunity for us to gather feedback from the community on the designs. and the parks that we build and provide for our community. And it allows the commissioners to go out to the public and build those relationships, talk to the community, get that feedback, ask your questions, and build those relationships and experience the park, different days, different times, things like that. The benefits, that will give us some data. So when we go to make decisions, when we go to build parks in the future, we'll be able to use that data, kind of lean on it, get a better idea in a sense what our community needs, what they want, and hopefully a nice cross section for the community. Our parks are all over the place. So just a quick reminder, we took a look at the process and we thought it would be great to have the commissioners go out into the parks, six months, two a year, those parks that are newly built. We are going to go back a little bit and visit some of the parks that have been open for a while, but they're still considered new. We'll create a quick survey. HAB-Masyn Moyer- At a qr code needs to that survey little five questions. HAB-Masyn Moyer- check the box kind of questions and then some open ended questions people can answer if they'd like to. HAB-Masyn Moyer- During this evaluation period PRC members will schedule a time to watch the parks. HAB-Masyn Moyer- they'll have the qr codes, they can hand to folks they can do on their phones, but will also have hard copies that folks can fill out me that really works well and we did the biodiversity urban forest plan. Some folks like to do on their phone. Some folks like to fill out a little form. So we'll have that. We'll also have those surveys in multiple languages as well. PRC commissioners will document that feedback and be kind of just discussions or dialogue with questions. You can document that for us. We'll have a little bin for you with all kinds of swag and things like that. So bring that back, that information back to us. We'll compile it. And we'll bring it back to the PRC with what we found and what we gathered based on the feedback we received from you and from our community members. We provided the survey questions. Again, we tweaked those based on the feedback we received from you. The evaluation categories are aligned with the Parks and Rec Strategic Plan and how we assess things. That's based on access and connectivity, condition, functionality, safety and comfort, and biodiversity. So it's a quick five-question survey, but then we can have some open-ended questions people can answer if they'd like. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Golly. She's going to go over all the details and allow you to ask those questions. And she will be your point person for scheduling times and getting this whole program off the ground and implemented in place.

So take it away, Golly. Thanks, Brenda. So as Brenda mentioned, the pilot program is going to rotate from different parks. So the first one is going to be Fayette Park. And we're targeting this October, which is about a month away. Following that, we will go to Evelyn Park and then Villa Chiquita Park. And Villa Chiquita Park will have been open for about a year at that point. So the idea is that we want to capture different users. And so we're targeting kind of a weekend day, a weekend evening, a weekday day, and a weekday evening timeframe. And I'll set up a spreadsheet with different hours that people can sign up for. The expectation is two hours minimum. Of course, you're welcome to stay more. The more data that we get, the more robust our analysis is. And yes, we'll work with you kind of on timing within October that hopefully works for your schedule. Prior to your scheduled date, you'll arrange to pick up a supply kit. We'll kind of put together a little packet that'll include As Brenda mentioned, the QR codes linking to the survey. We'll do that in Spanish and Mandarin as well. A little sign that you can put on a table out there, park it with the commissioner. Some printed survey coffees, and again, in multiple languages. Just some office supplies, like a notebook, pen, those kinds of things, park brochures, swag giveaway, and an ID and a hat, a Mountain View ID, name tag and hat. Once you're at your assigned shift, you are there to sort of like listen, to be inviting, to have them come, you know, talk to you, share their experiences, fill out the survey. Of course, this is really a chance for you to connect with the community and an opportunity to listen and observe, not really to like resolve concerns. It's more of like information gathering and then providing like information about parks. So people might have kind of more general questions about Mountain View parks, but not really, you know, focused on specific issues. And then in addition to the survey, you'll have like a notebook. And so we encourage you to like write down your observations. It's also a chance to help you to use the park. I know when I first started and I came here, I went out to the parks and just kind of saw how people were using them, and I found it very illuminative and interesting and some surprises as well. So we'd be interested in hearing what your observations and perspectives are when you're out at the parks. After your shift, you will return the program supply kit. In terms of your notes, you can type them if you'd like. You can submit them handwritten. Either way is fine. And any kind of remaining materials that you have that will go to the next person. And then Brenda mentioned following each of the different park engagements, we'll compile the survey results and your notes and come back to you with a summary of the feedback, the themes and the observation. Again, this is the pilot program. So we're hoping to sort of learn, you know, from these experiences starting with October. May I answer any questions about logistics?

