Good afternoon.

It's twelve thirty five.

I'm gonna call our infrastructure and growth committee meeting to order.

Thank you.

All right, all in favor.

Great.

Motion passes.

We have three briefings.

We're going to start with the update on Text.

Master Plan and Kelly Porter is here and John Corday.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Not quite evening yet.

I have John Corderi here with the TechSoup Fort Work District to provide you all an update on the Fort Worth District Master Plan.

And just correct me for wrong, I believe the mayor is the chair of the stakeholder, one of the big stakeholder groups.

The steering committee.

And so TPW's also been serving as staff on this process over the last about 18 months or so.

So have John here to talk about those efforts, and then I'll lend in some things from our master's distribution.

Thank you, Kelly.

Good afternoon again.

I'm John Quartery, the deputy district engineer for the Techstone Fort Worth District.

Thank you for the invitation to come speak to you today, as Kelly said to give you an update on our transportation master plan.

First, just a little bit about uh Tech stop Fort Worth district.

Well, we cover the nine counties and ninety-one cities on kind of the western side of the Metroplex, if you will.

Uh, we're the third largest metro uh district in the state.

Uh we have about nine percent of the daily miles traveled uh in the state.

Uh about 90 a little under 9200 miles of uh on system roadways that we're responsible for, and a little over 4,000 bridges in those nine counties.

So, why a master plan for transportation in the Fort Worth district?

We are all experiencing growth and the pressures that it puts on our transportation system with uh that growth just projected to continue over the foreseeable future.

So we really needed a strategy of how are we going to invest in that transportation system to uh provide the best reliability connectivity and the safe transportation system?

So we have started what is the first in the state of a district doing a master plan on that district.

Uh you may have seen other corridors statewide, 35 US 287, US 377, those were all statewide corridors.

This is a plan just for the nine county Fort Worth district.

So we wanted it to be very data-driven.

Um so we have done a lot of data analysis and collection from demographics to freight to safety, uh, economic development.

Um, we have gathered as much data and any type of subject that we could think of to help guide those decisions.

Here's just some examples of uh that data that we've collected.

I'm not gonna go into the details of the slides, uh, but just looking at the population increase uh projections, uh the employment here in the district, uh median household income.

Usually that's a direct correlation to a higher income means more cars, more cars on the roadway puts more pressure on that transportation system, gross domestic product.

What are the industries that are driving our economy in this Fort Worth district?

We've done a lot of analysis on freight.

What are those big trucks doing?

Are they just passing through?

Are they going from uh manufacturing here in the Metroplex to the other side of the Metroplex?

What are those uh again pressures that freight is putting on our transportation system?

We've done a lot of analysis on origin destination.

Um, where folks coming in the mornings, where are they going to work, and what it's happening during the day.

Here's just an example of um the increase from 2019 to 2023.

You can see the the colors are starting to get darker in that interior core, but what you can really notice too is how it is spreading out west and north and south.

Those people in the outer counties are all coming in to Terrant County for whatever reason, employment and putting pressures on those systems in the in the in Tarrant County.

So we've done a lot of predictive analysis as well.

So we've taken that data and we've done a lot of what if scenarios.

So here's just an example of one of those what if scenarios right now we we say we have about 700 miles of congested roadways in the district.

And if we don't do anything, what does that look like in 2050?

That increases the almost 4,000 miles of congested roadways.

So that's again another reason of why we need an investment strategy of where we're gonna work on our transportation system.

So what are we doing right now?

We currently have about 207 projects under construction, worth about three billion dollars.

And then our current unified transportation program, which is a 10-year program.

We have 26 fully funded projects that are the major mobility type projects.

This is not every single construction project, but really the big mobility projects.

And also in that 10-year plan, and this is where the challenge comes in.

We have another 22 projects that are partially funded with about 1.8 billion dollars, but leaving a gap of another almost another billion dollars.

You can see these needs are growing for what we need to invest in our transportation system for safety and reliability and mobility.

And then the bigger challenge in front of us is we are working right now on another 50 plus projects in the district, and that funding gap is approaching 18 billion dollars at current cost.

So we've got a very big challenge about how do we prioritize which of those uh improvements need to go in what order and what are the scope of those projects.

So, we started the master transportation plan.

And again, as Kelly mentioned, we were very honored to have Mayor Parker chair that committee of nine county judges and other stakeholders that are taking this data and making decisions and helping us prioritize those strategies, and that steering committee has the help of two working committee committees.

One is just looking at the five urban counties, and then another working committee is looking at the four rural counties.

We have a very mix here in the district.

We go from Terrant County and we go all the way out to Jack, a very rural, different type of nature and different types of needs, but it is within the district that we need to account for their needs as well.

