Climate, Water, Environment and Parks Committee (CWEPC) Meeting Transcript – 2/26/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 2/26/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 2/26/2025 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:32:40 AM] all right. Good morning everybody. Welcome to the inaugural climate, water, environment and parks committee. So briefly named I appreciate everyone being here today. And really excited about the work that this committee is going to do. We're going to cover a lot of issues. And so I figure let's just get to it. I'm going to take speakers with the items so that we can kind of hear from you. More proximate to the discussion of the item. First item is item number one about our meeting schedule for 2025. I'm going to assume we don't have any speakers on this, but double check. Okay, so we've shared this calendar with the offices. Generally we're going to meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month. We do have some adjustments to that just to facilitate other committees and council meetings. But if there are no issues with the calendar [9:33:43 AM] are no issues with the calendar as proposed, I would love to take a motion to adopt the calendar. >> So moved. >> All right. Seconded by council member duchen any. Opposition? All. Any opposed? All right. It's unanimous. Still got to get my lingo right here. All right. Number two, briefings on proposed city code amendments to increase erosion protections along the Colorado river below the longhorn dam. And with that, I'll invite watershed up to give their presentation. Oh, wait. First, do we have any speakers on item number two? >> I do, yes. We have 1 or 3 speakers signed up. We can start with remote if you'd like, please. Yes. Okay, great. Dale glover, you have three minutes. You may push star six to unmute. >> Hello? David, can you hear [9:34:56 AM] >> Hello? David, can you hear us? We saw you try to talk on there. If you're trying to speak to us, we cannot hear you at this moment. There, there. They're just having trouble with their microphone. Unless you are having issues with your mic in particular, sometimes it's good to exit the meeting and come back in. >> Why don't we take the next speaker while Dale. >> The next speaker we have is bill bunch. Bill, bunch, are you here? Oh. Oh. >> I think we hear him. >> Oh, great. [9:35:58 AM] >> Oh, great. >> Oh, we hear you now. Dale, are you there? >> Hello? Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you now. >> Oh. I'm sorry. And did I bust in on someone else's speaking? >> Nope. You're good to go. >> Okay. Sorry. Sorry about that. My name is Dale glover. First, I wanted to thank you guys for helping keep this city amazing. And I'm here to talk about the Colorado river protections. My wife and I are the owners of 90 and 94 montopolis drive along the Colorado river. It's a small property. And it's zoned commercial. But there's an overlay that allows us to have a residential building on there. So this is not unique to us. This is also a long red bluff road. There's some commercial properties, small, small commercial properties along that [9:36:58 AM] commercial properties along that road. And I feel like we have not had an opportunity to have a seat at the table. And so I was hoping that before you guys vote on this, if we could take that opportunity, we'd really appreciate it. There's a handful of us, but I feel like we have so many current restrictions on our properties because of the waterfront overlay, that this just puts even more burden on that. And I don't think that we've actually been able to articulate that, or at least. It would be nice to be able to do that. Some history about this. This actually popped up in 2022. And it was embedded in a larger environmental code change. And the owners, the property owners, this was back when it was 400ft and went on the other side of the road. And the property owners didn't know about anything until the day of council. When they were going to vote on it. And it kind of just like shook us. And so this this [9:37:59 AM] like shook us. And so this this has changed a lot. I know since 2022, but I would say I think it was 2023 or 2024. It popped up on the planning commission agenda and I think it was a mistake. I believe it was a mistake, but that that sort of made the folks that I'm talking about nervous, because the first time it happened, it was actually told to us that that notice property, property notice was actually the planning commission agenda. And so then all of a sudden now we have to watch agendas all the time. And it's like always looking. I don't know. Anyway, it's been exhaustive. So I know that that some people have been working on this for three years. And I do appreciate their energy. But if there's any way to perhaps move this to the other side of 183 where there's no protections versus our side, the west side, which there are very like waterfront overlay like trumps everything else. And so it's [9:39:00 AM] everything else. And so it's very, it's very I guess cumbersome is not the right word. It's just it's different than the east side of 183. That does not have anything if that makes any sense. And so that would, I think, make all of us feel better if this thing just needed to get moved forward. I know I've talked to a lot of the property owners that have been mentioning about that, and so I know this is. >> Oh. >> Thank you for your comments. Our in-person speakers are bill bunch. Bill bunch, are you here? And next we have Roy Whaley. Roy Whaley. All right. That is all of our speakers who have signed up. >> All right. Well if they show up later we'll give them an opportunity to speak. But in the meantime, let's hear from staff and I. Before we do, I want to just recognize our vice chair. Councilmember Ellis has arrived. And glad to have you here. >> Glad to be here. There was [9:40:01 AM] >> Glad to be here. There was something going on on north mopac that was blocking south mopac. I hope everyone's okay. >> Good morning. Good morning, chair and vice chair. Committee members. I'm Susana Carbajal, assistant city manager. Today we will begin with a briefing on the proposed city code amendments to increase erosion water protections along the Colorado river below the longhorn dam. This briefing is does pertain to a March 6th council agenda to consider an ordinance amending city code title 25 to create exceptions for providing an erosion hazard zone for to create exceptions for providing an erosion hazard zone analysis and increasing the distance for erosion hazard Zones along the Colorado river. This ordinance is in response to council resolution number 2020 (209) 060-9061, which initiated land development code amendments related to environmental drainage and landscape [9:41:02 AM] drainage and landscape requirements. Director Jorge morales, from the watershed protection department will lead the briefing. I also want to thank staff from the watershed protection department for their hard work on their code amendment recommendations. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'm Jorge morales, the director of the watershed protection department and as assistant city manager, said I will run through the presentation. It's a more condensed version than we've been providing at the board and commissions. But I want to acknowledge first that Matt Holland, sitting to my right, has been our project lead. He's done an excellent job of outreach, and we do commit to following up with some of the speakers we heard this morning as well. But we will share with you some of that information in a bit. I also want to acknowledge some of my executive staff that's in the room. We have Ramesh swaminathan with the assistant director that's overseeing this particular group. And we also have Jenny Spence, assistant director for capital delivery for the department. And three days in our new deputy director. So I would like to introduce him as well. He just started this week and very excited to have him on our team. So but with that we'll get get started. Once again I'm [9:42:02 AM] get get started. Once again I'm going to do a quick run through of the slide deck. And we do have a video. It's a two minute video I think video speak a thousand words. And so we're going to go over that in a bit. I'll give you a quick background on the ordinance, which you just heard up briefly, some of the proposals that we're recommending and the next steps in the schedule, as you heard, was coming to you next week. So let's let's can we go ahead and put the video haam. >> As the Colorado river flows through east Austin, its banks and floodplain are particularly vulnerable to erosion. Although erosion occurs throughout Austin near the Colorado river, the soils tend to be sandy and easily wash away. That makes erosion a potentially major problem in this area. We've already seen erosion threaten or [9:43:03 AM] already seen erosion threaten or damage homes, small businesses, roads, pipes and other infrastructure in this area, and millions of dollars in public money has been spent to fix problems caused by the erosion. A handful of updates to Austin's land development code and criteria manuals could help prevent erosion problems from occurring in the first place. These updates are specifically for the area downstream of longhorn dam. One important update would widen the area where you must conduct an erosion hazard zone analysis in order to get certain permits, for example, permits to add on to your house or build a guest house. The analysis might show the need for protective measures against erosion to be incorporated into the building. Plans to further protect against erosion. Technical updates to the drainage criteria manual would provide developers and engineers with guidance to [9:44:05 AM] engineers with guidance to prevent new outfalls from forming deep canyons. Erosion problems can be expensive and sometimes even impossible to repair or mitigate. These updates to city code and criteria will help slow or stop erosion problems from undermining homes, roads and other infrastructure in the future. For more information, visit Austin, Texas protections. >> Thank you. >> Oh, I thought I was going to get music to go with this. Sounded good so far. Thank you. So once again, the Colorado river, as we all know, is a crucial resource to central Texas. But as you saw in the video, and if you just get out on the river, you see there's significant erosion. Water quality could be better protected. And it needs careful management. So these changes to code will help us get to that point as we deal with this [9:45:07 AM] point as we deal with this natural dynamic resource. Once again, this resolution was passed in June 2022, tied with many other ordinance requests. This one needed a little more vetting, so we spent the last couple of years meeting and organizing with the community to understand the needs. And that's been out there virtually in person, having conversations with various stakeholders. And basically we were to evaluate the critical water quality zone and the erosion hazard zone. And what we're proposing today is focused on the erosion hazard zone to make sure we're ensuring healthy riparian corridors, stabilizing our riverbanks, and protecting property and erosion. As you can see, the proposal is to change the erosion hazard zone along the Colorado river from 100 to 200ft downstream of the longhorn dam. To do this, we'll modify and clarify the elements that are not affected by the erosion hazard zone, and it affects regulation citywide as well. As you can see in this image, we have one of our engineers standing there and you see this valley, this canyon that's created. And the type of [9:46:09 AM] that's created. And the type of materials that are out here are very common. You know, if we don't deal with the infrastructure and how we design it, it creates some of these effects as well. So some of the changes are going to be done through the drainage criteria, manual or environmental criteria, manual changes, which is a different different process. Right. This this map gives you an overview of what we're talking about. You see the arrow at the left where the longhorn dam is, everything going east. And in some of it's within the city limits, which is in yellow, and the blue is the etj, the extraterritorial jurisdiction. And as you can see, it goes all the way to the right side where the Travis county limits start, which is all the length of the river here is about 25 miles. And this is the area that we're focusing on. And as you can see, there's Trevino park in the area, what we call the dog head, which is primarily quarries that are probably going to get developed in the near future. Hornsby bends out there and you see some of these. Austin colony community has been there for quite some time, and some of the images you saw in the video are from that particular neighborhood as well. Tesla plant. I just want to point it out. They repurposed a quarry [9:47:10 AM] out. They repurposed a quarry and created that Tesla plant, and that's right adjacent to the river as well. So as you can see, there's already current protections in the river. So we want to acknowledge that there's already a 100 year floodplain, there's already critical water quality zone buffers, and there's already a 100 erosion hazard zone review buffer. And as we go through it, we're focusing on additional regulations for waterfront overlay on the red bluff and wildland urban interface that we that you've heard about as well. As we move forward. You see, this is the 100 year floodplain for the river rivers, pretty large floodplain. So a lot of those floodplain regulations already have some regulatory limitations for any development in the area, and wanted to acknowledge that this is an existing critical water quality zone that can range between 2 and 400ft, depending on the on the, on the locations. And that's already as well as their. And here's what it would look like with a critical water quality. If we fix 400ft on both sides of it. Right. And once again, as we did the analysis, [9:48:10 AM] again, as we did the analysis, we're not coming back recommending changes to that. We feel that the regulations that are there already are providing that protection. So we're not recommending that additional 400 foot critical water quality zone. So this is the erosion hazard zone as it exists when there's 100 foot buffer from the edge of the bankment not not the center of the river, just to be clear. And so as we add the 200 foot, it will create an additional 100 foot for evaluation. And there's an image that I'll cover in a little bit that just gives you a little more specific on what that looks like. So it doesn't necessarily limit the development, it just how you do it within those 200 foot. Once again, this is all river area. And basically what we have is high areas, major public safety issues. As you can see in the image, there was a house leaning into the river. We've already spent a lot of public funds in repairing areas that you saw in the video as well. And so prevention is a key to success here. So the [9:49:11 AM] to success here. So the regulations we feel we can help prevent some of those future losses and save the city taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Basically what we have out there is sand. And it's hard to do work in sand if you don't do good engineering protective measures. And so as you can see in this, in this slide, you can see the different bends. And we've had erosion. So these are waterways. These