Good afternoon, everybody.

I'd like to call to order.

Uh matters committee meeting for February 12th.

And um for roll call, we have Alderman McConty, uh, but Alderman Hotley is unable to attend today.

Uh let's see, approval of the agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

Yes.

I'll second that.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Next up.

Approval of the minutes from January 8th.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes from January 8th?

Aye.

I'll second that.

Um all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Next up, we will start with um.

We have somebody from the public who wants to take just uh three minutes.

So I would like to invite.

Oh, is he ready for the presentation?

Yes, yep.

That's um okay.

I can go exactly.

It's it right, because I mean the the next presentations are gonna be longer.

Brian, it'll just be like five minutes.

Oh yeah, oh, you're for your presentation.

I think Brian.

Well, first up is the legislation.

We're gonna do the legislation after the public comments and then stormwater fee and then tree canopy.

Is a PDF.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm gonna just put it in full screen.

Just introduce yourself, your name and address for the record.

Okay.

They don't get to see the slides.

You go ahead.

I'm I'll make sure they can.

Okay, you're gonna pull it up.

Uh my name is Matthew Wallace.

My address is 701 Chesapeake Avenue.

I lead a small nonprofit in Eastport called Joy Groves.

And I'm ready to present.

We'll be on the projector.

She's she's trying to get it up, but you can just just make sure you yes.

All right.

She's she has it.

She's gonna make sure it's update, but you go ahead and okay, yeah, for sure.

Okay, so we are creating a a half academia half acre farm space in Eastport in collaboration with community members who have had gardens for years.

Our nonprofit is facilitating the creation of community neighborhood scale food systems to empower our communities to have less dependency on free food and aid and and more ability to produce fresh vegetables right in the neighborhood.

Um Eastport is identified as a food desert.

Um certain sources that is actually identified as a food desert in Annapolis.

This farm will be in the center of the identified food desert in Madison and President Street in Eastport.

Um yeah, next slide.

This is an overview.

It's zoomed in.

There's a large ball field behind Eastport Terraces.

The neighborhood is roughly 300 units.

And everyone, many people are greatly interested, the kids, the adults, and the fresh vegetables and the the projects, the project-based youth enrichment of actually building the farm space.

Of course, this comes in the context of the CNI redevelopment pending.

Um we see this as a transferable pilot program to really be a shining example and then be transferred and reintegrated into the neighborhood's redevelopment when that comes.

Uh the most involved component involving the city here is the permitting for the greenhouse.

We we have a meeting with the city, a pre-permit meeting next Wednesday.

Um so the greenhouse is really exciting.

It's the first slide, second slide.

That's just an overview of general components, perennials, annuals, 10,000 square feet of production space.

It will be a real production-oriented farm while also being community education and youth enrichment.

If you scroll down one more, there's a general location in the Harbor House Eastport Terrace neighborhood.

Next next one, please.

That's just a wider view of the field, which is the phase one of the CNI redevelopment.

However, we have at least two growing seasons through which we hope to produce more than 100,000 servings of fresh vegetables.

This would be an impactful project.

Next it's what the greenhouse will look like.

Next that's the greenhouse, which we are purchasing.

It's currently standing in Millersville.

It will be uh gutter equipped, uh gutter equipped for rain catchment.

It was a nursery if you keep sl scrolling, lots of flowers, keep going.

Um there's an example, precedent of a greenhouse um at Phoenix Academy, which was incredibly impactful for the youth at Phoenix Academy who are now at Mary Moss.

But that was Hydroponics, great project.

Next, another example.

A lot of just community capacity building empowerment, small business ownership, whatnot, really important to this project.

Next an example, examples from City Blossoms, uh a notable DC nonprofit, which has large scale community gardening projects, youth cooperative businesses and classrooms.

They actually published a guide on greenhouse classrooms for our use and whatnot.

And next is just an example of possible layout.

We're working on this.

The MOU was approved by Director Maddox Evans yesterday.

So we're looking forward to launching this to the public in the next couple weeks.

And getting of course continuing input and collaboration with community members, which really makes is why we're doing the project is because of the community members who want this to happen.

So we're really excited about this.

Yeah, these don't work unless they have community partnership.

Cities don't work unless they have community partnerships, so glad to hear that's already in place.

Yeah.

We're excited about this.

Yeah.

Any um any questions?

Um that's not all mics never.

Oh, make sure your mic's on too.

Oh, I'm really giving no questions.

Um I see everything that he's doing, like is right outside of my house.

My son's a part of it, so I'm excited to see them get it started.

Yeah.

That's great.

I I commend you on it.

I I think to your point, it's out it is a food desert in this area.

Uh, so it's great to be having some movement on that issue.

Um I think it's also gonna address some of the hopefully improve the health of the community.

Um so I think it's very good.

If you need anything from the city, please do let us know.

Uh you know, would you have a community grant program that you can submit an application to to get some funding through?

Um specific for us.

Not at the moment, and notably we are excited about our collaboration with No Harm.

It's a great group through the mayor's office and whatnot.

Um, yeah, and most importantly, we're growing leaders.

Yeah, that's what we're most excited about.

And like I said, the last meeting, May 2nd, ribbon cutting.

You guys are all invited.

You gonna send us an email?

Yeah, you you will get the invite for sure.

Thank you.

And the deputy city manager, you have a question.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So your organization is called Joy Grows.

Yes, ma'am.

And your name is Matthew Wallace.

Yes.

Okay, I'm sure I had that right.

So um addressing food deserts, um, and um resilience around um food sources was a priority for um my work for quite a few years, but I was understaffed and we weren't able to address it.

So thank you so much for stepping into this space, and I hope we can expand this throughout the city, perhaps.

Um, so if you need anything and I'd like to stay in touch with you, you know, work with you on this.

Um, you know, we we're looking at other things like not throwing away ugly food, you know, that sort of thing with grocery stores and and uh and other places and with and it uh working with our local um farmers markets to do the same, you know, and so ways we can support you and the entire community with this.

So thank you again, and looking forward to working with you.

Look forward to collaborating, yeah.

Of course.

Uh, one other note is the two other Hacker properties, which is Morris Plum and Robin Wood.

We also have sites within walking distance of both.

So our focus is as here at the moment, but we're also establishing a project at Mary Moss Adams Academy, which is in walking distance of Morris Blum, and then of course we already have a project in Robin Wood.

Okay, excited about it.

And Mr.

Chair, um, the city currently, I do not believe has provides any funding for community gardens.

I know Unity Gardens does work in this space too.

I'm not sure if it's food production though.

Um I think our community grants are a good source to support work like this.

And I was just speaking to um someone about you know when they open up again.

Um you know, I'll get you can connected with that.

But I did note that the county does spend some money on community gardens.

I was last year saw a new one pop up that's very visible off of Route 2, um, heading south on route two.

It's on the right, it's brand new, it's fenced off, looks very nice.

It's just putting it out there.

And I know the city doesn't put funding toward that, but we can find ways, I think, to support this.

Yeah, and um so uh point uh Mr.

Adams in the back, you raise your hand for me.

So he's our our city arborist.

Um and just an idea occurred to me.

Um he may have funding at some point uh to help, especially if you want to incorporate say a couple trees for like an orchard to put some fruit bearing trees.

Uh we may be able to have a win-win there to assist you with planting.

So I don't know if I didn't see that in your plan, but I again I would love to see that to help address multiple goals at once if you're open to having some kind of fruit-bearing trees.

The kids want fruit.

You need trees if you want apples.

Yeah, the perennials are all uh certainly great, specifically at Hart Brows Eastboard Terrace.

We're we're dealing with the uncertainty of the redevelopment and wanting to invest in shorter term fruit crops like berries.

Um but yeah, tree tree canopy establishment is definitely valuable to us as well.

But not pear trees.

No, not pear, right?

Not pear trees, right?

Friends, no, we well, not Bradford Pearl.

No they don't even produce fruit, do you?

Yeah, they're tiny.

It's great.

Tiny little ones, yeah.

Some jurisdictions pay you like it's a bounty to take them down.

Oh man.

Yeah.

So are you have you thought about adding any kind of uh pollinator hives?

Pollinator hives.

Do you are you referring to honeybees?

Yeah.

Um I actually I was a beekeeper for a while.

It's it's fun.

They're not native bees.

So our route for that would be establishing plantings of insectiary plants that could host the native bees.

Yeah.

Bees and livestock in general are fun.

We'd love to have chickens, and we do plan to have a large investment into pollinator plants.

A large supporter of this project is Chesapeake Bay Trust.

So that's important to them.

Well, if you run into permitting issues, code issues, let us know.

We can always update the code or possibly give a waiver of some kind.

Just keep us posted.

Thank you for that.

And notably Eric Lashinski has been a great partner in developing our permit application and whatnot.

Good.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you for let me get in here at the beginning.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, you're welcome.

All right.

Um next item we have find my agenda here.

Uh legislation.

So we have R126.

This is fiscal year 2027 annual statement of performance standards.

Uh I'm gonna ask for a motion to postpone because I know some departments are updating their standards.

City manager is going to be updating this as well.

And so um based on what we see, we may want to because I was looking for the deputy city manager's sake, I was looking back at FY21.

I knew we did in the past, I didn't realize it was that long ago.