So those working groups and that steering committee have been working very hard to take this data and try to prioritize corridors that we're not getting granular about well, this roadway needs a right turn lane or or this signal needs to be adjusted.

It's really looking at the corridors that are needed for mobility and safety.

We've done in-person meetings, we've done virtual meetings, we've even had focus groups.

We've met with just the city managers within the district and gotten their input.

We worked with economic development, we worked with the universities and educational systems.

Where are they growing?

Where do they see the growth?

And we worked with uh the medical industry as well.

I think one of the um interesting facts is we heard is that uh just about all the hospitals have major expansion plans, which is gonna put pressure on 30 and 35, and we were not aware of those plans.

From the medical industry we're not really engaged with, but it that was an example of good input that we got from having a wide variety of stakeholders to understand not just um needs and an increase of traffic, but what's coming in the future that we don't know about, and we also did a public survey, and we got almost 3,000 comments of of the public through our website and where to go and what they are seeing and experiencing as well.

So, where are we at?

Uh, we've been at this for about a year.

Um, we've done the existing and future conditions um data gathering that I mentioned, we've done the needs analysis, and we're just now finishing up the prioritization of the corridors.

The working groups and the steering committees are doing their final decisions, and we've started on the final draft.

So we are working on that final draft of that plan this summer and hope to release it here in the fall.

So, that's a quick summary of our master transportation plan, and we are very excited about this to help us guide our decision making and how we are gonna improve our transportation system.

So, thank you again for your invitation, be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, John.

Anyone have questions?

Councilman Crane.

Cool.

Uh hey John, thanks for being here.

Appreciate it.

Worked a lot together over the years.

I want to refer back to slide eight.

I could flip back.

Just the growth that you see there in four years and some of the parts of Fort Worth.

I'll speak specifically to District Three, the portion that's just outside 820, between 20 and 30.

Um, and I think staff knows where I'm going with this already.

The 2871 corridor, where we expect a lot of growth.

There's a data center that's going on that corner.

A Walmart distribution center, there are railroad tracks.

Ventana is starting phase eight, nine, and ten of their development, and then that will bleed over into the Veal Ranch, full development.

There's some other infrastructure uh major investments possibly happening in that area.

So there's a lot of of uh tension in that area.

Um Kelly's getting me numbers on what we the gap is of that 2871 expansion and then a bridge over the railroad tracks.

I just want to put it on your radar because I don't think with the growth you saw in four years here, we talk about maybe trying to make up some of that in a 2030 bond, mean means no shovels turning until 2032-2033.

That uh that the growth that we already see there is gonna be able to be handled at this point.

So I want to put it back on your radar because I think we've got to figure out a creative solution in the funding of what that looks like just with all that growth in that corridor.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it is absolutely on our radar.

In fact, we are considering um possibly applying for some of the federal grants for railroad uh bridge crossing, see if we can be competitive on the national level for that.

Trying to break out a specific project and take it in bytes.

Yeah, sure.

And and we did that to a certain extent with that project, it went all the way from 30 down to 377.

We've split that into two projects, so it's now 20 to uh 377, which is really the crux of where that growth is gonna happen in that corridor over the next number of years.

But anything we can do to get creative grants, other things we need to be doing.

Yeah, and the thing that helps too is that we do have that schematically and environmentally approved.

So we're we're ready to go to buy right away and just need the money.

Yeah, thank you.

Hey, Councilman Blaylock.

Thank you for being here today in this presentation.

Uh, I just want to highlight or emphasize the northwest corner of Terrant County, where we've been uh had plans for a long time on 287 and 156.

Just wanna see those plans driven to completion and those roads get done.

Um we're already massively red and growth is continuing.

It's just gonna get worse until it gets better.

Yes, sir.

I can tell you that yeah, uh 287, that northwest corridor is absolutely at the top of our list.

In fact, um we are working on the construction plans right now.

I think there's about 230 million dollars up in that corridor to finish off the frontage road system on 35 up to Avondale Hazlitz, we're working on that corridor now.

Any additional questions for John?

Okay, thank you so much.

Okay, next up, Kelly Porter, you're up again.

Thank you.

And today, not only do we have uh John from Text.

Jeff Neal, I'm inviting him from COG to answer any other questions you might have on some of the bigger regional projects that we have going on.

All right.

So this is the city's first uh master transportation plan.

Um we've had um plans before we had plans before, like a thoroughfare plan, we've had a transportation plan.

We're able to build off of that and really consolidate things into a uh a master document, a one-stop shop, shall we say.

So I think y'all seen the red maps and the green maps before that show you um the the impact of congestion.

We modeled out 25 years.

We also did some interim modeling that gets us out 10 years, and you can see that um as John pointed out, we have to do something going forward.

So, what's in the plan?