Starting with Fayette Park, does that include the Greenway as well, which is across the street?

We hadn't intended to do the Greenway, but we certainly can if you'd like to.

I'm just wondering logistically how we... The park was what we were kind of looking at.

Yeah, well, part of it was the design. I don't know how involved PRC was with the design of Fayette Greenway. Not much. So, but Fayette Park is, I know PRC was very involved in, so.

Yeah, we did.

I mean, we were pretty restricted on what we could do on the Greenway. Sure.

And then I had another question.

Go ahead.

So how envisioning that you would capture youth voice here, because there's issues with approaching a child and stuff. I just wondered how you thought about that.

Yeah, that's a good question. I think sort of like when I did the survey, we just recently did a survey of park users. I mostly focused on the parents and not so much on the children.

When we did the biodiversity outreach, we did the youth and families day, and most kids are accompanied by their parents. Once you can engage the parents, then you can start engaging the children. If you have some older kids, I would probably advise you to let them come to you if they're curious. They may or may not engage, but talking to the parents was a great opportunity then to say, all right, I've got a capital audience here, and then you can chat with the kids. And if there's any suggestions that you have that we can add to the supply box, we're happy to do so. If you find that it would be easier to talk to the parents, one of the things we did with the biodiversity was we had things that the kids could do, they could color, things that they could fill out while you're talking to the parents. We could even come up with some kind of little games or even specific drawings or whatever that we could include in the supply box. So we'll, we'll look to you to, when you're out there, you might, you know, an idea might spark or a parent might mention something to you and we're happy to then add that to the box.

And then my final question is, have you thought about attempting to coordinate with the youth sports schedules? HAB-Masyn Moyer- Like some of these parts of small that we're starting with that they could be have assigned practice time HAB-Masyn Moyer- Even the small parks. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Practice assignments.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- These ones. These ones are we're not worried about that as we as this program if we continue with this program, we would find it very successful will certainly take over that.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- It's just, you might not be aware of when the practice times are I used to actually do sports allocations, very aware.

Yeah.

Any questions? Yeah. Actually, it's a comment, but I'll phrase it as a question. Would you consider adding to the survey something that qualifies you? And I don't know, how often do you use the park, or how many times have you visited, or with whom do you help the park? So there's a lot of rankings of the part itself, but understanding the user.

Like how frequent?

Yeah, I come every day with four of my kids. Or, well, I've driven by once. I'd weigh those responses differently, probably. So then would you often consider maybe providing us with a little printout, a layout of the park. So, you know, at the table, I can see myself talking over a plate. And letting the people engage with that. And then I think it's a great process, great idea. Probably having a debrief among those of us that do it to, were you thinking of one or two people missioners at a time.

That was my question, whether it's all five of us doing individual ones or whether we could go in pairs and how we would, I don't know, maybe I missed it, how we would stand out from, so we're not just seen as a person sitting at the picnic table or something like that.

So the supply box, we have like, I don't know, we've take like a sign that would say park it with the commissioner. We have these little stands like sign stands. We had envisioned that a commissioner would go out, sit at a picnic table, one of the tables in the parks and put the little sign up. You've got your badge on. But again, this is a pilot. If you'd like to go in pairs, you can certainly arrange that. That's if you'd like to go. We were envisioning it was five different time, days and times was the idea was that we were then capturing a really nice cross-section of days and times. But if you want to go look at it, who cares?

The benefit of cares, there's a couple of benefits. The one is kind of learning how other people do the, you know, we can learn, I can learn from Joe. I was like, oh, that's a great technique for engagement. Sure. And being able to share that between us.