Time flies, but that was underneath, I think David Gerrell.

Um I really liked the format we had at the time, and I know you had standards from your when it was an office of environmental policy that I didn't seem to get carried over in the most recent version.

And so um you mean with more metrics, you mean with more metrics?

Well, yeah, some of the metrics in those uh specific goals didn't really get carried over.

And yeah, to Mr.

Adams uh and well to both departments.

Um I wanted to take a closer look at incorporating some of the tree canopy goals that you had in your in the 2021 uh and also we have a week.

Um assistant city, I mean acting city manager Buckland has provided an additional week from yesterday for directors to revise these performance standards.

So if there's anything you want to any ideas or information you want to provide to me or to Mr.

Adams, you could do that today because we're not gonna be able we have to get them done again and then resubmitted within now like six days.

Gib so for the uh tree canopy, I just wanted I think we should have things specific metrics for uh uh street tree tree um additions, plantings, general tree plantings, um, uh possibly conservation easement um inspections, maintenance.

I just wanted I think we should have things specific metrics for uh uh street tree tree um additions, plantings, general tree plantings, um, uh possibly conservation easement um inspections, maintenance, um and then um perhaps some associated with even though we don't have that many these days associated with the Forest Conservation Act and then um trying to think if we need anything for critical area.

Um I mean some of the enforcement measures on critical area might be good metrics to have um trying to think what else might come out of that.

Um perhaps some of the use of the fee and loo and both the FCA and the critical area.

Um then for the stormwater program again.

I'd had I don't know off the top of my head what the current metrics are, but uh what I would look towards are so metrics associated with the inspection program for private facilities, um as far as make sure the maintenance plans are adhere to um and then for our own facilities too, making sure they're inspected sufficiently, and then the we could work in the incentive program.

I know that's not gonna be in place for the next fiscal year, but just to keep in mind.

Um and then um I don't know, you might want to put in something in there regarding the stormwater plan reviews for development projects.

Uh and any some information as far as the MS4 program with the uh restoration projects and or BMP retrofits, if there are any metrics that you think should include for that.

And then we again we may already have this, but for both the stormwater and the uh sewer and water to utility systems.

Do we have metrics in place for inspections as far as how many linear feet we want to inspect a year?

How many you know, uh how many uh improvements, upgrades we're gonna do as far as like lining to address those deficiencies?

Um and then um what am I missing?

Stormwater.

I think that's about it.

Your office, well, yeah, your office in particular is gonna need some metrics too.

Um so the sustainability metrics, yeah.

So like I think it'd be interesting to look at getting some climate-related metrics for the greenhouse gas emissions, electric vehicles, maybe as far as the fleet conversion, which I know we haven't adopted yet.

We might need to put a pin in that one.

Um we do have we will have greenhouse gas data because we just completed our update of the inventories.

So we will have metrics around that.

Can we get a presentation on that in the next few months?

Yes, you can.

I don't think I don't know if it needs to happen.

If I know we're gonna be busy with the budget, it'd be great to get in the next few months, but if it needs to wait until after the budget, I get it.

Um trying to think, is there anything else?

Did you have any thoughts on sedum control program?

How could I freak it?

Um be good to get some metrics on that sediment control program, sediment control.

Okay, so just to make sure we're meeting our targets for like uh inspection frequency, uh resolution of deficiencies in a timely manner.

Um like yeah, you know, maybe maybe something dealing with off-site discharge uh what else?

It's all off the top of my head.

Okay.

What else from your well?

I'm sure you'll give plenty of thought to your own office.

But we have a lot of sustainability programs we could try to think of what might be ongoing that we could get in there as metrics.

I don't know.

I'll have to think about that one.

I'll give it some more thought.

I mean, some of them are not difficult, like the EVs purchases and things like that.

We have that data through central services, and we as I said, we've just done our greenhouse gas inventory updates for both city facilities and the community.

Um of our uh our goals, you know, water quality improvement, air quality improvement, etc.

are um much tougher to quantify.

metrics I don't know I'll have to think about that one I'll give us more thought I mean some of them are not difficult like the EVs purchases and things like that we have that data through central services and we as I said we've just done our greenhouse gas inventory updates for both city facilities and the community um some of our uh our goals you know water quality improvement air quality improvement etc are um much tougher to quantify I I was just in a meeting with with uh people from other jurisdictions that are my in my role and we were discussing that you know for reporting it's sometimes difficult to quantify and provide data and metrics around some of these um goals um but I'll I'll put some more thought into it and who the question for the stormwater group but whose response so our own city facilities are they all managed by public works or are does record parks handle their own role if you could sorry if you go up to the mic and identify yourself Mike Rossberg stormwater program stormwater program manager in public works uh the inspection the required inspection per our permit is all in public works but there is ongoing discussion as far as ownership of each facility for yeah parks and recent services police station all the different department facilities it's uh it's a goal that you talk about performance metrics it's a goal this year for us to make a plan and determine that um because in the end we don't want to cite ourselves for our own deficiencies and other parts so we want to make sure that plan is take care of our own stuff and make sure we have a plan moving forward so that's the ownership and who's required to maintain it is still kind of an ongoing goal for this year.

Okay all right thank you that um there is a plan I've already spoken with wreck and parks at least on what's wreck and parks and what's DPW's um maintenance responsibilities and there had been some outside perception that perhaps wreck and parks didn't want to take responsibility that is not true.

I'm I'm now been assigned to work directly with Wreck and Parks um so I discussed this with director Johnson and she said no there are certain ones that she knows belong to Reckon Parks and that she's responsible for her crew to maintain but there's some question marks so she does want to get together with public works and well central services too all department these three departments need to get together and iron out for sure who is responsible for which BFs yeah because I don't I don't know the accuracy of this statement but I have heard some concerns about Rack and Parks stormwater facilities.

Yeah they are not equipped to handle certain BM not so much BMPs but like street ends that are failing you know large failures bulkhead failures we we tend to get into waterway improvement grants with with those with the Harbor Master and working with public works so that's beyond we we agree that's beyond um wreck and parks abilities to maintain but they do need require additional training beyond what training they'd received I believe last year um director Johnson doesn't feel confident that they feel confident in knowing what decisions to make so we'll look into further training for them or working with other groups on maintenance.

Okay.

All right I think that's all I have um did you um well I will entertain a motion to postpone it to our next meeting so moved I'll second all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you and next up we have R326 water service agreement with North Point property is there anybody from staff who could give us rundown on this no I think I forgot to ask somebody from staff to come on this but it's not a big deal so my understanding is it's just uh there's a it's in my ward well it's actually in the county it's next to uh Naples Roads I'm sorry um Chesapeake Harbor and uh it's just a single family home that wants to get hooked up to our water system uh and there are associated fees with that and this basically just approves that connection I don't really have any questions on this at this point do you have any questions older woman no okay um well would you be willing to make a motion to recommend favorably yes so moved I'll second all those in favor please say aye motion carries um thank you and on to next item general discussion we have ID 626 stormwater fee incentive slash rebate program so public works please join us oh do you want you want to write up first canopies if you want to do that first definitely Mr.

Mr.

Adams, are you able to sorry we're gonna switch to ID 3926 just because that presentation is ready to go without delay?

Thank you.

Uh if you could introduce yourself for the record, Mr.

Adams.

No, I'm that one cost of the signal.

Brian Adams, uh Urban Forester Planning and Zoning.

There we go.

So I'm not entirely sure what you want to discuss, but I did just put a few slides together, just sort of a brief overview of the program.

What is tree canopy?

Why are we tracking it?

Why do we care?

Um just a little bit of history on the program for the new committee members.

Um that's perfect.

Yeah, so urban tree canopy, what is it?

It is basically um the crown of the tree and what you see if you're looking down from from space or from the sky.

And in these photos, you can see it is is basically the the the leaves, the canopy of the tree um that you would see from above.

And so these are a few drone shots of our city that's uh church circle, and then um you know, looking down Main Street, and you can see some of the uh the tree canopy around there.

Uh this is just quick some of the benefits of urban trees, uh cool the air, they've got a lot of positive impact on physical and mental health.

There's a lot of studies have been done by the World Health Organization and other, you know, um organizations that have found very you know uh strong links between improved mental health, um improved uh recovery after surgeries.

Um there's a lot of uh uh research being put into the positive aspects of of urban trees.

Um obviously they filter pollutants through the air and water, uh they increase our biodiversity and property value.

Um they really mature trees can do a lot for property value.

15 to 20 percent is the estimate.

Uh on the left, this is as a result of the analysis I had done in 2024.

This is based on eTree modeling, our total benefits coming from our city's urban forest.

So it's an annual basis, so total ecosystem benefits 859,000.

See the stormwater, 23 million gallons of runoff avoided, carbon sequestration, and air quality pollution removal.

So going back to uh where our goal came from, uh, this was in our 2009 comp plan set a goal of 50 percent by the year 2036.

That 2036 came out of a study done by the DNR in 2006 that did an analysis of our canopy in our land area and determined there was enough open acreage uh that that our city should be able to reach a canopy cover goal of 50 percent in within 30 years.

Uh at that time our canopy coverage was around 41 percent.

Um we have not met that goal.

You know, 2036 is just around the corner, and um you know, one of the reasons was that with while there was this goal put in place, there was never adequate funding um over many years for this program.