Um, not only does it take uh the spirit of what was in that master thoroughfare plan and the actual transitation plan, it brings that forward, but also includes additional um analysis as John pointed out with freight, um also considering things that the comp plan team would be looking in with walkability, and then we're also looking a lot at technology as part of it, and um also breaks out this uh build-out network into an actual capital program.

And as you heard John talk about uh readiness, that's really what this plan is gonna help TPW and the city do as a whole is get projects ready.

Um, we've identified 72 uh roadway connections, new ones that were uh we carried over the existing master thoroughfare plan, did some additional updates to it, um included another 72 priority connections in that.

We've broken out to a 10-year investment cycle, which is really exciting.

We've been able to get those uh projects or many of those projects forward into schematic design, and then um we also want to ensure that as part of this plan that we're aligning with our different partners so we can leverage funding because that's becoming more and more precious as we go forward, and we've also tied projects and project readiness back to funding cycles, the state and federal level.

So we've been working on this for about uh two years now.

Um we plan on bringing it for adoption to council in June.

On our website, we currently have a state of the system report, a state of safety report.

Um this council adopted the safety action component of the plan in September of 2025.

So one thing we heard from the public was safety was incredibly important.

Um we've uh also uh plan on going to plan commission in uh May to get the final recommendation on the plan, but it includes several elements in addition to looking at the gaps in the network and the existing data, the safety action plan as well as the capital program.

We did a lot of stakeholder outreach.

Um we tried to piggyback on as many different efforts that were going on to the city as as possible, whether it was parks doing their their work or our capital team going out and doing some of their meetings or whatnot, but we ended up doing 33 public meetings.

Um we were in some of y'all's council districts.

We were in everybody's council district at least three times, um, sometimes four or five times.

I think district 10, we were out there at least five times.

Um, and then we did a lot of got a lot of stakeholder comments and over 1100 survey responses, and so we've been able to share those with other departments as well as other entities in the region.

We also had uh technical committees that shape the plan.

So that includes a technical advisory committee that was made up of uh Text Dot, the airport, uh Jeff Neal here from NCD Cog was on there, uh BNSF representing the railroads, uh Trinity Metro and Hillwood and all sorts of folks.

We did a nine-member uh community engagement committee that each council district appointed somebody to, and then we also had an interpartmental committee that was pretty much made of every department.

I like to throw out that even municipal court was involved in the planning work because we had to talk about speeds and safe speeds.

So the plan has six goals.

So safety is our number one goal that was vetted through the public.

That's why you have a safety action plan that was adopted as part of the plan as the first step last September.

People really wanted us to look at prioritizing maintaining our system as part of the and recapitalization of the system.

Um so fix it first was our second goal, and then there's several other goals associated with the plan from making sure the system is comfortable to use.

Um we looked at economic development, that's where really a lot of our freight component came in.

And then technology is already being implemented, but we looked at technology as a major way to be able to expand capacity through the system to better operate the existing network we have.

It's lower cost, high benefit, and there's a lot of good things that we're gonna start to be implementing.

So before, you know, we had separate planning documents in transportation, uh, an active transportation plan and a master thoroughfare plan.

What this does is unifies those documents into uh one centralized component, and it also includes other elements such as freight, transit, um technology, deep dive into railroads and stuff.

So it's a much more comprehensive one-stop shop for everyone.

We also tied all the projects back to uh what we're calling fiscal constraint.

And for those of you on the COG board, you know, we have to basically put any plan that we can't demonstrate we can afford.

Everything's based on financial realities in this document.

Um, and TPW worked very closely.

We work very closely with the lab and the budget office and the finance group to get there.

So uh right now we're under the roadways, we're under a master thoroughfare plan.

It has a street typology system that's been used.

Um it didn't include collectors through some of our outreach, well, a lot of our outreach and working with the development community, um, our other partners, and even our internal staff that deliver the project, we've gone back to a functional classification system because it's much more common in how folks talk about a roadway network, minor arterial, minor collector, minor arterial.

Um, and it also allows us to do our work.

Everything that we do in our department, we have to end up doing equivalency back-to-functional class in some way.

So we went back to that, but we did include some of the spirit of land use in here, and I'll talk about that in a minute to make sure we didn't lose some of those things from the last plan.

We also went from 80 cross sections down to 21.

So it's simpler for folks to be able to use and going forward, and we were also able to do a deeper dive into operations.

So, how the plan structured, how the network is.

Quick question on the classifications.

Does that align with the terminology that we're using and the plan?

Does that align with state and federal grants and more common language used across the board?

Yes.

Anything we do with speeds, anything we do with funding, it's type out to functional class.

Our other cities around us and counties use functional class.

So it's it's the standard.

Thank you.

So how the network that I just showed you, our thoroughfare network or plan is now becoming the Mr.

N, the master roadway network.

So everybody just say master roadway network with me.

