City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

And welcome to our budget work session. Who should I turn it over to? Steven, are you up? Mr. Bentley?

Sorry, I didn't know if budget was going to say something.

Well, I'm not sure either, so... I know.

Let's talk trees. I got it. We'll go from here. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. I'm Stephen Bentley, director of the Raleigh Parks Department. In your backup materials, you have a detailed memo, but I do have 12 slides that I would like to go to that... break down the memo and some of the strategy and recommendations that we've put before you today to consider. The first is I just wanna emphasize that LEAF Out is not just about trees. It is looking at how the city is gonna promote natives and the use of natives and limit our use of invasive species within our projects. We have developed a plant list for the development community to refer to when they are considering their private development. We have also developed a native plant list for our community members to use at home and we will work across departments from transportation to storm water to rally water on best practices to be used related to trees and to natives and invasives. We also now have a landing page on the city's website. What we're here to talk about today is the leaf out proposal of 24,000 trees and then we highlight in this leaf out program that we cannot do this alone as a city that community partners are going to be the way which we move the needle on some of these recommendations. You asked for us to come back and give more information on the grant, look at our tree strategy for planting and targets that we're going to establish, what are some other funding options to move the project forward or the leaf out program forward in year one, and then ultimately we do have a set of recommendations for you to consider today. First with the grant, the grant is through the North Carolina Forest Service, however it is a federal pass through, so the funds did come from the federal government and are coming through the state to Raleigh. I was informed that the grant has to be expended in two years so we feel confident when we do get our contract from the state that we can move forward with getting that grant award and funds moving forward. The two areas we focused on in our grant is tree maintenance, which is pruning and removal of dangerous trees in Raleigh, and then tree planting. and two areas that we'll focus on in tree planting is not only contractually, but also community-based. It does not address staffing, it does not address outreach and education, and those are some of the things that we would put forward you today to fund with our recommendations. We intend on having contractors install some of the larger caliper trees which are caliper is a measurement used for tree size and we would do that on city owned and city managed properties. Paralleling that, we would develop a grant program so that we can work more clearly and intentionally with community partners and set that up so it is ready by fiscal year 28. So that we do not lose a year of planting, we're gonna focus on the procurement, we'll say generally of a lot of trees, so that we can work with community groups and faith-based groups on tree giveaways and tree events and to maintain kind of a community-based focus. Our targeted strategies, early on when we worked with the SWAT, which is Sustainability, Wildlife, and Urban Tree Committee, they had a focus of looking at at least 1,000 trees to be planted in year one. We will meet this goal. We are confident we will exceed that goal. How we will do that is through contractual planting as well as community-based planting, and we have some ranges there for you over the course of the next fiscal year. It does not include the 2,000 trees that will be planted, we estimate, annually through the real estate development process. So when you have a rezoning and then you have a developer come in, we estimate that at least 2,000 trees are planted through that process alone. Here is a summary table, and I'll pause here. I would just encourage the council to consider this minimums. So we are establishing kind of a baseline threshold, and our goal will be to work through our partnerships and resources we have, both within the Parks Department, this grant, and the recommendation of some fees that we're gonna ask you to move forward with, that we will exceed these minimums. So you can see the grant over a two year period, the development process which I just referred to. We do have a street tree planting fund and I'll go through that in the next slide on what those funds are. And then a supplemental planting. So we plant trees every year outside of the grant and outside of the development projects. uh... in the parks department and that is that supplemental planting so it estimates around over thirty thirty three hundred trees being planted uh... annually at a minimum uh... by the city so here are the i would say for lack of a better term the buckets of funds we have available for tree planting payment in lieu of tree conservation so if a developer cannot meet the ordinance requirements they pay a city a fee those fees can only be used for uh... tree planting and land acquisition and we use those fees annually to plant trees then payment in lieu of tree ordinance developers cannot meet those ordinance requirements, they pay the city for us to address that. And then ultimately, donations and grants. If you have specific detailed questions, I do have our city forester here, Zach Manor, who could help answer those. Here are our recommendations for the council to consider. I've worked with the manager's office and the parks department is prepared to reallocate a 25 hour, we call permanent part-time position, which means they have access to some benefits to initiate this program, begin to scale it up. We would also reallocate some funding within our ongoing operating budget for simple things like a phone, a computer, and then access to our motor pool or vehicles that we already have. essentially we're going to utilize this position and then use the capacity within the parks department were pretty large department with equipment marketing staff so this individual he or she will be able to utilize the resources we have in place to help scale and get the uh... program up and going and then finally our our last recommendation is to use a hundred thousand dollars of the payment in lieu tree conservation area funds to increase funding. So you saw the baseline of around 3,300. If we add $100,000, depending on the tree size, that's why I have 500 to 1,000, whether it be a one-gallon tree or a seven-gallon tree, we feel like we can add even 500 to 1,000 more trees to those totals that you saw. That's what I had to share with you today, and I am open to any questions, and if I can't, I will ask Mr. Manner to come up.