are natural waterways that that that change throughout the time. And so our regulations are intended to help prevent. So as you all know in 2015 Halloween floods, Falwell Laine, which is the main access to two of our main critical facilities for electric and water, literally, this is what it looked like. And so it happened twice in 2013 and 2015. And so we're actually in the process of rerouting that roadway and actually working on other projects to protect those critical facilities. But some of these could be prevented if you don't put the infrastructure so close to the banks of the river. This is another one, a home that was threatened. As you can see, it's right adjacent to it. And [9:50:12 AM] it's right adjacent to it. And the city worked with the owner on that one, potentially of doing a buyout. But in the end, it's my understanding they opted not to do the buyout. And so that's part of the solutions that the city does. Once we get to a problem state, you know, we start evaluating what options can we do once it gets too close. Sometimes the best option is just to do the buyout versus other engineering solutions. So the proposal is to increase the erosion hazard zone buffer from 100 to 100ft. It would apply to these new buildings with habitable space and the infrastructure. All development in the city limits. Subdivision site plans, building permits, anything in the extraterritorial jurisdiction that requires a site plan would fall under this. From the stakeholder feedback that we received throughout the process, we don't recommend extending the 200 foot for single family lots and leave it at the 100 foot protection zone that's already existing there. So what it would not apply is non-habitable structures like [9:51:12 AM] non-habitable structures like sheds, decks, driveways. It wouldn't account for that area's areas that are beyond a parallel road. So if there's already a road between you and the and the river, it wouldn't account for that area. And we feel the infrastructure is already accounting for that protection. And residential subdivisions and building permits in the etj, which are not governed by the city of Austin, they would remain with 100 foot erosion hazard zone, hard surface trails that are within 100 foot would also not be impacted by this as well. I know that's an area that we hear quite a bit from our partners as we're building trails near the waterways. This is the graphic I'm referring to what this would look like. As you can see from the edge of the bank, the 200 foot, you see the red, yellow, green houses. The red one would be if you're within that zone, you have to have protective works by an engineer. Level two requirement Wright. The yellow houses are protected. Work is not required because you're clearing that 200 foot buffer, and you also have the 4 to 1 slope. As you can see we also show images utilities in [9:52:12 AM] we also show images utilities in the in the in the creeks or in this case the river have certain criteria they have to meet and adhere to as well. So this is just to just kind of give you that graphic of where it would apply, would not apply. Once again, it's an evaluation that's under the permitting process to help protect these structures. So as you can see in the schedule, the staff has developed an ordinance. We've been to codes and ordinance and joint committee in October, environmental commission in November. Just last night, Matt and Liz, our interim environmental officer, were presenting at the planning commission. And we do have some amendments. They've recommended that we're going to incorporate as well. And we're here today at the what I'm calling the seaweb. I don't know if we want to call it anything else. I'll leave it up to you, but. And then next week we have it on the council item for you all as well. So we have been soliciting feedback and we'll continue to do that for the criteria changes. And we'll be doing that this spring. That's my brief discussion. And I mean slide deck. And so we're [9:53:14 AM] I mean slide deck. And so we're open for discussion. And once again my project lead Matt is here to answer any specific questions. >> Great. Thank you so much. I'll turn it over to my colleagues for some questions. I do have just one though. Before we kick it off, what can you just talk about the difference in the protections between critical water quality zone and the erosion hazard zone? What is and is not allowed within those various Zones? >> Sure, those are the critical water quality Zones have been in place for a really long time. Those were kind of started in the late 70s and the 80s, and we actually adjusted it on the river in 2008. It's a riparian zone buffer. It's an environmental buffer. It's designed to reduce the intensity of development along waterways. So you want to preserve the sort of special soils and vegetation and so forth that occur along the waterway. So that's so it's an environmental it's environmental buffer. The erosion hazard zone is a is more of a technical kind of protect buildings and infrastructure and so forth kind of thing that, you [9:54:14 AM] so forth kind of thing that, you know, looks at erosion. And so that was introduced in 2013. So they, they, they they complement each other, but they don't they don't have the same geometry or main objectives. >> But in terms of what you can build. >> Or what you can build. So the critical water quality zone is going to say you can is going to is going to limit the it's going to limit the development to mainly things that you would see in a park. You can still cross the river with a road. You can, you know, and so forth. There's some limitations there. So we want to push out, we want to make sure that infrastructure and heavy duty development is, is, is either at a, at a low intensity or or we're not there at all. The erosion hazard zone is we keep emphasizing this to our stakeholders. It's not a no build zone. It's just a you need to look at erosion issues and protect, protect whatever you're building type of regulation. So it doesn't actually it doesn't prohibit anything. But then the [9:55:15 AM] prohibit anything. But then the costs are going to go up. If you do want to build something there, you have deeper footings. You're going to have, you know, so that was that was the concern of those neighbors that were close by and worried about pushing it from the existing 100 all the way out to 200. >> Okay. Any questions, vice chair Ellis. >> I do. I know you mentioned stakeholder feedback. It's very well timed. So I'm curious how those conversations went and if everyone who possibly needed to be notified how that went were people mailed something, did they get a phone call? Did they have a chance to come and talk to the city and understand what the new implications would be? Can you talk me through just some of that sure. Landowner concern right there? >> Sure. Sort of. The baseline requirement is to hold these public hearings. And that's we recognize that's not usually popular. People like to people like to have more more information than, than just that frequently. So we did in mid [9:56:17 AM] frequently. So we did in mid October reach out. We did a mail out to every single land parcel that we thought was that was we showed being touched by this. And so there were about 380 properties. And so we sent out a mail, we sent out a letter to every single landowner and every single occupant. So maybe some of the properties were owned by somebody elsewhere, but then somebody lived there. So the person that lived there got the letter, and the person who was in wherever got also got the letter. And so then we held it and that announced, here's what the proposal is, here's our website, here's our video. And then come on down to an October 28th public meeting. And we actually had a decent showing at that. We met in montopolis rec center, and we had a good conversation where we clarified, for instance, the folks in the etj, we're going to have very minimal no impacts to single family there or even subdivisions in the future. So but anyway, it was a good it was a good. And so we also got folks we had our contact information [9:57:19 AM] we had our contact information on there of course. And so I did have a number of phone calls from individuals who owned property and were concerned or just wanted more information. So we've had quite a few interactions that way. >> That's good to hear. And then I know that our environmental regulations do apply within our etj. Can you tell me if there's any discussions at the county level for the folks that are not in our etj to kind of help mirror how how our policies may change? Is there in transportation natural resources department? Are they thinking about this at all? >> Yeah. Great question. So we did reach out to Travis county. So we met with them. We met separately with them to just brief them on what the proposal was. We are not proposing touching title 30, which is the companion piece to our you know, when we talk about land development code is chapter 25. We mostly think of that. That's the city limits piece, but there's a title 30 and etj for site plans. But for but we decided not to touch the subdivision part in the etj. But [9:58:20 AM] subdivision part in the etj. But anyway we did have conversations with them and we also had conversations with the lcra. Okay. >> Sounds good. >> Thank you. Welcome. >> Councilmember Siegel. >> Thank you, chair and thanks, staff for this presentation. In my prior job as a city attorney, I was assigned a case that related to this whole project. When the memorial day floods in 2015 washed out a lot of our amenities in Guerrero park. So including the bridge there. So I'm very aware of these issues and I'm really thankful for the presentation. I just want to run through a couple of questions. I've gotten a fair amount of stakeholder feedback on this. And, you know, for example, environmental groups are supportive of these measures. But I guess there's a number of business owners and property owners, basically, between longhorn dam montopolis bridge, who are arguing that that that portion should be exempted from this regulatory change. And so I guess, what do you say in response to that? I mean, they're arguing that there's [9:59:21 AM] they're arguing that there's already a lot of protections in that, you know, part of the river. And so what do you think of their suggestion? >> Sure. So we really did try to kind of thread the needle on this, knowing that we didn't want to we wanted to give adequate, you know, superior protection to what we're getting now because we do believe that the 100 foot buffer is, is just not protective enough. And the but we also recognize that people are going to be very directly affected by this and would have increased costs if they were if their if their project involved anything in between 100 and 200, to tell you the truth, our engineers actually looked at even wider buffer, but we decided to leave it at 200 because it coincides with that critical water quality zone. That's actually an incredibly important note on this. So most development is already going to have to stay out of the 200 foot zone. So if you push something to 200ft, you're not you know, there's basically no impact unless you have the right. And some people do have the have have have the [10:00:22 AM] do have the have have have the right to on a site plan or a subdivision to, to redevelop their existing impervious cover. So we, you know, so anyway, we're, we're basically we actually also looked at the 183 option, you know, just from, from a standpoint of simplicity, we're thinking, look, this is a good idea. Wherever you are along these high sandy erosive banks. And we're and we were also thinking that this was going to have very, very few impacts. And we actually literally looked at all the properties in our mapping system to try to figure out, like who's affected, what's going on. It was a very, very, very, very small amount. And so just uncomplicate it, we decided let's just, you know, as the council asked us to look at from longhorn dam down, let's just leave it that way. You all could certainly introduce a amendment that, that that exempts folks between longhorn and 183. Honestly, the main people affected would maybe be parks [10:01:23 AM] affected would maybe be parks and recreation. We think that parks and recreation should also be respecting that. 20 Roig Guerrero park runs right through there. You gave you the best example possible, actually. And so we want to make sure that they're aware of the risks. You know, this is definitely a signal to folks that live along the river that this is you know, this is a concerning situation. People need to recognize the risks and prepare for it is our our, our message. But there are options and you don't. You wouldn't have to necessarily. You could start it at 183 out. It would have very. Yeah. I'll leave it. I'll just leave it at that. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And one follow up. I mean, I do imagine that this regulatory change could affect property values, you know, and so I don't know if law is here or if there's been a legal analysis that we can share, but is there a risk that we would be forced to pay compensation to property owners by increasing this distance? You know. >> I'm not an attorney. I but in past this, this has come up many [10:02:23 AM] past this, this has come up many times in in past ordinances where we've worked on this. When we first introduced the 2013 erosion hazard zone concept and council passed it, it was deemed at the time not that was not the case. You know, the impacts to most properties are much less than whatever the was it 20%? I can't you would know better probably better than I on this what the threshold is but it doesn't have doesn't usually reach that that threshold. But we would defer to our our legal team. >> So we'll follow up on that question okay. >> Thank you. Director. >> Councilmember duchen. >> I've heard, I think, some very similar feedback from possibly the same people that Mike has. And I want to confirm a couple of things, if you don't mind. One is I see on here that you've got stakeholder feedback doesn't extend to 200ft for single family loss. Is that part of the current proposal that carve out for the residential or not? >> It is for the we talk frankly with the planning commission and [10:03:24 AM] with the planning commission and said that was something we would we would staff would support if they wanted to put that in there. So the base motion that's going to come to you at council will be the planning commission's version, which does include that carve out. So it basically just leaves it the same. It's leaves it alone, leaves it at 100. Did y'all change? >> Thank you. So did you all consider any other kind of carve outs for any other zone properties, like commercial or mixed use or anything else? >> We haven't we haven't at this time. And that was it was not as discussed. I don't think that's been discussed at planning commission either, but that that, you know, that would be. Yeah. I mean internally we talked about, you know, could we have like a size of property. I mean, we are you know, again, we're concerned over the long haul. These these properties are at risk. And we're we're concerned about that. So we you know, we basically held off on that until, you know, at this point. >> Is there any kind of data you can share with us as far as like the risk analysis between the properties that are within the now would be expanded region versus what it's going to cost [10:04:26 AM] versus what it's going to cost for people to comply, potentially in future? I suppose future development or redevelopment costs for making the changes they need to accommodate being in this new zone or expanded zone. >> We don't have we don't have that kind of economic information. Again, not to undermine the ordinance, but it's pretty the you know, it's a pretty given that we've kind of right sized this at 200. There's, there's, there's only a very small subset of properties that would already have some kind of encroached impervious cover in the, in the critical zone such that they could redevelop that, and then they would have to spend more money to, to, to basically provide protective works there. So most properties are not going to have, you know, they basically have no change. But we wanted to send the message of risk, and we wanted to also make sure that our own city infrastructure, our parks, our roads and anything new also abides by the 200ft. >> And I'm going to expand. [10:05:26 AM] >> And I'm going to expand. >> On that. Just it would be difficult to cost estimate the 25 miles because it's going to be conditioned as whatever they're going to develop and the conditions of the site. So it's case by case and it's future. So it's difficult to estimate what that cost impact might be. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I wish there was a way for me to better understand how that would work. But it doesn't sound like it's possible at this time. You mentioned 380. I think properties that you reached out to that were being impacted by this. Do you have a sense, first of all, how many are east and west of 183 and two? How many would be impacted in the way you just described? >> We could look at that. So 384 was the number we first had. That was when we looked at that fixed 400 foot buffer for the critical zone. We decided not to do that, not not to recommend it. So that reduces I can't remember the number offhand. I could get that for you, but it's sort of in the 200 something parcel range is the one that's affected by the 100 to 200 erosion zone fix. So we could, we could we could look at that. [10:06:27 AM] we could we could look at that. Yeah. A lot of the properties are beyond 183. A lot of them are in our etj. And they would only be affected if somebody builds a site plan, which is this is a pretty small subset of new development. >> And one last question I'm trying to figure out, is it possible, again, based on some of the feedback that we've gotten to, as you said, maybe start east of 183 measure to see what kind of an impact it's having on people's safety, on their redevelopment costs, etcetera, and then come back maybe in two years or some a period of time and figure out whether it makes sense to extend it west of 183. >> That's, that's that's definitely an option. >> And we can definitely look at that. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Councilmember Ralls. >> I have one last question that is actually about properties that this would not apply to because I know we've had discussions about floodplain issues in the past. Can you [10:07:28 AM] issues in the past. Can you remind me what are the current regulations for folks that do live within that 100 year floodplain? There's a certain threshold where people already have to build up and out of that floodplain, regardless of whether they're on the Colorado river and on and on the other side of longhorn dam. >> So, yes. >> Generally speaking, our floodplain regulations already apply across the city. And so if you're within the certain there's the 25 year and the 100 year floodplain that we regulate to, you have to demonstrate your 1ft or 2 foot above. I don't remember specifically on each one, but we did adopt in 2019 some interim regulations that assume the 100 years, that 25 year and the 500 year is 100 year, because we're in the process of updating all our maps, because of the atlas 14 and all the modeling that we're doing, so that that will be coming forward in the next couple of years. But right now we are regulating to the 500, assuming that's the 100 year regulation and the 20, and then the hundred year is assumed to be the 25, and that's across the city. So that's what we're regulating to as well. [10:08:29 AM] regulating to as well. >> And I'll add on to that, that this area, areas along the river in atlas 14 were not changed. Only only areas in the longer answer to talk about why that happened. But basically these properties are at this present time are right. They're using the same 100 year map that. >> Everybody else got updated. But then we said, let's take some time to understand the further implications of this particular area. >> It just has to do with the fact that those other areas, like if you're in shoal creek or Williamston or what have you, the rainfall was shown by the atlas 14 study was shown to increase a lot in that in our area upstream of us, up in llano, up in Brownwood. Et cetera. That that's that just didn't change with Atmos 14. And that's what's affecting those flows going in this one particular area along the river. So we didn't change that. >> And that makes sense to me because we have the dams built along the highland Lakes. And so we have a little more control over the water level. Whereas Williamson creek, to your point, when water comes, water comes, and when it breaches banks, it breaches banks. And there's just [10:09:29 AM] breaches banks. And there's just no, you know, it's going to continue to go downstream. So I appreciate that because there's it points to the fact that we have updated these regulations for life safety issues across town. And I appreciate the longer look at how to make sure we're balancing the safety needs and the financial implications for property owners. But I think it's time to make some adjustments. But I know that these are issues that a lot of homeowners are having to deal with. If they want to add on to the back of their house, they need to be doing something like stilts or demonstrating that they're making sure that if flood waters rise, that there's not individuals in bedrooms that can't get out. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. I wonder if you could go to slide 16 real quick. Just to better understand kind of the impact between longhorn dam and 183. As you mentioned, it looks like the 200 foot zone [10:10:31 AM] it looks like the 200 foot zone is still fully within the existing critical water quality zone. So the only impact would be for. Grandfathered per impervious cover that already exists today. >> That's correct. >> And I pulled up the zoning map. It seems like most of the properties adjacent to the river are single family zoned. Once you get closer to the bridge, you have a couple rural, residential and park. So that's but it's we're talking single digit number of landowners in this area. So it's. >> That's that's very, very astute. That is exactly. Yeah. That was what we were looking at as well when we looked at it. >> Okay. And let's say we were to adopt the exemption from the planning commission for the [10:11:32 AM] planning commission for the single family properties. What happens if someone builds their home? We approve the permit. There is the erosion that we think there's going to be. That house falls into the river. Are we liable? >> I'm not. I don't know the answer to that question. Are you talking about if somebody builds between 100 and 200? >> That's right. So and. >> So we said, hey, you know, let's let's go and carve that out. You can go and build there. They build there and then whoops there's a, there's a, there's a big bank failure that goes past 100 and threatens their home. Yeah. We'll get. >> We'll get that question clarified by the legal department okay. >> Very good. Well I appreciate your work on this. It is very thorough. I know no one likes being told they can't do something, but I feel like they like their house falling into the river even less so I appreciate. Your judiciousness. And we'll have some more discussion on the sixth. Thank [10:12:33 AM] discussion on the sixth. Thank you. All right, well, let's move on to item number three. Our briefing on efforts to address trash in our creeks. >> Good morning again. This next briefing provides an update on staff efforts to address trash and creeks. Staff's targeted work started in response to a resolution passed in 2020 to reduce trash in our waterways. Staff will provide a general overview of the clean creeks program, the collaborative litter efforts, and city efforts to reduce plastic and litter. I want to thank director Richard Mchale from the Austin resource recovery and his staff for leading this effort. Austin resource recovery has also been working and collaborating with watershed protection department. Thank you so much, chair. >> We do have one remote speaker signed up. >> Thank you for reminding me. Let's hear from that individual. >> Great. Dale glover, you may push star six to unmute. You have three minutes to speak. >> Thank goodness I'm all [10:13:33 AM] >> Thank goodness I'm all nervous now. Is it. Is it working, guys? >> We hear you. >> Yes. >> Oh, good. All right. >> Well, I saw this on the agenda. Obviously, I was talking about the other one, and I just wanted to say thank you guys so much for focusing on this. And if there's any way to make sure country club creek east is added to whatever list you happen to have, that'd be awesome. It's the it's the stepbrother of country club creek west, which is where all the erosion control is happening with the park and the bridge and stuff like that. So country club creek east, actually. I don't know where the trash comes from, but it spews and there's this really amazing wetland over there, these 100 foot tall cottonwood trees. And I spend, I don't know, every weekend going and picking up trash and stuff like that. So I know that's a I just appreciate you. So that's all I have to say. Thank you by. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for your [10:14:34 AM] >> All right. Thank you for your comments. Bill bunch has also signed up to speak in person. Bill bunch, are you here? All right. That is all registered speakers. >> Thank you very much. All right. I'll turn it back over to staff. >> Good morning. Chair. Committee members Richard Mchale, director for Austin resource recovery. And I'd be remiss if I didn't also welcome my staff here from Austin resource recovery. I have our deputy director, Ted Horton, here. I have Jason Mccombs, our division manager for strategic initiatives, and Amy Slagle, our assistant director for litter abatement. And we are excited to be here today to talk about one of our programs, our clean creeks program. And this is just one of the programs in our litter abatement division, which also includes our litter control folks, our encampment cleanup crew, our dead animal collection, and our. The homeless encampments. So between those groups last year, they collected over 7800 tons of litter and trash from from the streets and creeks and areas of [10:15:36 AM] streets and creeks and areas of Austin, the public areas of Austin. So a lot of work has been done. And director Slagle is here to give us a little deeper dive on the clean creeks program. >> Good morning, chair and committee members Amy Slagle, assistant director for Austin resource recovery. I'm going to give an update on the clean creeks program. That's part of our trash and creeks effort here in the city. So to give some background on on how this got started, January 2020 council asked watershed protection to pass a resolution asking watershed protection to look at litter and creeks, as well as electric mobility scooters that were being dumped, and come up with some recommendations. And from that, rr and watershed formed a partnership to develop the clean creeks program, and we focused on removing debris from creeks and waterways. So rr operationalized the program in 2022. It includes six full time employees. That includes boots [10:16:36 AM] employees. That includes boots on ground as well as a supervisor level position. Crews clean about 50 sites twice per month. Those locations are found, you know, from watershed protection, providing information to us or through complaints. Sometimes those areas are discovered during encampment cleanups and then they're added to our list. We work with watershed to identify areas on a regular basis. We're looking at accessibility as well as areas that have frequency of litter and any areas of emerging concern. So we do have sites in most districts. We are looking we do need sites in six, district six and ten, and we're actively working with watershed to add sites there. So we've seen a lot of success in the short three years for this program has been in, in, in place. And we saw a spike in 2023 with tonnages increasing there. And that was due to several encampment closure, several encampment closures in those creek spaces. We saw a [10:17:36 AM] those creek spaces. We saw a drop in tonnage this last fiscal year, but we think that's due to the ongoing maintenance of those locations. So rr has numerous abatement and prevention programs within the department. Our staff provide regular encampment maintenance around the city, and that's done in partnership with the homeless strategy office. Make sure that those folks receive outreach before rr comes in and performs cleaning. We also recently formed our encampment team for parks and recreation, and that will focus on cleaning encampment debris on a regular basis. And we know that providing regular maintenance maintenance to those sites will help reduce litter migrating to waterways. We also have a citywide encampment contract that other departments are able to access and utilize for their sites. Rr launched our on demand bulk and brush program earlier this year. That provides customers collection opportunities up to three times per year, which is a service [10:18:37 AM] per year, which is a service increase from from previous programs where it was only twice per year collection. We know that providing additional collection opportunities will give, you know, can help reduce illegal dumping in the community. Rr also has our street cleaning efforts. We sweep residential streets up to six times per year. We also have our boulevard and bike protected bike Laine street cleaning. So when I say boulevard, I'm talking Lamar burnet road things. Streets like that. And those are swept twice per month. We also have regular maintenance in our downtown core. Those crews clean the space 364 days a year. They're performing street sweeping. They're emptying over 500 litter and recycling containers in the downtown area. They're performing alley maintenance as well. Outside of the downtown core, they're removing litter and focusing on illegal dumping within rights of way. Rr also maintains a special events collection, where we have staff that will provide [10:19:39 AM] staff that will provide additional litter bins, as well as perform street sweeping during major events, things south by southwest and various parades. We also have our partnership that with rr and watershed and keep Austin beautiful to provide volunteer resources here in the community to clean up creeks as well as greenbelts and rights of way. And they do those activities multiple times a month, as well as they have an annual keep Austin beautiful day where they have a large event, or they have multiple sites in every district and that occurs in April. So rr is also working on a litter coordination group that includes nonprofits