One, two, three, master roadway network.

Okay.

That's what we're going to.

That's divided into two different components.

One is an overall component that TPW is going to use for our programming and working with Text Dot or whatnot.

That's the big master railway network.

For Jennifer Roberts and development services team and Canon, they're going to use the Master Roadway CR, which is just city roads.

So it's the things we can exact on the new ampact fees on.

And then we have a bunch of overlays that go along with those that help us build and design things.

So the overlays for land use context, it's pretty straightforward.

There's a set of rules that will apply to areas that are zoned for compact development, which allows for certain treatments with sidewalks and other things with that.

And then for freight priority areas, it's the lanes may be wider in those industrial areas.

They may actually have a our specs for the concrete's going to be deeper, so they're more durable.

That's kind of the long and short of it.

So the freight priority areas, it's really centered around those areas that are heavy in freight, both on trips and things identified through the future land use or whatnot.

Those areas are designated within the freight, the freight zones.

But this just gives you an idea of where those are.

Some of them are also providing auxiliary routes that freights are already using, like north of the loop, a lot of freight's using Beach Street or whatnot.

And so it's just acknowledging that we probably want to build that to a freight standard because it's going to supplement I 35 to some degree.

We have to build it right the first time, then later.

We also focus in on that freight network where we want to prioritize great separated railroad crossings and other features along those.

This is the compact development area map that I kind of talked about there.

That's where through certain uh codifying of the council through zoning or through an urban village, there's certain rules that would apply to those areas, but we also want to make sure that whatever we're going to build in those areas is going to be the appropriate thing to build, and then it's not going to flip over to industrial.

So we worked with the uh the zoning team and the planning office to make sure we were tightening that up.

Um, we had some issues with that where something may have been zoned as a neighborhood collector or uh shown as in the current plan's neighbor connector and end up being having industrial on it.

We want to avoid stuff like that.

So we've tightened that up.

And then we're going from an actor transportation network to now what we're going to call the ATM.

So you have a Mr.

N and an ATN ATM now, and that's basically us taking what was in our existing actor transportation plan, which is pedestrian, bicycle, sidewalks, and also wrapping in a bit more technology into it because you're going to start having scooters and the little delivery robots using these facilities, and so we want to think of it much more broadly in that sense.

And then we've taken a lot from the last plan, done some gaps, and then turned those into actual priorities, which is what's shown on the right.

So as far as our roadway projects and all of our projects, they were kind of identified, but this is mainly roadway.

It was this is how we rank them congestion, safety.

We looked at cost per mile, a lot of the processes that Text Dot uses.

We're using the same, some similar processes.

Basically, what you find in transportation planning, it's based on performance-based planning, and so we have to use that framework when TPW is doing this type of work, it's pretty specialized.

And we've broken that out to a investment program, which gives us a four-year lookout window.

You heard John talk about uh they have a STIP at the state, COG has a tip.

Now we have our own version of the tip.

We'll try to make sure we don't use a whole lot of acronyms.

But yes, now we have a four-year program of projects that are pretty much ready to go, and then a 10-year uh uh window of projects that are um going to be in that pipeline as we're getting those ready for delivery.

And so um we've looked at just on the roadway side, 21 different corridors that are on your bond list, as well as projects that'll be in the 2030 bond that we've already taken through as a department through schematic design.

We've tried to identify funding sources that those would be good for.

We've also developed financial plans for each of those, and then um also develop schedules and other other scoping elements with it.

So those projects are what we like to call shelf stable, to where we didn't overdesign them to where when the funding comes in a couple years, we have to go and reevaluate them.

They're shelf stable.

We can pull those off and then take those through the full 3060 90 process.

And so that's essentially what my team does is make sure that whenever it goes to Patricia, and it's ready for the 3060 90, she knows her scope, she's ready to go.

She might even have some of a right-of-way and environmental clearance, but that's really what uh this plan really focused on.

Was not only that long-range planning, but also that project readiness, which we were able to accomplish.

And then this is the fiscal forecast component.

We basically looked at all of the reasonably expected sources of revenue that we've had in the past as a city to fund transportation improvements, work with our finance team to basically take that out over 10 years to figure out what we'd be able to reasonably afford in the snapshot in time as of today or this period, what we'd be able to afford in the bond cycles to come.

And so we've not only got our been able to, this is just the roadway segment from some of these are 2026 bond projects.

Some of these are also projects that are like um ones we're partnering with folks on.

So I think a really good example since Jeff's here is four-seal drive.

Cox want to be paying for that.

Uh Wichita Street, something the county's paying for, and so we were able to include basically give folks a better understanding of all the investments that you all as council are putting into the city.

Um so that's the 2026, 2030 for roadways.

A lot of these are just carryovers from 26 because we're getting things ready in 26, like taking those through design and right-of-way, and now in 2030, we're actually going to deliver and construct those.