I bet we'll have some questions.

All right, we'll start with Councilor Jones.

Thank you so much. Back to the grant and when that one bucket is for tree maintenance, does tree maintenance include invasive species removal on said trees?

It does not. We have a separate bucket for that. So in our CIP, our Capital Improvement Program, every other year we fund invasive species and tree maintenance. We just get a backlog because we have a lot of trees. So this will help reduce some of those work orders that we've been working on.

Okay, great. So the grant won't cover invasive, but we have other avenues that do support that.

Every other year we're funding between $300,000 and $500,000 for invasive species removal.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Okay. Councilor Silver, I think that's a number of questions.

Thank you for the presentation. It's good to see all the work the department's doing on trees in general. I had a question about the purchase of trees. Does the Parks Department have a tree nursery, or are those trees purchased? Because I saw one slide that had some of the larger trees, looks like maybe a two inch caliper, maybe a one inch caliper. So do you purchase trees? Do you have a nursery to grow trees?

Hi, good afternoon everyone. Zach Manor, Urban Forest for Raleigh Parks. It's a combination of both. So most of the larger trees that get installed, we purchase. Our horticulturist has potted up some seedlings last year, so we'll have those in one and three gallon smaller pots. And then our nursery basically ends up more of a holding yard in those cases. So we purchase mass trees from nurseries. We store them at the city nursery. So it's a combination. The majority is external versus internal.

And my other question, I'm just wondering in terms of the trees are planted are these small the saplings or is it some of the ones you're showing I'm just filled with other cities that will start to plant trees two feet high in volume in areas more so in parks to just keep the forest healthy these are not in street trees or they could potentially be on private property just trying to understand if you go with the nursery approach planting more of the smaller trees eighty percent of them survive just because that's just how it goes. So just trying to understand to get to that number, is there a program where you plant a lot smaller trees and larger numbers to help get to that 24,000 number?

Yes, that's correct. So the large sort of bald and burlap trees, that usually requires a contractor to plant. But if you're working with a volunteer or a neighborhood group or giving trees away, seedlings, smaller one five-gallon trees are much more easy to handle for an individual to be able to plant themselves. So the number of trees skews highly towards the smaller trees because they're cheaper. They cost less to install, easier to procure.

Now, question for Steven. You had mentioned a number of community partners. it can take about a year to ramp that program up. I'm trying to get an understanding of what some of those tree partners do now. We had a gentleman come to public comment. Trees of the Triangle didn't hear about it. You also mentioned you have other methods of planting trees. I'm just trying to see whether there's an umbrella so you're capturing all trees being planted so that we know We are moving toward the 24,000. This is a city's commitment, but we have partners planting, who knows, 500 trees a year. Those numbers add up. So I was just trying to understand all the partners, if we understand how many trees they're planting, and then as we develop this program, just to understand exactly what approach they're going to take. So I was unclear about the role the partner plays, these trees outside of the program you said you also plant, just trying to see how quicker we can get

