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2023-09-07 Tree Board MinutesF EyM CITY OF EDMONDS TREE BOARD Summary Minutes of Regular Meeting g9° September 7, 2023 CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Vice Chair Phipps called the Tree Board meeting to order at 6:02 p.m. Board Members Present Janelle Cass, Chair' Bill Phipps, Vice Chair Kevin Fagerstrom Ian Higgins Wendy Kliment (online) Ben Mark Crane Stavig2 Ross Dimmick (Alternate) Board Members Absent None Staff Present Deb Powers, Urban Forest Planner Council Liaison Absent Councilmember Nand Board members introduced themselves, and new members were welcomed. LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Vice Chair Phipps read the Land Acknowledgement. MINUTES: Approval of August 3, 2023 Tree Board Minutes The August 3, 2023 Tree Board minutes were approved as presented. APPROVAL OF AGENDA The agenda was approved as presented. t Chair Cass arrived at 6:04 p.m. 2 Board Member Stavig arrived at 6:08 p.m. Tree Board Meeting Minutes September 7, 2023 Page 1 of 5 AUDIENCE COMMENTS Deborah Ashland, Edmonds resident, brought up the Arbor Day giveaway and suggested, instead of trees, giving away a gift certificate to a local nursery so people can get something that will fit well in their yard. As far as the tree code amendments she said she supports the retention of trees whenever possible, not only for people, but for wildlife as well. However, she suggested that it apply to not only developed single-family lots, but all developed properties. With the latest Washington State legislature changes to zoning, pretty soon there will be more multifamily lots. She prefers to promote and retain as many trees as they can. She expressed appreciation to the Board for their efforts in working on this. She thinks incentives work well. UNFINISHED BUSINESS: 1. 2023 Work Plan — Events Edmonds in Bloom Garden Tour held July 15, 2023 -Board Member Kliment said she is storing the signs in her garage and has no problem keeping them until next year. Arbor Day Celebration tree giveaway + critical area awareness event/October 7, 2023: o Tree giveaways - Vice Chair Phipps will bring about 25 conifers in one -gallon pots the morning of the event. He will also bring signs, banners, brochures, bungee cords, etc. Board Member Fagerstrom will make sure there is a canopy, table, and chairs. Board Member Stavig discussed purchasing other trees for giveaways from a large wholesale nursery in Oregon that specializes in unusual deciduous trees. Tree sizes range from 4" pots to 3-gallon containers, and prices vary. He requested help deciding what they should try to get. Vice Chair Phipps said he was a little surprised at how expensive the prices were. He suggested comparing prices with Don at Go Natives in Shoreline. Board Member Stavig said he contacted him earlier and was told they need to contact them a year in advance. Vice Chair Phipps suggested checking again. A subcommittee including Vice Chair Phipps, Board Member Mark and Board Member Stavig will meet to discuss this more. Ms. Powers will talk with Board Member Stavig about reimbursement for mileage and how payment for the trees can be arranged. o Tree Walk - Bess Bronstein will be leading a walking tour of trees on October 7 starting at 2:00 at the museum steps. Board Member Stavig said he would be meeting Ms. Bronstein in the next few weeks to walk the route and select the trees along the walk. o Ms. Powers said she will be making the Arbor Day/Arbor Month proclamation at the September 26 City Council meeting. Chair Cass asked board members to attend the meeting if possible. o Arbor Month Press Release — Ms. Powers coordinated with the City's Public Information Officer to do the social media posts and handle the press release. The PIO needs a draft from the Tree Board that follows City guidelines. Chair Cass invited feedback on a draft press release. "Critical zones" was changed to "critical areas". Board Member Higgins suggested adding a description of what critical areas are. Clarification about this was added. Other changes were made to fit PIO guidelines, such as changing the voice from the first person to third person. Ms. Powers noted its length and that it might be further edited by the PIO. o Critical Area Awareness Activity postcard/handout — Chair Cass is working on an 8"xl 1" sheet that has wetland information and a link to the online maps. A QR code and URL will go to the City's Critical Areas webpage which links to the GIS maps. There was a question if the intent was to have participants open maps on personal devices at the event. There was a suggestion to change the handout title to "Do you have critical areas on your property?" or something similar. There should also be a label under the QR code or a URL describing what it is. Board Member Tree Board Meeting Minutes September 7, 2023 Page 2 of 5 Higgins thought it might be helpful to have images of what people are looking for. Ms. Powers will check to see if the City can print about 50 of the final handouts. There was some discussion about how to use the GIS map, how to describe instructions in the handout, and what information or layers the Board wanted to focus on. There was a discussion about adding a phone number for the Planning and Development Division for those that don't use technology to call and get information. Chair Cass will bring back a final version for the October 5 meeting. Ms. Powers said GIS staff can print a large critical areas map that can be displayed on an easel loaned by Planning. The Tree Board will need to mount the critical area map on foam core. o Schedule for loading, delivery, set-up, shifts, etc. — Vice Chair Phipps will be there for set up and take down, but not necessarily in between. 