And then we're even looking out to 2034.

So it's quite comprehensive.

Oh, we'll still keep you around.

Um, but we have to, but that's that's how long that that's how long it does take to actually get these projects ready.

That's what we're starting today.

And so, like, number four, we've already started talking to Grand Prairie Terrant County and the airport about maybe taking taking some of these other uh corridors forward, but you can also see as it looks right now, um, you know, we get less for our money as we go forward.

So that's why readiness is so important so we can bring in additional dollars because our bond is really gonna be mostly leverage for these other sources from the county, from the from the federal government, from the state or whatnot.

And then this is just the long-term list.

We did look out long-term.

We'll update this plan every four years is the plan, but essentially, um, one thing we want to make sure is important.

Nobody's trapped to these lists.

You're not necessarily, you don't have to stay on the go exactly from these lists that we just showed you.

Those are gonna be the projects most ready.

But if we get more funds in there can be other projects added, and we have a whole menu of projects for the council to choose from in new bond cycles.

So we have a data-driven approach and going forward.

We've also looked at railroad crossings as part of this and prioritize those.

So I'm working with our legislative team to take some of those forward.

Some of those are already in the hopper for grants.

We still have a build grant up in district 10 on um Heritage Trace Parkway.

Um, the county's putting in bonds ranch road, potentially, and then we've got other partnerships we're working on.

But we've not only got the great separations, we've also got quiet zones, and what we've also established are critical rail crossings, which is where we're gonna look to you'll see a Chrissy grant come through council, which is a federal program, to allow us to use sensors at different crossings.

So right now, as part of World Cup, we're going to do two crossings with our own funds.

We're gonna go after a federal grant to see if we can expand that to some of these other crossings citywide.

And then these are the other project categories that we have in the plan prioritized, and then we've got a bunch of actions and policy recommendations that are part of the planning process, like to keep the plan updated every four years and um to do the project readiness and um different things.

And then going back to John, we've worked very closely with the textile district to come up with kind of a top 10 list, or um, if you grew up watching Letterman, I don't know if they were really prioritized, but it's 10 projects that we think are pretty much priority.

And so 287 um is on that top of that list, 2071 comes second.

This aligns with the district.

Uh Jay had asked us to come up with like a work with the district on partnerships that would maybe help show that the district has more partners that are willing to do these projects, and so this is the proposed list and the years that we would be requesting those funds in if possible.

So I can talk about that list later, but it pretty much aligns a lot of what you'll see in the text.

Master transportation plan.

And we do have one Dallas District project, which is the 1145 interchange because we do go into Denton County.

And then with Training Metro, we are basically trying to focus on 10 projects that we've already got some degree of funding for that we want to be able to continue and get them done.

So this is a list of projects I worked on with Tara Crawford and Annette and others to really kind of figure out what are things we know that we either have ready or that have some type of funding with them that we can go ahead and carry those things forward over the short to uh long term.

And then there's a program at TechStot, and this is the last slide that, or the last two, that also uh you've heard them called turnbacks in the past.

Now it's called surplus right-of-way.

Um the city is mainly focused, TPW is mainly focused on doing these types of uh uh basically taking certain things off system when it really really really really makes sense for both entities.

So I don't know if Mr.

Nettles knew campus part of campus drive is actually on system.

So we're looking to work to take that off system because we maintain it and um and it serves as a city road.

There's some other roads that are like that, or there's little gaps in district five.

There's like uh 303 designation actually extends about a mile east west of 820.

That little piece does initially have to be on system, and so it's little things like that, but long corridors in Fort Worth probably aren't going to be too many that come off system, like North Main Street or uh Texas 199, those still function as major freight corridors.

The amount of assets on those corridors would be very expensive for us to be able to maintain those over time, and so those are things we're gonna leave for the state and the different uh propositions that are through the directly through the state.

We want to keep those eligible for those costs.

Um, also another thing with Fort Worth is since we have so many enclaves like Westworth and uh Edgecliffe within the city, it makes it hard to find contiguous limits.

So, but we do have a list of um of uh of cleanups that we want to do with the turnback or the surplus right-of-way program.

So we've got a whole website, you've heard moving a million.org, and that's still up and running.

We wrapped up public comment on April 9th.

We're gonna be taking things to plan commission, we're making some really great changes to the plan.

Some of this is based on readability.

Like Jess provided lots, a lot of really good comments on how to reorganize the plan.

We've also taken things in from the public comment, and um, we'll be bringing this to council on June 9th.

Well, thank you, Kelly.

I'm first of all, this is very thorough.

Kudos to you and your team and the entire transportation and public works department.

This was a lot of work, and you've y'all have really done a great job.

Thank you.

Any questions?

No, I just wanted to say I tease Mr.