It's an excellent question, and I'll take a couple approach. The first is that our goal is to enter into MOU or agreement with Autobahn, who that's who they have said is going to be their umbrella. When I say they, it is trees across the triangle. We plan it forward. Who have been very generous at the time to say we're here to help. We feel like what they can leverage is working with private landowners so that the city doesn't have to go on private property and and plant trees that they could do that. And we would do it through developing this granting program. So we would solicit an RFP or a call for people to go out and do this work in conjunction with the city. So that's the first. We would build that program out over a year. The other would be is we're building out already a GIS tool. So if you plant a tree, you'll be able to tag it and load it so we can track that online. So we can... see the progress not only from our city partners, but if someone actually goes along and is like, hey, I'm inspired, I'm gonna buy three trees on my own and I'm gonna plant them. So kind of an outward facing tool so people could do it. So build out, we'll say, a collaboration of multiple entities and then two, how can we use technology to show where these are occurring in Raleigh.

Last question, this is something you don't have to answer now, but to think about. Some cities use citizen pruners that are trained, certified, and have the ability to provide supplemental support to staff. I noticed in the grant program I believe pruning was on that schedule. Is that something we do now or something potentially the city can consider is using these certified volunteer pruners to help with tree care so that we can allow staff resources to go to other care, tree care, and tree maintenance?

I'm gonna ask Zach to step up. Before, we are actually piloting something very similar for invasive species. We have had one of our park board members go out and they got certified to apply chemicals. And so now it's not always on staff to do it, that they sign the waiver. They're able to help remove the invasives and then use little dopplers or whatever they call them, dopplers, to go out and apply a little bit of chemical. We're talking, but as far as tree care with citizens and volunteers, I'll ask that. Okay.

Sure, so one of those nonprofit partners, We Plan It Forward, has applied recently for a couple grants for some funding to start training sort of youth for the same sort of function. So working with the city, we have a lot of trees and a lot of areas that could be pruned, so us sort of helping provide expertise as part of that program. So nothing specifically running yet, but we do have some things in the works to hopefully move that forward.

Councilor Patten.

Hi, thanks for this, Stephen. So I want to make sure I'm understanding. So on this slide, contractual planting, the bucket of the contractual planting, that's trees on public lands. And then the community-based initiative, those are trees on private lands.

Yeah, it doesn't preclude the community from doing it on our parks, but the larger trees, we were going to focus on right-of-ways and on city-owned property. It's a larger expense. A tree can be a couple hundred dollars, so we were going to focus on our properties first. But we do community-based plantings on our parks. Okay.

helpful and then so you know the the goal is it terminates in 2032 at the 200 so we have seven years so if i'm understanding right we're we don't want to lose year one which is right happening right now and so y'all are going to buy a bunch of trees and put them in the hands of people and by this time next year this mou or whatever type of relationship needs to exist with audubon and associates that will be solidified. But the idea that this is sort of a seed toward something fully self-sustaining like Trees Atlanta by the end of that.

Yes. We want to kind of build out a program that we could all feel good about, that the partners have capacity to do, that the manager and our Fiscal and attorneys are okay doing so we just haven't done that there's models out there, but we're confident We'll have one ready for the next fiscal year.

Okay helpful And then the granting program, I think when we first got presented with Leaf Out, it has the seven prongs, and it was sort of like 24,000 trees was prong number six, and then this granting program was prong number seven. And I feel like this partnership with the nonprofits led by Wake Audubon, I've thought about it differently than some of the way we've described the granting program before. in the sense that if a Boy Scout troop wants to come and ask for 200 bucks to do two or three trees, that's a lot, the ratio of administrative burden to number of trees out of fit changes versus if we have one fiscal agent helping us really move it forward. So in this granting program that you describe, am I understanding that right or have I missed something?

