Open Space, Environment, and Sustainability Committee Meeting Transcript – 08/26/2015 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 8/26/2015 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 8/26/2015 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [2:10:55 PM] >> Everyone, I want to thank you for coming, and we're -- oh -- I've got a quorum here. We're working a little bit on our agenda to see if we needed to take some things out of order because of some other committee meetings that are happening at 3 o'clock. And so what I think I would like to do, if the committee is okay with that once we -- just to lay out how I think we'll run, then we'll go back and start from the top, I'd like to postpone the item on tree regulations and take up items for committee consideration and discussion and possible action while we're here, and hopefully we'll be able to do those while the mayor pro tem is still here. She has to leave at about 3:30 to get to the housing and community affairs committee. Okay. Does that sound all right to everybody? >> Sure. >> Tovo: Appreciate that. Thank you. >> Pool: Welcome, everybody. Let me go ahead and call us to order if I didn't. The open space, environment and sustainability committee, this is Wednesday, August 26, and it is 2:12 P.M., we are in Austin city hall on west second street. And I'm glad to see we have a full component on the dais of committee members and also Mary Kay maxwell, who is the chair and Dr. Jane Rivera who is chair of the parks board. Glad you all could be here today. First item is approval of minutes. I'll entertain a motion. >> Zimmerman: I move. >> Councilmember Zimmerman moves and my vice chair. >> Garza: Seconds. All in favor? Thank you. That passes. We do not have anyone signed up for general citizen communication, and we'll hold off on the ten minutes of education for now. Item number 4: Consider and [2:12:56 PM] develop recommendations on the appointment of one additional member to the codenext citizens advisory group. We were asked by council resolution to bring forth an appointee who would fill a slot that was -- was specified for someone who would represent environmental open -- open space, environment and sustainability issues. So we've talked to a number of people who would be good candidates. I wanted to put forth an environmental attorney named Lauren ice. Lauren ice. Yeah. Lauren rosies a different person. Yeah. Yeah. She's an engineer. And so if anybody has any other nominations, I would entertain them. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Could you provide us with a little information about that nominee? I believe I received some information, but I think I was also confusing her with Lauren Ross. >> Right. And I do not have her resume with me, but I will get that to you all. We are not going to take action on it today, we're just -- we're just going to develop a recommendation. >> Tovo: Okay. >> Pool: So I'll get that to you all today. And if anyone has any other recommendations, we'll take those. Any other comments? All right. We'll move on to 5: Review and consider potential changes to policies related to the renaming of city facilities, including parks and recreation department facilities. I think we have some satisfy here for that. Good afternoon. [2:14:57 PM] Thank you all for coming. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers. I'm wondering if we could ask for a little bit of privilege. We have a co-presenter who's circling the garage. Is there any way we could just get a few more minutes? He's on his way. >> Pool: Sure. That will be fine. >> Thank you very much. >> Pool: We will go ahead and move to item 6. We'll bring you guys back. Just give me a signal when your presenters have arrived. Up to and discussion on codenext and recommendations of the green infrastructure working group. Do we have -- we have Jim Robertson. Welcome. How are you all? Thanks for being here. >> Good afternoon, mayor pro tem and committee members. I'm Jim Robertson. Among other things, I serve as the project manager for the codenext project. I'm here only to give you about a minute or two of introduction to codenext, and then turn it over to my colleagues Erin and Matt because theirs is the topic that I think you want to hear the most about. So without further adieu, I'm just going to give you a little background about codenext. Obviously, codenext springs from imagine Austin. And imagine Austin had a series of priority programs. These priority programs were the mechanism used to take the vision of imagine Austin and a host of recommendations that flowed from the vision, and then aggregate them into eight priority programs. So the priority programs are exact and connected, sustainable water, workforce and education, green infrastructure, creative economy, household affordability, healthy Austin, and then the one that led to codenext, which is priority program number 8, which called for the revision of the land development regulations for [2:16:58 PM] the city of Austin. But I want to emphasize that all of the priority programs, all seven of the other priority programs, feed into and heavily influence the outcomes we're headed towards with regard to codenext. Now, of course, today, you're focused on green infrastructure. But I want to emphasize to you that we don't draw artificial boundaries with regard to any of the priority programs. They all have a relationship to our land development regulations and, therefore, our project, the codenext project, is influenced by all of them. In terms of where we are in the project, phase I was sort of a listening and diagnosis phase that unfolded over roughly 18 to 24 months, from 2013 to 2015. Phase II is where we are now, and that is the phase during which we are developing and will test an administrative review draft, a draft that basically will be reviewed internallily many, many departments within the city. Phase III will follow right on the heels of that, probably in roughly the summer of 2016, where we will produce a public review draft for review by our entire community. Phase IV -- and I don't know if we'll end up calling these exactly this, but this is a helpful way, I hope, of breaking it down. Phase IV, after we've received, I hope, robust public review and review from various boards and commissions and of course the city council itself, we'll embark on this sort of -- the final review and adoption process, which will probably unfold over late 2016 and early 2017. And then phase V is what we're calling the mapping portion of the project where we actually take the now revised land development code and again to apply it to the geography of Austin. And I put 2017 to question mark because I don't know at [2:19:02 PM] this point the time frame during which that will unfold. A little bit of introduction to who -- you know, when I talk about our codenext team, who I'm talking about. Obviously, I suppose every citizen of Austin is a member of the team because we all have a stake in it and we all have the right to have a voice in it. But I think a little more narrowly than that, we have the code advisory group. Of course this is the group that I think item 4 on your agenda was related to. The code advisory group under its current iteration will expire September 30th, but the council has already taken action via a resolution to reconstitute it and continue its existence beginning October 1st. And that's the sort of specific formation of the group that your item 4 related to. We have what we're calling the core team, which is a team of city staff. It currently stands at about 13 city departments. Erin is a very active member of our core team. We meet biweekly and sometimes for subject matter particular meetings, we meet more often than that. Some of the members of the core team are actually hard at work, actually writing draft code. Portions, other portions of the code are being written by our consultant team, which leads me to the third element of our team, which is our consultants lead by a group opticos design. Our lead it Matthew lewis, assistant director of our department. I'm project manager. We have a group of people working on code development and a group of people working on communications and engagement. So that's our team. And with that, unless you have any particular questions that I've triggered by that I would like to turn it over to Matt and Erin so they can get to the meat of, I'm sure, what is of greatest interest to [2:21:05 PM] you. >> Committee members? Okay. >> I'll be back here. >> Pool: Thanks, Joe. Be sure to give us your name. >> Good afternoon. My name is Erin Williams. Good afternoon. My name is Erin wood. I'm with the watershed protection department and our policy and planning division. >> I'm Matt Holland, also with watershed protection policy and planning. >> We're here today to talk about a summary of the stakeholder feedback we got as part of the process that was conducted over the past six to eight months. Jim talked a little bit about the codenext team and the citizens advisory group that's a part of that. They split into three working groups this past January, looking at affordability, small business, and infill compatibility, missing middle, so we wanted to, as a companion to that, have a fourth working group that was focused on the topics of green infrastructure and sustainable water to look at those priority programs of imagine Austin. So as Jim covered, at the heart of codenext is implementing the imagine Austin plan, and all of the different priority programs that came out of that, including the ones that we focused on in our stakeholder process, sustainable water management and green infrastructure. And we just wanted to show an extended version of that graphic that shows a lot of different efforts that are also feeding into codenext. We're today talking about the green infrastructure working group. We also had the caag as Jim mentioned, city of Austin staff, planning and zoning, opticos design, and we have some task force as well that will be playing a roll as this moves along, the newly formed task force and water resource planning task force. We gave a similar version of this presentation to them earlier in the month. [2:23:07 PM] And so this past June, council reaffirmed what's for the approach. Codenext had a focus on green fair and impartial and sustainable wear and that was the direction we took in forming the green infrastructure working group and looking at how we can achieve those goals through the environment drainage and zoning portions of the land development code. And so we had a pretty extensive group of stakeholders already somewhat mobilized from our watershed protection ordinance that had gone through starting with stakeholder meetings back in 2011 and moving through to adoption in 2013 after a two-year public stakeholder process. And so we repurposed that group and expanded upon it, added some new areas of expertise so that we could form this green infrastructure working group. We have over 300 different stakeholders on our distribution list. We held six meetings between January and July, and we had just a really positive, collaborative process at all these meetings, extensive participation, a broad range of experience. You know, we had engineers, landscape architects, neighborhood groups, environmental groups, staff from departments across the city. It was one of the stakeholder groups that kept getting bigger as the meetings went on instead of dying off over time, so that's always very encouraging. Our stakeholder meetings were structured around four major themes that we developed at the first meeting, those being land cover and natural function, how we can achieve more functional, connected open space. Integrating nature into the city, a goal of imagine Austin, making sure we have adequate green elements and [2:25:08 PM] multifunctional landscaping in every context from our dense urban core out to the suburban areas. Beneficial use of storm water, something we talked pretty extensively about, and continued discussions this past spring on how can we better use our storm water runoff on site rather than just treating it and sending it downstream. And then we also talked about storm water for redevelopment infill, looking at how we can address some of the longstanding flooding issues in this city. So today's presentation will be focusing on the results of that process, the feedback, the solutions and recommendations that we heard from our stakeholders throughout that process. We just published a pretty detailed summary and posted it to our website. It's about 17 pages that summarizes all the input and great feedback we got from everyone. We intend this to be a living document that will continue to build on as we get more input from different stakeholder groups. Just yesterday we got recommendations from asla and so we'll be incorporating more feedback over time as we go forward. We presented this summary of the stakeholder input both to the caag, the water task force as I mentioned and also to the opticos design when they were in town last week. So a review of some of the feedback we got from our stakeholders, we had strong support for preserving and restoring the natural functions of our environment, including retaining our existing watershed protections, including those adopted through the watershed protection ordinance, creek buffers, floodplain protections, version hazard zone. And finding ways to promote more design flexibility on site to work around existing natural features and promote [2:27:10 PM] more connected, purposeful open space. We had a lot of emphasis on the need for on-site open space and parkland. Had a variety of scales. And we talked about how there is a goal of exact and connected through the imagine Austin plan but a big part of that is building a connected network of green infrastructure, and, you know, through water way setbacks and trails being have this whole separate green network that can provide connectivity as well. During our integrate nature into the city meeting, we had a lot of focus on diversity of green elements. Our stakeholders talk about having green elements, vegetation, landscaping, trees, at a variety of scales, so larger off site years, smaller on site, green elements, a variety of different types, so menus of different