8-1 lam shift: Janelle Cass, Wendy Kliment, Crane Stavig; 11 am-3:30pm shift: Ben Mark, Crane Stavig. Kevin Fagerstrom will be available off and on throughout the day but will have market responsibilities. Vehicles need to be out of the area and done with set up by 8:30 am. Winter Market Christmas tree giveaway: o Board Member Fagerstrom asked if they will need to consider the costs of the Christmas tree giveaways when they are deciding what to purchase for the Arbor Day tree giveaway. Vice Chair Phipps said they would need to. Board Member Kliment stated she had $60 she did not use for snacks that could be added towards this. Ms. Powers reminded the board that the Sierra Park sign budget was reallocated to fund the Christmas trees. o Vice Chair Phipps said he talked with his brother-in-law who can provide 15-20 live Christmas trees in one -gallon containers if the Board wants them. The height of the trees is about 3 feet, and they are not sheared. The cost is $15-20 each. Vice Chair Phipps said he talked with Valerie Claypool about getting a table at the winter market and was told they can have whatever date they want with a free booth. Board Member Mark asked what kind of trees they are. Vice Chair Phipps was not sure but said he would check. There was discussion about providing care instructions for living Christmas trees and wrapping the pot with foil wraps to make them look more festive. o Motion made by Board Member Kliment, seconded by Board Member Fagerstrom, to have a winter tree giveaway on December 9 with a budget of $300. Motion passed unanimously. 2. Tree Board Policy Recommendations on Tree Code Amendments • Vice Chair Phipps said he had concerns about the new paragraphs that were added that were not agreed upon by the subcommittee and mentioned the new parts about the Urban Forest Management Plan. He thinks code updates and the UFMP are two separate things. He said he also has concerns about whether they should be addressing the development code at this point. He thinks the section about nuisance and hazard trees goes into too much detail and doesn't need to be in there. He wrote up a version that was shorter and clearer. Ms. Powers showed a combined version on the screen. • Ms. Powers discussed how the Tree Board should reach consensus decisions for making their policy recommendation to Council. She stressed that the idea is for the Board to focus on the things they agree on and come up with a majority recommendation. • Chair Cass agreed with highlighting the areas where they had clear consensus on, but she also thinks pointing out where some of the members dissented from the majority is going to be helpful to the Council. By sharing individual's perspectives, she wants to show Council and the Planning Board everything that has been deliberated and considered in this group. She thinks the UFMP is relevant because new property owner tree removal codes are not listed as one of its goals and does not agree that Tree Board Meeting Minutes September 7, 2023 Page 3 of 5 the City should be considering them. She feels that the public feedback related to developing the UFMP should be included as public feedback in the current code updates. • Vice Chair Phipps said the UFMP goals don't matter because the City Council wanted to update the code to address property owner tree removals. Just because it isn't in the UFMP doesn't mean it should not be done. Ms. Powers explained that the UFMP is a guidance document and that the public outreach done to develop the UFMP goals in 2019 does not apply to a code update legislative process. Members asked why the board is working on policy recommendations before there is a draft code. • Chair Cass reviewed the background of this issue and how she felt it was important to include both the majority opinion and the opinions of the dissenters. • Vice Chair Phipps discussed the difference between consensus opinion and majority rule position. He proposed that they should vote again on all these items because now they have two new board members. He commented that they pretty much agree on the major topics; the only thing they don't agree on is having restrictions on tree removals on already developed properties. He feels this can be summed up in one sentence stating that a minority of board members felt that no significant trees should be removed rather than a whole paragraph about why they disagreed. • Chair Cass agreed that it was too wordy and could be condensed but she feels it is important to mention that the canopy assessment showed growth, and the UFMP goals do not say to do this. Ms. Powers noted that regardless of guidance document goals, the City Council and Planning Board decided that property owner tree removals is a topic to be considered. Chair Cass said that the City spends a lot of money on different studies and consultants to write up studies and do public outreach and then to put it on a shelf and forget about it. She argued that the people who decided to go forward with this did not look at the UFMP. • Board Member Mark asked for some context to this issue. Ms. Powers explained that recently, Councilmember Nand suggested that the Tree Board go before Council to provide their recommendations for the tree code updates. This is a little out of order because the Planning Board has been working with