So there weren't enough trees being planted, there wasn't you know enough maintenance being done on what we do have.

The the the program was really just sweeping by and doing the very minimum.

So just recently for our 2040 comp plan, we um revised that goal, we kept it at 50 percent, but we bumped the year out to 2050.

So that gives us um some time, and with proper funding, we're hoping that now that goal is much more attainable.

Um a very positive note our canopy coverage.

This most recent analysis showed us that 43 percent.

So even over that time period that we were not really fully funding the program.

Um, you know, our trees were doing what they do and they continue to grow, and fortunately we have you know um tree preservation in our code, and we have some pretty good uh ordinances that are kind of making up for what we're losing.

Um with this dedicated funding from the stormwater restoration fee, I think we've really got a much more robust program to include um you know uh proactive maintenance and tree planting that we did not have before.

And obviously, urine forestry is essential to some of our comp plan priorities, um, sustainable development, lowering our carbon footprint, environmental assets.

And one year one reason, I'm sorry, that we did go with 2050 because you know, trees take a time a long time to mature, and for those canopies to be picked up in an analysis, they need 10, 15, 20 years of maturing before they're even going to be picked up.

So we felt like 2050 gave us enough time that if we were to get a significant start on planting in the next five to ten years, you know, that'll give us some time for these trees to mature.

So this is where we are now.

Um these are our wards and our tree coverage in those wards.

Um doing pretty well through the city.

Some of them are exceeding 50 percent.

We do have some work to do in ward three, specifically the design district area.

There's a lot of impervious surface over there.

Um looking at a few projects over there to get some street trees planted, but there needs to be a pretty holistic effort to do uh quite a bit of greening in that neighborhood.

So these are just some numbers.

Our total acreage and area or in total area and acreage.

Uh where we're at now, which is 1966 acres of canopy coverage.

The analysis shows about 790 acres of plantable space.

What that doesn't take into consideration is land use.

Um, you know, we have wreck and parks, they have open fields that from above look like they're optimal plantable space, but they really in in reality are not because they want to keep them open.

Um it also doesn't account for you know planting trees in what are currently impervious surfaces along streets and sidewalks.

Again, we're at 43%, and that leaves us with 308 acres needed to meet our goal.

Um I did find this uh fact interesting that only 7% of our canopy covers impervious surfaces, which I felt was was pretty low.

Um I think that's an area that we can really um we need to really focus on as a city and making up and increasing that number just because of the impact of the heat island and the stormwater runoff from impervious surface.

Any questions that so far?

Yeah, but I'll save them for the end.

Uh so right now, this is sort of our a current view of of what the program is doing to try to meet this goal and some things that we've implemented since getting fully funded in the last I think it's been a year and a half now that we've been fully funded.

So we've moved from a reactive to more proactive maintenance program for our tree canopy in the past.

We really just relied on you know, finding out that a tree was dead or looking at you know uh finding hazardous trees that need to be removed and sort of addressing them on a case-by-case basis, whereas now we're looking more holistically.

I've started um you know, looking at entire streets to just go through and do do pruning and maintenance that's way overdue.

Um, you know, many of our street trees really haven't had anything done to them in a long time, so there's a lot of catch-up, but we are moving in the direction of more proactive maintenance.

Um we've got some new planting programs we've established.

Replant Annapolis being one of the bigger ones, it's a partnership with Watershed Storage Academy of Anarano County.

We are in our fourth year, I believe, of that program, and um it's going really well.

You know, it takes taken a little bit of time to get the word out, but we had a meeting today to discuss the the past year and sort of our goals for next year.

They planted a hundred and hundred and thirty trees approximately with community organizations this year, this past year.

And um they've been training residents that are interested.

They have a tree trooper program where they do like an online program tree treat training program and teaches basics um, you know, tree biology and other basic things, and then also sort of how to plan planting projects and scoping and design.

So uh they see some participation in the training, and then they get they find that the the people come for the training and then don't actually follow through with a project.

Um it's a challenge, it really is.

Um you know, they they take a small fee for the trees and they all they'll offer contractor planted trees, so they don't all have to be volunteer projects.

Um but so we we hope to just continue to to grow that program and get more participation because it's a they do a really good job of of working the communities and getting these projects installed.

There's a maintenance you know, after care plan and um the other thing that was I was able to start this year is a I'm calling it a front yard and street tree program.

I made it available in the summer, advertised on social media, basically, you know, had residents sign up, request a tree, come out, see if the tree will work for as a street tree.

Well, I it started as a street tree only program, but what I found was a lot of people were requesting trees, and then they didn't really have a street tree space, but they had a front yard, and so I just sort of started, you know, saying, listen, if we can plant it near our right-of-way, um, we won't maintain it in the future, but we will plant it for you.

Um, so that was it was really popular this year at in the first year, um, and it's helped me to identify a lot of neighborhoods where we have a tree lawn, you know, uh a strip between the sidewalk and the street that have no trees where we can fit some in.

So um planted a few in the Admiral Heights neighborhood.

The residents were really excited and wanted to, you know, hope hopefully spread the word and that that neighborhood has a lot of opportunities for for street trees.

Um we did our free tree giveaway in the fall with I work with the Arbor Day Foundation.

I think we gave away 150 trees in the fall.

Um, and then I I also just I have street tree planting that I do in the fall and spring as well.

So last year we planted 395 trees.

So you know, we're talking you you mentioned goals and um performance metrics, and I'll touch on my budget after this, but what I found, you know, looking at this program more and looking at our city and and our space and the uh resident you know, engagement interest in trees.

I think it's gonna be difficult to reach the the sort of levels that we might I had previously recommended.

Um I think we can plant a lot of trees, but I don't think we can get to some of the you know upper hundreds that I had I had put in previous budgets.

I think what we really need to focus on as well as planting is is this next section, which is the code and policy changes, because I think meeting our goal, it's gonna be there's gonna be a need to be a a focus on that as well as planting trees.

Um the forest conservation act has been revised at the state level.

They there was a Senate and House bill last year.

They're actually sort of catching up to where we are, where they're gonna is sort of not only no net loss, but a gain is what they're hoping for, but it is a one-to-one mitigation.

They made some other there's various changes in the in the in the law.

One of the the good things, and and I I was happy to see is that they've now they've come out with an urban forest as a priority forest.

So yeah, so that makes a big difference for for city projects.

Uh makes it much more difficult for developers to clear urban forests.

So a lot of positive changes in that.

Uh I am working on revising our ordinance now.

It needs to be in place in July.

So I'm hoping to get um a draft, you know, to you and the council to start reviewing.

Excellent.

There's the uh critical area legislation that we've talked about.

Um I'm not sure where we are with that, but it's another thing that would would help us to retain mature trees if we have more restrictions on removals in the critical area.

Um, and then one of the other things I'm looking at is our site design standards and trying to um just create some some additional requirements for for for street trees, uh for soil volume and that sort of thing in our in our zoning code, and um, you know, just requiring developers to put in street trees when there's space for them and um to ensure that whatever trees are being planted are being planted properly with enough soil volume that they're not gonna you know last for a few years and die or whatever.

So there's a few places in our code that I'm sort of looking at right now at trying to just make some adjustments to try to just increase our um the number of trees being planted and then the quality of those plantings.

Um I started a where I I am working with the trust, Chesapeake Bay Trust.

They had an Anorondo County planting community planting mini grant.

We were able to get the city of Annapolis included in that.

It wasn't previously, so that is available to any community groups, and it's uh up to five thousand dollars for tree planting in the city, and that could include some invasive management along with planting.

We've had two applications, two applicants.

Marilyn Hall put in a number of trees last year with that program, and uh we have another one that's sort of in the process right now.

So that's another opportunity for residents, you know, to to get involved to take advantage to to meet these goals and and just with time and not not their money.

Um but it's a matter of getting the word out and getting people in interested.

Um and then lastly, as far as the grants, so we uh we added money to the watershed restoration grant that that our public works department was was currently has with the with the trust.

We use some of our critical area fee and loo money to put towards that grant, and um, and this year what they've done is they've combined that with one of their other grants, which was a forestry protected lands grant, and we've they've combined the two.

So now this is watershed restoration and forestry, and um, so grants can be for planting, for reforestation, for improving existing forests, and also for um conservation.

So you know, the county uses it to get tracks of land conserved.

I think for us it's gonna be more about helping pay for to get conservation easements documented.

We have one right now, St.

Luke's, you know, they're very interested in in our the grant and getting that into a conservation easement.

Church is gonna donate the property, but we'll you know we'll assist in getting the easement documented.

Yeah, well, that's that's a great thing.

I I it connects ties with our next conversation on the stormwater fee incentive program.

Yep.

Because the fee is potentially gonna go up quite a bit for not well, actually, not quite a bit.

They're gonna go up somewhat for churches.

I think so.

Having a way to reduce that would be important.

And we did um Ann and I met with um Heritage Baptist Church about that alternative compliance, and the we're gonna direct them to the replant program, you know, if they're if if they want to plant trees on their property to sort of work on reducing their fee, we're gonna link them up with the replant program and get trees planted that way.

Good.

So other than that, the resident engagement piece.

Um I work with RPIO to get things on social media.

I really think our city needs to get more involved with that.