green elements that you can include on the site, depending on the context you're in. And then a diversity of function. So not just looking at a set, but also hydrology, urban heat island, wildlife, recreation, urban food, a whole host of elements we can get out of our green elements on the site. Also using green elements as softened transitions between different building types to address compatibility concerns. The stakeholders talked about -- traditionally the landscaping ordinance is focused mostly on site plans, so commercial and multifamily so they talked about looking eating some ways to extend those requirements out to other types of development such as remodels or subdivisions. And, again, like I mentioned, they wanted to look at bringing in different goals like integrating storm water [2:29:11 PM] runoff, integrating urban agriculture. There's a lot of talk about tree protection and the importance of trees and shade when we're talking about promoting walkability in the city. Opticos did a tour with us in the Hyde park neighborhood last week, and around 10:30 in the morning, they started going, wow, you can't be walking around without trees in Austin. So it was kind of a nice moment. [Laughter] So the importance of street trees, making sure they function. We also had stakeholders talk about, you know, that the right of way is an important space for green, but it can't be the only space that we're providing green. Continuing on the topic of trees, we had a lot of support from the stakeholders for retaining tree protections and finding ways to ensure the long-term health and function of our trees, looking at soil volume requirements and other design criteria, and ways to better address the urban heat effect in our surface parking lots. So as I mentioned earlier, we currently, for water quality, require that storm water be street, then over the course of 48 hours it's slowly metered out and sent downstream. So we're doing a good job for water quality and erosion, but that doesn't promote base flow and water conservation by getting water soaking back in on the site or used beneficially in other ways, irrigating, landscaping, flushing toilets, that kind of thing. So we had stakeholders expressing support both through this process and through the watershed protection ordinance process before that, for storm water to be infiltrated or otherwise used beneficially on site so that we're getting more base flow, we're getting more water [2:31:11 PM] conservation and offset of potable water demand, and doing that through a broad menu of alternatives. Rain garden, support payment, rain water harvesting, still -- they want a broad menu of choices to make that happen. We had a lot of feedback from our stakeholders talking about ways to work towards a goal of no potable water for irrigation, but realizing that that -- that in a drought, that's a tough goal to get to, and to keep all the landscaping that we're relying off of these green elements and treat and shade alive as well. This is an item that we'll need to be coordinated closely with Austin water, the integrated water resource plan that they're embarking on, as well as their water resource planning task force. So as I mentioned, we presented to them earlier this month and we'll continue to coordinate closely on them, on the issues of storm water and potable water. We looked at a lot of different jurisdictions around the country and what they're doing for storm water and some of these other topics. We found that a lot of them had special rules for redevelopment that, once sites got to a certain impervious cover, if you're wanting to promote development or some other goals like trait oriented development, housing, we found places like New York and Washington, D.C. Had some options for off site mitigation so that was something that some of our stakeholders supported, and some did not. So in the flood mitigation side, right now when you have a site that's highly impervious that was developed prior to our regulations for drainage, [2:33:12 PM] generally if they're not increasing their impervious cover or changing the drainage patterns, they don't have to provide flood mitigation so they don't have to provide a detention pond as long as they're not making things worse downstream. So some of the feedback we got from our stakeholders was, can we find ways that we're not just not making things worse, we're finding ways to make things better as sites redevelop. And just a few big picture comments that didn't necessarily fit into one of those categories, there's strong support across the board for putting the intent language back into the code, which I know is a big desire of planning and zoning and opticos as well, to talk about why we have these requirements and why they're important. Context is going to be key, looking at, you know, our urban core areas, our kind of transition areas, residential neighborhoods, suburb neighborhoods, that's all going to play into the different code requirements, as well as different watershed areas will play into that as well. And we had a lot of support for incorporating our -- you know, we were looking at different models from around the country, but making sure we're accounting for our unique climate, our geography, looking at our watershed and other environmental data as we're crafting these regulations. And finding ways to move towards performed based and not necessarily prescriptive requirements, when possible. We had discussion about affordability impacts. We'll be working through that code workshop that Jim mentioned, starting to look at the envision tomorrow software where you can actually testing out these different elements on site, and as you start adding in these different standards, how that affects the return on investment or how things might develop out, so we'll be working with planning and zoning and the consultants to look at those different impacts as part of this process. We have support for not [2:35:18 PM] wanting too easily allow variances. Looking at -- I mentioned contacts earlier, but especially no are these provisions mostly focused on multifamily, how are we going to handle single-family and building permits, is that something we want to try and tackle or not. And then we just -- we had a lot of discussion of people saying, you know, this code needs to be setting up what we want to see and not just what we don't want to see, that we should be coding for positive outcomes. So Jim already went over the schedule somewhat with the public draft anticipated in 2016. This draft testing of different concepts and standards over the fall of this year with opticos design and staff from around the city. As far as the green infrastructure working group, we plan to meet back with them in 2016 once the public draft is released to help unpack the different green elements that went into the code to show what was included from their recommendations and what was not and why, and kind of get them oriented into where the new things landed in the codes so they can target their feedback as efficiently as possible. If we have topic-specific meetings needed because of key issues that we're just -- that we're struggling with, we might reach out to the group before then. And with that, we're available for any questions. We have our website at the bottom there. We've got all our past meeting notes, powerpoints, this new fine 17-page summary. >> Pool: That's great. Thank you so much. Members on the dais, we have three people who would like to speak, but if you have any questions for either Mr. Holland and Ms. Wood, take them now. Okay. Thank you so much for the presentation. I think it's really [2:37:19 PM] important to hear about the green infrastructure task force and how that integrates into the codenext process and imagine Austin. So often we only hear compact and connected but as your slides clearly show, there's at least half a dozen different angles that we're approaching our new code development, so thank you for that. Appreciate y'all's work. >> Thank you. >> Pool: All right. Let's see, I have three folks signed up, Sam Rusek. Is Mr. Rusek eh? Oh, Sam is a woman. I apologize. Then David king and Eleanor Mckinney. Welcome, Ms. Rusek. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, councilmember pool and committee members. My name is Sam Rusek, and I'm representing cmpbs, the center for maximum potential building systems, a non-profit education, research, and demonstration organization, specializing in sustainable planning and design. We've been operating in east Austin for the past 40 years and have contributed our services to a number of policies, locally and beyond, including collaborating on the development of the Austin green building program, Seaholm ecodistrict, Mueller redevelopment and ecology Austin's master plan. I'm here to support the work of green infrastructure working group and would like to thank committee members, in particular councilmember pool, for continuing the focus of green sustainable infrastructure and the land development code rewrite process. I'd also like to command asla's work with codenext on this topic. I'm here to present some points for thought as we move forward to implementing a program that provides credit for documented on site life cycle implementation and maintenance plans as outlined in asla's recommendations under integrating nature into the city. In our work, cmpbs has [2:39:20 PM] developed a method termed ecobalance which strives for balance between human resource use and a spatial impact that use has on the land. Ecobalance comes our life support system, such as air, water, food, across life cycle phases, source, so sourcing those resources, process how those resources get to us, use, how we use those resources, and resource, how we -- how those resources are sourced again. Let's take water as an example. Rain water harvesting, when isolated as an action, is a conservation method for water use honestly. If this conservation action is combined with other actions, they become integrated and yield improved performance for both actions. When enough integration occurs the result is a cycle. So if we aggregate these actions into a water cycle, water can be sourced as rain water, processed with a uv filter, used in a bathroom sink, and reused in landscape, and treated by infiltration where this water can be resourced or sourced again. There's merit in each individual action, but as a series of actions that are sequenced, we can see a higher yield in terms of conservation impact when these actions exist within a cycle. Identifying resource cycles specific to our region is the first step for scaling up or down, a scale as small as able or as large as a city, but the emphasis lies on the resource cycle. By incentivizing the cycle, instead of sing, isolated actions, we can achieve greater impact on the conservation and sustaining of our resources. So I'm looking to other programs for guidance, such as green -- Seattle's green factor and the green area ratio of D.C. We can go further by integrating performance into our city's green infrastructure by [2:41:20 PM] incentivizing cycles to generate something as rigorous and uniquely Austin. Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you so much. Have you provided the comments or had some input into the green infrastructure task force work? >> I was not -- we were involved earlier in the process, but not throughout the process. >> Pool: Okay. Well, be sure to stay involved. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Pool: Yeah. Any questions for Ms. Rusek? All right. Next is David king. You have three minutes. Welcome. >> Thank you. Thank you, chair and councilmembers and mayor pro tem. I'm just going to spend like 30 seconds and I'm going to give the balance of my time to Ellie. I just wanted to thank you for going through this process and ensuring that we have green infrastructure integrated into our land development code. And regarding the code workshop that's coming up, I think it would be important to have representatives of the green infrastructure work group participating in that process to make sure that it actually gets incorporated in these recommendations are recommended into the code, and hopefully that -- recommend that that code be released to the public so every one can take a look at it early on and provide feedback. I'll give the rest of my time to Ellie. Thank you very much. >> Pool: Okay. That's great. So add two minutes, I guess, to Ms. Mckinney. Welcome, Ellie. Thanks for coming. >> Thank you, councilmember pool. >> Pool: You have five minutes. >> Okay. Good afternoon, councilmember pool and committee members. My name is Eleanor Mckinney and I'm the chair of the American society of landscape architects, central Texas codenext committee. Asoa was founded in 1899, and it's a national professional organization for landscape architects representing 15,000 members. Our vision is to leave the design and stewardship of land and communities. One of our key focus areas is the support of green infrastructure nationwide, not just Austin. We'd like to thank councilmember pool for continuing the focus of green infrastructure and [2:43:21 PM] sustainable water management land development code rewrite and to commend the efforts of the green infrastructure working group over the last eight months. We're here today to talk about just some of the highlights. You have our recommendations there. I'm sure you can kind of look at it later, but focusing on about four different items. One is to preserve and enhance be urban forest at code rewrite. The urban Forrest master plan sets 40% tree canopy goal for Austin. For example, tree canopy in west Austin can be 30%. In east Austin it could be only 10%. Okay? So we have quite a lot of variety in west and east. And some might say we don't -- it's not necessarily equitable. So we need to provide target incentives for tree preservation and planting and redevelopment infill and to extend the existing tree ordinances that are in commercial into the new proposed transition areas, along corridors that are upzoned or planned for missing middle housing. Currently we don't have those protections that we have in commercial zoning or trees. Okay. Item number 2: Require the presence of public open space within a quarter mile raids of