Porter a lot because uh I I want to make sure district five is included, but my head is off to you.

This is stellar stellar stellar work, and I am excited that I believe that we are probably one of the largest urban areas that took this on, and I just think it is such a model for the future.

It was so needed, and so um I probably will be dead, Kelly, before a lot of this happens in District 5, but not in the city of Fort Worth.

So I am extremely grateful to you and your team for the work you did.

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions?

All right, thank you, Kelly.

I want to add one thing, and I'm really appreciative of the team, but I also want to acknowledge that a lot of departments, as Kelly said, have weighed in on this and worked very tirelessly on this plan.

Um so also huge thanks to all of those departments, city attorney's office, development services extensively.

I think you named some of the others fourth lab.

Um, and there's still ongoing collaboration and trying to make sure that this aligns with our comp plan that's coming up for uh the update and some other things.

So it's been a huge undertaking, and I'm really appreciative of everybody's efforts in getting this done.

Thank you, Kelly.

All right, Jennifer Dyke, you're up next with Stormwater Strategic Plan.

Okay.

Can y'all hear me?

Good afternoon.

Um, my name is Jennifer Dyke.

I am the um assistant director of the um stormwater management program and the transportation public works department.

So I'm actually here with Matt Gailia from FreeCyncles.

He'll be giving the second part of this presentation.

Um, and he's with Free Cy Nichols, and they are helping us with the strategic planning efforts.

So we're really wanting to meet with y'all today because we're about to move into the second phase of our strategic planning effort.

And so this is a great time to pause, really make sure y'all are on board with what we're looking at before we move forward with really more detailed work efforts.

So today we're just going to go through a brief kind of reminder of what our strategic planning purpose is, kind of give a very brief history about the program background and where we're at today.

Then Matt will talk about the future program recommendations and next steps, and really that feature program recommendations is really where we want the bulk of your feedback today.

So, what is the purpose of the stormwater strategic plan?

Why are we doing this?

The stormwater programs been around for 20 years now.

And so we're really trying to be strategic and think about those next 20 years.

We want to make sure that our program continues to align with city council strategic goals, that we're representing the interests and the concerns of the public, that we're really optimizing how we use our resources today, and that we're planning for the future and understanding what those future resource needs are based off of the public feedback that we're seeing.

So we really feel like that our program touches on all of council's strategic objectives here on the screen.

So as you think about as you hear the presentation today, be thinking about, you know, is the future program direction that Matt will talk about, is it in alignment with council's strategic direction, look at the proposed service levels.

Does it make sense with what we're proposing?

Think about potential roadblocks and then additional engagements that we might need to be having.

So just a reminder about our program.

I know I go over I think every presentation we do, but our mission is to protect people and property from harmful stormwater runoff, and we do though that through four core functions of our program.

So maintaining our existing infrastructure, mitigating hazards by building more infrastructure, improving what we have.

And because we just don't have those resources to improve everything at once, our warning program is very instrumental.

We want to make sure people understand what those stormwater risks are, and then we want to make sure that we have good development criteria and that we're reviewing development for compliance with city standards.

So we really do consider our program a public safety program.

So we're really focused on risk to life and then risk to property.

So this slide just kind of provides a history of the stormwater program.

It started in 2004.

So if you look at the very bottom graph, you will see that our stormwater fee started pretty low, and then it ramped up over a period of like five years or so to kind of gear up.

So we started doing maintenance, doing capital improvements.

At the beginning, we were a much more reactive program, and now we are a much more proactive program.

So we went though, then a long period of time with no fee increases.

Then in 2020, we got one, and then we've had some more regular fee increases over the last several years that has really helped us to get more done, but there's still so much that we need to do.

So our current program now, we really do feel like that we're in a really good place with our program today.

You know, we've got a more as again more proactive maintenance, we've got a good capital program, moderate moderately sized, we've got good prioritization.

But there is a lot of there's several emerging challenges that we're really thinking about as we move forward.

We want to make sure one is that there's a lot of flood mitigation needs across the city.

And I know it rained at the end of April, and that came back out again, there's a lot of needs across the city that we're really looking at addressing.

The second one is deteriorating infrastructure.

So just more and more reports of deteriorating engineer channels and storm drain systems.

Um we know the older parts of Fort Worth are pretty old now, and so we want to make sure that we are rehabilitating that infrastructure and it continues to function as it needs to, in addition to looking at how we can improve the infrastructure and add more.

We're also trying to be really competitive with how can we go after grant funding and partnership funding to supplement the funding that we have.

Let's see.

And then, two, like everyone else, we're just trying to keep up with inflation.

So, to date, we've spent the last um year or so really laying the groundwork for our strategic plan moving forward.

So that includes documenting our current service levels, identifying challenges and external factors that could impact our program into the future.