I don't think it's easy right now.

Um it's been very difficult to promote things.

Um I know the Jackie Guild's group has considered maybe a social media account.

I think it'd be a great idea.

Um also uh what else have I oh the website.

So the the urban forestry website's been around for a little while, but it was not hadn't been updated a long time.

So I've put a lot of effort into making that more usable, more um helpful for for our residents, um, you know, added an FAQ section trying to make people more aware of our code, the ordinance we have, you know, the potential fines if they're removing trees without permits.

Um you know, and I I think I mentioned to you that you know, if we do make any changes to our critical area um permit requirements, I'd really like to do a pretty intensive outreach, you know, to make just make everyone aware of what it is we require, what's in our code.

Um lastly, just you know having that analysis conducted at least every five years, so we can just sort of keep up and know where we are, um, just making sure that we're making progress.

You know, again, going back to trees and the time it takes to grow, it'll be hard to see what we've planted, you know, in those in these last few years, but it'll be good to make sure that we're not losing significant amount.

I mean, you know, projects like Providence Point, you know, that's gonna that's gonna hurt during one analysis, but in the end, overall uh in the long term it will come back.

So it's a it's gonna fluctuate, but I think it'd be good to know where we are every every five years or so.

And with new some of the new technology they're using to do these analysis, they're using machine learning to help evaluate um satellite um imagery, and it's becoming more affordable.

Uh whereas you don't have to contract with a LIDAR company to fly LIDAR to collect data, you can uh use machine learning to do it much faster.

So this is just the sort of a five-year proposed budget for the program.

Um so like I said, this past year we planted nearly 400 trees, and so I'm increasing that to 450, and then by 50 each year moving forward.

Um maintenance costs go up a little bit each year as we continue to plant more trees.

There is a line item for an additional staff member.

I don't know the you know exact amount that that'll cost, but I've just have a placeholder in here.

Um and then there's the inventory and canopy update in five years.

Uh one of the other things about that we've added to our website is um the analysis we did and our street tree inventory is all available now to the public.

Um I think it's a really good tool for people to be able to see what their neighborhood has.

Um they can look at their street trees, they can look at the species, and so it's just another way for the the public to interact and and you know be aware of what we have, what's out there, and hopefully, you know, become more interested or engaged in in continuing to grow the canopy.

I think that's everything I have.

I'm sure you have some questions for me.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Adams.

Uh do you have any questions, Alderman?

No.

Um, you know me, I have a lot of questions.

So I love the how you included the ecosystem benefits.

Um, I would suggest maybe getting these included in the budget somewhere or the um Stan Tech report, just to I just think it's important for people to have this on their minds as far as the actual benefits to fiscal benefits to having uh a tree robust tree program.

Um do you happen to have a chart anywhere showing the change in tree canopy over time?

Say since like what was the first tree canopy report?

I think was 200 six or so.

One of the um no, because one of the issues with that is that over that time the methods and the way it's done has changed.

So that is something that like moving forward, if we continue to use this this method, you know, we will start to establish that change over time and we'll be able to look back and see um, and they get that data every couple of years, so it's like if we want to pull up a certain year and go back to it, we will be able to.

But right now it's difficult to compare past assessments to the current assessments.

Okay.

And yeah, I think so on the tree canopy goal change, just to re to emphasize, I'll say, um for my colleagues, you know, the original goal we we have was 2036, but we realized again we didn't have enough time to plant the trees for the trees to grow to actually meet the tree canopy goal because it was one of the things over my time on the council before the tree program would get cut every year as far as the planting allocation.

Um but tying it to the watershed fund eliminates that eliminates that problem.

So for the staffing increase.

When are you planning on proposing that?

Because I think last time we spoke, you I think uh you thought at the time you you didn't quite have everything set up yet in the program to necessarily justify it.

Is that changed or is that something that's gonna be proposed in the next budget?

I don't know.

I will say that um there was some issues with the budget and HR, there was some miscommunication.

It was too we were told that it was in the budget last year, and then when we came when it came time to start developing it, we were told it wasn't documented.

I I don't know how that process works, but that was what I heard from my director.

I you're right in that I wanted to um give some of these programs some time to grow to make sure that if we if we're gonna bring someone on, they're gonna have enough work to keep them busy.

Um so I would say that if I think we'll we'll have this placeholder in the budget this year, and I think that we could look at you know look at hiring this year, assuming that all the you know the HR issues are are worked out.

Yeah, I think it's I think because there's also some there's some discrepancy about like how that what that position would it be in a new position, an entirely new position with a new description, or would it be another position that I have, and so there's still some HR issues to resolve.

Well, can you maybe you were deputy city manager to refresh my memory?

This is one of these things I remember thinking about, but I'm not sure if we did it in the for the class and comp study.

Did we add uh a couple different we talked about adding some other positions related to the forest program?

Did we do that?

No.

Okay, so all right, so that's something I guess um all right.

I'm gonna add that to my short list for the budget amendments.

If you could if either one of you uh or both of you um could give me some ideas as far as how that'd be structured, because I'd like to set the framework for you know, I don't know how we want to do if you want to have similar to what we do with the environmental program coordinator, have a one two three or have a more of a middle manager kind of position with a couple underneath.

But I think we need to start to again lay the framework for where we want to see this in the future.

I think it's clear at some point we're gonna need additional staff, especially once the stormwater program gets their incentive program out there, because what I would think is that this position would also be working on the promotion we're talking about, right?

Getting homeowners, uh it would be informing homeowners and property owners about the stormwater fee credit that they they can get.

Uh and you're working on getting easements if we need them.

Um I mean it's similar.

I guess an alternate approach to staff thinking out loud here would be to have money set aside for a consultant to have on board who could do some of those random things.

They could still do some promotion, they could do some uh targeted sector studies, like as far as looking at street tree coverage, uh identifying areas that have a lack of streets that have a lack of tree cover, um planting opportunities.

I don't know, it might make sense to have both at least one additional staff and then along with a pool of money, because that money could also potentially be used for um uh yeah, maybe supporting some community groups, I don't know.

I think I like that idea.

I think the idea of you know, another staff member and then something more um something that could be ramped up or or ramped down at different times of year, you know, um planting seasons are always incredibly busy.

Um so the work is overwhelming at that time, but then in you know in February things slow down a little bit.

So yeah, I think that's uh it's a good approach.

I think it's I think we can certainly support and another person would be really helpful.

Um as you said, if the stormwater compliance or alternative compliance moves forward and we can promote that, but I think the promotion and the the resident engagement is an important piece that we need more of.

All right, and yeah, because I would like to I'm curious if we could get an analysis at some point on the street tree, because I am some kind of uh um kind of like a heat map if we're a tree canopy covered, right?

So we can just see that and see which streets have zero coverage.

Um which we you know again, just to show us where we need to focus our efforts.

Uh I'm assuming there's somebody out there, source some kind of firm that could do that analysis.

And I do have um one of the things that I've had them do the last time they did an inventory was identify potential planting spots along streets.

So I do have sort of a GIS-based list of areas that have open or potential planting sites, and so that is what I am targeting with my with my street tree planting.

But I think a uh uh you know, a heat map is something I I would love to have.

And I think it's just a matter of getting that done.

It's just getting the right firm to because some of the bigger national data sets, they don't they don't do they cover Baltimore, they cover DC, but they don't come to Annapolis.

Yeah.

Well, if it's something you think is worth pursuing, we can figure out what the cost might be and get that added to the budget.

Um so I just question for you, Brian, on this chart.

So you're showing how many trees you need to plant, and I'm assuming that is to get to the 50 by 50 goal.

Like you would extend that beyond 2031 as you have there, but that that's getting that's the trajectory you need to be on, like 50 trees each year.

That would ideally continue.

Um, you know, at some point we've run out of space.

Um, and I think each year we continue to plant that many trees, it's going to become more difficult.

Yeah.

Um, because we don't have the space on city property.

Unless we start looking at schools and um parks, and they get let us get um more creative with space around ball fields, which I've always advocated for as a shady place for both players and families to you know stand or sit during a game.

Um I think we need to work on that because that that is such potential for the city, and as Brian's pointed out, you know, we're running out of plant space if we don't use the spaces within the city but are controlled by the county and the and by our rec spaces.

So, like schools are paramount, not just around the rec fields, but in other places, um, and then our own recreational parks allowing us to plant around our fields, and then of course, libraries, or like the new library, they put in a fair amount of trees, retain trees, but on West Street.

But I think that's another potential source for us.

Um, I wanted to ask you also um Brian, about so when you're making this calculation about how many trees to plant each year, are you calculating are you figuring in how many we lose by either natural causes or by the trees that are coming down and the residents are screaming?

Brian, there's another tree that came down in Eastport.

So it's not a perfect science, but what I will say, because our um canopy coverage grew very slightly, yeah, very slightly over the last you know, six, eight years.

Um I think the growth of our existing forest is making up for a lot of our losses at the moment.

So I think if we continue on that trajectory along with more tree preservation, um better tree preservation standards in construction and development, um, more restrictions on where you know when trees can be removed in the critical area and enhance that with a lot more trees being planted than we've ever planted.

I think that's you know how we can reach the goal, but it's it's not an exact science.

Yeah, you know.