I don't think we have clearly defined what the granting program can be. It could be that we will grant you kind of like the arts. You can help procure art or do performing art like a granting agency. But some of them, they use those dollars to help fund a position or something like that. So that is us sitting down and understanding what our funds are going to be used for and what they can be eligible for. So I don't want to say it's going to be one or the other. I think it's going to sit down with and do the work of understanding what is the capacity of the nonprofits and what might be the highest and best use for the dollars we have. versus us just saying, this is the way we're going to do it. So I think we're gonna be fluid on how we build that out. Does that answer your question?

I think the answer is we just don't know quite yet. That's correct, yes.

I'll be honest, yes.

Okay, helpful. And then another question I have. So the funds are coming, $100,000 from the fee-in-lieu For TCA, you said those funds are already limited to tree planting and property acquisition.

That's correct.

So this is not additional funds or had you earmarked them more for property acquisition and now we've reallocated them or?

Yeah, great question. So they're in zones, kind of like our facility fees. They're collected in certain areas, and they are currently available to us to use. You have to spend them in those zones. We have not acquired property, as long as I am aware. Okay. But we do use them in those zones every year to help plant trees. What we will do over the course of the year is to work with our city attorney and finance our – when it says planting trees, can that be the granting source? So being creative with those use of funds, we just haven't defined their eligibility just yet.

Okay, so I guess I'm trying to, my core of my question is like, is this more money than would otherwise have been used toward tree planting?

Yes, yes, yes, that's correct.

Okay.

And that is because we will have this permanent part-time person to help us move those dollars forward.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Yeah, thanks so much Steven for all this detail. I appreciate it. I know it was a quick turnaround. So there's probably a few other things you had on your plate in the past week. Couple questions. I know with this part-time position, what's proposed here is 25 hours a week. I thought it might be 30, but I'm just checking. My question is around, will it be enough to get someone in that will want to stay with us? Will they be able to get benefits? Will we have continuity and consistency in the program with a 25-hour week position?

So we've used this approach to scale up our community gardens program, and we've hired one person. You've seen our growth in those programs. That's a bad pun, but... Yes, we feel confident we can. The level of benefits, I might ask our HR person to come down, but they have access to some of our medical benefits, not the same as a full-time staff person. They do pay into the North Carolina retirement system, so there are benefits. This is not the full depth and breadth of a full-time employee. Some people choose that they only want to work 25 to 30 hours a week. So we've capitalized on this in multiple areas of the department. But the most relevant is when the council asks, can you begin to scale up a community agriculture, community garden program, we use this approach. Honestly, if this program continues to grow, I do foresee needing full-time staff.

Yeah, I think that's what I just want to note into the future that let's see how this goes and I want to ensure that you all have the capacity to be successful and no one is having to stretch so far and work all night long to get these trees out. So yeah, just consideration for the following year. Also curious, can we hear back just the results, how things are going, kind of a status update this fall? either in the Housing and Environment Committee or as a work session?

Can we suggest doing it, like, after the first of the year? Because growing season's October through April.

Yeah, so are you saying, like, January?

Yes. Yeah, that would be just fine. Kind of middle of the growing season, we can say, this is how we're tracking and share the tool with you all that we're... building out to track all the plantings.

Yeah, that'd be great. I'm hearing maybe at the retreat perhaps even. So any update? Yeah, I think by January in the next six months when this gets going will be really helpful as it is such a huge interest for the public. And I think a couple pieces that are not getting funded at this time, but again, just to note them into the future. When it comes to the tree, I guess the maintenance piece of things, do you feel like we... are able to take care of that here or, you know, that is a concern I have.

But we do, when we procure the larger ones, we get warranty on those trees.

Sure, so the one specific to the grant, the state requires a two-year maintenance and watering plan. So all of those trees installed with the grant will be required to have two years of maintenance. For the smaller trees, we sort of do a combination. If we're working in a neighborhood, oftentimes we work with the neighborhood to help us provide water. We have some watering options, some pruning options, things like that. So it's sort of a combination. We also have some part-time staff who operate a water truck. So in times like these, we can hit some of those trees that have been planted, so. That's our goal moving forward with these.