proposed higher density districts and corridors. Acquire private land to convert to public open space, such as neighborhood parks and pocket parks. This is in the imagine Austin plan, and even in the latest annual report. We already had park deficient districts? Urban core. We need to aggressively acquire parkland in these districts prior to creating an even greater imbalance. It would be helpful to see a methodical approach coming out that said okay to target these areas and achieve a quarter mile radius, how many parcels do we need to select within, say, a target area, and how much might that be. We need to kind of move to that next step a past the inventory. So we're really in support of that. [2:45:22 PM] Okay. Item number 3: Require that redevelopment projects have a share of with downstream flooding. Are require to help the creeks. Last memorial day, there was a flooding of shoal creek at north Lamar. There was added density on burnet road which runs up the middle of shoal creek watershed. How can we make sure we're not contributing to an increase in flooding downstream with redevelopment projects? I think that's a question our community needs to answer. One solution is to incentivize trees, rain water harvesting, rain gardens, increase soil depth, impervious pavers to retain storm water on site. There's a lot of different obvious solutions that came out of the green working group, but we really do need to look at this, to overlay between the watershed map and the preferred growth concept map. I don't really think that was quite done during imagine Austin and it needs to be something we need to drill down into and see what watersheds are the most sensitive for health, safety, and welfare. And the last item is to provide eeoc logically functional landscape transitions in the compatibility set back. Currently, all you have to do is provide maybe a turf area and a compatibility set back, which doesn't really do too much. Our ala compatibility proposal, which you have in front of you, is to provide evergreen trees, hedges, green walls to create pervious areas for storm water infiltration. You could take a site that right now, say even on burnet road, has a lot of impervious cover but if their redeveloping require that much green in the compatibility set back, and you have quite a lot of storm water infiltration. So we believe that the green [2:47:23 PM] compatible approach can layer in ecological function that serves also as a buffer between commercial and single-family. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Pool: Members, any questions for Ms. Mckinney? Thank you for your presentation. I hope you're able to make it to the flood mitigation task force when they start meeting. >> Okay. Thank you, Leslie. >> Pool: Yes, councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: Thank you for coming and as usual, I always ask the question about the cost-benefit ratio. So I've been listening to quite a bit and going through all this. I don't think I've heard the word "Cost" mentioned yet. I mean, the affordability for some of the things that are being proposed, or if they're affordable, or if the question was asked. >> I think that's actually one of the next steps of the green infrastructure working group. Actually, the staff is going to be taking that through on a cost comparison basis as they approach the code workshop in mid-november. >> Zimmerman: Okay. I thought there were two staff people. I never heard the word cost mentioned there, either. But to me, it's -- the cost is a critical, critical issue in all of this. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> Pool: Okay. Your group is all together. Why don't you come up. While folks are going to present on 5, come up. I wanted to roll back to item 4, consider and develop recommendations for the appointment of the additional member to the citizens advisory group. And I did have a -- I have a copy of the resume of the person I'd like to recommend, and the only action really is the recommendation that will go forward to council. So you all had a chance to look at this, is there a -- how do we do this? I guess just -- is it the sense of the committee to move this recommendation [2:49:23 PM] forward okay all right. Very good. Thank you. We will move forward. Lauren ice as the open space, environment and sustainability committee's representative on the codenext citizens advisory group. And I have a resume here if you need that. Thanks. >> Zimmerman: I'm sorry, before you move on, did you just appoint somebody? >> Pool: Well, this person will go forward to the council. We're just nominating, making a recommendation. That's right. Welcome. Thanks to you all for coming. I'm glad you were able to find a place to park. >> Thanks again for accommodating us. >> Pool: No problem all. What we have here, review and consider potential changes to policies related to the renaming of city facilities, including parks and recreation department facilities. >> And with that, we're going to introduce April Bedford who's going to lead us through the presentation and joining her will be ricardo Soliz. >> Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm April Bedford with the parks department, different planners with the parks department. They'll introduce themselves as we go along. Today for your conversation, we're looking at the parks and facility code, dealing with naming and renaming the spaces. So we want to discuss with you the current code just so you're aware, and discuss some potential challenges that we are facing with these namings, and list some recommendations we have that could be incorporated into a possible code amendment. And then we would like to hear your recommendations on how we can better serve the public and their wantingness -- wanting, rather, to rename certain parks and certain park facilities. So I'm going to turn it over to ricardo Soliz. >> Thank you, April. This is just a real simple flow chart that lists the procedure for naming. We -- currently the code [2:51:25 PM] talks about naming of facilities and what it lists out is when citizens -- they can submit a name for a name of a park or park facility, and the -- they submit it to the parks department and we process that. That triggers a 90-day period, and we work closely with the public information office to notify neighborhood groups and stakeholders that are registered with the city to say that we've received an application for naming of a park. There is a 90-day period that is allotted to receive any other suggestions that -- if people want to submit names, alternative names to that -- to the city. What we do within that 90-day period, we collect this information, we put that together, and we present that to the parks board with the number of requests that we get for that name -- for that park facility, and we -- the parks board then makes a recommendation to the city council as to what -- what name they are recommending. So ultimately, there's a change in that now that -- after the parks board submits a recommendation, we definitely want to come to this committee to submit that -- those names, or that name that's recommended by the parks board for your consideration before it goes to the city council. So, really, that's the process. It takes anywhere from four to six months, really, to get through the process, to actually get before council for that consideration. We -- you know, the staff, we've been processing these, [2:53:25 PM] and I know that just -- it's a lot of -- some of our challenges have to do with the vagueness that the code provides us and guides us as to how we make -- how we look at these names, particularly the parks board has also challenges that I'm sure Mr. Vera could talk about. But in particular, you know, we have words like valuable contribution in the code. We have credible service, and some of these -- some of these words do become challenge for the parks board to make a recommendation, so those are things that we certainly want to tidy up or at least have that conversation with this committee, if you have any thoughts regarding those -- those words. But in particular, I wanted to talk about some -- some recommendations that we know that could help with the community engagement piece of it, looking at two major categories, we have the non-financial contribution. And this is -- this is typically the majority of the names that we receive, naming after someone that's been very active in -- excuse me -- in the parks system. And so they submit their application. Currently, the application talks about give us a little background on this -- on this applicant, or this name. In other words, how -- how have they contributed to the parks system? And so we get that narrative from the applicants. One of the -- one of the recommendations that staff is wanting to share with you has to do with the [2:55:28 PM] possible -- what the community's support is for that particular name. So we divided the categories into three park classifications, the neighborhood parks, for instance. If we were to receive an application for naming of a neighborhood park, we -- we were wanting to see, for example, 200 signatures within that half-mile service radius, where 75% of that service radius would -- would -- we would need to see that community support for that measure, for a neighborhood park, for instance. The district park or recreation center, we would throw -- cast a wider net and talk about a two-mile radius where 600 signatures could be received, and to demonstrate to us the community support. And at least 75% of that, and so forth. And then the metro park, which is our larger classification, the zilker park type of -- size of a park, we would need a thousand signatures, and that would be citywide. That would be a method for staff to really look and gauging that community support for that recommendation for naming. We'd also like to share with you a financial contribution, some ideas on how we could talk about, if we were to receive some financial contributions for naming, for instance, of an existing park, one criterion could be deeding the land to the city as something that would be a consideration for naming the park. The other contribution, a hundred percent contribution of the development of the park, for instance, or a 20-year endowment for [2:57:30 PM] naming -- for maintenance of the park. We also are recommending some naming of facilities within the park, for instance, kind of the same thinking there where a hundred percent contribution towards the value of the design of the improvements and installation of new components and that type of thing. So this is something that we would like to consider and include that in an amendment of the naming for parks, and wanted to at least get your feedback on some of those items. >> Pool: [Inaudible] On that, and since Dr. Rivera is here as director of the parks board, do you want to speak to any of this? I was looking at the agenda item referral sheet that we have here, and it says that the parks board took the issue up about a year and a half ago, but didn't resolve anything. I did want to ask Mr. Soliz if these recommendations were the ones that were given to the parks board or has this been developed since that last presentation? >> Yes. This -- actually, these recommendations which are not in your backup, by the way -- >> Pool: But you'll get UT copies; right? >> Yes, absolutely. >> Pool: Thank you. >> We presented this to the parks board back in 2012. >> Pool: Okay. >> And so we really need to loop back with the parks board on these specific recommendations, but we have not -- these are still those recommendations regarding the non-contribution and the financial contribution of consideration. >> If I could address that. >> Pool: Absolutely, please. >> Last year, or in the year and a half ago, actually, I guess it was, we did discuss one problem that we have frequently is that we will have two individuals, either both living or both deceased, being suggested for naming, and we are feeling like we're being asked to be solemn and divide the baby or the park in two. And quite frequently, if we [2:59:31 PM] name it after both people, the abcd park, they're both angry because of the fact they wanted the whole park named after them. So one of the things we asked staff to look at was how do we do something like that? Is there a way that we could make it, perhaps, only deceased people get an entire park named after them, and if you're wanting to recommend -- or recognize the contributions of people still living, that we might have some sort of wall or room or something where we would put up plaques, busts or whatever of the people who have been so keenly involved in that particular park. And so in October, after discussing with you all as well, staff is going to bring us a more detailed plan of what they're recommending for us to then recommend back to you and the full council. But that's the kind of problem that we have, plus, as Mr. Soliz already said, another problem is, okay, these people seem like they're very deserving of this they've done all these wonderful things, and these people over here also seem like they're fully deserving, and how are we supposed to determine which is better? And when we recommend it to you all, we know that you have the same problem. And so if we just had something set up in code that would make it easier for everyone to make a more objective and less subjective decision, it would be easier to deal with. >> Pool: And we have a finite number of parks. >> Absolutely. And that's another concern. We aren't allowed to rename and rename and rename. And in many cases, we're at the point where we can't name anything in a given park because we really have a lot of old parks that have been renamed. >> Pool: Did we do any research -- did you all do any research on how other cities manage this? I'm sure it's not probably going to unique to Austin. >> Absolutely, it goes from a [3:01:31 PM] to Z. A lot of these recommendations that we're showing here are some of the more common ones and obviously there's some -- yeah, there's definitely some differences from the federal government, for instance, on they do have one where they do not name anyone that is still living. And, for instance. >> Pool: Sounds like not a bad idea. Yeah. >> Madam chair, we've had