We performed an internal criticality assessment with our team, really delving into what we do today, and then engaging with stakeholders.

So this slide up here just kind of summarizes the types of stakeholders that we've been getting engaging with.

So definitely a lot of our internal departments, departments, and staff that we coordinate with regularly.

We've met with them one on one, as well as external stakeholders and the public.

So civic institutions, development community, we've got residents and insurance, all within our stakeholder group.

We really want everyone to have a voice in this plan, and we're trying to hear from everyone.

So this timeline here shows where we've gone over the last year and a half.

This our effort kind of kicked off at the very fall end of 2024.

So at the very top, kind of summarizes our external engagement and the bottom more our intern, or the top is our internal engagement more, and the bottom of is our external engagement.

So we did go to all of the bond public meetings last in the fall of 24, and then this past spring.

We thought that was a great way to talk with residents who were already engaged, attending these meetings so they could just come to one place.

We had a table, we had pop-up boards, we had a survey, so really trying to get the feedback from those residents that attended the meetings and talk to them about about this connected effort.

Um we met with the um Mobility Infrastructure and Transportation Committee, so what this group was called back in 2024.

So we had a kickoff there, we met with council members one-on-one and the mayor, um, we had our department meet meetings, we had um some peer community meetings.

So we met with five different cities, both inside and outside of Texas, really trying to understand what they do and what their challenges are and how we could learn from them as we looked forward for the future of our program.

Um, and then we've been meeting with, we've had our stakeholder group meeting two times um to date.

So when we met with the peer communities, we really um felt like that they were experiencing the same issues that we are up in Fort Worth up in the screen.

Um, you know, we were receiving more and more rainfall, it's more intense, legal challenges, everyone's dealing with aging infrastructure, growth and development, um, and then the impact of other initiatives and the economy on their programs.

So these are really things that we're taking into account and keeping in mind as we're looking for the next 20 years.

We really need to make sure that we're keeping these up front.

Um, so with that, I'm gonna pass it to Matt, and Matt's really gonna talk about the future program, and this is really where we want your thoughts as we're moving forward before we start going into doing more detailed analysis to make sure we're really heading in the right direction.

So, Matt.

Right.

So, as Jennifer showed, we've executed a comprehensive stakeholder engagement plan over the past year and a half.

This has not only given us feedback on the current program, but it also allows us to see what's important as we look into the future.

Uh, and so we're gonna start out pretty high level on these slides, and then each one will drill more uh into more detail as we go through.

Um, as we evaluated that uh feedback from the stakeholders and also staff work sessions.

There was a common theme that came out of that, and that theme was mature stewardship.

What that means is a desire to refine and enhance the program, not try to recreate it with a strategic plan.

Um, so that's really the responsible management of provided resources, community well-being, safety, property, and so as we think about mature stewardship and identify what are some key characteristics, what does that look like if we have that as the backdrop with how we're looking forward into the future?

And so some of those items are expansion of course services.

This is the improved review, warn, maintain that Jennifer uh talked about earlier with the mission, and fan enhanced funding reliability to subtly maintain the services that are being provided and meet those community expectations.

Asset management maturity to better handle the aging and growing assets over time, interdepartment collaboration to better complement one another, optimize resources across the departments, and also uh partner where it makes sense.

And that also includes optimize optimizing within the stormwater department itself to identify where there's some processes in place that we can make more efficient to stretch the dollar further.

And of course, throughout the strategic plan and throughout the 20-year planning horizon of the strategic plan, making sure community participation informs us at every step of the way.

So now as we think about key characteristics, we have to think about how does that translate to the services that are being provided and the service levels.

And so I'll give you a quick example on those.

So one service, for example, is storm drain inspection.

So right now storm drains are inspected on a 16-year cycle, meaning we'll hit one pipe and we'll come back to it in 16 years, we'll have the whole system.

Currently, and so that also equates to currently 26% of the storm drain pipe conditions are known.

Another example is hazardous roadway overtopping sites where hazardous flooding overtops the road.

There's flashers that go off at some of those locations.

And so one service level with that service is that at any given time, 90% of those are operational at any given time and not down for maintenance or other needs.

So that's just to give you an idea of what I mean when I say service and service levels.

And so it's important that we identify all of those for the stormwater program.

And as we think about 20 years in the strategic plan down the road, whether that service should be maintained, slightly increased, moderately increased, or more aggressively increased over that time period.

And I also highlight that just to maintain a service level over that time period may still call may still require greater investment as again, Jennifer noted cost rise, assets grow.

One thing we haven't quite got to yet, but one thing I'll note that we will be doing is if you imagine a red dashed line as a stormwater utility fee, for example, we'll also have to identify as we talk about these levels of service that's being provided over this 20-year history what it takes to meet those desired levels of service in the future.

