Oh, oh, okay.

All right.

Sorry.

I was waiting for the little uh whatever you call introductory video, which we are redoing.

It's gonna be great.

Uh okay.

So uh uh good afternoon, everyone.

This meeting of the Lake of Sego City Council is now called to order.

Uh today is Tuesday, November 18th, 2025.

Uh, Ms.

Hawkins, will you please call the roll?

Yes, Mayor Buck.

Here.

Councilor Verdick is excused.

Councillor Corrigan, here, Councilor RAF is excused.

Councillor Afkin is joining us remotely.

Counselor Maboo.

Yeah.

Counselor Wenlin.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And everyone, will you please stand, remove your hats and join us in the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God with liberty and justice role.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

This is the time on the agenda for public comment.

Is there anyone here who would like to provide public comment?

Is anyone here for public comment?

And we are going to move right into uh council business.

Item 5.1.

We have the assistant city manager, Megan Phelan, here to talk to us about an item we brought up the last uh meeting, which is some some options for uh food and security and when it's over.

Thank you, Ms.

Failing.

Good afternoon.

Uh good afternoon, council.

Um, Megan Phelan, assistant city manager, and it's a pleasure to be here uh this afternoon in front of you to talk about the menu of options that staff has prepared for council to consider with regards to those impacted by the loss of the supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits, also known as SNAP, and food and security.

Um, as outlined in the staff report, the options for council's consideration are in a couple different categories.

And we'll start with the first one, which is utility billing assistance.

The city has two programs.

Um, one is for customers that are at or below 60% of the state's median income.

Um, they can apply for assistance, and where their monthly bills are reduced by 50%, and that includes for water, sewer, surface water, and street maintenance fees.

Um, customers must complete an application demonstrating qualifying income and are required to reapply annually.

We currently have 37 participants in that program.

Um the next uh program would be that we currently have is a temporary hardship utility billing assistance program.

Um this is for any customer that is experiencing a temporary hardship, such as loss of income or unexpected and unusual necessary expenses, combined with a lack of resources to satisfy the need.

Um, this temporary assistance provides up to two months, limited to 200 per month of relief each year.

Um, this program is administered by the St.

Vincent DePaul.

Um, and uh currently has funds available in the program as well.

Next, we have um municipal grant fund distribution.

Council may recall that back in October, you approved resolution 25-48, which awarded grants from the general fund to local nonprofit and community groups to provide services to Lake Oswego residents as part of our community grant cycle.

Um, although some money were allocated, you did not allocate the full amount, and so there's approximately a balance of $20,000.

Um, the municipal grant subcommittee had decided to keep the remaining fund for distribution in the spring following a second application review period.

However, council could decide to directly allocate those funds to a social service organization, such as Hunger Fighters Oregon, which is a food pantry located in Lake Oswego.

The next kind of bucket of options, if you will, of centers around enhanced coordination with meals on wheels.

Um there's two options staff identified in this category.

One would be to increase the number of meals that meals on wheels provides.

Um currently the program provides one meal a day, but with additional funds, the city uh we provided them to the Meals on Wheels program.

They could provide additional meals to those in need.

It costs approximately $8.50 for a meal to be prepared.

In addition, the adult community center with increased funding could provide the same meals to those in need in the community that don't qualify for meals on wheels, such as younger people and families, and that have lost their SNAP benefits or a feud insecure.

Again, the cost of prepare is the same, which is $8.50 a meal.

And then last but not least, the city could definitely utilize its communication channels and social media outlets to promote a community campaign to raise awareness about available services and programs within the community and Greater Clackamas County that focused on assisting those with feud insecurity.

In addition, we could also consider doing a fundraising event similar to one we had just shortly after the um uh Halloween um uh celebration.

We our fire department led an effort in coordination with city manager staff and library and parks and rack to do a pumpkin toss off of the West Lake Fire Station training tower, um, which raised about 800 pounds of food and eight hundred dollars in donations to hunger fighters.