lots of discussions with the parks board and at their request we're preparing to go back to the parks board with more meat on these recommendations. And presented in a manner that, as we come out of that session, we have very specific overall guidelines from the parks board's perspective on the direction we want to take. The additional thing that I wanted to share, I know that chairwoman Rivera will say is that the parks board also voiced an interest in making a recommendation to council to hold off on any other namings, which are not already in the queue until we can come up with -- with a tighter definition of criteria that would be in alignment with the code and specific recommendations for a code amendment. So we still have work to do. Staff have begun the work and/or refining the research on it. But we would like to come back with you with more specific recommendations. I heard councilmember Zimmerman also speak about cost impact. With namings there are costs associated with that. And we would like to be able to apply that information so that when we make the decision to toward things through the parks board and through open space committee up to council, about a potential name, we want to be able to show how we'll demonstrate the cost benefit of that and, you know, provide respectable -- honor to those who are being [3:03:31 PM] named. >> Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Thank you. This is an interesting discussion and I think there have been some interesting examples through the last few years. Some that have been pretty controversial, some that are like the ones that you described like there were different -- different efforts to name the same piece of land for two different people. I'm remind, I think the library has a little different process for naming. I think they may restrict those names to those who are deceased. >> We believe the print as well. >> Tovo: That seems to me probably a practice we should seriously consider, at least there's a higher likelihood that the information surrounding a particular person is complete at that point and that individual won't go on to have a very different path forward that might result in -- >> Indeed. >> In our receiving emails asking you to rename places, which occasionally happens. I guess that I would also look to the school district. I believe they name their facilities -- >> I believe they have some facilities named after living individuals as well. Just something that I think we should consider. One of the real significant changes that you're talking about here, though, it would seem to me involves namings that are directly in response to a financial contribution. And so I assume that you're anticipating those would still work together with the other criteria. >> Yes. >> Tovo: That we would not accept a financial -- we would be hearing recommendations to name facilities after individuals who are prepared to make a significant donation if they don't meet the other criteria as well. >> Absolutely, in addition to. Uh-huh. >> And I'll say that I'm relieved to hear that. But I believe that also, [3:05:31 PM] that is just a whole issue that I would like to think a lot more about. You know, we're not -- we're not an organization that's doing fundraising where that's an implicit relationship, where somebody gives -- somebody names a room or contributes and gets a brick. I mean, we're a public institution, our public facilities really should be named after individuals that really represent the highest and the highest ideals and ones that are in concert with our city and I'm concerned this approach might take us in a different direction. On the other hand, I understand the real desperate need for financial resources for our parks. And so I'm certainly willing to consider it, but I hope that that in particular is a question that the board will give real heavyweight to because it is -- it is a little different. >> Mayor pro tem, I'm quite sure that that will be the case. Last night was the first meeting of the new board and I'm delighted with all of the new members. They're all very committed and have interesting thoughts and comments already on their first evening. I think everyone is very eager to hear the presentation in October. So I think we'll be able to get you a good recommendation, hopefully November. >> Pool: I would just say if it seems like it would take longer, please take the time that you need. Remind how often the parks board meets? >> We meet monthly. >> Okay. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Pool: The reason why I say that is when we get to November and December, the last Wednesday of the month, runs right up against holidays that are recognized by the city. And the first one, of course, being Thanksgiving, so I was looking at and we'll have to have a conversation staff, because I don't think that I've told you this yet. Looking at moving our committee meeting a week earlier, so it would be the third Wednesday of November instead of the fourth. [3:07:32 PM] So that that doesn't interfere too much with family plans that may surround Thanksgiving. And I am looking at doing the same for December as well. We can talk about that further. But since that is taking a week off of your plans, chair Rivera, it may be that you would want to -- just take the time that you need. >> Thank you very much, we appreciate that. That will actually work best if we do get a recommendation to you quickly asking that you put a moratorium on namings of parks until we get there. >> Pool: I want to take that up next. Hang on to that thought, vice chair Garza. >> Garza: That was actually my question. What do we have to do to get that moratorium, is that council action or direction from this committee or from the parks board? >> The parks board will need to meet to take action and that is funneled through our staff in the form of a recommendation, it's in the process of being written as we speak. >> Pool: That's good, you can move forward with that first. We can untether that from the rest of the conversation because the council level we have informally agreed that we would have a moratorium anyway until this work was done. So if we could move forward with the official moratorium, that would be good. >> That's very helpful, thank you, chair. Because rsa night we were talking about that we would do all of this in October. We have to look at their recommendations from staff and make a recommendation to this committee and then to the full council to please put a moratorium on namings until everything has been decided, so it's good to be able to uncouple them. >> Maybe the vice chair would like to turn that into a motion. These are posted for action. Let me just double check. >> Tovo: We are posted for action on that. [3:09:47 PM] >> My expert legal advice, made by me, just kidding, it's within the scope. >> Zimmerman: For you to consider potential changes to policy, so it's in the scope. >> All right. >> Then I'll make the motion that we put a moratorium on the naming until it goes through the proper channels, parks board, et cetera. >> Zimmerman: I'll second that. >> Pool: Freight. We have a motion and a second from -- great, we have a motion and a second from vice chair Garza and councilmember Zimmerman. That is unanimous on the dais. We'll have a moratorium and we will look forward to a presentation at the parks board and the subsequent work and bringing you the back to this committee -- bringing it back to this committee then once the recommendation haves been cooked at the -- is it the parks commission. >> Parks board. >> Still the parks board, okay. Yes, ma'am. >> Madam chair, one final comment. I wanted to say we appreciate the feedback that we've gotten from the committee and we want you to know that we are interested in continuing the research and with respect to donations, we're looking for policies that will not be driven by the amount of money as the main driver for naming our facilities. That it does need to line up with contributions that have been either great to the city or great to the parks system, of course, but money not being the driver for making those decisions. I just wanted to share that with you. >> Pool: That's good. Contributions as in acts and actions and -- but not financial. Any other comments, yes, councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: Before you go, I'm looking at the code here section 14-1- 12 naming policy, part C. It says a facility named for an individual may not be renamed. I'm curious, have you done the research on, you know, when and why that was added to the code? [3:11:50 PM] We kind of made a joke about even somebody who is deceased, you might name the park and find out 10 years later something that would make you change your mind. Do you know why that was put in here? >> Councilmember, we don't, but that is definitely one thing that we would like to address in this code amendment. >> Zimmerman: Seems like if you had an overwhelming majority of people that would like to rename a park, even though there's nothing wrong with the original name, two-thirds or 3/4ths of the people want to rename a local park, let them rename it, I would think, you know. >> Pool: All right. Thank you all very much. I appreciate your time here today. I'll trouble check. Staff, could you please -- I'll double check. Staff, could you please, this is a question from vice chair Garza, could you please check with legal as to the motion that was just voted if we need to take that moratorium motion forward to council to have it approved at that level arrest well or if it's sufficient just to keep if it's sufficient to go into effect coming out of the committee. Thanks. All right. We're just blazing through here. Jumping to 7. We have discussion and possible action regarding options available to the city to permanently reserve parking spaces located in the public right-of-way for park use at Caswell tennis center. We have four speakers, so we'll hear the presentation first, welcome, Ms. Mcneely. >> Thank you, Kimberly Mcneely, assistant director for the parks and recreation department. I have Lee Austin from the transportation department with me today. >> [Indiscernible] >> So the first slide here [3:13:51 PM] is a picture of Caswell tennis center and you can see -- well, maybe you can't because I can hardly see. But maybe on the presentation that I passed out to you, which by the way I need to tell you the reason why I passed an alternative presentation, it's slightly different than the backup. The content and context is very much similar, but a few slides are just a little different so I wanted you to have the correct backup. Along shoal creek you can see where the cars are parked just adjacent to the tennis center, that's the area that we're speaking about in today's presentation. So a little background on Caswell tennis center. In 1931, the parks and recreation department purchased this tract of land that was called the shoal creek park. And it's highlighted in yellow on this -- on this presentation. In 1947, the city council, the Austin city council at that time passed a resolution identifying this tract to be a part of the corner of 24th and Lamar to allow Caswell tennis center to be built and as a part of that resolution, there was language in the development plan that talked about the construction of a tennis court. Background or court back stops be surface drainage, parking spaces, which is the thing that's most important to this discussion, and then other necessary improvements by the city. In 2005, so fast forward from 1947 to 2005, the parks and recreation department was seeing additional use of the spaces in that area, just adjacent to the Caswell tennis center and we installed signage that said that this parking was for Caswell tennis center patrons only that would allow for adequate parking [3:15:52 PM] for the tennis players to utilize. At that time we assumed responsibility and maintained and restriped that space. In 2011, as there were an increased number of users and an increased number of individuals that were needing to park in that general area, we were informed by the transportation department that that particular piece of land is actually not parks and recreation department land, but actually is part of transportation's right-of-way. I have another presentation -- we have multiple packets if anyone still needs one. >> Zimmerman: Chair pool, a quick question here. When we were talking parking spaces, I'm looking at the photo there looks like it's from the 1940s or '50s, then I'm looking back at the Google, the more recent Google photo, so is the traffic department saying all of the parking spaces or are they talking about the parking spaces that are very close to 24th street. >> All of the parking spaces. >> They are saying all of the parking spaces are right-of-way. >> I'll talk a little bit about the right-of-way discussion. So based upon increased usage and multiple users, multiple needs in that area, our transportation department kindly informed us that those spaces were actually right-of-way. They are not actually owned by the parks and recreation department. So therefore it would not be appropriate. It would be inconsistent to have the signage that only allowed Caswell tennis center parking in those spaces. It would be inconsistent with how we treat [3:17:57 PM] treatright-of-way parking elsewhere in the city. However, to help us the transportation department kindly installed signage that required only two hour parking so that patrons who were using that space would be frequently coming and going and allow the tennis players to have a place to park and also they were kind of enough to allow us to designate four parking spaces for Caswell tennis center staff so when they arrived they would always have a place to park. This is inconsistent with how the right-of-way is treated in other parts of the city, however the transportation department was doing what they could to help us be able to provide the service to the tennis players that come. I need to annexation -- I'm sorry? I need to mention that the transportation department also presented in 2015 the west campus parking expansion plan and aim going to allow -- and I'm going to allow Lee to tell a little bit about what that picture depicts. >> Okay. Hello. So we have been