and government agencies. We're trying to bring them in and understand their litter efforts and how we can sequence a the maintenance going on. Some examples of the groups that are involved with that are like the shoal creek conservancy. They perform regular maintenance along the shoal creek watershed. Another example is txdot. We want to understand what their abatement [10:20:39 AM] understand what their abatement efforts are here in the city. You know, there's a lot of state controlled waterways, I'm sorry, roadways here. And so understanding their maintenance is critical to our effort. Also Austin parks has a lot of volunteer based cleanup. So we want to make sure we're capturing their information in this group. Some goals that we've establishing for the group including prioritizing equity and resource allocation. We see a lot of cleanups going on in parks and around waterways, but we know there are underserved areas that also need abatement. And so we're looking to dedicate resources to those to those communities. We're also establishing a goal to identify and utilize a digital platform that will track where these cleanups are occurring. And then also spatially show that information. We think it would be a great way to identify gaps. An example of that is the keep Texas beautiful litter database. We're also looking to develop performance metrics for that group, including it says cubic yards. But we're looking for tons removed. And then total [10:21:39 AM] tons removed. And then total miles cleaned over a time frame. So the city of Austin has a goal of reducing the amount of debris going to the landfill by 90 to divert 90% of the material from the landfill by 2040. So we know that council passed a. Special, I'm sorry, the zero waste city facilities ordinance or procedure back in June 2024, and that limits the purchase of single use plastics across the city. So an example that of that effort is employees restricting when employees can buy water bottles. It's pretty much an emergency type situation. And also you see building services increasing the post-consumer content in the bags that they're purchasing are also has an incentive to businesses to get them to reduce the amount of styrofoam and plastic containers that they're using and get them to switch to alternative. Or, I'm sorry, compostable and reusable alternatives. And so with that, I'll, I'll answer any questions. [10:22:40 AM] questions. >> Thank you so much. Any questions from anybody? Vice chair Allison, before I recognize you, I. I would be remiss if I didn't recognize. >> Oh, sorry. >> Yeah, yeah. I know you've done a lot of work in this space, and a lot of the good work that they're highlighting is because of the efforts you have led over the last six years. So appreciate your commitment to this issue. >> Thank you. It's nice to see a resolution referenced in the presentation and to say, oh, I did that all the way back then. When we started it, it was affectionately named the stop throwing scooters in the river resolution, because that was the issue when scooters were deployed and people had mixed feelings about whether they loved or hated them, and a lot of them ended up in the river. So on that note, can you tell me about the collaboration with the scooter companies and if those if people have stopped polluting the rivers that way, and how those how those efforts have continued over the years? >> That's a let me ask watershed to help respond to that question. >> Director morales, how many scooters are in the river? [10:23:41 AM] scooters are in the river? >> Great question, council member. And yes, this is how it all started. It was evaluating the scooters, but working with the transportation public works department, they modified their contract with vendors, their geo sensors on the on the scooters. So once it goes over, the vendor knows and they know they have a certain time to get out there. Because if we get to it, they get fined. And so I believe the number has gotten to be a very insignificant number now. And I think when we finally did our trash and creek study at the time that generated this, we acknowledged that in the report that the scooter problem was no longer a problem. I mean, the random here and there, but we had a whole list of other problems that are out there that we're working through with our partners in resource recovery. >> I really appreciate that. We knew in the moment that the companies who who deploy scooters also didn't want them in the river, and it just it served nobody. And it hurt the environment. Can you tell me if all all of those positions are staffed right now? >> Yes, they're they're all they're all filled. >> Okay. Fantastic. And then my last question will be about the collaboration with txdot. I know a number of years ago they stopped doing the underpass [10:24:42 AM] stopped doing the underpass cleanups and put that responsibility on to municipalities. I don't know if we were the only one. It might have been a statewide decision. But can you tell us? You know, who's the best point of contact if we see issues in other areas that are txdot right of way, that may not be underpasses, but on the side of the road, I know they do routine cleanups, but I don't know at what cadence they do the cleanups and if we should report it to rr through the 301 app or go to another source. >> We can get you that contact with the txdot. They are performing monthly cleaning along the state roadways. You know the with the encampment sites, they are actually performing that on a monthly basis. But I do have a contact that we can provide your office. >> Okay. That's fantastic. I'll just end by saying really appreciate the work that's gone into this. I know it was a coordinated effort. It wasn't something that was just, okay, let's do this. There had to be a ramp up and a plan, and to go through that process of understanding where the issues are and how to address them, and how to staff up appropriately to tackle the issues. But definitely appreciate the work [10:25:42 AM] definitely appreciate the work you and your teams are doing. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Did I see you. >> Had a question? >> Okay, thanks. Councilmember duchen. >> I also want to say thank you so much for your work in this effort. I just had a couple of questions. I know you explained the tonnage dip between last year and the prior year. Is that basically a way of in a sentence basically saying we had a spike in issues and now we're on top of things with our twice monthly cleanups? >> It was basically due to encampment closures in creek spaces. So we had several during the 2023. I believe that was when the camping ban was put back into effect. And so we were having to do a lot of cleaning and that some of those were in creek spaces. >> And you're not seeing any of that. Really since 2023. Then in terms of people using those spaces for encampments. >> It's still a challenge that we are managing with watershed and with the homeless strategy office. >> Okay. But if the numbers are as you say, it sounds like you're it sounds like the [10:26:43 AM] you're it sounds like the situation has changed in some way dramatically since 2023. >> I think we've gotten a better handle on the litter around some of those spaces. >> Okay. Second question, I'm just curious relative to other land management issues. What is the most expensive piece of the cleanup? Is it the hauling or is it some other piece? >> Probably I would say the labor and equipment would be the most expensive. >> Okay. So in this case it's labor and equipment not hauling. >> Correct. >> Okay. Interesting. Okay. Last question. I'm excited about your idea about the digital platform to help on the reporting. Do you have a sense of the timeline or is this going to be an open data portal? Arcgis. Do you have any of those details? Is this a two year or three year effort? When can we see like an update of what you have envisioned there? >> So we anticipate that group will be meeting with the stakeholders here in the next few weeks. And so keep Texas beautiful will be a part of that meeting. And so we can start talking to our stakeholders and [10:27:43 AM] talking to our stakeholders and having them input that data. So it just kind of as soon as we can start having them update that information, we'll be able to start extracting it for reporting. >> Okay. I'd love to follow up on that. Only in the sense that that's a space where I feel like we could do. There's opportunities in other land management areas to have that kind of reporting and tools, and so I'd love to figure out how you guys are solving that in case that can be a model there. Sure. Thanks. >> Thank you. Council member Siegel. >> Thank you. And I'll just also share my appreciation for this program. I'm a big fan of creeks district seven. We've got walnut creek and shoal creek. Obviously these are beautiful spaces. I actually just want to ask you to respond to the caller's question about adding, I believe it was country club east to the list of creeks, how you might respond to that request. >> Sure. That's something we'll take a look at and see if it's something we add. It may already be on there, and it may just mean more increased maintenance. I know that we actually have a country club. Part of country club creek runs through pard property that is near to our facility. And so we've done a lot of maintenance in there. We [10:28:44 AM] lot of maintenance in there. We there was an encampment at one point and we performed a lot of activities, but it's something we can definitely work to add. >> Wonderful. Thank you. And then last question is about the business zero waste incentive. If you could share, you know, how much participation in that program there has been and what the impact has been. >> Sure. I'm going to ask our division manager, Jason Mccombs, to come and help with that response. >> And on your way up, if you could. Also, if you're the right person to discuss what kind of outreach we do to businesses so they know about this. >> I get that. Sorry. >> Good morning. Jason Mccombs, division manager with Austin resource recovery. So yeah, we've had good outreach here in this past few years. We spent about we were able to grant about $19,000 last year to businesses, you know, across the community. It's we see a lot of restaurants using them to switch from, you know, plastic [10:29:45 AM] from, you know, plastic styrofoam into compostable. Multi-family is we're moving into providing multi- family composting at properties across Austin. We're seeing a lot of participation with that. Like, you know, the countertop bins to help take the composting from your kitchen out there as well. And so as far as outreach, we do a number a number of things on that. We advertise a lot on social media. We do fliers and we are we'll have promotions on radio as well. And also just community events as well. We'll table those as well. But we do try to reach the business community or the multifamily property managers, the ones that can take advantage of that directly whenever possible. So our a lot of mailings that we do as far as our ordinances for universal recycling ordinances, we'll put information about the rebate on that as well. >> Have you all reached out to the Austin restaurant association or the various chambers? [10:30:46 AM] chambers? >> Yes we do. Yes, definitely. >> I assumed I had to ask. I do have just one question, and that is you mentioned the six fte that you currently have. Is that sufficient to meet the level of demand that you have, or do you have a list of unmet creeks or areas that you would clean if you had more people? >> I think the staffing levels are fine right now as we continue to kind of evolve the programs, especially as we start working in parks, we can kind of further evaluate staffing needs. But I think at this time we're we're right where we need to be. Okay. >> I appreciate it. Well, thank you all for the work you're doing. Hey, up next, item number four, a briefing on Waterloo greenway. And. >> I see. Good morning. >> Back. >> Yes. Yes, sir. Chair, watershed protection department and the Waterloo greenway conservancy will both provide you with this next briefing on the Waterloo greenway [10:31:47 AM] the Waterloo greenway partnership and provide you with an update on the project. >> Great. And I keep forgetting, but we have public speakers. >> We have one public speaker signed up, bill bunch. Are you here to speak? Bill bunch. All right. That is all our registered speakers. >> Thank you very much. All right. I'll turn it back over. >> Well, good morning, George Moralez, the director of the watershed department again here with our partners from the Waterloo greenway. Melissa. >> Good morning. Melissa. Y'all are vice president of government relations for Waterloo greenway conservancy. >> So I'll start the presentation by going over the slide deck really quick. And then just open it up for discussion. But I also want to acknowledge our parks department who's also here, the part of the partnership as well. Ultimately, the city of Austin Waterloo greenway partnership. So quickly I'll just go over our introduction. We did that already about the partnership. Talk about the project phases, that where we're at right now and then open it up to questions. I'll keep it as brief as possible. So in this slide you'll see the project limits of [10:32:47 AM] you'll see the project limits of the Waterloo greenway, which starts on basically 15th street, goes south of the river. It's right adjacent to the capitol, right adjacent to the txdot right of way as well. And that's in a nutshell what where we're at. So the roles and responsibilities, the city of Austin, we provide subject matter expertise both from the watershed side and the parks department side. We've funded this project through tif, a tax increment financing, geo bonds, drainage, utility funds and other other public funding. And we've helped manage the project through contract management, project management. So through the partnership, we alternate depending on who's the right fit for the project that we're doing at the time. The Waterloo greenway conservancy, our partner that does the operation, maintenance, programing of the completed space that we have completed already at the park, that's primarily where we're at right now. Ensure alignment with the design, which was a completed process that was very involved with the community. The council and viva does the design [10:33:47 AM] council and viva does the design and they help us lead that effort as well. And of course, our partners help us raise private funding, because the level of service that is provided with this park system is above the standard that we can provide with just the city's general fund. And they also help us manage do contract management as part of the project. This partnership is governed by the local government corporation of the. Walnut creek is composed of half city executives or staff members, and half members from the Waterloo conservancy that are appointed to this. The partnership. It's a p3 model, basically, and it helps us maximize the benefits of our tax dollars because it includes private donations and grants that we normally wouldn't do. And it is quite a collaborative effort, and you'll hear more about that in a little bit. It helps enhance the operations and accountability of our projects once it's completed. As if anybody's been out. If you haven't been out there, I encourage you to be out there at Waterloo park. The programing, the work they do that our