Also, there's, you know, Sandra and Malcolm did, If there's eight people, a couple of us there. I mean, I just want to be careful.

And again, we're going to look to you for feedback. We've started with an eight and a half by 11, like a paper size sign. But if you feel like something needs to be bigger right now, it's just a sign that goes to the commissioner. And Golly came up with a really cute design for it. But if you said, hey, we need something more than that, just let us know.

Yeah, we were trying to think of portability and not having to schlep all this stuff, right? It's kind of like the trade-off.

Right. I noticed with the California Street Bikeway Improvement and the surveys, there's a little sign, a QR code that goes around.

Oh, yeah. She's got handouts that you can hand out little pieces of paper that has the QR code so people can take it with them. If they don't want to do it at that moment, that's fine. No problem. We'll have it on a QR code for the table. So it'll be visible and we'll provide those options. But again, if there's something that we're missing, just let us know.

Will you be announcing it on social media and things? So you mentioned the copy of the tops so people can actively come and find us. Yeah, that would be great. And I had one question about question four, safety and comfort feel like two different things to me. So I don't know if that question could be rewritten to have two different.

I don't know. One of the things we were trying to stick with was that it was aligning with the parks and parks strategic plan and safety and comfort with truth that are one of the assessments together. The other thing we're trying to be mindful of is that it If you go beyond five questions in a survey, people don't fill them out. So that's why we're open to questions that people want to fill us out. Great. I'm trying to really stick with the five questions. People, they'll do that when they see it, but they can just check those. Thank you.

Let me ask about how you imagine the survey will be used. Is the survey like, are we giving them a piece of paper? Sure. Or are we engaging in a conversation where we ask these questions? So, okay, because I have, how did you get to the spark? I can easily ask that. And somebody who's English is not as, who's not completely comfortable with English will not have a problem. And I can probably ask it in fully Spanish. How would you rate the overall condition of the spark? How well does the park design support the activities you want to do is really difficult to understand. How safe and comfortable do you feel while using this park? Fine. But you know, number five, particularly, and I'm in no way doing an edit as I go. I'm just, I want to say that how well do the park's natural features, including the trees, landscaping and habitat areas support a healthy and enjoyable environment? That's not a good question. It's too complex. I wouldn't be able to translate into Spanish. I don't know that somebody who isn't in good control of the English language would understand it. And many of our residents are not in good control of English. It's too complicated. It needs to be really simplified to very basic English. something that I would be comfortable sitting down and saying, oh, tell me, what do you think of the trade? Would you like more trade? Not that, but something that I can say without looking at the paper and reading it, which makes it then a pleasant conversation to have and an easy way to get information. So I would, I mean, it sounds fine as a survey, but if we're having a conversation, it's It's not the natural things to ask.

Sure. And, you know, because we're starting to launch this in October, we're in September. So we have a little bit of time. You can certainly email if you want to think about this and email any kind of like edits, if you will. And you don't have to speak Mandarin. We will have the surveys. Again, what we did for the bio plan was we had the surveys in Spanish, in Russian, in Mandarin, all three languages and in English. So if someone came up and they wanted it in Spanish, we would just hand it to them and they would fill it out. And we didn't have to do anything. We got the... the survey and they felt comfortable because it was in their language. So we'll have those for you in the box. And the QR code will also be present.

We want this as simple as possible. The city is very diverse in terms of levels of education. Sure. But let me just say, I'm really excited that we're starting this. It's a pilot. Let's just do it. And then

Let's meet and talk about what worked, what didn't work, what should change for next time. But before we get started, if you have any edits, I mean, if you go home and think about it and an idea pops into your head, please email Golly because we haven't formalized this quite yet. We have a little bit of time before we roll this out.

Yeah, I was like, I don't think they have my email address.

Yeah, well, no, we'll work it out.

Sure, that'll be great. Yeah.

That'll be great. Sure. Sure. Are we at comments yet?

I just want to do a quick check on public comment.