working with west campus neighborhood associations on a plan to meter and better manage the parking in the west campus uap D a Sy ofential parking and mers as needed the area. That's pretty much what this picture represents. >> So that particular picture was ting morholiic of the are cluding the Caswell tennis center and the larger neighborhood consideration. In response to that, we were presented with that 1947 resolution and with a deed of the property to take a look at well, were those spaces actually right-of-way. What we found was the [3:20:00 PM] surveys that are -- that have been provided were inconsistent. They had some inconsistent information. When we wanted to quickly go out and review that, we found out that there were no, I believe they call them monuments, but there's no existing monument that's can show us the right-of-way. So the parks and recreation department has actually ordered an additional survey to determine whether or not those spaces are right-of-way or whether they're actually parkland. I will tell you after review of the deed, after review of the resolution, a review of the development plan by our law department, a review of our real estate department looking at all of the previous surveys, all of the indications are that those spaces are actually right-of-way. They are not dedicated parkland. Which would mean that they are under the authority and the auspice of the Austin transportation department. I say that because previously I said the transportation department is looking to look at that more holistically. There are some stakeholders that are involved. I've just written down a few of them. Caswell tennis center, the university of Texas, there's area business, there's a few neighborhood associations, all who are interested in the surrounding area regarding the parking and so decisions that are made about parking we're trying to take into consideration all of those stakeholders. Just for your knowledge, the consistent practices that the transportation has tried to adhere include: Reserve parking is not permitted in the right-of-way for a specific or long-term purpose. They have made an exception to this standard, I'm sorry they would prefer not to make an exception to this standard because it would cause inconsistencies throughout the city. Specifically, allocating parking spaces for Caswell and excluding other surrounding agencies may [3:22:01 PM] deem -- may be deemed as inconsistent with how similar situations are handled in other areas of the city and the department -- the transportation department did concept to providing those four parking spaces to Caswell, so they made an exception to their already standing policies just to be able to help us out, so there was absolutely a -- an effort to -- to help us resolve the situation. But it -- but it is a desire to stay as consistent as possible. So paved upon the transportation's desire to be -- based upon the transportation's desire to remain consistent and our need for parking for the Caswell tennis center patrons, we have three options that can be considered and certainly it's your prerogative to offer other options. But one is the straight-in parking that I outlined original, the straight-in parking spaces could be permanently designated for Caswell approximate for making it dedicated parkland. It would be managed by the pro shop. They would be individuals who would be responsible for enforcing who and isn't parking there on a daily basis, but the parks and recreation department would be responsible for those spaces as far as the striping and resurfacing and such. Another option is the straight-in parking spaces that remain in the right-of-way, so they remain as they are currently and that the Caswell 10 tennis center is given permission to distribute permits to the park at no cost to the tennis center patrons. Basically shouldn't say distribute permits to the park, should be to the people -- individuals who are parking at no cost to the tennis center. So basically you are a tennis player, you come to Caswell, you pay your court fees, sign up for the tournament, you get a little permit which would go into your window and therefore [3:24:02 PM] you would be able to park there at no cost while you are using the center. It would have a validate time frame. We wouldn't validate those forever, it would be for a given amount of time. The third option is the metered parking. You will a of these comes with -- all of these come with pros and cons and consistencies and inconsistency which I will allow Lee to elaborate on perhaps the inconsistencies associated with the permit and the situation with the meter parking. >> Well, as Kimberly already said, basically, we don't reserve long-term right-of-way parking spaces for usage by individuals or companies and it's a request that we get frequently. I have all of the downtown area. If we had that as a policy, there would be no longer any on street parking available for any member of the public. It would be completely gone. Because that's a request that I get several times on a weekly basis, have our parking spaces reserved for private use. Very few exceptions which are the four spaces we currently have reserved for the Caswell tennis center. Our director really feels the best way to resolve this would be either to figure out some sort of like land use swap possibly for some future mitigation and some other future transportation related projects, so that it would be wholly in the use or wholly in the governance of the parks department and they could manage the head-in spaces; or one suggestion that we've had, it goes back to a policy of there is a price associated with the cost of parking and maintaining that parking in the city and should people using it pay a portion of that. Just installing meters and seeing what that does there. One of the big issues that Caswell has there currently is there's a language school very close by, those students tend to take up a lot of their parking. [3:26:03 PM] Before that opened they didn't have much of an issue there. If meters were there, there would be a cost associated with the patrons, but we think turnover would increase greatly. >> We are open for questions or comments. >> Pool: Vice chair Garza? >> You said if we -- I guess gave reserve spaces downtown there wouldn't be any. Why do I see sometimes the meters covered that says valet parking only? >> Well, there's valet parking established by ordinance by council. But short term rentals, yes. There is some of that. You see it frequently back here on 2nd street for acl, that do that frequently. But it's not like we have given it to them permanently. It's very short term and they also pay for that. There's a cost associated with that that covers the cost of meter revenue lost, not quite totally, the staff time to go out and cover up the meters, et cetera. >> I think in front of is it Sullivan's? Not Sullivan's, there's a steak house on west 6th, they pay for whatever it would have cost when they put those things over the meters. >> Yeah. You get a right-of-way permit to reserve those spaces although -- we are harshing that out, currently the Marriott keeps getting over and over reservations we need to work out a good system for them. >> Garza: Would we go back to slide 6. You are saying right now -- >> Oops, I'm sorry. >> Garza: That one at the bottom diagram. So north Lamar. I'm guessing north of shoal creek? Those are the parking spaces that right now have the two hour limit but the ones on the southeast side don't have, is that correct? Is that if you are looking at the tennis center, and [3:28:03 PM] you can see where there's a white building with the looks like a little trail. All of the parking that is on that side of the street is in front of Caswell tennis center. It used to have two hour parking only. It has no signable now. Just four spaces that are reserved for the folks that actually work at the city. But formerly, it had, to help us you the, formerly it had two-hour parking -- I'm sorry, does -- I'm confused, I apologize, it does have two hour parking signs right now, hoping that patrons will come in, play tennis and then be able to get out. But it's understanding from the tennis community that's not enough time and there's still not enough spaces because individuals who are not using the tennis center are continuing to park there. >> The other side what? >> The other side, hidden parking you see opposite the tennis center, that's unmetered unregulated parking, right adjacent to a frat house. South of there residential parking for homeowners. >> Both of those are right-of-way. >> Yes. The right-of-way we think, we need to make sure, 80 feet wide probably about to where the back of the sidewalk is to the Caswell tennis center side to the [indiscernible] Spaces on the east side. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Pool: I have a question for you to unmetered on the eastside of shoal creek there. In that right-of-way, can the city regulate that snack oh, yeah, that's in the right-of-way as well. If we do want to put meters there and the talks currently with the uap about doing that, my understanding is that they have sort of said we want you all to resolve the Caswell issue before we decide about going forward on the metering in the area. Those would be metered as well. I anticipate that frat house won't be happy about that, that will be another can of worms. >> Tovo: I can't tell if [3:30:05 PM] you said will or will not. >> Will, uap has taken a hands off -- >> Could you tell us what that? >> University area partners, west campus area association. Hands off approach [indiscernible] Until the Caswell center issue is resolved. >> Would four hour parking instead of two hour parking be more of a benefit -- I think we have folks who are going to speak to this issue here shortly. >> Our meters can go up to gave hours or even longer -- five hours or even longer, extending the time is no problem. I think as far as making stuff available that will be more of a conflict with the language school if their students are taking up too much of that time. But I also think if they have to pay for it, a lot of the language school patrons will probably not be parking there. >> Councilmember Gallo, thank you for coming to join us. >> Gallo: It was housing or tennis, tennis won out. Thank you for letting me ask a couple of questions. The problem that you have at a tennis facility is that you have people showing up for a match at a certain time, if they arrive and there's no parking that's available there's very little other options around that area to be able to park. So from a player standpoint, two hours is not enough on a meter. But I think the meter is still way low on the scale as far as being compared to parking permitted type parking where Caswell has control over those parking spaces. I mean people have got to be able to show up to play there and know that they can finds a place to park. So that kind of gets us off the metered because there's frat houses all around the place, there's other uses that will infringe on that and will take up those metered spaces. So that just from a user standpoint, we may hear the same thing from some of the same people that are here, it really needs to be if you have a tennis facility, [3:32:05 PM] you've photo be able to provide park for that -- you've got to be able to provide parking for that facility that's limited to that facility. >> Pool: That would be accomplished by having the permit parking maybe on both sides of shoal creek boulevard. >> Uh-huh. >> All right. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Thank you, councilmember Gallo, I think that you have raised an important point. I want to ask you again to address the issue of the right-of-way. I know that you said that were the decision to go ahead and do that in this location, that would make it difficult for you to be consistent in the other areas, but not -- you didn't say it would make it difficult. You just said that you get a lot of requests for that kind of reservation a lot. I would think this would be different because it is a public facility. Let me also just say, I would love to talk with you about some of the specific situations that I have seen downtown but there are whole blocks of meter that are almost all the time Orange coded out for various reasons and I have a particular block that is -- that I've asked questions about because one day they'll have a sign up that says special event parking by permit and I look at none of the cars have permits. The next day Orange bags and anyway -- >> Just quick, the special event permit parking signs they should really say no parking or meter [indiscernible] Happen to have a lot of those signs left over from south by so we kind of use that as a no parking sign. >> Tovo: It seemed clear there was no special event going on, but there was no parking. It makes it extraordinarily challenging for businesses downtown to have a consistent, loyal clientele when you can't depend on whether or not there's even going to be a possibility of getting metered parking. Some days there will be, some days there won't. In any case, I understand the need to keep right-of-way parking available to the public, but this does seem to me a really different situation because again it is a park facility and a public [3:34:06 PM] amenity. That seems to me different than the right-of-way that might be in front of a restaurant or a hotel. >> The majority of reserved right-of-way spaces we have exclusively reserved were done by some sort of council director like residential permit parking or the valet parking. Internally other than the stuff that's in the ordinance such as commercial parking or customer service parking, haven't made a policy of doing long-term uses like that. So that's kind of one of the differences, this is a completely different thing that's never been -- anywhere in the code saying that this is -- you should reserve these spaces for a recreational park. We have other parks that are difficult to access. I'm in the Austin running club, I park on the street and pay meters when I go down there. It's definitely challenging when are in the central area where the parking is a high they hand. >> Tovo: Thank you for -- high demand is that thank you for that distinction this would be a little bit