partners do is very stellar there. And they maintain it at a higher level than we could as well. It helps us deliver a more robust programing arts events. [10:34:48 AM] robust programing arts events. Once again it this structure helps us use private funding for enhanced public programing. This slide is a busy slide, but it's a takeaway because if you as you can see, it goes all the way to the beginning of when this vision was created. And I like to quote Thomas Edison quite, quite a bit. A vision without execution is hallucination. Right. And so this vision has been there way before. I've been with the city 16 years, and this started before my time. I've been the director for five years, but we're here through this partnership, trying to carry that vision forward to the end. As you can see, there's multiple milestones along the way and a lot of community council input along the way. You can see a very important one right there that I'm near and dear to me is the walnut creek tunnel completion. That was a big project. Without that project, we wouldn't be here today, right? It freed up 28 acres of land that was in flood plains, has now been developed. And this is just a great partnership, like I said. And this slide deck kind of runs through where we're at right now. Project phase is just to [10:35:48 AM] now. Project phase is just to and I'm being brief because I know we're short on time. So I want to make sure we get through and get to the questions. So three phase project phase one was completed already. The renovations to symphony square occurred in 2018, and in 2021 we completed the Waterloo park and we did a soft launch. It was during the pandemic and we had we had different cycles, but a lot of great programs have been done there since then. We are currently in phase two. We started construction of the confluence. We're under construction. We should be completing it next, next year. And we're also doing palm park as part of phase two, and we're in design development for that part of it. Phase three would be the middle section from fourth street to 12th street, and we're doing some schematic design at this point for that. Here's a rough schedule. And like any project, we run into challenges along the way. Pandemic being one of them. But long story short, you can see the phase one through three where we're at, and we're expected to go forward as we move forward. We did pause the palm park design in 2017. I just want to highlight that as we were discussing the outcome [10:36:49 AM] we were discussing the outcome of palm school and what that would look like. There's been significant community engagement in that process as well. That was kicked off in 2023. The pontoon bridge, which was part of the scope of this project, has been removed because our other partners, atp, are incorporating that as part of their project of the project connect project. And then the construction is to be determined based on timeline. Of course, we have a police headquarters as part of this plan as well. And so more more decisions to be made in the future. With this, I'm going to turn it over to our partners here in Waterloo greenway. >> Thank you. So what you see here is the Waterloo greenway conservancy mission and vision. I won't read all of it, but as you'll see, we have a portion that's highlighted. We are very dedicated to creating spaces that are for the benefit of all. So the way that we look to accomplish that goes back to a programing strategic plan that we created in 2018. To talk with the community about what they would like to see in our parks. [10:37:49 AM] would like to see in our parks. Barriers to access, how we can prioritize equity. And that ties back to the community program that we host there. Throughout the year. So Waterloo park reopened in 2021. Since then we have kept the space very active with free community programs and our concert series at the moody amphitheater. This is a snapshot of our 2023 programing. We'll have our annual report coming out any day now with our 2024 numbers. So you'll see we had over 100 free community programs. We have a parks operations team. That helps manage the space on a daily basis in collaboration with the downtown Austin alliance and their ambassador program. We also have a volunteer program that helps us to upkeep our garden space. And helps us with our concert events as well. So a lot of information on there. But it really speaks to the opportunities with our partnership with the city of Austin and how we are able to keep the space alive throughout [10:38:51 AM] keep the space alive throughout the year. These are some photos of our second phase. At the confluence where we are well underway with construction. These are some amenities that you can see from street level. You're looking down to the creek. We have several new points to connect to adjacent sites. We know that the confluence is located in the middle of a lot of things, in the eastern portion of downtown, the convention center, I-35, the Mac expansion project connect will cross through the area. So we really see our phase two as a connecting opportunity. We are also installing a new trail to help with the access from the hike and bike trail going north. So those are some of the images that you see. Are those paths and trails that are coming to life. The next part of our phase two is palm park. So like was mentioned before, we did extensive community engagement. We did about a 12 month process where we spoke to thousands of community members to talk to them about their interest in [10:39:53 AM] them about their interest in palm park, what features they're interested in, community amenities. And this ties back to community engagement that we started in 2016 prior to pausing the design. So we're excited to have all of that inform our design concept, which is what you see in that large graphic. A lot of things that we're looking to pack into a small space, but we know that it will be very important, especially as we see the I-35 caps. And that conversation, there's a lot of opportunity to connect with those spaces and particularly accomplish something that has been very important to us in our design is connecting east and west of the highway. So this will be a critical point to that. And with that, we're happy to take any questions that you all might have. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions? All right. >> Thanks. This is a great project. I did hear a couple references to project connect, so I just wanted to ask, you know, if for some reason the project doesn't go fully [10:40:54 AM] project doesn't go fully forward, is there a contingency plan that we could discuss today in terms of the pontoon bridge? Like, have y'all made plans along those lines? >> I think that's something that we would want to keep discussing. We know that there are a lot of implications from the federal level with funding, and we're certainly keeping in touch with those individual project teams. So we'll continue those conversations as necessary. We have already been in touch with the project connect teams and the other adjacent projects as well to talk about design, coordination. Circulation, things like that. So as we as we have more information, we'll certainly keep talking with them. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much for this presentation. I wanted to ask about some of the funding that has gotten us here. You you talked about the benefit of these partnerships, being able to leverage private dollars with public dollars and come up with an even better outcome for the public. And so I saw your the [10:41:54 AM] public. And so I saw your the note about the 110 million from the tif in 2018. Is has there been is that the total revenue that has been transferred from the tif to this, or is that is it on an annual basis? Or if you could just kind of give us a high level of the finances that the tif provides? >> Yes. So that helped start the project and move it forward. But once again, the philanthropic fundraising is part of the equation that the Waterloo greenway raises is part of the equation. But we also have other partnerships with the federal government. The army corps of engineers already helped bring $13 million to this project, and we have other grants or funds in the queue as well. So there's multiple avenues of revenue, but the breakdown to the tif money specifically, I don't have that data, but I'm going to ask Denise if she can speak to that a little bit more clear. >> Yeah. So my understanding is the tif funding is available kind of upfront and then we pay it back as we get those revenues coming in. So at this point we [10:42:56 AM] coming in. So at this point we have access to the full 110. If for some reason the tif doesn't perform as expected, then we would maybe extend the length or have to find other ways to come to meet that 110. But the 110 is kind of a upfront amount that we project, we will perform at later. Does that answer the question? >> Yeah, that makes complete sense. And so then from the Waterloo side, I'm wondering if you could highlight kind of the philanthropic and private dollars that have supplemented these dollars. >> Sure. Yeah. So our team manages both the an operating campaign to fund our annual programs and park maintenance and also a capital campaign where, you know, we're we're underway but still have some need for our phase two. We'll similarly have fundraising efforts for our phase three. So that's, you know, one of the benefits of our partnership is that we can have some dedicated folks looking to those opportunities. Like Cori mentioned, some of those things that we look to are federal opportunities, state opportunities, grants that we [10:43:57 AM] opportunities, grants that we can receive foundation funding. So we're always looking at different opportunities and trying to match that with the work that we're doing in that particular phase. >> And I know, I don't know the exact numbers, but it's tens of millions of dollars that y'all have brought to the table. Is that not correct? >> Yes. So yeah, we work hand in hand with the city team to make sure that we are matching the funds that the city is bringing forward. And we're happy to follow up with any other details, any other questions that you might have. >> Great. Well, I think this just highlights the benefits that the public gets from these types of partnerships. And I also. Want to kind of stress to staff, I know they're watershed and part and the law department, there are a lot of people that have to be involved in this. And I know I have heard not from those here, but we have many partnerships that sometimes the [10:44:59 AM] partnerships that sometimes the city bureaucracy and wheels of our, our, our process can make it difficult. And so if we are going to have these partnerships and bring this benefit to the public, I just want to be sure that as a partner, we are. We are operating in a way that makes people want to partner with us. So not saying we're not, but just always want to keep that out there because this is something that sadly, we don't have enough money to do on our own. And so if we want to continue to build the green spaces in the city, we just have to continue to be good partners and hopefully more people will want to do this with us. So I really appreciate the work and the reason why I wanted to start with this and then move on to item five is because as the slide deck showed, Waterloo greenway is adjacent to the I-35 Capps between fourth and fifth [10:46:04 AM] Capps between fourth and fifth and fifth and sixth to some degree. And so I wanted to have a discussion about what is potentially being programed on those particular Capps and how we are ensuring that whatever we're discussing as a city for that programing is also discussed with Waterloo greenway and that we are working in tandem. So together they can benefit and supplement each other instead of kind of Waterloo greenway doing their thing, the Capp doing its thing, you know, something as simple as if we're planning on bathrooms on the Capp. That's something Waterloo greenway doesn't have to plan, or vice versa. So just want to ensure that as we have this Capp discussion that is coming before the council, that there is that coordination so that the vision for these areas is really a maximum public benefit. So I'm not going to [10:47:04 AM] benefit. So I'm not going to forget this time before I introduce or kick it off to staff, I will ask for our public speakers. >> We have one speaker signed up, Matt Gorski. Great. You have three minutes to speak. >> Good morning. Thank you for allowing me. You know, one of the. Or. Sorry. Should I start over? Could you hear me? Yeah. So I'm Matt Gorski. I handle public affairs and transportation policy at the downtown Austin alliance. As I mentioned, this project is near and dear to our hearts. We started in 2019 when it was announced that txdot was going to be reconstructing the highway, lowering, lowering it below grade. We thought to ourselves, you know, we don't want to have this big trench just running through through town. And so how do we make this as best for the community as possible? And so we look to our [10:48:06 AM] possible? And so we look to our friends in other cities, especially Dallas, that have successfully done parks and decks over highways. So we've been working on this project for many, many years, and we're really excited to be working alongside city staff as well as partners as Waterloo greenway is one of our partners as well. Red river cultural district, a lot of the activities and districts within downtown. So cherry, you mentioned the coming to council later in March. And so I know as we've been talking with our partners and others, we as an organization are really wanting to have the roadway elements or future proofing the entire corridor, which includes the downtown caps, UT cap, as well as the northern cap, without without being able to future proof this, there is no opportunity for us to do this in probably the next 50 years. Txdot has put a moratorium on construction on, on, or over 35 at the end of the completion of that. And if we don't provide [10:49:08 AM] that. And if we don't provide the roadway elements, we will not be able to add those for decades to come. I will say that the visioning for this project we've been working on with the city, as well as the partners for the last five years, as you've probably seen in documents, the vision for all the caps is going to be working really, really well with the different aspects of downtown. So you have sort of community space, entertainment space, and then as well as the cultural space, which is the 11th and 12th street cap, which is essentially a gateway to the African American heritage corridor. We just want to be supporters of this. We know the city can't finance the entire project themselves, but without getting the roadway elements in place. Now, being able to put together a creative funding set that includes philanthropic giving, which we know from other caps around the country, is [10:50:09 AM] caps around the country, is extremely important. So we stand ready to help the city identify those those other funding sources and just want to thank you again for your time. >> Thank you very much. And with that, I'll turn it over to staff. >> Very good. >> Good morning. Chair, vice chair, council members I'm Mike Rogers and today we're here to discuss the cap and stitch project and the coordination efforts that have taken place and potential opportunities that do that, that may exist. Also, just