So tree preservation, you know, either it's by working with Save Our Trees and other groups and just enforcement in general is critical because we lose trees, sometimes they're down, and then all Brian's left with is a fine and you know, plant three trees which are too small to be counted within the tree canopy for another 15 years sometimes.

Um and everyone appeals that and tries to work around it every time he tells them they have to buy three trees.

Um so I think keeping the trees we have is really of utmost importance too.

We're gonna keep advancing.

Yeah, yeah, I have some legislation I'm working on that would create like a conservation landscaping program.

So it's would allow homeowners to have native yards as long as they don't get out of control and they're maintained.

Um, but also have a requirement some kind of requirement for property owners, in particular, like I'm thinking like HOAs or people have large you know uh properties to maintain their trees as far as uh maintaining those uh the invasive species, making sure the vines aren't out of control, so that would be an enforcement mechanism, but I'm thinking um there's a lot of connection to I think that's something the stormwater group actually mentioned in their incentive program is having a proper maintenance of the forests count towards some of the credit, and we have a mature tree retention.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Uh and as far as yeah, so as far as the the tree planting potential, um I've mentioned this before, but the impervious surfaces is a large I think we need focus on that because the data you the one data point you had in here, which is only seven percent of the Naples tree canopy covers impervious surface.

That's surprising, and that really to my mind tells you that we need to give more focus on that.

We don't have enough tree canopy cover on that, and so that shows that we have to address the parking lots, and that's part of my grand plan vision here is to get to that point.

I'm not quite sure how yet, but what I'm thinking is we need to start targeting because well, as the fee increases for some of these properties, we need to be able to go to them and say, look, if you remove a couple of your parking spaces, put in some tree wells, um, you can get this credit, right?

But I think we need to make sure our parking regs, there I don't know if the parking regs are gonna be barrier.

If we have to make sure we can give them a waiver, permanent waiver to the parking requirements.

But I really want to move in that direction.

But again, that's gonna require staff time to go to like the giant shopping center and say, look, uh, we'll give you this a break on this if you let us put a tree here in this parking spot.

Um, I know Eastport's gonna require some uh negotiation to remove some of their parking spots, but I'd like to see some more.

But we could also look at if we need space for street trees, remove some curbside parking to put in stormwater management and tree.

Um but in case that's something on my mind.

And that's also something for related uh thinking of the schools, because the schools have looking at the stormwater fee, the presentation looking ahead.

The schools have significant amount of impervious surface, and their fee uh potentially would jump up significantly.

And um that's a opportunity for us to go to them and say, look, your fees gonna increase.

You're willing to work with us, and if we have adequate funds, we might be able to just do some of the work ourselves on pay for it ourselves or partner with the school to get work done on their properties.

Um what else?

There's looking through my notes.

I think that's about it.

I will just make a note that the impervious conversion, that is something we're really targeting with that watershed restoration grant and the critical area money.

Um we are looking for conversion of impervious surface to either stormwater best management practices or trees combination thereof.

So that is really the sort of projects we're targeting with that grant money.

Okay, great.

And all right, so my last point, I think.

So the the budget slide, are these costs incorporated into the stormwater the planned stormwater fee increase?

So for next, so for this next fiscal year, the budget.

I saw that it was in your slides for stormwater management.

There's a proposed 12% actual increase to the stormwater fee.

Oh, that was last year's slides.

Okay.

Well, I know last year's slides included them, but so for I just want to make sure the fee going forward includes all these program costs automatically with the analysis being done by Stan Tech.

So I don't know.

I'm assuming it's gonna go up some percentage this next fiscal year.

Um so could um Mr.

Adams, could you look into that with public works at some point because um that's certainly I think the intent yeah, actually our the budget 20 FY27 budget is actually gonna be the same as what I requested last year.

Um I was told that budgets need to stay the same this year, and so I've sort of made my numbers fit into that.

Well, well, that doesn't I don't think that applies to the utility fees because those are paid by the utility fee increases.

It's not coming out of um what would you call it?

The I mean it's all operating funds, I suppose, but it's it already has a funding stream.

So um I know we unless there was a directive to keep the fees the same, which I don't know.

I know it went up quite a bit last year.

It did, it did.

So, but I think like for example, for an additional staff, you have 90,000, but that's not gonna be enough because you actually have to include the benefits.

It's it's probably gonna be at least 150 to put in there for placeholder.

Um, if you knee name, I'm just throwing that out there.

I might be, I guess that's worth a discussion with the city manager, deputy city manager, and um your director, to see if that requests or directive included the expenses supported by fees.

So I think that's that's all I have for you, Mr.

Adams.

Thank you.

Your great presentation.

All right, thank you.

So yes, please introduce yourselves.

You're welcome to start any time.

I'll go first.

Uh Mike Rossberg, I'm the uh stormwater program manager in public works.

Uh Ann Roterer, stormwater engineer, public works.

Am I not on?

I'm sorry.

Oh, I love that echo.

Um so thanks for having us here today.

Um we are going to do a an overview going from hundred thousand feet above down to uh single site level um looking at stormwater regulations, um pollutant control um that's in stormwater.

So we're gonna start with that that background overview of just what the uh sort of uh primary legislation is and um the mechanisms that have been uh set up to control to manage and regulate stormwater um pollutants um primarily through the municipal separate storm sewer system.

Um stormwater is full of acronyms and jargon, just like every other discipline, and in general, I will try to avoid that, but I am going to say MS4 from this point forward because that municipal separate storm sewer system is just not particularly helpful in MS4 is easy to say.

Um so we'll talk about what's included in that um that program, um, which is a and uh then we will uh zoom in to the city of Annapolis and how um our particular MS4 permit um operates and is funded.

Um and then um our next zoom in will be looking at the mechanism that particular funding mechanism, which is the stormwater utility fee, um, which um we have fees for residential properties and non-residential properties and um rules and uh procedures around that.

Um and we were going to talk about changing the potential structure of those fees um for both both programs.

Next slide.

So just from the 100,000 foot, maybe maybe 30,000 feet, just talking about sources of water pollution.

So usually when you when we're talking, so first zoom in, I did not include a view of the hydrologic cycle, which would be where I would actually want to start, but we're zooming in to talk specifically about stormwater and water surface water flowing to receiving water bodies.

So the sources of pollutants that carry the sources of pollutants carried to those water bodies include direct direct deposits.

And that's more commonly referred to as storm water.

Discharge is the word that I meant to say instead of deposit.

Next slide, please.

So this is a terrifying slide, and I'm not going to step through every detail of it, but I do want to just give you a general timeline and framework for how stormwater is regulated and basically and how the MS-4 program came to be.

I'm gonna go faster, I promise.

I'm just getting just building speed.

So after that, the EPA initiated expanded the focus to include smaller urbanized areas, which Annapolis would would fall under.

So serving populations less than 100,000 through their MS4 system.

And shortly after that, um there were stormwater regulations that were formalized that were focused on these stormwater, these pollution reduction practices through stormwater management control.

Simultaneously, the Chesapeake Bay Agreement kept moving forward.

Um there were hundreds of thousands of different uh lawsuits and changes to changes to goals throughout this period, and that that is a trend that continues.

Um but anyways, so in 2003 to 2004, the MS4 phase two, so the smaller scale permits were issued, including for Annapolis.

And then the next big thing that happened was the Maryland Stormwater Act of 2007, which uh which really honed in the focus of our work for the MS4 on restoration projects, environmental site design.

Um that's basically nature-based practices to control stormwater rather than uh gray infrastructure hard infrastructure projects.

The other thing that it did, and this is where we're coming to the end of the slide, is it established the water watershed restoration fund mechanism by by which the jurisdictions and municipalities can connect collect a stormwater fee.

Um so that stormwater fee is mandated by this stormwater act of 2007, and there are rules in place within that legislation about how that that fee can be administered.

Um that leads us closer to today.

So the permits, the MS4 permits are in theory five year five years long.

Um the most recent one for the city of Annapolis was uh issued in 2018 and has been admitted uh uh what is it called?

Extended and administratively extended, that's the term.

Um however, um we are we're coming up close to a a new draft for our permit, which will um likely up our our attention and requirements for restoration work uh moving forward at the same time.

The state is um has issued um new regulations, a draft of new regulations and standards for stormwater.

So we anticipate that the funds and efforts going towards restoration will continue to grow as we move forward.

All right, with that, Mike is going to talk about the Annapolis and are you happy?

Next slide.

Yep, thank you.

So do you need to take a break after that, right?

Um so yeah, thanks, Ann.

I think another point of that slide was to show how regulations over time have changed and they are still changing, and we are on what feels like weekly calls, but monthly tech groups and working groups and legislative working groups with MDE and other jurisdictions to talk about draft upcoming regulations.

So it's constantly changing, and it's a big part of what we do to try to stay on top of it, know what's going on because the draft regulations are yeah, they're still they're constantly changing, and it's it's it's a moving target, but we're still all the things are changing.

We're still doing stormwater, we're not stopping, we're still doing projects, restoration, all that good stuff.

So like Ann said, MS4, municipal separate storm sewer systems.

Uh our stormwater does not go the same place where our sinks go.

Um part of this permit um we have up here are uh overview of basically the targets of this permit, what we have to meet.

Um our annual reports are posted online.