of a departure, also about the signs, that clears up an ongoing question in my mind. >> Pool: One more question, councilmember Zimmerman and then we'll take our comments. >> Zimmerman: I'm looking at one of the aerial shots here. Aim -- I'm not a civil engineer site planner, looking at this looks like there's room for additional parking to be built, there's even room for water retention for the impervious cover. I see places you could put retention ponds, too, in this area. >> That was actually the discussion that we had Monday. There is additional room. If say the parks had control of the right-of-way they could always build more. >> Gallo: Expand the supply. >> Well, part of my suspicions is part of the reason the splay is at a critical point, there's definitely down times like the picture not much demand for it is because that it is free. That's what we see, once it's not free and the demand changes drastically. [3:36:08 PM] >> Pool: Thank you so much for the presentation, let's hear from the community next. Looks like I have five speakers. We'll take them, Anne graham first, Brian [indiscernible] Next and then Carol welder are the first three. You each have three minutes. Welcome, Ms. Graham, it's great to see you. >> Hi, thank you very much for this opportunity. Councilmember, chair pool and councilmembers tovo and Garza and Zimmerman and also Gallo. Thank you for coming, my name is Anne graham, I've been a long-time advocate for lots of different parks in town, Elizabeth ney museum, Shipe park, butler park, town lake square, Walter square and now Caswell. I sort of stumbled upon Caswell when my children started taking tennis lessons there, became a tennis player in my 40s, my husband joined me, we have been active users. One of the issues -- I would say thank goodness we are already named, there's no question about the integrity of Mr. Caswell. He was on the founding parks board in 1928 and chaired the parks board for 12 years, serving on the planning commission, impeccable credentials we're already named, that's one thing. I also discovered in this research about parking is what an amazing facility that I have. I hope that -- [lapse in audio] The lapped marks that we have like las mani taas, we lost, armadillo world headquarters, Caswell needs to grow and thrive and be supported economically through dedicated parkland to really have a future. The past 70 years have been strong, we have a lot more future that we need. When my children were playing, there was active [3:38:10 PM] programs of youth, of 110 youth, there were lessons, there were team practices, ustaw, tta, you will hear about that later. A lot of those things were curtailed, one with the change of leadership and one of international school and also U.T. Students parking in those spaces really has curtailed access to those. The issue of the two hour parking in any kind of restriction with parking meters has been a challenge. Really recommendation needs to be that is dedicated parkland and those parking facilities are at no additional cost. Everybody coming to play at Caswell is already paying. Could be a minimal fee of $2.75 for a two hour session or it could be $60 for a lesson. A couple of different things that have been not discussed all of the other tennis centers, four here in Austin, have dedicated parkland for parking at no cost. Austin tennis center in the east side, far over on airport and the south Austin tennis center. They don't have the challenges, neither the university of Texas and the international school as pressure for spaces, but they also have dedicated parkland at no cost for parking. We would like to ensure there is no cost additional and those 28 spots become dedicated parkland. If there's a meter or ticket system that would an fine thing and compromise if we need to do that. But dedicated parkland is imperative. The other issue that nobody mentioned the Caswell tennis center are revenue generating for the city. We need enhanced access to increased programming to ensure that the revenue generated which goes to parks and recreation is facilitated through that free parking. Let's not lose sight of the easier and better parking access that we have, more revenue that is raised through tennis programs. >> Pool: Thanks for your comments. Could I ask, Ms. Mcneely, the idea of dedicating this land as parkland, is that a new idea or can you give us a little history on why the [3:40:11 PM] land isn't. I guess it's zoned P for public; is that right? >> Are you asking me specifically approximate those 28 spaces in the right-of-way? >> No, I think we're talking about the land that the Caswell tennis center is on -- >> It is. >> It's. >> The land by Caswell tennis center is dedicated parkland. It's the 28 spaces that are right-of-way that is not dedicated [multiple voices] >> Okay. So the issue is converting right-of-way to parkland. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I suppose there's some attendant issues on that, maybe Seth could help us maybe through a memo explain what might be involved is that the process of vacating and dedicating as parkland. >> Pool: Not that I am recommending that we do or not do it, but we would need have the information to know what that process is. >> We can do that for you. >> If we were going to analyze that. Thanks. Next we have Brian snotty, you have three minutes. Welcome. After him is Carol welder. >> Good afternoon, my name is Brian snotty, a board member of the Austin tennis net. We are a non-profit locally organized network of tennis players, began operating on may 1st, 1997, not to long ago. My goal is to give you a small flavor that the Caswell tennis center has on the tennis community. Today we have 1300 members and roughly 1200 of whom are actively tennis players. We do coordinate match play for both singles and doubles play against the members in [indiscernible] Format, our members include players ranging from ex-college players to brand new tennis players. In addition to the latter matches, we hosted two charity tennis tournaments per year and raised under [3:42:14 PM] just under $20,000 for charities. We have been responsible for assisting in the coordination of 3040 matches in the city of Austin. In the 2015 so far, Caswell hosted 27% of those matches for a total of 813 matches played. Understanding that either two or four persons paying .75 or $4 -- 2.57 or $4 per use. Coordination of 5,291 matches in the city of Austin. Once again Caswell hosted approximately 27% of those matches, totaling 1,428 matches played at Caswell. This number does not include members who side up for casual tennis clinics nor utilize the services of pros to improve tennis schools or matches just to practice and get exercise. Parking is critical to the utilization of the Caswell tennis facility. Without parking the tennis players can't show up and play their matches. Courts are in great condition, having recently hosting the U.T. Mens and tennis teams. The members would certainly encourage this -- to permit and restrict parking to -- to tennis players through the Caswell operations. On a more personal note, I apply usa and also live in the Clarksville neighborhood. It is a central hub for tennis activity in the city and the great fear that we have is not protecting the free and open access to parking at Kansas well will lead to a -- Caswell will lead to a long and slow decline. We cherish and want to give [3:44:15 PM] back to the community. >> Questions. >> Zimmerman: You mentioned about -- about the fees, could you explain briefly how the fees work for the use of the Caswell tennis center? Because I think that's an important point, right? If people are already paying face to use the center -- paying fees to use the center, I went back and read this 1947 resolution and it was -- seemed kind of obvious it was a package deal here back then when it was originallily done. I think there's an argument there, if people are already paying maybe the parking should be included. >> There are two periods of time when I think there's a prime slot and non-prime. During non-prime I believe the fee is 2.75. During time time it's $4 per person, a singles match, non-prime time you have two people paying 2.75. Doubles match, four persons, you would have two people on one side of the court, two people or the other. Some sense, yes, that does include when we go to other tennis facilities you pay to reserve a court, you also get a parking spot with it because you need to have a place to obviously park your car is that just to add to his answer, I don't have the fee schedule with me. But there's a number of fees associated with tennis, lessons, a tournament fee, cost something different. But in every case to utilize those -- the court space there's a fee associated with that usage and to his point at the other tennis centers there is no additional fee to park. >> Zimmerman: But you don't sell annual memberships, it's like a fee to use for a particular event. >> We don't sell annual memberships. >> Zimmerman: Okay. >> Pool: All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Snotty. Next is Carol welder, after her is Leslie Cameron and Ms. Welder, welcome. You have three minutes. >> Thank you, good afternoon. Well, I've lived in Austin since 1967 and I've lived in Hyde park the last 20 years. [3:46:18 PM] And have used Caswell for a number of years. I am a board member of the capital area tennis association, which was founded in -- in 1974, non-profit community tennis association representing over 8,000 players in the Austin area. I've also served as president of the usa Texas session and as vice president on the united States tennis association board which is the national govern being body for tennis, our mission is to promote and develop the growth of tennis, as other mentioned it's critical to have parking at the Caswell tennis center. As Anne mentioned we would like dedicated parkland or parking spaces in front of Caswell tennis center. Right now we only have three managed tennis facilities in the city of Austin. Totaling 28 courts. To serve as a population of over a million people. 28 courts. That you can reserve. And so in order to keep tennis affordable and accessible to everyone, you know, we need every bit of opportunity to provide that service. And taking away parking at one of the facilities that has eight courts is really detrimental to the growth of our sport. I was part of the 1998 bond that completely renovated Caswell tennis center. We didn't get to that project until I think around 2004. But we actually went down in courts to try to make them have the proper space in between them when we went from nine to eight courts so we actually lost a court in Austin. But at that time I think that's when they designated parking spaces for Caswell. So we would hate to see us lose that, I just wanted to speak on behalf of all of our tennis players, juniors and adults, tennis is a lifetime sport. [3:48:19 PM] So I would just encourage and hope that you would see our point of view that anyplace of business really needs -- any place of business, especially a public facility, needs parking, thank you. >> Pool: Thanks so much, Ms. Welder. Leslie Cameron. >> Hi. >> Pool: You have let's see is -- Michelle, Seegers, she is here donating her time to you. Ms. Cameron, thank you, you have six minutes. >> Yes, ma'am, thank you. Good afternoon, I sure do appreciate your time this afternoon. I want to thank you for that. My name is Leslie Cameron. A long-time Austin resident. First went to Caswell over 40 years ago in preparation for a state tournament, I have a lot of emotion around Caswell tennis center. I don't want to speak about emotions this afternoon, just some fact. In looking through a lot of city of Austin documents and neighborhood plan crafted in 2004 the central Austin combined neighborhood plan crafted by city staffers and neighborhood advocates, Caswell turned the cornerstone of this neighborhood and you do not destroy a cornerstone by moving parking for the patrons. And as everyone else before me has attested, tennis is a sport where you have a set time, you have a team, you have to have rerecycle parking once you -- reliable parking once you get there. As you all probably know. This portion of Austin is the most densely populated sector in the city. So there is not other parking available. We are land locked on the west by Lamar boulevard, on the north by 24th street. So it's not that you can just park three or four blocks further, that's just not even an option. [3:50:19 PM] Another point as you've heard already and saw in the presentation by the city staffers, Caswell tennis center was formed by council resolution signed in 1947 by then mayor Tom Miller. That same mayor who had such forethought to set aside that land that's become lady bird lake park, also the Hancock golf course and municipal golf course there on exposition knowing these returning veterans from World War II would need a place to regather and have that recreation time. Wt Kansas well, that member -- wt Caswell, the member on the first parks recreation board gave money for the construction. If you look at that original development plan people have spoken to, not only reports stipulated but also parking specifically built for these courts. This afternoon I'm here representing the women's tennis association of Austin. It's a philanthropic organization that supports team tennis, supports community tennis, supports scholarships for underprivileged that boasts the likes of past board members like Carol read ton Carol Keeton Rylander Mclellan, we have supported and approved the tennis center in a variety of ways but that changed drastically three years ago when parking could no longer be guaranteed for tennis teams. The teams have gone to other centers that are already overcrowded. Austin women's tennis association, after working through committees with transportation, with parks and rec for the last two and a half years finally went to the web and put out a petition, that's what you have before you, over 841 signatures as of printing, over 15 pages of comments. This petition will quickly go to over a thousand, which [3:52:20 PM] means we could name Caswell or name anything with those thousand signatures. But quite frankly the Texas payers request, require, demand that the parking be returned