There's nobody on there.

Yeah, I mean, let's do anybody. I'll open it for public comment. Come on, Bill.

All right.

Okay, my name is Bill Lambert. I'm representing myself as a resident on the MonoWall tournament. So, you know, the way I envision this, I think I've mentioned this before, What I would really like to see is sort of a story or a painting or a poem that describes what a day in the life of a beach park looks like and how it feels. Data is easy. You get it. You can present it. But I'm not sure that's truly what you thought or DRC wants. I think you want something a lot more organic and natural. There's this principle in physics where that if you measure something, you change the state of what you're trying to observe is. And if you advertise for people letting them know you're there, you're going to get the same crowd that shows up in every public event and get the same opinion all the time. What I would suggest maybe in tandem with what you're doing, planning is, you know, being there incognito. People know you, certain areas, but just being there and really truly observe, okay? Yeah, maybe talk to a little people, but don't do a hard sell. That way, you're going to get a good feel about how that space is used and who uses it at any particular time. I've left a lot of time, so... Another thing I really suggest is extend the hour. I know getting up at 6.30 in the morning going to a park might be a push. I drive out of my neighborhood every morning past the park. There are people in the park already, and I pass people as I make my way to get a cup of coffee who are going to the park, even at those hours. In the evening, as the sun goes down, people are still going to the park. I think you want to get that whole entire spectrum of experience. I also encourage you to mention city parks. As you know, in North Mountain View, most of the parks we have are associated with the schools. I would suggest, or you need to go visit those schools. Some throughout the community are entirely fenced off during the day. Not much happens there. But how are the parks used before school closes? How and when are they used after? Mauna Loa can be used all day long. So you need to consider those as you count those as city parks. You need to look at those as well. But like I said, going back to what I want, what I'm looking for is really a story about what this park is like and what it does and what it means to the particular community that it serves. Thank you.

Any other public comment? Anybody online? We'll close the public comment and then go back to our discussion.

This is really an indirect response to Bill. What I was hoping was that we would look at the parks which we were actively involved in helping design. And in helping guide the design, we helped guide the design. And it seemed to me that in some parts, brilliant success and in some parts, slightly less brilliant success. And I hope that this process would kind of help the PRC with the next project to say, this is what we thought would happen. This is what happened. Maybe we should have thought this. Maybe we should have thought that. So it's not just, I mean, certainly we want to see how the parks are being used and public comments about how they're using parks are very valuable and can support or not support what we thought the park would be used for. But I was hoping that this was, a lot of it was a teaching experience for the PRC and then helping guide staff. So the use of the city part of the school fields, it would be interesting, but the city doesn't really help in designing those. And for me, the starting point was the design. It doesn't have to be the only thing, but I thought that the design part was an important piece of it. So I think it'll be fascinating to try this.

See if it works, see if it doesn't work, maybe.

The city used to use summer interns, students to kind of go into the parks, see how they were used. So the PRC cannot fulfill that role. But we can see how the parks are being used and going through Two commissioners might be a good idea. I'm termed out at the end of the year, so October is my only chance.

So yeah, just had a couple of comments. So it resonated a little bit with what Bill said in terms of, you know, I sort of want to hear from the people who regularly use the park as opposed to some of our constituents who will So I'm a little worried about a widespread QR code announcement, but I don't know that there's a way to tailor it to a certain community. That's one thought. Question on rain or shine. You know, HAB-Masyn Moyer- Can we cancel if it rains or something like that. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And then, and then I do like I do like the idea of going in pairs and sort of gets back quickly on my. HAB-Masyn Moyer- daisy chain. HAB-Masyn Moyer- thing like if you know we went multiple times to one part say. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Mr Sylvester went once with me could she then go to that same part with Commissioner Brian. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Although I. that park isn't really on the agenda. So I don't maybe be okay. I don't know.