to give you a very short briefing, we are in the process right now of looking at each and every one of those options and the financial impacts that that may potentially have on a future bond program. So my office has scheduled time with each and every one of your offices to go over those items prior to our March 25th work session. So with that, I want to introduce our team. We have Brianna fry and Michelle marks here from our [10:51:11 AM] Michelle marks here from our team, who are here to discuss the coordination efforts and potential opportunities that do exist. >> Thank you, Mr. Rogers. So, members of council, thank you so much for having us today. We are going to try to keep this brief as well, tight on time, but we're really going to highlight the aspects that you guys asked staff to bring to you all today. So just to remind you guys and to center the conversation, we completed a vision plan last year, and I really want to highlight that this was a huge community engagement push. We appreciate the community and the stakeholders that were involved in this. Included in those stakeholders include included the waller creek conservancy and the Waterloo creek district staff as well. That includes pard and watershed protection department and all of the amenity concepts that came out of the vision plan were purely conceptual at this point, and they can be modified in the future once we get into the design phases, especially [10:52:11 AM] design phases, especially because there will be continued community engagement that we're really going to be leading in an effort to find what our partners can fund and fulfill. But this vision plan and the amenity concepts that were provided within really uphold what the community and our stakeholders envisioned for these spaces. So you can see on this map that the city is considering eight cap and stitch opportunities. Today, we're going to be focusing on numbers two through five. So to zoom in a little bit more, we've created this graphic which overlays the Waterloo creek conservancy's original vision plan. I think this is from circa 2016, so it's very illustrative. But what you can see on the top side of the slide is we've overlaid our concept amenity plans to make a point of how close in proximity and how many opportunities for connections and improvements along the I-35 corridor there is to enhance this space of downtown Austin. Specifically, you can see on the [10:53:13 AM] Specifically, you can see on the right side of the screen Cesar Chavez to fourth and then the fourth to seventh cap, which I know is the focus of today's questions. And then we went ahead and provided the 11th to 12th street cap because of how close this is to Waterloo completed amphitheater or what they called in today's presentation phase one. So focusing first on their phase two, which they have identified as the southernmost confluence aspect of their plans, and palm park. I'd like to bring y'all's attention to our amenity concept plan on the screen. So as you can see, we have gone in robust detail, especially with the community engagement aspect of identifying what can feasibly fit and be held on these caps and highlighting the adjacent communities and programing alongside it. So one of the biggest things we heard from Waterloo district staff and the Waterloo conservancy is that since their palm park is in design development right now, [10:54:13 AM] design development right now, they really had a lot of takeaways from their community engagement of what actually couldn't fit on palm park. And so they really did a good job providing us recommendations on how maybe palm park focuses on children's play, and then our cap programing can focus on this. All ages leaders and recreation activities. So that's things like you can see in the images here, hammock groves, recreation courts, those type of things that wouldn't have necessarily fitted on palm park. Moving now to fourth to seventh street. This changes in terms of programing recommendations. So similar to what Mr. Gorski was saying. This is the events, nightlife and culture component that downtown, I think can really use in terms of connecting the red river cultural district down to east fifth and sixth streets with their amazing venues and all of the district work that our economic development partners are working on today. Some components here that we're really excited about include the fifth street corridor, as well [10:55:14 AM] fifth street corridor, as well as more of these small, nimble, nimble programing opportunities for potential economic development, and including maybe leasing out some square footage to restaurants or venue space for live music events. This one particularly has a lot of partnership opportunity. All of our caps and stitches do, but this one is kind of especially with that nightlife component and the cultural component. And then lastly, in an effort to highlight the opportunities that the 11th to 12th street amenity concept plans have, what we heard specifically from our African American neighborhoods on the east side was they really wanted this to be an opportunity to have civic demonstration space and really enhance that community gathering space. So you can see here most of the amenity programing is building space with an opportunity to bleed out into the open space when the events need larger spaces to either have live music or cultural events, as well as [10:56:14 AM] or cultural events, as well as some green space on the eastern edge. And the last thing I'll conclude here is in all of these graphics, you can see our yellow east avenue trail plans. And we are right now actively pursuing some grant funding through txdot transportation alternatives program, working hand in hand with txdot design milestones to integrate this enhancement opportunity along the corridor throughout all of these cap and stitch opportunities. So I believe that wraps us up to our timeline. Really like mister Mike Rogers highlighted the March 25th work session and our upcoming council one on one sessions that will be having to really dig into the financial decisions that council will be having soon, but especially in relation to the fourth and seventh cap. You can see here in yellow, we are identifying when that construction could take place. Really what we're looking for council to understand is the [10:57:16 AM] for council to understand is the change order opportunities to bring in some of these cap decks later on when funding becomes available. So with that, we can take some questions. >> Very good questions. I'll start with council member Siegel. >> Well, actually, chair, how much time do we have to dedicate to this item. And I'll just flag I'm one of the new people on council. I need to get caught up a little bit. And yeah. Do you want to give me a limit here? >> No. Go for it. Okay. This is we're here for discussion so we'll use the opportunity. >> Well thank you very much. And thanks for this presentation. Really beautiful designs. And I think there is a lot of opportunity here. But I guess I want to start out and maybe hcm Rogers you could address this has you know what is the timeline really for us to make these decisions. This is a very, you know weighty financial decision for the council given, you know, the full cost of the scope of these proposed projects. I know there's a fair amount of doubt about matching [10:58:16 AM] amount of doubt about matching funds from the federal government. And I will say that I was able to speak to the district engineer for txdot, Mr. Ferguson. And he did say there might be some wiggle room when he came into my office last week. So is March 27th our kind of deadline to make a decision? >> Well, thank you for that question. Yes. You bring up some very good points. The timeline. One of the things that we've been presenting on is with the grants and the status of the grants. Yes. The major grant for this project is being evaluated at this particular time for a 90 day evaluation. Our team is currently, I believe, tomorrow in conversations with txdot. We are we're going to try to extend the timeline. We believe that's prudent at this particular time is we don't know what's ultimately going to happen with the grant. And I truly do hope we can push this timeline [10:59:19 AM] we can push this timeline because of that grant, because here we are, March 25th, having to make some decisions, or March 27th, make decisions where we don't even know if the funding would be there. I mean, we have we if in fact we cannot push it. There are some recommendations that I would have some some things if we do decide to move forward, some things that I would say working with our legal department and putting some contingency types of language in. But ultimately I and our team would like for this whole thing to be postponed until we know specifically on those funds, that grant fund. >> Thank you very much. I guess another set of questions I have basically relates to the, excuse me, the quality of the experience on these caps. You know, I guess you might call me a little bit of a skeptic about the quality of the experience on a freeway. And so I wish I'm [11:00:19 AM] a freeway. And so I wish I'm hoping you could share with me a little bit of analysis about air quality, for example, or sound. Do we know if it's going to be, you know, for example, there's a lot of studies that, you know, we don't want schools located near major roadways because, you know, it can lead to kids having more asthma. You know, if we're imagining that, you know, people are going to take their lunch break on the freeway cap, you know, is it going to be a pleasant experience? So if you could share some analysis of those factors, please. >> Absolutely. So staff currently have some grant funds through the reconnecting communities pilot grant that is funding a study. Right now we're calling it the we're actually in a name game at the moment, but it's a mobility study. And a part of that that task is some microclimate studies where we are looking at the matters that you have mentioned, things like concerns of noise quality, air quality and other impacts that the highway expansion underneath the caps would have on the caps [11:01:20 AM] the caps would have on the caps themselves. We have wrapped up a preliminary review of those analysis, and it was actually very interesting. The depression of the highway itself and the barrier walls of the highway are already going to be doing some work to help lessen those concerns for the on caps. We also have some great examples from the caps in Dallas, for example, of what that experience can be like. And so we are going to be working to take those results from that preliminary micromobility study, and we will be integrating it into the future design of the caps themselves and the amenities themselves. So things like where buildings are situated, how can they provide more shade and orientation to direct airflow, things like where trees are located to enhance the air quality, where maybe there is a congestion of foot traffic, those type of things. So Michelle, did I yeah. Miss anything? >> Yeah, that's exactly right. This micro analysis is going to [11:02:22 AM] This micro analysis is going to give us basically an input to help us guide how we design the caps themselves, what we need to do at edges to improve edge conditions for, for example, to improve things like noise and air and heat. So yeah. >> To follow up on that, will we have any of this analysis before we make our funding decision on the engineering? >> So council member this the intent of this is really to kind of help us fine tune how we design the tops of the caps, but it really won't be a an input to us for those funding decisions. Yeah. >> Do you know if there's been like a air quality study of the Dallas caps, things of that nature? >> Not to my knowledge. I, I know txdot as part of their final environmental impact study, did look at just their baseline corridor improvements without the caps and, you know, found I believe I don't wanna misquote but that, you know, [11:03:24 AM] misquote but that, you know, I'll just point you to those findings. I know this is kind of a growing topic of interest in many locations where caps are being built. The project that comes to mind is I think it's the I- 70 project in Denver, where they have been doing, I think, some air quality collection activities on their I-70 cap. Just for comparison, looking at air quality in the center of the cap versus the edges of the cap versus a location, you know, further downstream where there is no cap. So I'd be happy to pull up what our team has aggregated and share that with your office. >> Thank you, council member I will I will reach out as well to the city of Dallas and see if they have done any studies like that. So I'll have that answer for you as well. >> Thank you. And then I guess I'll just limit myself to one last topic here. >> Take as many as you need. >> So on the mobility aspect, [11:04:24 AM] >> So on the mobility aspect, you know the experience of getting to and from the caps. You know, there's been some criticism from local advocates that between the frontage lanes and the freeway itself, that will be a bit of a hike to get up there, that the frontage roads will be going, for example, faster than the frontage roads in the Dallas area. If you could share with me kind of any high level analysis of, you know, experience of getting to the caps and how safe it will be and how comfortable it will be for people maybe pushing strollers or with mobility challenges. >> Yeah. >> Some of the points you made are exactly right. The design of how txdot is designing the frontage roads. Let's just break it down to specifically the downtown caps is a bit more unique than what is seen up in Dallas with the klyde Warren park. And then as you move to the northern caps, it's a completely different frontage road scenario where at least it's not going to be as wide as a crossing, but there will be now two crossings. So it's a little bit of a in the crosshairs as to which is better. But we've been working [11:05:24 AM] better. But we've been working with txdot on as they progress through their design milestones to really look at the timing of their signalization how much time will be given to priorities to pedestrians crossing east and west? We've been looking at how they're going to be designing their crosswalks and some of the halfway points. I wouldn't go so far to say pedestrian refuge islands, but the halfway points. And so our mobility study is also going to be looking at opportunities to make those connections better in future funding opportunities, like future sips that would get folded in over time. So we'll be looking at the pedestrian and a lot of the micro transit opportunities as well. And right now they are txdot is entering into 60% design with the downtown caps, and they're university caps are a little bit delayed, but we our tpw staff have our engineer teams and our urban trails teams as well, working hand in hand with the [11:06:24 AM] working hand in hand with the cap and stitch teams to look at all of those details, as that is a major concern that we heard throughout our process. >> And I'll just add to that that the city will be operating those signals on the frontage roads, and we haven't yet gotten to the point of our coordination with txdot to kind of delve into the signal timing and operations. But that is an opportunity for us to make sure that there is enough pedestrian crossing time that we are operating those signals to meter traffic to the speeds