So the city could consider doing something, another event similar to that to raise the level of awareness, but also increase um donation uh possibilities.

Um with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Um, as council saw in the staff report, um staff is recommending um that the council meeting allocate the remaining missile grant funds of approximately $20,000 to hunger fighters organ and begin a community campaign in the month of November.

Um if council does agree with pursuing that option, we would need to come back with an amended grant resolution at a future meeting.

Thank you, Ms.

Hale.

No, it's a great well when we had this discussion at the last meeting.

You know, the SNAP benefits were in flux, and then I think it was a day or even two after uh the meeting uh in Oregon, especially that they were able to um get the benefits out to uh Oregon recipients in full, and then of course there was still some flux nationwide, but but now those benefits are in place.

Um but it is still really helpful to know then um well and as a result of the you know of the uncertainty around those benefits going out.

Uh the community did on their own individuals, you know, step up and really provide a lot of support, I have heard uh to the local food pantry.

Um and of course, we as a city wanted to participate in that as well.

I do think it is good for us to know what options we have, you know, going forward, in addition to the services we already uh provide.

Um but I I understand might be good for us to hold on to these to the reason the financial resources right now, um, knowing that we can allocate them in in the future um if if if if need be.

But it would be good.

I don't know if it's possible to um do some of the communication, I think would still be good.

Um, just in general, I've had folks ask about, especially the utility billing, and uh I'm always able to find it if I search for it specifically.

I don't know if there's a way on our the website, you know, to just have a more direct link to some of these services for people so that they weren't have you know executing like a specific like I always sort of like Lake Oswego utility billing assistance program and it pops right up.

But if I wasn't searching that exactly, I would have trouble finding it.

Right possible.

I do I um I can ask Director Cross to come up since he manages that program along with Brad Stevens, both are here to answer any questions.

Um I do know that our utility billing staff does a really good job of talking with folks.

Um we people do definitely call expressing concerns about their inability to pay their water bill to find out what other what options are there.

Obviously, we they also contact us when they have a leak issue.

Um, and so I know do know our staff works very hard to talk with folks and give them um options that they have available.

But yeah.

Not really, I mean we can map it towards easier to find.

Um but generally when they do call, it's massive tomorrow after we're doing like shutoffs because they haven't paid us.

Right.

So we're already talking to them.

And it's a lot easier to walk them through the process when we're talking to them than having people just filling out forms and sending them.

But we can make it easier, of course.

Okay.

Well, that's great.

I mean, anything that even some of the other um, I mean, there's lots of good, all the resources are out there, so it's always nice to, yeah, a good way to put it, you know, map it in an easier way.

So people, you know, what are the services provided at the ACC who qualifies for meals on wheels, you know, just things like that.

So these great services the community and the city have done such a good job putting together and supporting just so it's more accessible, I guess, to folks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's great though.

Okay.

Do you have any questions?

Uh Counselor Corgan.

Um I was reading in uh from Oregon Public Broadcasting that one in six Oregonians use the SNAP benefits.

Are we about one in six?

Are we?

I suspect we're a lower number.

Do we have a we have kind of a grip on what and what the hole in the social uh safety net might look like here?

I do have some information for Clackamas County.

I it's not specific though, it's just still like us we go.

Um I believe there's a total number of just over 49,000, 49,000 people that receive SNAP in Clackamas County.

But I don't have it broken down by city.

It's a um it's a it's a decently you know significant number, and we have a lot of our most local information through the through the school district, I think in the families um information that they're on on families in the district.

And um, I know that um uh the food pantry uses that information and stuff and outreach and and whatnot.

Um and if anything, you know, positive has come out of this this kind of horrible situation with the food security, just more awareness about the the program and um all the variety of folks in the community who really do you know rely on it.

Um so I mean, and just more awareness about the resources too, both for people who are in need of the different resources and those who are willing and are able to um contribute, you know, to helping.

So yeah, okay.

And certainly happy to return later next year if necessary to further the discussion.

Okay, does this all sound good to you all?

Sorry, a good plan?