So whether that's most effective to have a ramp up period in the beginning, towards the end, or just a fairly linear approach that can be planned on and expected.

So there's a lot on the slide, so we can come back to this one.

But we've broken the program up into approximately 28 services and service levels.

And so we've taken the feedback from stakeholder engagement plan that was executed, plus staff work sessions, and identified where there's general satisfaction with the services being provided in the service levels, versus where there may be more opportunity for emphasis or increases in service levels as we look out over those 20 years.

So what you'll see here is that there's a well, I guess I'll take one step back.

There was no feedback that indicated we should drop a service or lower a service level.

I want to make that note.

So as you'll see, there are several services though where there was general satisfaction with the services that are being provided, and things like response time to service requests and flood risk notices and permit reviews, and then there's also some where we may slightly increase service levels over the 20 years based on the feedback, and that includes, for example, like stormwater standards and ensuring criteria don't make things worse.

So there's also ones that are more moderate or most aggressively increasing, and so that those are really related to the improve and maintain infrastructure categories in the mission.

So this is ensuring the infrastructure is in good condition and ensuring the drainage uh infrastructure gets appropriately assized or upsized over time to handle uh the stormwater runoff.

And that also includes finding ways to increase partnerships for capital improvement projects to again leverage that funding and make it go further.

So this is a very important step for us.

That's why I wanted to emphasize this slide.

This is extremely critical step for us because the next step is going to be identifying the funding and resource strategies necessary to achieve this.

And as we look at items that are more moderately or most aggressively increase in service level over that period, based on the feedback, that's going to translate to greater financial investment and potentially impact rate payers as well, which is also why we're trying to be extremely strategic on which items we place in these buckets.

It's we know we can't just increase everything.

So we want to be very intentional and very strategic about what's the most critical needs.

So right now for this calendar year, the first half of the calendar year, we've been identifying those future levels of service and metrics that go along with them based on that stakeholder engagement journey over the past year and a half.

And then second half of this calendar year will be focused on uh identifying that resource strategy to achieve those needs.

And again, this is long-term 20 year plan.

Uh and then next calendar year, we focused on uh creating an implementation roadmap to put this plan into action.

And then ultimately one that by the end of next year will be adopted.

So with that, we'll circle back and uh love to hear any feedback you'd have.

Feedback, questions, comments.

I have a couple, actually.

Jennifer, um, don't say communication on the plan.

And so I think that's part of I think part of the role of stormwater too is communicating to the public.

And so where would that fit in?

And I'm thinking more of it.

All right, go ahead and finish.

No, go ahead.

Um, so I know it's up here.

And I think it's like a public education, where is it on here?

Oh, it's green.

Yes, so it's under slight, um, and it is the second one, public education, and that involves communication.

So we we always get feedback that we need to you know communicate better, we need to communicate differently more often.

Um, you know, how do we reach people that aren't hearing the message?

Uh so definitely that is of importance.

Um, but if if y'all think that we need to increase the importance of it, we can consider doing that as well.

I I think we should increase it, and it's especially after that April 25th event, and I feel like a lot of my time and probably yours too, spent talking to the public and helping them understand what stormwater department does, what the inlets are supposed to do, how often the drains are cleaned out.

I mean, I couldn't answer any of those questions.

So I think being able to articulate that um either to our offices that we can push that message out to the our constituents or being able to communicate with the public directly, I think would be helpful.

That's great.

That's a perfect type of feedback that we want to receive.

Um, because as Matt said, we're gonna be putting, you know, kind of cost to these, and so we need to know do we put more more costs into the future?

Um, you know, maintain it just as we grow or so forth.

So thank you.

Good feedback.

And then my second one, um, and going back to the uh ordinance, and I don't remember when we changed it, you'll have to refresh my memory on the one acre threshold for stormwater review.

Yes, I think we should revisit that, especially as we continue to grow at such a fast rate, and we have so much in-fill construction projects.

Even if they're not in the floodplain, a lot of these projects are impacting their neighbors, and it's not intended, you know, intended to do so that we have no idea until after the fact.

And so I'd love to see stormwater take a second look at that.

Okay, definitely.

So, yeah, we can we can look at what we're doing right now.

We've got a list of potential improvements to our development regulations.

We know we've got gaps, um, and it it really just comes down to a matter of of our time as well as our stakeholders' time.

So we know that we can only tackle a few of these uh with our stakeholders at one time.

Um, but it's good to know in terms of what is important to uh city council.

Um, and that does fall under too under slight is stormwater standards, is is that's showing that we want to continue to work on improvements and really making sure that our standards are what they should be for the city of Fort Worth and what is the best for our community and residents.

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions?

Thank you guys so much, appreciate it.

Thank you.

That is the last of our briefings, and we are adjourned.