to the paying patrons of this city of Austin facility. Anne this very weak it seems that by council order a cultural center that was just built in 2007 was deemed a parkland to protect against development encroachment. Here we have parkland that is being encroached upon but it seems to be that it's better to be certainly a revenue making thing for this U.T. Area partners and paid parking district they want to do for west campus improvement. That's incorrect, that's wrong. I want to challenge each of you to think about economically for Caswell to survive it's the right thing to do to give parking as it was intended back in '47 to preserve this cornerstone in the neighborhood, it's the right thing to do. Is it possible, is this out of order or whatever, if I just ask to have those stand here in support -- would everyone here that's in support of Caswell tennis center, please stand. This is just a small, small portion. >> Sure. >> Thank you for your time. >> Pool: I have another question for staff. Could you get us some information and maybe send in a memo the resolutions that may have been in the past that designated the eastside of shoal creek for the revenue making for the west campus neighborhoods? >> Yeah, I can work with our transportation department to get that for you, yes. >> Pool: Okay, all right. Thanks. Any questions for Ms. Cameron? Yes, councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: An observation, I was going through the names. I was surprised. Somebody had come from Livermore falls, Maine, my remark on that if you drive [3:54:21 PM] here from Livermore falls, Maine for a tennis match, you better get a parking space. Mike Mchone. >> Thank you. Thank you, madam chair, I'm Mike Mchone, the university area partners representative. I want to clear up a couple of little bit of a confusion that might exist. University area partners very much wants the Caswell tennis center to be as successful as possible and to continue its long history of providing the opportunity to play tennis in the center of Austin. A little bit of confusion has developed over -- about the parking den district. The parking benefit district is designed to create revenue, to create pedestrian street scape improvements for the neighborhood. It is not designed to go beyond San Gabriel street at this point. When we bring that ordinance to expand that district back, it will not be beyond that area south of 24th street. What I want to point out to you today is a couple of things. I believe that we have a situation where you with broaden the scope a little bit. We support the Pease park conservation conservancy. Pease park is under a great deal of remodeling on the west side of the creek, there's a lot of parking associated with the improvements to the park. That may be a solution for overflow of when there are more than 28 parking places needed. The other thing that I would like to bring to your attention is that throughout the university area, most of our streets have 60 feet of right- of-way, not 80 feet. And we manage all kinds of traffic issues on 60 feet of right-of-way. Some -- a little bit [3:56:22 PM] congested at times, but we do it. So to me the situation of dedicating 20 feet of that right-of-way along the west side of the the old shoal creek boulevard there, which is the street on the eastern boundary line of the Caswell tennis courts, would be an ideal solution, I think that's -- that works for everyone. It creates a situation where the transportation department is not violating their program or their procedures. It increase a situation where Caswell tennis players have their parking. And maintain the curbs and the facilities. So just want to reiterate that the university area partners does not have any desire to create a problem hear. We're looking for solutions and anything we can do to help provide that solution, we will be happy to do. >> Pool: Thank you so much. Let's see, any questions. Okay, all right, great, thank you so much. All right. We're -- Ms. Mcneely, did you have anything else to offer on this topic? >> I do not. I believe that you need two things from me in the form of a memo. One is the -- how you would vacate the right-of-way and make it parkland, which is something that is desirable to the parks and recreation department and, two, the resolution regarding the transportation issue that I will work with our transportation department. I do think this is posted for possible action. So that's -- all I have to say. >> Pool: All right. Thanks. I see director Hensley has come to the mic. Do you have something that you would lake to say? >> Well, I just -- we would like to see if it's possible to have a recommendation, if we could have a recommendation and possible action today. The recommendation that I would ask is that we actually allow the [3:58:22 PM] transportation department to give us the 28 spaces and them, we, as the parks and recreation department would come back to council through the parks and recreation board that that be turned into dedicated parkland and then we would obviously work with the contractor at the Caswell tennis center to be able to work with the patrons to make sure that it is only you have had for tennis patrons -- used for tennis patrons. It would allow the transportation department to keep some parking in there, street parking, they can work with council however they want to do or deem necessary when it comes to parking meters. At such time we could work with the transportation department for mitigation purposes, whether it is a fee in lieu of or there's many times when they have requested a use of parkland for mettation purposes where they pay -- mitigation purposes where they pay us money. We could look at where that would be a swap so that we could end up getting parking for our patrons which is desperately needed. We would be responsible for that 28 spaces that would take it off the transportation department's ability to have to deal with it and then we would work out something with the transportation department to make sure that the mitigation was fair. >> Pool: Okay. Dr. Rivera, was there any action taken at the parks board on this item? >> No. >> Pool: Did it not come from you? >> Not yet. Not yet. We have -- [multiple voices] We didn't have a full board to be able to do anything to take action and this was requested to come forward like immediately. So we put it on this agenda. >> Pool: Do I have a sense of a -- of a motion here to -- to direct staff to work with the transportation department to transfer the right-of-way to the parks department for handling as -- then they would bring forward action for us, council, to dedicate it as parkland. Only on the west side of that portion of shoal creek boulevard, not the east side. >> Zimmerman: That sounds [4:00:22 PM] like a motion, I think that I will second that. >> Pool: I'm perfectly happy for you to make the motion. Councilmember Zimmerman makes the motion. >> Zimmerman: I guess that aim just >> Zimmerman: I guess I'm just curious why the Austin traffic department, I would have thought somebody would show up to say I don't understand what motivated this change in the first place. It seems like it dates back to 1947; right? Or what change? What -- >> I really honestly -- I don't think we can answer that, other than we thought it was our land all along so we were monitoring it, and keeping it there for patrons. Then we found out through our partnering department that we were using land that wasn't ours. They had been very good to work with. They've tried to allow is different spaces. But based on their -- just like us, to give us that without having some direction would set precedence for another department that then, when something else happens out there, in another area of the city, may not be such an amenable situation. So I think they were trying to work with us. But it became such a situation with our community members and trying to play and more and more people are parking there, as you've heard. It was encouraged that we bring this forward immediately to try to resolve. And that's why I just wanted to throw out this I think is a good solution, I think it works for the transportation department, as well as us, and quite frankly, I think they'd like to not have to deal with those spaces. But I think that's what started it. >> Zimmerman: Sure. But I mean as far as -- >> Pool: Hang on one second. Can I have a second on the motion? >> I'll second. >> Pool: Vice chair Garza seconds. Thank you. >> I'll say that when he find signs up on the right-of-way that aren't legal signs because they're not solicitly allowed via ordinance, which is what those signs that were up before, saying we'll tow if you park here, and you can't tow without having a tow tag written by an ap officer. We were bound to get this taken down, and with UT sort of encroaching on streets that weren't there, we do find we just have to address that. >> Zimmerman: I'd just like to get back to the original intent [4:02:23 PM] of what the Caswell center agreement was in 1947. That's kind of where I want to go with this and ask traffic department and whoever needs to work on it to figure out what the original intent was and just get back to that. >> Well, just one thing to mention is that space -- if you're built in the right-of-way and wasn't dedicated parkland, it was still under our control. We have developments all over town that improve the right-of-way and add angled paces, head-in spaces, it doesn't mean it's theirs. We always make it clear, granted -- it's from so long ago, but just because you make improvements to the right-of- way doesn't entitle you to have sole use of the spaces or whatever that's still right-of-way. >> Pool: So what we're doing here, the departments themselves can't shift the ownership, so to speak, of this strip of land. It has to come through council to have it be authorized. So that's what we're doing. We're making it possible for the two departments that have figured out a way to work together to an amenable end for everyone involved and it's not taking anything away from the university area partners, the plan that they have for some revenue for improvements in that district. And it looks like there's room for maybe some additional parking spaces, and it looks like from the people who of come to speak on this today that that is the result that you were looking for. So -- sure. >> Garza: When did this become an issue? 2012? >> From 2005 until 2011, the parks and recreation department utilized those 28 spaces as though it was parkland, and we did have signage that said we would tow if you were not there for specific use of the Caswell tennis center. In 2011, that's when we were informed by the transportation department that that's really not dedicated parkland, it's actually right-of-way, and to [4:04:23 PM] Lee's point, certainly the legislative intent of that particular development plan, when we asked for some legal review, you can build parking spaces in the right-of-way and it's not dedicated parkland. So what they were saying is, for consistency purposes, it's not appropriate for you to put up these signs. You can't do that by ordinance. It's not allowed. So that's why the signs were taken down. >> Pool: When then you had a problem with people parking who were not tennis players -- >> We tried another option of putting up the two-hour signs but that's not working, either, so that's why we're here today because - - to councilmember pool's point, we don't have the authority to necessarily dedicate land that's not ours as parkland. >> Pool: Any other questions here? Yes, ma'am. >> Garza: I'm supportive of this because I believe the original intent of these parking spaces was probably to service this tennis center. I have a little bit of heartburn only because of what happened yesterday, and with the mack, and how that should have been designated parkland a long time ago, and the hispanic community had to fight and fight and fight to get it finally designated parkland and we finally were able to do that just yesterday. So I need to make that point, that I'm supportive of this because I think it's the right thing, but I hope when we're faced with these issues, there's equitable, I guess, staff recommendations on when something should be made parkland. >> I agree with you, and, in fact, from the parks and recreation standpoint, we felt it should have been dedicated parkland. >> May I start? >> Pool: Yes. >> I just wanted to say that I live in that area and was very [4:06:28 PM] instrumentally involved in that neighborhood planning process. And I think that part of the issue is that there are so many students and there are so many cars in that area that they've been pressured to find more spaces, and I think that's part of what's going on, is that it's very congested over there. So to have - - and university area partners has tried to improve that area. So I can understand why there's been an interest in, you know, having more parking spaces. And I don't think it had anything to do with -- well, I may be wrong about that, but I don't know that at the beginning that it had anything to do with trying to get rid of the parking spaces for Caswell. I think they were more self-interested in getting more parking places for themselves. So, you know, that's kind of what I think was the part -- the situation that's going on over there. >> Pool: All right. Well, we have a motion and a second. Any other comments? >> [Inaudible] >> Pool: All right. I think we're doing that. All in favor? Looks like we are unanimous on the dais with mayor pro tem tovo off the dais. [Applause] >> Pool: All right. I have an answer to a question that we -- that I asked earlier for staff to go and check on item 5, whether postponement or a moratorium would require council action, and it says that according to law department, a postponement would be referable. A moratorium would not require council action. I think the action we to be to put a moratorium on it, what we did today is sufficient, it does not have to come to council. Okay. [4:08:28 PM] So I think we have one more item and we're doing pretty good on time. Let me hold up my agenda. And this one is 8: Discuss and recommend a resolution directing the city manager to clarify the physical boundaries of town lake community event center venue