You can go into more detail of more of all these controls.

Um the first one is that restoration target that we have to meet, which is a 20% reduction from our 2018 baseline of impervious area.

Uh I don't know the numbers off the top of my head.

Um, and from that, our baseline had been changing based on new impervious we've had discovered or new treatment or new uh restoration that was was in place.

Um, but that's all uh in our annual report.

So that's the restoration target, and with in addition to that, we have six minute controls that we have to meet.

So that's the restoration target, and with in addition to that, we have six minute controls that we have to meet public education outreach, public involvement and participation, illicit discharge detection elimination.

Sometimes you'll see IDDE, that's illicit discharge detection elimination, construction site stormwater runoff, post-construction stormwater runoff or stormwater management and pollution prevention and good housekeeping.

Um also to the right, we've listed some things that are not regulated on this MS4, but are still uh possible uh other regulations that will, you know, we still have to uh abide by depending on the circumstance.

Uh next slide.

I just put up this brief uh slide here to kind of show what um how we are organized as a stormwater program in the city.

Uh like I said, I'm the stormwater program manager, and uh under that, we have two stormwater engineers and two environmental compliance inspectors uh all working towards those to meet those MS4 goals.

And if you and the water restoration fund right there, um, you know, if you you look in the capital budget, you know, this the water service surgent fund supports the operations of capital projects related to public stormwater management systems, watershed and limitation plans, stream of wetland restoration activities, and the again more acronyms, the MPS and MS4 TMDL requirements and goals.

So all a big challenge of what we try to do is is try to make sure all this work that we do fits under this MS4 permit requirement um and make sure that we're reporting everything we do.

So next slide, please.

And in here I have a I like a picture slide.

Um I think kind of to that point, we do a lot of things in various different ways and in very different capacities as far as planning, um design, construction, maintenance, outreach, um, and they're all great, and they're all really successful.

Um so that for the time I've been here, we've done a lot of good work.

Um I I you know, and this is a lot of these are our grant program, so uh a lot of our restoration work that we do is through the Chesapeake Bay Trust grant.

Um so those are a couple of photos of the of the activities we've done there.

And those two pictures to the right is the College Creek wetland and um the green roof on top of the police station, just showing that uh we mentioned earlier the maintenance of our city-owned BMPs is still under our under our watch.

So we we we make sure we keep keep our existing facilities up in up in uh passing grade.

So uh that's next slide.

That's all I got.

Yeah, so um Alderman Savage started to touch on this earlier.

Um, but storm the stormwater utility fee um that was enabled by that 2007 act, um allows us to um issue a utility fee based on the um the potential use and contribution of a a particular site to to our storm sewer system.

Um and so basically typically uh municipalities or jurisdictions issue this fee um based on impervious area of that site.

Um, this is an illustration showing um a natural site with um good infiltration to sorry to the left with good infiltration and limited runoff, which is not um taxing the system or adding pollutants, um a great it is it's still contributing, but not extensively.

Um, and as you move further to the right, um the impervious area um which would include things like roofs or driveways or roads, any any um area that uh water doesn't permeate into the higher the impervious area, the higher it taxes the system, and therefore the higher we could in theory um issue a fee.

Next slide.

Um just uh just a side note that um stormwater management practices that um we're usually talking about when we talk about restoration.

Uh we're talking about stormwater control measures or stormwater best management practices, they're different terms for them, but they are usually targeted, targeted at uh managing the first one inch of rainfall, uh what we call the first flush on a site.

Um that that one inch seems like intuitively doesn't seem like that much of that big of a deal, but that one inch is carrying it has the highest energy, is moving the fastest and is carrying the largest amount of pollutants.

And this is just an illustration of different ways you can think about that.

That one inch and how they're contributing um to uh taxing the system.

Next slide.

So our fees in the city of Annapolis first for the our stormwater utility fees.

This slide, as as was noted, this slide was included that includes our fees from last year and our current fees, fiscal year 26th.

But I just wanted to keep that in there to acknowledge that our fees do have been going up.

The trend is that they have been going up because our watershed restoration fund needs continue to increase.

But anyways, uh we have two different kinds of fees.

We have one for non-residential properties, which would be commercial properties or institutional properties, so churches, schools, city property.

We actually charge fees on state property, which is very interesting to me.

And so those all fall under non-residential, and then residential is obviously housing.

So we have a fee for single family houses, and we also have a fee for multifamily houses, which those are both flat fees.

And that fee is one equivalent residential unit is feed uh is charged 3453 at the moment, and then a multifamily uh property is charged half of that.

Uh next slide.

Um hold on.

And uh go back to the last you want to talk about the tiers.

So can you remind me?

I last year we made, I think we made some changes to the non-residential, right?

We we created more tiers.

No, I I'll get to the two the changes, but we we have this this is just what we are right now, and it hasn't changed yet.

Okay, so pointing out for my colleagues.

Um you look at the residential fee, you'll see there's just a flat fee for residential single family and then one for multifamily.

So there's a lot in between, as well as the looking at the non-residential tier four.

There's a lot of room, and so I think Ann will get into some of the proposals to change it to kind of get more nuanced, but also kind of equity as far as make sure people are only getting charged for what they have on their property.

Because in residential single family, you can have like she'll get into like a home with a thousand square feet of um perfect service, you know, getting charged the same as somebody with 10,000.

So it's something we're looking to change.

So there are lots of different structures out there that different jurisdictions use, and and this is not an uncommon one, um, but this is our current structure, and we'll talk more about possibilities for for changing that for both the fees in different ways.

So they're structured differently now, so they might be structured the same, or they might be structured differently.

We'll talk about it.

Uh next slide.

Um just to ground um our fees into uh sort of a benchmark of of local local fees.

Um this shows our fee from last year from fiscal from fiscal year 26 proposed.

Um, and then if we change the structure, which we'll get into, um, so two different approaches, but in either case, um it's it's showing that Annapolis is tends to be falling kind of somewhere in the middle.

Um it's not it's not the most expensive fee out there, but it's also not uh not the least expensive in the in the region.

And next slide, um that's the non-residential one, and then the residential one is also towards the middle, but a little bit higher compared to our regional.

If you go back a second to the last yes, because I mean I think it's so it's important to point out that we're currently we're second from the bottom, right?

So we're of this group that we randomly picked, but yeah.

And this is just for non-residential.

But so the two proposals, the first proposal would bring us to 170, next one would bring us up towards higher to the top.

But so just think it's important to keep that in mind for future conversation as far as where we currently are and where we may go.

Sorry.

Yes, uh, next slide, and then probably next slide.

And then just looking at the two different uh types of fees, uh, the residential and non-residential and their contribution to our um watershed restoration fund.

Uh this is looking at um over three years' time, but also just um you can see that the the residential fee makes up um a larger percentage of of the whole of the revenue and will continue to do so um even if we change the structure, which is uh illustrated in the third chart.

Next slide.

But does this does that reflect the potential changes to the residential structure?

No, that was only the non-residential.

Do you have a similar slide showing no that analysis has not been done?

Not been completed yet.

Is that something that um tech is gonna work on?

Let's talk about it.

Okay.

Okay, so I I just started with the non-residential because that's what we've done already, and it's fully analyzed, and I just want to start there as a grounding point, and then we'll move on to residential if that's okay.

Um yeah, so last year we did an analysis of switching the structure the fee structure for non-residential properties from that tiered structure, so which is basically small, medium large, extra large, um, to an ERU-based, and I'm I'm going to explain the acronym again, an ERU-based measured impervious area approach.

So, what that would mean is instead of just charging uh four different levels of fees, um, we would look at the actual site, the actual impervious area that is on that site, and as uh and establish a base ERU fee, the equivalent residential unit.

Um so in our case, we've established that that's 2100 square feet.

Um we would give that a base rate, and then if your site was one ERU, you would get charged that base rate.

If your site was two ERUs, you would get charged twice that base rate.

Next next slide.

So I think the important thing on that one to look at would so there would be a reduction for the folks in tier one, so the smaller house.

I have some examples that we can look at.

Yeah, so the proposal is to just to make that change.

Um, and the idea, the goals of that change would be to more accurate accurately reflect the existing impervious conditions and stormwater practices on a particular site.

Um, to have a more equitable billing approach, and this is the caveat that we'll come to in a second, um, and also to raise awareness and incentivize stormwater management by large property owners because the larger the property the large or the more impervious area on the property um the greater contribution it's making to the pollutants.

Um so the caveat there is that the impact on the non-residential rate payers will vary depending on where they fall in that tier system right now.

Um so some rates will increase, some ratepayers will have increased fees, some ratepayers will have decreased fees because if they're at the top of a range right now, they're paying less than they technically should be.

If they're at the bottom of the range, they're paying more, so it will kind of wash out in a certain way.

But the big change is that the cap on the tier four on the extra large uh category will go away, and they will they will be we will be able to charge them for however many ERUs they have.

Next slide.

Yeah, and just again reiterate that point that the importance is like think of large properties, like just a well, they all pick on my own word, the giant shopping center, really large parking lot, which is probably yeah, something like probably but that'll allow us to actually get some more money from them and give them more of an incentive to make changes, although they are making changes right now as you're they are aware.

They are, and they are planning to get a credit on that.

Okay, so yeah, so here's an example of this.