I don't think there's going to be a case in which we would have more than two of you. We can't. I understand what you're saying. So we may have to modify the number of hours that we're more times in order to accommodate. But as long as you have a chance to get out there, I think that's the most important thing. We may not get everybody weekend evening and afternoon or whatever so we can we can throw out dates and times and you can decide what works for you and then we're we won't have so many options that that would be occurring at the same site i think what he's saying is if

they go, if he goes with Sylvester on a Sunday, and then Commissioner Sylvester Bryant on a Monday, and then Commissioner Bryant and Commissioner Michener then go.

Right, because five isn't too nicely. So I mean, we'll take care. I'm just being over. I would ask if you guys do have suggestions, maybe like

give them to me in a week because I do want to get them translated. And so we need the time for the translation service.

I think we'll, to your point, we'll be mindful about our communications while we want to advertise this. I think we were looking at advertising it more around the park, the neighborhood around the park, maybe doing some yard signs with the QR code in the park leading up to park it with the commissioner, so it won't be a big city blast. And it will be on our CSD website, but that's not what it's intended for. And then if we get folks that are visiting from across town, great, that's wonderful. But it really is for kind of that area around the park.

Just to go back to the point, if we want to see the park in daily usage, if we say the commissioner will be there to come and see them, we'll kind of defer that. So to me, it would make better sense to just publicize the fact that this will happen. So if you see a park commissioner, it's not weird. Just for people to know that periodically that will happen, but don't turn it into an event because then we don't see the park.

No, if we were to do yard signs, they would say, you know, Park it with a commissioner program. Here's the QR code. And then just go to our website with a very generic, you know, you'll see our commissioners out in the parks. You know, if you see them, say hi. Yes. Great.

I think we can also mitigate some of that by showing up earlier, staying late past our hours just to do what Bill was suggesting. Witness, right? Yeah. What's going on.

Yeah.

And build that into the work.

Yeah. I just want to be clear, though, that we are not engaging here in a thorough thorough investigation of how many people use the park or when they use the park, what hours they use the park. This is beyond the scope of this. We expect you to speak Mandarin.

All right.

in the interest of time and stuff, or do we have any other comments? Do you have what you need?

We have. Thank you so much.

I apologize for thinking that this was. No, that's okay.

We really, thank you for bringing this to our radar and bringing this up because this is really born out of your feedback and your comments. And we're super excited about it. So thanks for your enthusiasm and being willing to park it with the commissioner. Thank you for making that happen.

Thank you. Okay. Last item on the agenda, Commissioner's staff announcements. I'll have one, but I'm going to give it to Director Marshawn Kurtz.

I'm going to be pretty short. Just letting you know, what we are calling Thompson Mini, it hasn't been officially titled yet, but in the Mauna Loa area, be hosting our second community meeting um and just lost the date uh thank you yes the 24th from 6 30 to 7 30 bit monologue school so that is upcoming um and then last night uh was the city council meeting and we brought forward the all of the commissions work plan items, which we worked on. The city council received some feedback. And if you recall, we were doing that in June at the same time that we were finishing the Parks and Rec strategic plan, bringing forth the biodiversity plan. It hadn't been adopted yet. There was a request from some of the community members to add that to the work plan. And so we were kind of... We put together some additional items. So right now, of which the city council approved, basically right now is an ongoing plan item. It currently stayed in review and provide input on public works, capital projects related to parks and trails that got expanded to include trees and biodiversity, which we were still doing, but it just clarifies for what that is. And then there's another one in relation to bringing forward the action items for the biodiversity and urban forest plan. And we use such as landscaping standards and guidelines, heritage tree ordinance update, which Brenda is preparing to come and talk to you about in the next couple months. and additional item presented to the Parks and Rec Commission. The same verbiage is used for the Parks and Rec strategic plan. And then a final item, which was added because Public Works had the opportunity to put kind of their plan together a little bit at the end of the fiscal year, they'll be coming to the PRC for review to provide input on the standard details.

So pretty much every construction

item in the public right-of-way has a detail, so Public Works is updating that, so that'll be coming forward for review. So, and then updates related to sidewalk and landscaping strips and green stormwater infrastructure. So those were the added items that were of interest to Council in April, though, so. I'll be handing this out, but that's basically what has been added based on that process.