Can I keep okay?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

Well, we appreciate you taking the time to go through, and it is it is good for us to.

I think for so many government agencies, it was kind of like uh, you know, everyone uh cities, counties were you know stepping up to help, and I appreciate it.

We were able to look into this and see what we're able to do in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And as Director Cross, so you don't need to go anywhere, right?

Move into the our next item uh study session on our uh master fees and charges for 2026.

Good evening, Mayor, counselors.

Uh sorry our annual pilgrimage through the master fees and charges.

Uh next slide.

Um this year is probably one of the least exciting years, because if you look at this first slide where it shows the indices, you'll see that uh they're pretty much around three percent.

So we're right around about the average CPI has been for over the last 10 years.

Um on this one, you kind of see what the western region, BC, that's what we use for most of everything except the engineering kind of departments, and then the third one down in our construction cost index, 20 cities.

That one we use to index basically most of all the engineering and public works kind of fees.

Um next slide.

Here you saw our annual uh showing the CPI for the last 10 years.

You so the the blue line is the is the annual amount, and so that's going up and down.

You can kind of see in 2022 it was above eight percent, 24 it was 2.6 percent, and for 25 it was 2.7 percent.

The red line is showing the average for the last 10 year, which is about 3.3 percent.

So it's kind of a little bit higher than it has been in the past.

Um previously, if you looked at the tail, that used to be from 2016 to the left, but it's moved over now.

Those were all under one percent.

So CPI had been pretty low for a long time.

Um so that's why it's kind of kind of going up.

Um if it stays down again, it'll be back closer to three percent next year.

Um, but the one thing I would like to kind of point out with this is this is kind of where most of our contracts going forward, so not really master fees and charges really, but just generally with CPI and what it means for the you know on the financing of of the city is a lot of our our general contracts are tied to CPI.

So um you can kind of see in the last few years they've been pretty high.

Um, but our property taxes only go up by three percent with um uh generally more like three and a half percent with all the development and that kind of stuff, we it increases.

So my my point is there isn't the same kind of room that we used to have, say five, six years ago, and the difference between how much our expenditures are going up, generally speaking, with the CPIs versus how much uh our property taxes are going up again.

Nothing to do with master fees and charges.

I just thought I would talk about it for a second, just because I have this nice CPI slide right here.

Next slide, please.

Um but the bulk of what we usually talk about when master fees and charges is the utilities that affects everyone.

We have 13,000 bills that go out every month, and so it really affects everyone.

So next slide.

The first one I want to show you is stormwater.

Um we're using the same three percent.

Steph's suggesting a three percent uh increase as we did last year.

Um we're kind of if you kind of look over the next five years, that three percent is kind of built in and it keeps the that the red line is the fund balance.

It keeps it nice and average for what you can kind of see in the green is all the expected um capital improvement uh projects, and so it's keeping it right where it needs to be at the three percent.

Um the one thing with stormwater, you can maybe stop me whenever and if you have questions.

On stormwater, is that um that have anything to do with um cleaning out stormwater things with all the leaves that are falling in the fall?

Yeah, yeah.

That's like street sweeping is you know, some of the street sweepers are actually done here, some of them are by streets, it kind of depends on, but that the two of them actually do, yes, the leaves.

But the capital projects are primarily redoing the um the big lines and that kind of stuff, or putting in catch basins, and that's the same.

The one thing with stormwater, unlike the other projects is with that dig once policy.

When we end up getting a new street and maybe it moves the street project moves up a little bit, it kind of shifts the stormwater projects as well because we want to put the storm drains in at the exact same, or the catch basins in at the same time.

So the blue, when you say net operations, that's actually operations of the department.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's basically the maintenance department.

I mean, for the most part, or some um so that's basically our revenues minus yeah, like personnel costs, or if we're paying a contractor to do something for us, it's the ongoing just maintenance, it's not the capital.

So the capital is on the is the green one that's next to it.

So yeah.

So it's I guess the reason why I'm asking is that um I've noticed that it's been six weeks since in a number of locations that we've um done any street sweeping um and leaves have accumulated for a much longer time frame.