So if if you have an existing property that has um 21,000 square feet of impervious area in its in our current structure, our current non-residential structure that would fall in the second tier of billing.

Um so their quarterly rate is 170.86 cents.

Um, so and as I mentioned, properties towards the top of the tier range like this one are are currently paying less than their actual contribution to the system.

Next slide.

If we change the structure to ERU based, meaning we're going to charge them for the measured impervious area, um, sort of rounded.

Um then that 21,000 square feet equals 10 ERUs equivalent residential units, that 2100 square feet is equivalent residential units.

Then we can charge them for the full 10 ERUs.

So if we go back to that base rate for the ERU, that means their quarterly charge would increase to 345.30 cents.

Um so property owners with more impervious cover will pay more to fund the stormwater system.

And we and that wouldn't be limited by the tiers or the caps.

Next slide.

So we looked at this last year to understand what the impact would be to all of our non-residential rate pairs.

And this is shows the spread of the impact.

Um and the the property we were just looking at, um, they were increasing by um 200-ish dollars um per quarter.

Um so they they would fall in that big bar there, uh, the the 551 bar.

So the the majority of property owners um that would have an increase would have an increase of zero to two hundred dollars um uh quarterly quarterly fee.

Uh and then a certain number of under 90 uh would actually see their bills reduced because they are at probably at the bottom of their rate their tier range right now.

So they are in theory overpaying at the moment.

Um and then there's a small number of properties that would see substantial increases, and essentially those small numbers of properties reflect very large the extra large property owners that it would no longer be limited by the cap.

Um next slide.

And this is a terrifying slide uh illustrating the uh impacts by property use and all of a restrange use codes.

Um and I think uh Alderman Savage mentioned church.

Um so here we're actually showing that the wash, um some churches will have see big increases, other churches will see small increases in the overall net is um there will be a slight reduction for all churches, but when you talk about a specific church, that impact could be radically different.

That's just the average.

Um the biggest increase is we see in um kind of more standard office and commercial spaces with presumably large parking parking lots and also um government facilities.

Yeah, that's uh the largest most significant change are other business.

So you said that's yeah, probably the shopping centers and things like that.

Um next slide.

Uh well, I if we could pause here a minute because we're running out of time.

Okay.

And what I'm thinking is it's kind of about halfway looking at the slides.

I'm thinking I'm gonna stop it here because I still want to hear from W City Manager and try to get everybody out by five.

So if you could come back, plan on joining us next month, that'd be great.

We can pick up the residential fee changes, jump into the credit program, and then um you also had um some of your other recommendations, some of the alternative compliance.

So, yeah, there's a just because I don't as much as I want to jump into this.

Um it's probably gonna take another 45 minutes, I guess.

45 minutes.

Not your fault, my I know I have a ton of questions too.

So again, let's just stop there.

Um, thank you so much.

Excellent presentation.

Um lot of information in here.

Uh, let me think, see if there's anything I need to leave you with for follow-up.

Um so so I guess you have a couple questions before we do go.

Um Stantec, when can we because again, I think the last report I have have is from let me check.

I think it's from fiscal year 24 doesn't make sense.

25.

I believe I just checked I sent you the one that was dated June 15, 2025.

You did so you should have that one, and I it should be.

I was having trouble with accessibility getting it on our website, but I just got the accessible format, so it should be online tomorrow.

So I'll make sure you get those links.

If you could send that to Ms.

Jackson, okay, because then I'd like to add that to the agenda.

That'll remind us, me, when I see the agenda for next month to review that.

Sure.

Absolutely.

I think I also, yeah, so some of the things, just as a preview, I want to dig into a couple of the different altern uh scenarios that you're proposing.

I'm assuming you're looking for some feedback from committee as far as going ERE model based tier for residential.

Um yeah, I guess I'll just leave it there.

I is there anything else you want to say before we Yeah, I guess I'll just just try to close that out that section and say so for the residents for the non-residential change structure changes.

We had proposed that last year, um, it was well received.

The next steps for that uh were laid out, and we have been working through them.

Really, the biggest next step is to introduce it as an amendment um to move it forward.

Okay, yeah, thank you.

Very important point.

Okay, so you you are ready to do that if you yeah, so we are currently running a pilot program with the Heritage Baptist Church, which Brian mentioned earlier, um, and working through the kinks a little bit, but I I think that's you know that's very helpful for us.

And so we um if if it does move forward as an amendment, then we we need to work through the timing and and work coordinate it with billing and the website updates and all those things, but we we'd be ready to do that for the residential change.

That is not something that has been properly analyzed or understood uh outreach.

There's there are a whole lot more parts.

Um there's 800 uh non-residential properties, there are over 10,000 residential properties, um, so the scale of it is just radically different and and requires much more conversation.

Yeah, no, and understandable.

I think one of the important points to uh of analysis that I'd like to see would be so you have the slides showing how the increase how the change to the new model for non-residential is gonna help us as far as bringing in more money for these uh for the projects and everything.

Um just thinking out loud.

I guess uh for Stan Tech, as again they typically present forecasts moving forward as far as how it's gonna impact our ability to get bond funding for projects and uh you know, in the past they've shown a deficit if we don't increase our fee.

Um so at some point I'd like to see that comparison of with this change.

How is this change going to help us as far as the long-term projections for the health of the fund?

Yeah, so I bottom line at this point we haven't had Stan Tech do that analysis because Stan Tech does not recommend this this change.

Um we don't believe that the revenue increase will um will balance out the ICPEXRA administrative burden of the non-residential oh for the residential.

For the non-residential, we have that already analyzed, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, thank you.

All right, Deputy City Manager.

Do you have any particular questions?

Have different questions.

Do you have any particular questions?

Oh let me bring up your list.

Because there's a couple of things that are not in this very comprehensive report, which both of you obviously can read later, and Alderman Huntley, but I wanted to bring up a couple of things that are not here.

And one being um with the rising electrical um rates.

Oh, yeah, you know, we have a lot of uh concern among the residents about that, and this was brought up at the mayor's last town meeting that you attended in your ward.

And I did mention that this is something the city I we've had on our list to address with BGE of any ways we can get some relief for our neighbors, and but also in the meantime, I have tasked one of our environmental program managers with um a web page that addresses um residential home efficiency and the programs that are available through BGE, the no cost and low cost energy audits and other services through the Empower Maryland program.

Um we need to get those up front and center.

They're working on that right now, but also today, the subject of the Maryland Cities and Counties for Climate Action Group that I participated in, our topic was energy and energy efficiency, and I asked that group to highlight for me especially.

Um, what do they offer?

You know, what do they pay for as a city that goes outside of empower?

And I I learned quite a lot today and have lots of ideas to bring back to staff and get going.

Um course, some of these are larger jurisdictions with more funding.

I mean, Montgomery County has a position for almost everything, and they have someone dedicated just to this.

And they have a team actually dedicated to providing rebates and incentives and cost-free um services to their residents.

And they do a lot of education around it too.

They even have BGE do tabling events as much as possible to get the things at BGE, the services they offer out to the public.

One lesson learned from that presentation today was if community solar someone knocks on your door and they say, Well, this is free, you know, you can do this, people don't tend to trust that.

You know, this is too good to be true.

It's a business that's gonna get you, you know, somewhere along the line.

But if this of a city staff person does the same kind of door knocking or tabling event and is just talking about even BGE incentives, it comes across as much more trustworthy, incredible that the city is telling us this is something we should do.

But at the same time, there should be city programs and incentives.

Now you can look for grant funding.

Um sometimes these types of programs that are ongoing or tough to fund with grants, you can get some startup money.

But you know, Montgomery County has $4,000 out of its own budget dedicated to just these types of services.

And there's simple things we can you know start out doing, such as um re bulb returns, like bulb event returns, you can do them at libraries, you can do them in bars.

They have this like um brew crawl, they call it.

You know, it sounds great, sounds fun.

But when you get there, there's a tabling event, there's you can return your incandescent bulbs and get maybe coupons from local hardware stores for discounts for LEDs.

They do partner quite a bit with their local hardware stores.

They I got all sorts of ideas for doing this, but my could my staff's at capacity right now, and so I I mean I was thinking along the lines of I might have to ask for an enhancement in this budget for you know, even a contract position to get this up and started.

Um part of it depends on how much outside of resilience work I will continue to do.

Um doing quite a bit of city manager outside of resilience work right now.

So I'm not very available to my staff and um not working as closely with them as I would like.

So we might be looking at some enhancement funds for the thing.

This is really important, you know, to our residents, and rates are only climbing.

It's not just low-income people either, and that's what all the other jurisdictions are seeing as well.

There um there's something like a statistic about people spending more than 15% of their income on um electricity, and that's like a tipping point for when it gets really bad for people, and that's across all incomes.

So this is something we're spending some time on right now looking at.

And you know, any feedback from this committee or council in general about you know, do you would you like us to focus on this more?

You know, your ideas um will be appreciated.

But it's been on our list and it's just come to a head now with this very cold winter and rates climbing.

And one of the things it's certainly not going to get better anytime.

No, and it's soon, so we probably should start thinking about I guess adding this capacity.

If you have any other examples, yeah, there and I have other examples of ways we can do this.

You know, they said the the entry point with people is light bulbs, you know.