the Tree Board in joint meetings with the expectation that the Tree Board will provide its advisory recommendation based on the draft code, which is still under development. Board Member Mark thanked her for the explanation and said he felt it would be most useful to the Council to provide a very concise and meaningful statement rather than a lot of history and background. Ms. Powers agreed and noted that the report from the Tree Board focus group meeting shows five out of nine policy direction questions were not answered or unclear. She said it would be most helpful for the Council or Planning Board if the Tree Board clarified their position as a body on major policy direction questions. There was some discussion about making motions and quorum votes. • Vice Chair Phipps said it is a difficult and emotional issue, and there won't be unanimity within the Tree Board, the Planning Board, or the Council, but that's how it works. Also, everything could be different on the Council after the election in November. Chair Cass said she appreciated the conciseness of Vice Chair Phipps' edits. • Ms. Powers noted that there was an expectation that the Tree Board would be providing a recommendation based on the draft code. Will that be a separate recommendation? It would be helpful to know when and where the recommendations are coming from the Tree Board. Right now, the Planning Board doesn't know that the Tree Board is going to the City Council with policy recommendations. Chair Cass said she had the impression that the Planning Board would welcome this sort of statement from the Tree Board saying this is what the majority and minority of the Board recommends in terms of key concepts. Once the Tree Board sees the draft code, they will most likely have more recommendations. Tree Board Meeting Minutes September 7, 2023 Page 4 of 5 Board Member Kliment pointed out that the reason they are making policy recommendations now was because Councilmember Nand had specifically asked the Tree Board to provide their policy recommendations because she was tired of consultants providing an opinion without really talking to people on city boards and committees. Ms. Powers noted that the consultant hired for the public engagement with this project asked the Tree Board the same key code questions that the Planning Board was asked and that the City Council will be looking at. She reiterated that there was a lack of clarity in the responses from the Tree Board and noted that the combined recommendations shown on the screen asked the same policy questions. She had suggested at the August meeting that the Tree Board follow the same framework to draft their recommendations, rather than reinvent the wheel. Chair Cass commented that maybe they should come back to the October 4 meeting and be prepared to answer how they feel about those key questions and get a consensus. She doesn't remember what they had decided on the landmark trees and replacement trees so that needs to be clarified. Ms. Powers noted they didn't need to specify the metrics, but at least just arrive at a consensus opinion on the nine questions, especially now that there are new members. Board members also discussed Seattle's new tree code provisions. Chair Cass asked if there is a certain distance from a house where a tree is automatically considered a nuisance or a hazard. Board Member Mark said that there are industry standards for hazardous trees, but not for nuisance, which tends to be more subjective criteria. Ms. Powers noted the current code defines a nuisance tree as currently causing significant physical damage. Board Member Stavig said he had never heard of a specific distance from a home necessarily being an issue. There can be a perfectly healthy tree four feet from a home. Chair Cass commented that each property is a unique situation. Maybe they should be educating the property owners and letting them make the decisions. There was discussion about "mandatory minimums" as a possibility for tree replacements. Board Member Mark explained that a lot of cities have codes that are a certain minimum tree density per acre. For example, if you have three acres you need to have more trees than if you have an 8,000 square foot lot. Many codes have a tree credit based on how large your tree is. In that case a larger tree is worth more credits, and then you have some number of credits per acre. Chair Cass commented that there was a resounding consensus on the development code to switch to a tree density -based calculation. NEW BUSINESS Draft Tree Board Handbook — This item was continued to the next meeting to allow more time for board members to review the handbook. Ms. Powers will provide a version on the screen to make markups in live time, if it helps to facilitate the discussion. TREE BOARD CHAIR/MEMBER COMMENTS Board Member Stavig said he is still working with Bess Bronstein to get a rough draft of the tree walk prior to October 7. He will inform the Board when a date/time is set. Regarding trees from the nursery for the giveaway, he noted that there are minimum purchase requirements on some of the trees. If there are leftovers, does someone want to care for them until next year so that they are an even nicer size? Board Member Fagerstrom volunteered his wife who has a green thumb. Ms. Powers noted that they would have to be donated to Parks department or planted as street trees, since City finds paid for the trees. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 9:14 p.m. Tree Board Meeting Minutes September 7, 2023 Page 5 of 5