that we want on those frontage roads. >> So would it be an option to slow down the speed limit, for example, on the frontage roads? >> I don't know that there's an opportunity to change the posted speed or the design speed, but functionally speaking, signal operations do have an impact on on attainable vehicle speed. And so that that is an opportunity for us. >> Okay. Thank you. And then this last follow up in terms of like community engagement, [11:07:24 AM] like community engagement, stakeholder engagement, are y'all speaking with folks who represent, for example, people with disabilities, other people who might have mobility challenges and accessing the caps? >> Yes, we are absolutely trying to reach out to that portion of our population, among others. We until recently, we're working with a community steering advisory group who. And we were trying to make sure that that perspective was part of that group as well. During the vision plan process, we were making a concerted effort to reach out to those populations as well. So, I mean, we'll continue to do so, and especially as we get into the design details themselves, where I think the our. Visually challenged and auditory challenge folks have a lot of comments to make about how those crossings are designed and [11:08:26 AM] crossings are designed and detail and work. That's especially the point where I think that those folks will have a lot to offer us. >> Great. Thanks so much. >> Vice chair. >> Did you? >> It looks like we're all going to have a couple of questions. You had mentioned the transportation alternatives set aside program, which portions of this schematic, this rendering are going to be participating in that conversation? Yes. >> So we have submitted a preliminary application as of last Friday, 5 P.M, for the east avenue trail betterment portion. So that is just specifically the trail component that would be within the txdot right of way off cap. So we are looking to enhance their 8 to 10 foot shared use path that they've shown in their schematics and their engineering drawings to something larger, wider, more robust with trees, maybe some opportunities for dual tracks whenever there is an opportunity to expand within the existing right of way. So right now, once txdot grant program either [11:09:30 AM] txdot grant program either confirms or denies us to enter into the next phase of the grant program, we will then get into a more robust negotiation of that design itself. >> Okay, fantastic. Because I know that that east eastern connection was part of a plan and just trying to minimize the impact. You know, if Austin is having to pay for certain portions of this or a large portion of this, trying to minimize those financial impacts on Austin taxpayers, I think that, you know, since I've followed this conversation for a number of years, there's still a ton of folks that see all of these gaps as mitigation for widening the highway, which was not the expected outcome at the very beginning. And so I want to be mindful if we are, you know, putting this onto city of Austin people, that we're very mindful of squeezing every single thing that we possibly can out of other grant opportunities and things like that. There are some portions of federal dollars that have come through our, our state, you know, governing agencies like campo txdot, [11:10:31 AM] agencies like campo txdot, things of that nature that have been hugely successful, that have been allocated to great programs. And I want to make sure that we are, you know, pursuing those drawdowns and trying to make sure we can get every dollar to go as far as possible, because there's definitely some folks. I think it's a bit of a bitter taste for some folks who are excited about the, the renderings that we're seeing and excited about what what types of programing could be put into these community spaces. But the point was to not further divide communities physically. And what we're seeing is now the city is having to do basically everything to, to mitigate, for lack of a better term, that issue that we're seeing. And so I think it's really important for us to make sure our dollars can go as far as possible and to make sure we can talk to community members from a place of transparency and honesty, and making sure that folks know what they're getting for this. To council member [11:11:33 AM] for this. To council member Siegel's point about speed limits, that was something that we have been hoping for a long time, that we can make sure there is some sensitivity to highway exit ramps and how they interact with neighborhoods. There are homes very, very close to these areas where people will be traveling. A lot of those homes are going to have kids, and we want to make sure that people are safe in this way. So I appreciate the creativity with signal timing and trying to understand we need to look at this not just north, south put through, but east west connectivity and making sure that it's safe for anyone who needs to get across this highway to be able to do that. And I would hope that there would be conversations also with UT. I know there's a lot of foot traffic when there's UT games. I know they're having separate conversations about their caps, but looking at the UT facilities that are on both sides of the highway, and I'm sure they have an interest as well, of making sure when there's game days, that you're getting those long signal timings to make sure that all the pedestrians are able to get where they need to be in that place safely. But I [11:12:34 AM] that place safely. But I appreciate the work that you all are doing on this and how how much we're able to push this conversation to try to make this a good project and not a missed opportunity. As far as what what the city needs to do to make its decisions. >> Great. >> Councilmember duchen. >> Thanks for all your work in the presentation. Just to build on council member Ellis or sorry, vice chair Ellis's point here. I'm curious. I understand we're still in the design phase, but I'm curious if there's any kind of preliminary cost estimates you can share with us about what these different sections of the cap and stitch program will currently cost, even if they're just very rough estimates. Is that something you've got? And then the second part to that question is understanding what maintenance will cost going forward. Also, with the proposed designs, I feel like that's something I think we get very excited about operational costs and budgets, and don't always do a great job of making sure that there's a, you know, a maintenance plan. [11:13:35 AM] you know, a maintenance plan. For decades. >> Council member the answer is yes to both of those things. We do have some preliminary, preliminary costs, whether it's for the capital pieces as well as for the maintenance. And those are some of the things that we wanted to be able to discuss with each and every one of you prior to the work session. >> Okay. So it sounds like we'll look for a one on one conversation with your team that's in the next couple of weeks for that. >> Yes, we're setting those those meetings up today. >> I would be delighted to have that. Thank you. >> Great. Well, thank you all for providing this information. I think, you know, these caps, both the ones you discussed and the broader capping of the highway do provide a lot of opportunity, like our speaker talked about. You know, this is a 50, 60 year investment. And I do have some of the air quality concerns expressed here. But I also am thinking about these are [11:14:37 AM] also am thinking about these are not going to be completed until best case scenario, 2032 2033. And that, you know, we're not I don't think any of us are envisioning that we would do the caps of everything. We're, you know, putting the roadway elements in so that future portions could be capped. And, and with that, hopefully we will see greater vehicle electrification take up and other emissions reducing technologies within our transportation systems that, you know, in 20, 30 years, it may be more rare to have an internal combustion car drive by than an electric car. I don't know, but but we have to plan for the next 50 years of this area. And so I do think that there are some exciting opportunities here. When else do we get to create land downtown, and especially land that can be not for a sky or a skyscraper, but for public [11:15:39 AM] or a skyscraper, but for public benefit. And so I would just encourage and it sounds like you're already doing it, to continue to have those conversations, whether it's with Waterloo greenway or others, about how we can make these potential caps really maximize their public benefit, make them, you know, the some of their pieces be greater than the individuals themselves. So I know this is going to continue to be a discussion amongst the council. This is a high, high priced item. So that always seems to get a lot of people's attention. But appreciate you all being here today. We have one final briefing and that is item number six from the parks and recreation department to describe their actions in the land management plan annual update. So with that, I see some hard. Folks here. And do we have any speakers on this one? No [11:16:53 AM] any speakers on this one? No speakers. All right. Well then I will turn it over to staff and hear the briefing. >> Okay. >> Good morning. How are you? I'm Jody Jay. I serve as the assistant director for parks and recreation, and we are pleased to be here. And thank you for the invitation to come and provide you a briefing on our land management plan and our annual update. I have with me, Matt Mccall. He's our program manager over land management, and Amanda Ross, who is our division manager over natural resources. And Matt is the expert in this. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to him. And he's he's the man that everybody wants to talk to. So here he is. >> Good morning. Good to be here. Thank you for your interest I know we're running a little bit late. I'll take us through the slide deck and then [11:17:54 AM] through the slide deck and then turn it over for questions pretty quickly. Again, my name is Matt Mccall, program manager for the parks land management program. I'll just jump right in. So just to start as a basis for all of our understanding, our park lands are not by any means pristine. They've been heavily impacted by a couple hundred years of intense human activity. They're degraded in various ways, which affects their vulnerability to all sorts of current and future challenges. Vulnerability to intense heat, drought, which produces plant water stress, can produce widespread canopy mortality, ultimately elevated wildfire risk and intense wildfire that has all sorts of problems for environments and people. And our stuff. In 2019, the there was a wildfire preparedness audit. One of the findings, and that audit was pertinent to the parks and recreation department. It found essentially what I just described and also found that [11:18:54 AM] described and also found that pard did not we did not have an ability to manage our vast natural areas, which is currently about 13,000 acres or somewhere in the order of 20mi !S, scattered across in pieces all over the city. And the audit recommended that we develop and implement the wording was land management plans for high risk areas. We did exactly that. In 2020, the department created a land management program. That's why I have a job. And we at that time, we began development of a land management plan that was very wildfire focused on the environmental side and the human side, both sides of the wildland urban interface. The full plan and supporting documents are posted there online. And that url at the bottom of that slide there. O the overall program [11:19:55 AM] there. O the overall program strategy is really two pronged. One is active restoration of ecosystem health. The idea here is wildfire is a symptom of a degraded and broken system. And so rather than trying to treat the symptom, we need to get upstream restore healthy systems so they can be resilient and functional. The second prong is really targeted fuel mitigation near our the neighbors, the structures of our neighbors homes and businesses. And this is where we work well in both areas. We work intensively with Austin fire department and a lot of other partners. Our activities are sort of described here. Invasive species removal and selective thinning for forest health, targeted fuel reduction, prescribed fire as a land management tool, and planting and seeding. This. When council approved the land management plan that I just mentioned, was approved by council in September of 2023, and at that time, council asked [11:20:55 AM] and at that time, council asked for routine updates quarterly for the first year and then annually after that. So this slide, this slide deck is specifically about the first annual update, even though we've been working for a long time before that. So just in the fiscal year 24, we implemented about 576 acres of broadcast prescribed burns in seven separate burn days. We also implemented five pile burns for almost 800 piles, 100 tons of hazardous fuels. This is a really cost effective way of removing biomass while also restoring healthy woodlands and forests. Fuel mitigation. This is the targeted fuel mitigation near our neighbors. The most common strategy we use is called a shaded fuel break. It's a it's a linear fuel reduction treatment. This photo sort of says it all. This is in marymoor, see, right on the south side of the park, standing in the middle of the trail. That's one photo the left side was treated a couple of years [11:21:56 AM] was treated a couple of years ago. The right side is untreated, so if you live, if your house is just just outside the frame to the left is neighbors. How do we? One question we often get is how do we prioritize work? It's a fairly complex process. There are four things we absolutely need for every project. That's staffing access for equipment and personnel contracts. Most of this work is done with contractors and ultimately funding. Once we have those, we can evaluate viability and cost efficiency according to a whole list of criteria there. Most of those criteria relate to project vulnerability, project complexity, which ultimately affects cost efficiency. So not only do we need funding, but we need to make sure that we're getting the best bang for the buck. Community involvement is very important. We work with [11:22:59 AM] very important. We work with community groups all over, all over town. We work with the parks. What is the office called? Christine partnerships office. Right. We've actually helped some new groups start. We have another we have a couple of friends groups that are just getting started and are very excited and energetic. Research. We coordinate research with, I don't know, half a dozen, a dozen or more research projects with the universities and all over town. Throughout the park system, we provide technical guidance, our staff provide technical guidance, and we're doing our best to communicate in innovative ways with the public to help connect them with natural areas and help them understand what we're doing and why in ways that don't involve charts and graphs. Because charts and graphs don't communicate very well and certainly don't stimulate action. We have a couple of contracts that are very important for this work. One was approved by city council 2 or 3 [11:24:01 AM] approved by city council 2 or 3 weeks ago, called the natural areas vegetation