project. And this relates to the executive session, that if we -- if we need an executive session to talk about the legal issues that arise, we are posted to do that. The mayor pro tem is in the housing and community affairs committee meeting, so she's not here, but she did give us all her draft resolution. She said that -- oh, and here she comes. Perfect timing. Excellent timing. We are now on item 8. And we were just mentioning that you had brought us a resolution and that we were posted for executive session, should we need it. >> Tovo: Thank you. And this is -- I believe this was on our last council, our last committee agenda as well, and I apologize that it didn't make it into the backup this time. I think it was last time, but in any case, I distributed copies. We've had some questions over the years about how the venue is defined, and I believe it would be in the public interest just to ask staff to provide us with some clarification of that. It has implications for what kind of amenities can be funded through which funding mechanisms, so just getting it straightened out once and for all and getting real clear on it I think would be of real benefit, especially as we move forward and look forward various new phases of town lake park. So that's it. That my resolution. >> Pool: All right. [4:10:30 PM] Any questions on this? The "Be there resolved" is real straightforward, just direct the city manager to get some clarifications and bring that back to us in October. Okay. Would you like to make the motion to -- >> Tovo: Sure. Thank you. I move approval to forward this on to the council for -- what is the language again? -- To recommend approval of the council. >> Pool: And second by vice chair Garza. >> Garza: I have a question. How does it relate -- are we going into executive session? >> Pool: We won't -- if you want to, we will. If you want to of a conversation about it. >> Garza: Okay. >> Pool: It's entirely up to us. >> Garza: Oh, she's coming. >> Zimmerman: I was going to suggest, if I can, if the full council with need to consider it, maybe we'd want the executive session for the full council. >> Pool: That's perfectly fine. >> Garza: Yeah, that sounds good. >> Pool: All right. Any other conversation on this, we can vote on the amendment. All in favor? And that is unanimous on the dais. And I think that concludes our business for today. We will not need an executive -- oh, Michael, yes. I am so sorry. The ten minutes of education which he just raised his fingers -- is that eight minutes of education? Is that what you were -- I'm so glad you're here, and thank you so much for being willing to bring us up at the tail end. You are like our flood expert, Mr. Shunck. He is always at the tail end of our council meetings, so thank you. >> Thank you, committee members, for inviting me to talk about something very exciting, something that I feel like adds to making Austin so technique. My name is Michael embezy, I'm city arborist for the last 13 years. I've prepared a ten-minute presentation for you today. I'd like to go over some [4:12:31 PM] historical initiatives that the city has has gone through, along with a brief overview of the benefits of trees, the maintenance and operation crews that we have within the city of Austin, and then I'd like to just talk specifically how the development services tree -- our tree division is enforcing our tree regulations. First a little bit of history. In 1983, Austin worked with the community, and council passed a tree ordinance that is truly unique. It's a tree ordinance that protects trees once they reach a certain size. The late Margaret Hoffman, known as the tree lady, was instrumental in passing an ordinance that not only recognized the anesthetic beauty of trees, but recognized that these large trees were providing a significant benefit to all of our citizens. Since 1983, we've had numerous resolutions and actions by council that have brought trees to the forefront, along with a collaboration with staff and the public, in efforts such as the tree summit, the tree task force, and most recently the comprehensive urban force plan. In 2008 a resolution was actually passed by council that recognized trees as an essential infrastructure element to our community. As opposed to our great infrastructure, the infrastructure that's required for all of us, such as our water, sewer, communication lines, our green infrastructure is also an essential element that provides a service to our citizens. And this short list captures many of the benefits that these large trees are [4:14:32 PM] providing our citizens; cleaning air, cleaning our water, minimizing floods, creating a sense of place, really making Austin -- gives us a reputation of being a heavily treed city, a city that recognizes the value of our trees, and as this picture indicates, shade. Shade is such a critical element that trees provide, and there's very few individuals that were at zilker park that day, at least in this photograph, that were outside of the canopy of that tree. Just a brief mention to many of our colleagues within the city that manage trees daily as part of their core mission, our parks department, be watershed protection, public works, Austin energy, and the water utility all have crews that manage trees. This is an essential element that is required by these departments. They actually touch trees every day. They have to maintain trees. They remove trees when they're a high risk to our public. And I wanted to mention that because this particular presentation will go beyond this and helps create what Austin is doing, even to a higher level, so we have all those important entities that are working with trees every day, but we also have the tree division within the development services department that -- that provides guidance to those departments and to the public, but also advances our urban forestry efforts by creating plants and enforcing our tree ordinances. The acting director is Rodney Gonzales and [4:16:33 PM] assistant director is George Adams. This particular program -- this division, I'm sorry, has a three tiered platform -- >> Pool: Hold on one second. I think we have a question from the vice chair. >> Garza: Austin energy came and knocked on my door and said we need to cut this tree down in your yard. Do they have to follow like the heritage tree ordinance, so if it's a heritage tree, are they sos to follow whatever requirements of that, or is there some kind of exemption, they're can you get it down because they're a city department? >> The ordinance applies to all these departments, all city departments, as well as to the general public, so they follow the same rules. >> Garza: Okay. Then a follow-up to that, I'm just curious because my district is a lower income district, they originally told me, because it was a contractor, so they were contracted by Austin energy, to come cut the tree down, they said, we cut it down, then we'll pull it to your front curb, but you have to haul it off, which I thought was very strange, if Austin energy was asking me to cut down a tree, but they're making me haul it off. I never followed up on that, but it was gone, it got picked up eventually. I don't know if you're the person to ask, or maybe Austin energy would be the person to ask. >> We should ask each department bus we have specific protocol in each department when we have interaction with the public of things to follow, if the tree is on the property, or is it on the public property next to the private property, so we have protocol. We work closely with Austin resource recovery, so that we can provide that service to pick those items up. But specifically, you should ask each department of their protocol on how they -- how they dispose of that debris when they remove a tree. >> Garza: Okay. I was just concerned because for people who can't afford to go call someone to haul it off, they're going to have branches in front of their yard for days, but I'm [4:18:34 PM] sorry, that was my question. >> Fair enough. So our three-tiered platform within the tree division in the development services department is based on these items: Promotion. We provide an educational outreach for the public and for staff, in one form or another, we're somewhat like an extension service where we provide information to the public, how to care for a tree, we pro I that documentation for the public. Secondly, we have a planning leg, and that is basically providing guidance documents for those departments that you saw earlier, but it also helps creating the creation of our urban forestry of tomorrow, what we expect our urban forest to look like. Helps us identify those challenges that lie ahead as our city grows. And lastly, and what I'm going to present here today, is our preservation of our trees. It is a -- it's great to acknowledge the fact that we are a fast-growing community for many years, and we feel like trees in our urban forest helps promote our city, and it's a very nice combination of growth and the balance of incorporating trees within that growth. Much of the trees, I believe, help temper all of the changes that we face in a growing city. They help screen changes. They help promote community -- the belief in our community. And so I want to present a bit of information on our tree regulations. Primariy, please know that it's within our land development code, and it's -- per attains to our zoning jurisdiction that pertains to the health and welfare of our citizens and [4:20:36 PM] trees play an integral role in that. Initially we have three areas, one is incorporating trees within development. Secondly is protecting trees while the construction is occurring. And third, replacing those trees which cannot be adequately saved. A few elements of our tree ordinance is, we do recognize trees by the size of the trunks of each tree. Once a tree is eight inches or larger, it's required to be shown on a tree survey within our site plan submittals. We have nearly a hundred species of trees. They all grow -- they're expected to grow in different shapes and sizes. But once a tree is eight inches and larger, it's required to be shown on a survey in hopes that it will be incorporated within the development plans. Secondly, our protected tree, which I mentioned earlier, is a tree that's 19 inches in diameter. These are really our work horses in the community, that are providing the highest level of benefits to our community because they're large. They clean, they provide those environmental benefits that I mentioned earlier. By the way, 19 inches in diameter is 60 inches around, and that's generally a tree you can barely put your arms around, and I frequently get phone calls from concerned citizens about potential illegal tree removal, and I usually use the bear hug as a point of reference, as we're able to determine if a tree has a permit for its removal or if it needs to be incorporated. Thirdly, we have a heritage tree ordinance that was passed in 2010. It brought new attention to our tree ordinance that we've had for over three decades. But a heritage tree is select species. Our oaks, pecans, sign rest, [4:22:41 PM] cedar elm, American elm trees, have about 15 species that qualifies a heritage tree. That's our highest bar. Once a tree is that size, we really try very hard to incorporate that tree within the development. And lastly, we have the highest bar, and that's a tree with a 30-inch stem. That's a tree that you could not put your arms around. And if it's a healthy tree, it needs to be incorporated within the design or if it's being proposed to be removed, it qualifies to go to the land use commission. This slide is a scenario or a concept, if you will, that identifies an undeveloped lot, but it also identifies multiple items that are within our land development code that -- that regulate what can happen on a property. In particular, we show all the trees on this lot, and there are over 20 trees on this property. However, we're also depicting here that we have utility easements that limit development in that area. We have slopes. We have environmental regulations that prohibit development on those slopes. We have detention requirements that catch water to minimize the flooding potential. We have parking requirements so that we take the parking off the street and help our transportation efforts. We have fire lane widths, which -- which are required so that we can have adequate fire access in terms -- in tiles of emergencies. This scenario is just basically to describe that we have areas that are required within development that really encroach on the trees that we're trying to preserve, and it's a true balance on each property that we handle trees up [4:24:42 PM] front in hopes to preserve as many as possible and help meet the intent of the entire land development code. This slide basically is a slide -- after all of our work is done, we've incorporated trees, which is the lion's share of our responsibility, and requires much collaboration with the applicant to ensure trees are captured within each development. But we rarely save them all. It's not feasible to save them all and still meet the intent of all the other elements that we have within the city. But when trees are allowed to be removed, this general slide basically identifies that we have a standardized system for mitigation based upon the size of the tree trunk. And my last slide is basically a reminder that it's not just one person that preserves trees. It's not one department. It's truly a community-wide effort, starting at the city council level. We're very much appreciative of all of our partners, both internal and external. We constantly talk about it's not just the arborist community that cares about trees, that has to work together, but it's also the development community and the neighborhood community that work together to create this tree preservation ordinance that has been in effect for over 30 years. And about that, that's ten good minutes of tree regulations. >> Pool: Thank you so much. That was great. I really appreciate that. Any questions here on the dais? Thank you, Michael. Appreciate your time and staff for coming along with him. I think that may be -- I think that may be all for us today. Thank you, every one. We are adjourning at 4:27. 4:27. Thank you so much. [Council adjourned.]