Okay.

Anything else?

Go ahead.

Do you envision we're going to be able to handle that in our current meeting schedule?

We, and we talked about this when we were building the work plan, there are some holes in, and we don't, we haven't built out every, agenda and so we we already knew we had some items coming it was just a matter at that time we didn't have a good time at a sense of time because we were pushing to get those through the finish line and so we're now putting some time and effort into what the agenda is moving forward i think one of the important things that council member showalter said last night was that

we all know what we do and we just saw the work plan we're like well of course we're going to be bringing biodiversity urban forest plant items i got two that i'm going to talk to you about in a minute here of course we're going to bring those but we looked at those holes okay maybe i can fit it in there depending on workloads depending on you know relying on other staff members and what i need from them but council member showalter said but Other people don't know that. And so having it in the work plan just as a TBD as needed to show that and to kind of call it out was helpful. And we all agreed, you're right, because we all know what we do every single day, but not everybody else does. So it was helpful, and we recognize that. So those are those little gaps in the work plan or four to fit these types of things in.

Do you have anything else? Any of your staff have anything?

I do. So the two things that we've been working on behind the scenes over the summer and trying to kind of map out is the heritage tree ordinance update, which is very big and robust. And also I had talked about coming up with the landscape requirements and standards and creating kind of a working team. I will be emailing out the PRC. We'd like to engage you early in the process with the heritage tree ordinance. We have talked about doing it in phases, but we're not sure about that. We might just take it all at once. So what I'll be asking of you and we'll be reserving some time at the end of the October meeting is to have an informal discussion on what you would like to be involved in with relation to the heritage tree ordinance. It's very big and a lot of it is just going to be kind of making some wording updates that really you don't need to be involved, and that's what the city attorney's office is for. But I'd like to hear what you'd like to be involved in and what those areas are. And it's really interesting to kind of go through these heritage tree appeals and kind of hear what's important to everybody. And so I'll be sending this out with the Chapter 32 Heritage Tree Ordinance. It gives you some time to look at it. and identify those areas that you'd like to participate in and kind of we'll start planning that process and what that looks like. We've already started talking about it with Russell, with city attorney's office. How do we tackle this? Because it's big and it's a lot and we have to map out a timeline. We have to do a reading at council two times. So what does that look like? I can't come up with a timeline yet until I understand kind of what it's gonna look like and where you'd like to be involved. The second piece is the working group for landscape standards and requirements. We can certainly move forward with that plan because it's putting together a lot of different folks. I have to do agreements. I have to pay people. It's going to extend this out. Tim Youngberg, our parks and open space manager, started working behind the scenes on a a template very similar to what we require developers to do, where they get certain points for different elements that they're including in their development. And he started building it that, you know, regionally native plants get this many points and your California natives get this many points and your functional species get this many points. And he started tweaking this and coming up with this and it's, it's starting to look really cool. And we can have a point system where we require our own projects. We require development projects, commercial projects to fill this out. And you've got to reach a certain amount of points. And that's how it's going to go. And we've got our plant list and our tree list. And so we're kind of playing around with this. And when we get a good template, we'd like to bring that to PRC and have you take a look at that, weigh in on this. And then we can decide at that point if we still want to move forward with a working group or if this template kind of meets those needs that we're looking for, which would be, um, which would move the process a lot along much quicker. Um, because I do would have to find, I, I found the landscape architect. I'd have to do in a separate agreement with SFBI. I've got canopy, I've got all these different stakeholders, um, that I have to do agreements for. And then of course, finding time for everybody to meet is tough. So. not we're not scrapping that idea i just coming up with sort of this template it's pretty cool and it's pretty robust and so we're eager to bring that to you as well so we're looking at towards the end of this year um bringing that we can all kind of dive in together and take a look at it thank you sure can i ask a question okay so um the city's uh

street tree list has not been updated. I know that SAPI played with it a little, and the city staff played with it a little too, but if Tim is using part of our tree list as a basis for this new system, then...