That's that's how you get their attention, and then you get them involved with solar and and other things like that.

But Siddler, if um trying to remember when I lived when I lived in an apartment.

I guess the the individual units do pay their own electricity, right?

The individual apartment owner.

I believe so.

Most some of the most of them do.

I mean, some apartments are rented with utilities, but that's not the typical housing authority properties.

Do you know all the people living in housing authority do they pay their own electricity?

Or is that yeah?

Yeah.

So um that wasn't paying their own electricity was wool-born estates before it became Willborn.

So I don't know if they have to do.

Um with uh Wolfedum didn't have, but I think they do now, I'm not sure.

Yeah, because if anything, we should really target those communities and see if BG has money, but I get like you need staff to do it.

Right.

We will that there's so much exploring to do with other jurisdictions on what they're providing their citizens and what sort of rebates they're providing to them.

Um there's some tax incentives, and if you do certain things, you get you know, uh credit on your taxes or rebate from the city or county, and they've often they've taken on a lot of the rebates where the city just pays them and then you know seeks the rebate elsewhere, so it's really easy for residents.

Um but lots of great ideas around that to ease the burden on our residents and on businesses.

That's another focus.

Some of the jurisdictions are looking at how to get businesses to engage more in energy efficiency.

Um and one other thing I want to mention that's not in this report under um electric vehicles is that um BG ⁇ in partnership, but I'm going to get the regulatory agency wrong, so I'm not going to say it.

Um offered a program um where if you pay $2,500 into the program as your jurisdiction, you can get a very detailed inventory and plan for your EV replacement for your fleet.

And we've done some cursory investigations and some planning with um central purchasing around EV and Ashley Diaz, our program environmental program manager is working closely with Matt Flinner and the fleet manager on this um incentive for EV replacement in the city, um EV purchases and vehicle replacement with EVs, that is.

Um, but this provides a much deeper dive, a very detailed inventory about what you should buy, when you should buy it, to get to your goals and savings, etc.

Um, this is worth uh has a value of $25,000 on it.

This was something I considered asking for an enhancement a couple of years ago um to do, but this is for $2,500 we put in, we get this back.

So Central Services is provided at $2,500 to go forward with this, which should be our inventory should be completed by April or May.

And then once you purchase one EV, which we already do every year, you can get that $2,500 back.

So this is basically no cost for us as a city to get a very detailed inventory and plan forward.

And then central purchasing can the fleet manager can bring that before council as this is what we need to do every year to get to net zero emissions in our fleet, and this is what it will cost us.

So it'll be very clear for council to consider.

And one other item that's not on here because I've been working with ICMA on this this week.

Um ICMA um through the department US Department of State sponsors um about 50 or 60 um professionals from the Southeast Asia between the ages of 25 to um 35 for um on projects that they're interested in their countries and to go forward with in their countries once they learn some things from us.

Um so they approached me about um a Malaysian uh man who um is a fellow with it's called the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative, UCLI.

And um that he has a business he started around marine plastics, marine debris and plastics, and is interested in doing something around that.

I said, Well, we're perfect, you know.

I've had plastic boot wrap on my radar for a couple of years.

I spoke with an Apple Screen about a potential project.

DNR is very focused on marine plastic marine debris, and then um the person of my CMA mentioned Surf Rider to me, um, which I am I have a close working relationship and personal relationship with SurfRider.

Um so I said, Well, I could do something interesting that involves resilience and sustainability, our department of public works, which is our recycling department, DNR and Surfrider as an experience, and perhaps this person who is already in this business could come up with a um action plan for us, a business plan around how we can encourage or require recycling of boat wrap in particular.

So that person would I'm working on you know, jumping through the hoops with the State Department right now, getting everything signed, but they would join us on March 6th and be with us for six weeks.

And this may be one of the last programs that the State Department is going to offer for this group.

Their funding has been, it was paused.

They did not have a program last year, and then it's been you know, they've been told it may not continue after 2026.

So we're looking forward.

His name is Z.

Um, it's his nickname ZHI.

Um, I don't have his last name with me right now, but I'll be introducing him probably to you soon.

So um any questions on any of these initiatives.

Um not necessarily on those, but some of the other stuff.

Um City Doc.

Um I did mention to um Ms.

Jackson mentioned to public works director.

I'd like to get an update to this committee from I think it's mostly director Vogel.

Um but just to get an update on the the seawall the barrier, the flood barrier.

Uh I know that may have well it's it's changed from what I originally thought it was gonna be as far as the self-deployable, now it's deployable.

And I just want to get an idea of what the technology is, if is it finalized, uh what's the cost difference, why we made the shift.

Um, but I'm also concerned about the labor.

Where are we gonna store these pieces of um barrier?

I know they only have to be he's director saying they may only need to be installed once every five, ten years before a major storm just wondering if some of that modeling's been done, but if even so we still have to have a place to install it.

We have to make sure staff is trained and able to do it.

Um are they gonna practice?

Um how long does it take to install?

I mean, when I looked at the details he sent, it looked like um it requires some manual besides manual install, man.

You have to actually have to drill these bolts in every time.

So anyway, those kind of things.

Um little concerned about it because it just opens up to more human error.

Okay.

So would you like director Vogel at the March meeting?

Yeah.

You've already asked for um the stormwater engineers to come back to finish their presentation.

Yeah, I mean, I guess um, I mean, or April would be fine too, but the thing is with the project, the project's actually active, and um I don't want to miss an opportunity to um not that it's necessarily needed, I don't know, but if we ever do need a course correction, I want to make sure we have time to do that.

I'll check with Director Vogel for the first time.

I just don't know enough yet to determine if if it needs a course correction or not.

I just it's new information to me.

Okay, I'll check with them for March and April.

Thank you.

And then greenhouse gas.

Yeah, we talked about this, but just for the committee and public sake.

Um I guess would you want to plan on maybe April presenting on that?

So the greenhouse gas inventory for the city facilities and the community has already been updated.

I need to review it for before it can be published.

Okay.

Um so we're taking that information and it rolls into the climate climate action plan, which the tasks um targets for the climate action plan and the recommended actions uh have been drafted, and I need to look at them before they can move forward again with it.

There will be a draft plan out hopefully by the end of February that we can publish and get feedback on.

The plan is to have the CAP roll out in April.

Um that was our our target was Earth Month.

Um, I guess so we may want to do a presentation on that in March.

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And for the EV discussion, I think I think maybe you and I could just meet offline to chat about that for the sake of time.

Okay.

Um I still need to review the materials that we've the city has.

But um, I just need to figure out if we want to propose code changes for now goal, and then figure out if there's anything we need to do with this upcoming budget.

And then another topic, AMRI.

Could we get the top?

I noticed in here you said there's like a they did come up with the top 10 list.

I don't know if we need a meeting on this yet, but could you s have them send us the if they have a map or something showing the top 10?

And then it's top 10 list of uh potential flood mitigation projects, right?

Right in Eastport, I think.

Well, that general e-sport words.

It's it's for the Eastport Peninsula.

So it goes beyond just what we consider Eastport, that that whole peninsula.

I'm working with Cynthia here on legislation waste reduction legislation that came from um part of it came from um surf riders.

Okay.

And it's to do three things.

One would be um one would be what they wanted is to eliminate the plastic utensils and things that are automatically included in takeout.

I'm free.

I forget what they're calling that off the top of my head.

Uh some other jurisdictions have you know adopted bans on that kind of thing.

Second thing would be which I want to do is get some kind of incentive, not incentive, some kind of prohibition in place on restaurants so they can't use disposable kitchenware for sit-down meals and just to try to get them, maybe have it phase in over a couple years so they can get to you know, I know they'd probably have to install dishwashing equipment, but um, and then the third thing is enhancing our commercial recycling program.

I need to do some background research on that because I know we used to have a program for Main Street, I think, where businesses could sign on.

I don't know what happened to that, if we still have it or not.

Um I know it's an added cost for businesses to have recycling, but it just um I don't know.

I just things I'm thinking about for legislation.

Okay.

All right, you noted all of those.

Um I'll give I'll certainly give you a draft once I okay.

I think Cynthia's sent me one, but I haven't had a chance to look at it.

So, you know, that's I have a long report I put in there on what's going on throughout the city.

Um, some of these projects, a lot of most of the projects are ones that are spearheaded or led by resilience and sustainability staff, but some we participate in, especially we participate quite a bit with public works and planning and zoning, but transportation as well now in recreation and parks, kind of everywhere in Harbor Mazda, but um some of them we lead and we initiate, some we participate in, some we we stay abreast of and support as needed.

Um Ashley Diaz has jumped in with um events and outreach um to help support public works, especially now.

We're missing an engineer in public works that um was responsible for our recycling program.

So hopefully someone will be hired soon.

Keep that in mind when you put in your legislation.

We don't have anyone, you know.

We had Tracy Brown is assigned to it right now, but that is not her primary focus.

Um so any time you have questions on any of these topics or you want to discuss something of concern to you, just reach out to me or one of my staff.

All right, is there anything else before we wrap up?

No.

All right, anything else go to the order?

No.

All right.

Um is there a motion to adjourn?

Yes.

All right, I'll I'll second that.

Uh those in favor of adjourney, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye, motion carries meetings adjourned.

Thank you.