management. Another one should be coming up, I believe, at the end of April. That one's called vegetation management for a wildland fuel mitigation. Really, those contracts address both of those prongs of our strategy. One is oriented towards holistic ecosystem restoration. The other is oriented toward targeted fuel mitigation near our neighbors. And that's all I have for slides. And we'd be happy to take any questions. >> Very good. Councilmember duchen. >> Thanks, Matt, that some elements of that powerpoint look vaguely familiar from what was shared at firewise. I have a couple of questions just to run through them, in no particular order. One, we talked about doing the burns. Is that the most cost effective kind of tool in your arsenal from your [11:25:02 AM] in your arsenal from your perspective? >> It's definitely the most cost effective where it's appropriate. Oftentimes oftentimes it's not appropriate for various reasons or it may not be effective because structurally the system isn't ready. So oftentimes we have to implement a more expensive strategy up front. And then we can use prescribed fire to either maintain it or take it the rest of the way in a more cost effective manner. >> And then, you know, we've had different folks come to us with different concerns about those. Burns and to your answer a moment ago, are those burns primarily on grassland? I think there are some ideas that we are like wholescale burning, you know, cedar forests. Can you give me a sense of what that looks like? Generally speaking, the typical use case. >> I would say in the region most burns are in grassland, but not all of them. In 2022 or [11:26:03 AM] not all of them. In 2022 or early 2023, we implemented several in some woodland restorations. We've done some pile burning in woodland fire. Generally what I would say fire is a natural process. Most ecosystems, certainly across this continent, developed over millennia, with fire as a natural process. Fire suppression is one of the ways that we've significantly altered ecosystems. And so in order to restore ecosystem, we need to put fire back in the process somehow, as it's appropriate. So habitat, I understand sometimes folks haven't seen this work, haven't experienced it, and the only their only exposure to fire is what they see on CNN, which is often, you know, very dramatic. But I can absolutely say that. And I've heard the accusations that the intent here is to somehow wholesale burn down juniper forest. That's [11:27:04 AM] down juniper forest. That's actually not the purpose, really. Habitat restoration is the primary. And natural resource management is the almost always the primary reason for implementing prescribed burns. And with that, we get a lot of other co-benefits like wildfire risk reduction and training for land managers and first responders and firefighters and stuff. >> Okay. Thank you. Next question. We heard earlier from I think it was and watershed about a database that they're putting together or working on. Is that something you think would add value to helping both you all and us understand where some of the Laine mitigation strategies are happening across the city? >> You want to give it a shot? >> Sure. So about the volunteer work specifically to. Yeah, I think as a city just in general, how we manage land and being able to share that information more transparent apparently, is something that I think multiple departments are working towards between watershed Pritchard, you know, I think it's something [11:28:06 AM] know, I think it's something that there's definitely even in the office of sustainability, their new name, I apologize. >> Resilience. >> Climate action, resilience also. That is something that's in the climate equity plan to is to be more transparent and so that people can kind of look up and say, what is this property? How is it being treated, what are the plans for it? So I think I think we're one prong of that, but I think that we definitely support that. >> Okay. Next question I know you guys issued pard had a 2023 report that I think covered like 24 parks and rated them from different kinds of safety aspects, including fire safety. I'm wondering, you know, you mentioned the criteria that you're using in the presentation for how you're prioritizing where you're implementing the land management strategies. How often does it make sense to do that kind of periodic report? Do you know which report I'm [11:29:06 AM] you know which report I'm referring to? Okay, I can send it to you later then. But it's from I think about 18 months ago and it covers about 24 parks and preserves and maps out kind of where it sounds like somebody must have done an analysis on where they felt like they were risk factors for those green spaces. >> It may be the land management plan itself. Okay. There was a lot of there were various risk analysis in the land management plan. And it 2023 matches up. >> Okay. So then my question ought to have been how often does it make sense to update that data for current risk, because we had just come out of an ice storm then. And I imagine that probably skewed things. But also, I don't know how much of the debt and down and other management has been done since then. >> I would, I would say in general. So those. Vulnerability maps, the algorithm that underlies them, they were specifically designed to be updatable, I say, on the fly pretty quickly. As a comparison, [11:30:07 AM] pretty quickly. As a comparison, I would offer up the risk mapping that came out of the community wildfire prevention plan when it was developed. It takes a super computer all weekend to update those maps. And so they've really not been updated in since. Since the cbpp was adapted. Our land management plan, we recognize that as a problem if we're doing work, if we're spending public dollars to do work on the ground to reduce vulnerability and improve resilience, we should be able to show that quickly. It's possible. We just haven't been able to get there with sort of the workload to staffing ratio that we're dealing with. But we I actually was texting with a staff member in the back here. She's out doing some of that today, reevaluating risk ratings for shaded fuel breaks not broadcast across the landscape. Evaluating shade field breaks is much easier than evaluating sort of ecosystem vulnerability. But [11:31:08 AM] of ecosystem vulnerability. But we I want it before I retire. We will get there. >> I appreciate that answer. And that is probably a great segue for the next question, which is, you know, we had an item earlier this year to authorize land management dollars, I think, about $200,000 out of a $7.5 million strategy. My question is, really, do you sense at this moment that you've got all the resources you need to address this issue? Are there other are there gaps? What are those gaps? >> Hi, Jody Jay, assistant director of parks and recreation. Yeah, we get the question often. And currently we are evaluating our our 2026 and 2027 budget. And we don't have a full answer for that right now. But I would say the service, the staffing that we have now and the contracts that we have in [11:32:09 AM] the contracts that we have in place are making progress and we're happy with the progress we're making. >> Any sense on, on the timeline of that is to have a better determination. >> Just do the budget, the budget process. >> Okay. So later this year okay, okay. I think that oh sorry. One last question, which is what's your thought on deploying goats. >> I like. >> Goats and what's the what's the best use case for them. >> Goats or goats are cool. They're they're cute. They they're another tool in the toolbox. They're good for some things. They're not good for some things. They are animals. They eat soft, green, fleshy things. They don't eat tin cans. They don't eat. They're not termites. They don't eat wood on the ground. So I've seen them used. Makes a lot of sense. But yeah, it's just another tool in the toolbox. They can be used to benefit or not. >> I mean, do you partner with [11:33:10 AM] >> I mean, do you partner with trails conservancy to try and borrow their goats? Do you have your own goats? I mean, I'm just curious where we. Am I am I going too far in the weeds here, guys? Okay, maybe I should. >> I will say we have not I. Emailed with. A neighbor I believe in district eight who was recently asking about goats and the one of the difficult the logistical details of any kind of livestock is really hard. And so goats are great, but fencing, water, food, vet care, transportation, they can be used very effectively in a small area, but we would need to start a ranching operation if we were going to deploy them on a large scale. >> That's why I started the conversation with the controlled burns and the cost effectiveness. So I'm just trying to evaluate the different strategies and as we get feedback, also trying to make sure that we are able to answer those questions about where what solutions make sense for where and where they can be. You know, [11:34:11 AM] and where they can be. You know, what's what's high maintenance, high overhead, high operational costs versus something that, you know, you could take a weekend and clear out an area with a controlled burn. So anyway, thank you for your insight on that. >> Very good. Who knew we were talking about goats today? Anyways, vice chair Ellis. >> On the topic of goats, I can tell you at least baby goats. Very good at yoga. I don't know that adult goats would be good at yoga. I was going to ask a follow up question on kind of the locations of these burns more from an aspect of public awareness. I know in district eight we get a lot of different alerts about lady bird. Johnson. Wildflower center does controlled burns at certain times of the year. I think water quality protection land will do them. Just yesterday, the nature conservancy was maintaining some of its land off southwest parkway. And so it's kind of a two pointed question of how can we help to make sure that folks know what is happening near them [11:35:13 AM] know what is happening near them so that they are not alarmed if they see something? But how can we also not get to a place of complacency, where there's so many things happening from different entities that people stop thinking there is an issue? If something were to pop up, can you tell me how we could best communicate with folks to assist on the communication aspect of this? >> That might be a longer conversation. I know as a as a burn manager myself, a big one of the most important parts of the burn plan is our notifications and contact list. So we do direct notifications to both neighbors and agency contacts. Like door hangers and emails. >> Or we used to do door hangers and direct mailers, but that system was unworkable. And so we've gone to pretty much emails, signs, phone calls if necessary, social media if we can. We do. I mean, it's a [11:36:13 AM] can. We do. I mean, it's a curated list, even down to knocking on doors saying, who's your neighbor? Who's your homeowner's association contact? We're looking for single points of contact. We do work closely with both AFD wildfire division and the Travis county fire marshal's office. You know, providing a dashboard of activity is something that we've talked about internally. I know AFD has a fire activity map on the wildfire hub. I yeah, some of that information is created automatically and some of it is input manually. So it's definitely a challenge. I get it. There's. At least burns this week regionally and parts staff are assisting with at least two. So it's a lot to try and keep up with. And we haven't found the perfect solution for how to communicate to everyone. >> That's all right. And that may be kind of a district by [11:37:14 AM] may be kind of a district by district, neighborhood by neighborhood, kind of kind of communication strategy. I'll say that we're happy to share things on social media. We do a newsletter every two weeks. We could help share if there planned that far in advance. I also have at least two neighborhoods that are large enough to have someone who is the hoa manager. They've got their board, obviously, but folks that would know if you have a specific map, these are the homeowners that are going to be, you know, most affected or most invisibility of those burns and would have a direct way to get in there and make sure that those are the folks that are directly advised of the circumstance. >> Those folks we always have on our and you forgot to. >> Name them. >> I forget a name and I know who you're talking about. And then 311311 always gets notifications. AFD communicates to their dispatch. So if anybody's if anybody's getting a911, if anybody's getting a311, all of those contacts have up to date information. One of the challenges I'll say is just go, no go. Decisions on prescribed [11:38:16 AM] no go. Decisions on prescribed burns are typically no longer than 48 hours in advance, okay, typically 24 hours in advance. Sometimes I'll call our Pio at nine in the morning and say, we're on. We're starting at 11. So it and that has to do with weather and fuels. The forecasts typically are not very dependable more than three days out. And so we hate to it would be a lot of false alarms no pun intended. Very often we'll five days out, we'll say, hey, we're looking at a burn next week. And then we call it because it's not conditions change. >> Okay. >> So that's that's one of the biggest challenges because the decisions are so quick. >> Gotcha. It's not two weeks from now. We're trying to notify people that that far out. >> No not at all. >> And also next door I know in the past two years the city has kind of created a more robust program for being able to target certain neighborhoods and saying, if you live in this neighborhood, this is information you need from whichever governmental entity is [11:39:16 AM] whichever governmental entity is needs their attention at the moment. So thank you. >> All right. Council member Siegel. >> Well, thank you all for this presentation and for the memo. I just want to say that I really appreciated the collaboration of this kind of prescribed burn training, where you brought all these departments together. In particular, I'm a big fan of the Austin civilian conservation corps, and I know that's a program that we need to figure out, I guess, how to support it moving forward. So I just want to invite you all, if there are opportunities to kind of fold a C into your efforts, I would love to support that. >> For the last two years, our program has overseen run directed one C crew about a 7 to 10 person crew for the last two years. We've run them through the full complement of the introductory wildland firefighter training. We haven't been able to get them on burns this year, but we got our triple C members on several burns last year. >> Well, thank you all very [11:40:19 AM] >> Well, thank you all very much. This was all wonderful information and sorry you had a bad at the end here, but appreciate you being here. And I think that draws our inaugural meeting to a close. We have I have I'm getting a head shake over here okay. Future items. Well if anybody has any future items feel free to email me and we will discuss them amongst ourselves and maybe next year or next meeting. But appreciate this committee and its members and look forward to many more to come. And there's always a prize out there for anyone who comes up with the better name. We'll get there, I appreciate it. And with that, it is 1140 and I will adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.