Thank you. Glad to hear that it will be watered. And I think education is the other piece that we're not funding at this time, but into the future to help folks be successful again, especially when they're doing this on their own properties so that they take care of the trees adequately.

Yeah, and I think that's where we can use kind of the forest multiplier, the parks department. We have environmental educators. We can adjust and create some courses on homes Tree planting and what that means. So although it's not funded in the grant, we have those capacities in the Parks Department to curate those marketing materials and work with our city communication staff on videos and social media, stuff like that.

Okay, great. And I think my final comment is just about the delta at the end of the day. How many more trees are we getting? And I think that is something if we can try to tease out, especially at that January presentation. Yes, we can do that. You know, I'd be curious to see what you think we're, you know, again, achieving greater than what we had been achieving before. Will do. Thank you.

Will do, yes. Yep, Councilor Jones.

Thank you. And just to amplify that last point, I'd be interested to see what the cadence of conversation with council is. Since it is a seven year, we've got a specific amount of time. What does that ongoing, especially if some of us aren't here in a few years, making sure that the community doesn't lose that ongoing information updates from that. If that's at every council retreat or every two years, you know, whatever you guys think is best. But I think highlighting that information for the community would be beneficial.

We could certainly work with the manager and our communication staff on what that campaign looks like.

Awesome. Thank you.

Just a couple of questions. I guess when it comes to survival rate, do we have, I know 50% is what I'm told is generally a survival rate for planted trees. In the city of Raleigh, given the programs we have, what's our...

We're probably a little closer to 70% in most cases. It sort of all depends. It's nature and nurture, right? If the weather cooperates, that helps us out quite a bit as well. So I'd say more confident right around 70%.

And then if you probably, this is you as well, I'm curious about our relationship with homeowners associations. And I know they have a whole set of rules and regs. What is our experience working with them and how are we facilitating those that do want to be proactive around trees, you know, executing that?

So it's a combination. The education piece is a big one, right? So getting that information out there. Homeowners associations have two benefits. One, so if it's a city street, we can work with them to plant in the right of way. They also oftentimes have a lot of sort of community property where trees can be planted or helping sort of residents make that connection for the backyard. So from the right of way perspective, the city has authority. Most of these places already have street trees out there. So supplementing them is usually pretty easy in those. So it's about sort of communication and reaching out to those OHOAs and talking through sort of their policies, what their residents can do and can't do, and then finding the best sort of path forward.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions?

Do we need a motion on this one, or are we good?

No, it was an item as part of the budget so once we bring the full budget conversation back that approval will be part of that.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Nick Sadler with Budget and Management Services. After the public hearing last Tuesday, at this point, if you decide you can adopt the operating budget, capital improvement budget, as well as a few other ordinances that go along in that packet, including the Municipal Service Districts and the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. In your packet, you have copies of those ordinances as well as a memo that walks through each of the ordinance items for your review. Just a few highlights for you. The FY27 operating budget formally adopts the city manager's proposed operating budget with the changes that you've incorporated, effective July 1st, 2026. The capital improvement budget ordinance approves the CIP budget as well as the five-year CIP plan, effective July 1st, 2026. We also have the Municipal Services District for our two MSDs that we work with, Hillsborough Street and Downtown Municipal Service Districts. This will set the tax rate for those and the budget for those for 27 and then formally adopting the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau budget for 27, as I mentioned earlier. So next steps, until we have an adopted budget, we will continue to meet every Monday, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. And of course, you have to adopt by June 30th. So happy to answer any questions that you may have about the ordinance package that is in front of you.

Questions for Mr. Sadler.

I'M HAPPY TO DO IT SINCE IT WILL BE MY LAST CITY BUDGET. I MOVE TO ADOPT THE FISCAL YEAR 2027 PROPOSED OPERATING AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT BUDGET INCLUDING THE

Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. And we have a budget.

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I feel like we should break out into applause. All right. I think that completes our work for today, and we are adjourned.