He's using the biodiversity forest plan as the basis. Okay. We're not even looking at the tree list. We are looking That biodiversity urban forest plan has replaced those lists. That's what we're working on.

Because part of our near-term projects, we're going through two lists.

They're all being directed to the biodiversity urban forest plan. Excellent.

Thank you.

Sure.

Okay.

That's all I got.

So I just want to circle back. We talked about an agenda item for next time. So that's logged. We don't need to do anything. Maybe it's not next time, but whatever the time is.

I feel like there was a desire to make a motion, which we can make.

Well, and I'm fine just doing this as a request. I can articulate it, and perhaps Mr. Summer will do a better job. But we'd like to request that Director Marchand, schedule a meeting face-to-face with the community development director to review heritage pre-ordinance and commission concerns regarding construction, permitting, and inspection, and report back to the commission specifically how will this information be promulgated throughout the staff, the relevant staff.

Can I just point of clarification on so that I'm getting my orders correct. Uh, and it's fine. And I, I appreciate the conversation and, um, I have, I'm looking forward to the conversation actually. Um, so it sounds like there is a, I'll do it either or on hand. Uh, so tonight with the, uh, heritage tree that came up. That was whether it was a building permit, whatever it is. Find out what type of permit that is and understand it. Be able to look at ways to incorporate some additional standard conditions for those types of permits. Are you also asking for basically the different types of permits that they're generating and what the tree can the conditions for each of those are, just so that I understand.

So I don't, you know, the water under the bridge. My concern is that I'm not sure that the people that should know what's in the ordinance know. And the ordinance is very specific. You can't do this within 4.3. And so all I want you to do is make sure that I don't need to know the You know all the details. But. It would be nice to know that. Whether you. New sewer line requires a permit. For inspection. Or plan. Because. In the point John. As we've seen it too many times now. You know. So you go in and saw the roots off your tree. And then you come. Ask to take it down. Because the roots are comfortable. I know how to get out heritage tree removed.

So if they obtain a permit, theoretically, the city has reviewed their plan proposal. In light of the heritage for you to sit right there and feel comfortable that it's not going to be great, but. So a little better understanding of that, how that process happens to get to that comfort level.

And it says permitted encroachment such as sidewalks are expressly approved, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I assume, you know, such as sidewalks.

I invite everybody to go. to read through the full ordinance.

A few months ago, I was talking to Russell either at the meeting, at the PRC meeting or not. We were talking about cutting tree roots. And I mentioned to him, city staff public works cutting through tree roots and i said and they talked to you about it did you check this out he said no so it's not only it's not only uh community development i think it's also public works that does not um yes does not check with about treatment all right

Um, so any more step announcements? Uh, I have one announcement that I was, um, we had a request from, um, deputy city clerk, Wanda Wong for me to just read this, the meeting so that everybody will know, um, please announce the city is recruiting applicants for appointments to the board of library trustees, environmental planning and parks and recreation commissions, bicycle, pedestrian advisory, downtown human relations, performing arts, and senior advisory committees. The application deadline is October 2nd. So it's that time of year, and I'm looking for, just want to get the word out. All right. Any other commissioner announcements? You want to wrap this up? I would like to. I got a flight tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning.

But go ahead. We did have a inquiry from the public about the trees in Pioneer Park and along Franklin Street.

And Russell's still here.

We don't need the big picture or the details, but what's the basic response?

So we're finalizing the... We worked with a third party to do some testing, and we're analyzing that data. We expect to have some public communication within the next week.

I forgot her name.

Someone got back to her.

Leslie.

It's on my to-do list, but yes, we will.

All right. Anything else?

Is this meeting still on?

All right. Our next meeting will be October 15th, Wednesday. Do we have any heritage training fields?

Okay.

And then that's it for the year, right?

As of right now. All right.

What are you going to do with us? 9-19. I'll adjourn.