And actually, I'm getting lots of calls about do we still have is it Oscar and sweet Adeline?

I think we have three.

But you know, one's usually broken.

But yes.

I mean we used I think we have three street sweepers, but one of them is usually down.

Okay.

Um I guess I've just gotten feedback to say more street sweeping.

Yeah, they're kind of wondering where they are because we have a number of streets that haven't been touched in uh I've observed it as well.

Um some of our main arterials.

I mean, if you look at Iron Mountain, and nobody's been on that for a long time.

I mean, I I've been driving around and people have just been asking me, are we street sweeping, or is there some sort of there was one person that actually asked me, they they said, Well, is this the new policy that we're supposed to leave everything in place, like our parks department?

Seems like that's an Erica question rather than a direction.

Yeah.

Maybe after directly, I would say do you want to come back to that during the case?

We'll come back to that later question.

Can you stay?

Okay, great.

So okay, thank you.

Yes.

Uh next slide.

So the next one is our street fund again.

Um this one is tied to the 20 cities construction cost index as published in ENR.

It's going up by 3.2%.

Um again, you can come see the capital.

Um the fund balance is sticking around six, seven million dollars in case there's you know something that happens that you we need the funds, but it also helps plan out for the next five years.

So it's very stable as you can kind of see.

Next slide.

And then sewer.

So this one in the past I've always not put in the wastewater plant project because well, we don't have a contract, we don't have an IGA with Portland, we don't have all these things that are still unknowns.

But I want to put give you the estimates of what it does look like.

This model I've been talking about that we've been working with the rate model with working with Portland and working on our estimates and that kind of stuff.

And so what you can kind of see here is um there is one point where in 2027-28 that our fund balance goes way up.

And that's basically when we'd have to sell full faith and credit bonds for not the portion that would be covered through our um Wi-Fi alone, because I can draw that down like line of credit, so it our fund balance will not grow up.

But when we do want to sell the other, like say 50 or 60 million that we're estimating that we might need for that project in full faith and credit bonds, it'll go up and then it'll go back down, and then it stays pretty healthy around between 10 and 20 million dollars and our fund balance for projects.

Um and again, we're still projecting that 3.9% rate increase for the next foreseeable future 10, 15 years.

So and it's still working at this point.

So the capital, this is the capital good that going into the project.

Yes, that's why it's our very that's why it's spiking up to like 70 million plus a year.

And so I mean that includes like the the influx like from the Wi-Fi alone, like it'd be like process of the loan.

That's all funding sources.

That's uh our rates, that's uh bonds, that's money from Portland.

That's yeah, okay.

And that's the capital that's projected right now based on kind of what we had with EBCOR.

Um those kind of costs, you know, inflate, you know, and then done for inflation.

But that's kind of what we're looking at.

Okay.

Next slide.

Then the water fund again.

This one we're expecting uh or asking more for that the two percent rate increase, and that's uh for the same reason our debt service that we took out in 2013 is flat.

So and that's about half of the money that we spend.

So we don't actually need to inflation for that portion of it, but for the operations we do, so we don't need the full three, three and a half percent for that, we just need two.

And so like in every other year, that's what we're looking at in that one.

Next slide.

Well, what's uh sorry, uh, what's going on with the fund balance there?

So the fund balance shows that's where we're you know, we're currently right around 14 million.

Um and then if we do all the projects that are in the water master plan that keep getting pushed back and pushed back, and we sell 10 uh 15 to 20 million dollars worth of debt to do them, we can still keep the same rate, but then at the end, that's where the fund balance would be if we end up doing all those projects that are projected in the CIP.

So we've kind of been saving money in the ND fund balance to do various water projects.

Yes.

And they keep getting pushed out for whatever reason.

Yes.

Okay.

But yeah, when we get to them, and like I said, and that big bump up again, that would us issuing in this model is 14 million dollars worth of full faith and credit bonds to do projects for that, not in this biennium, but in a future biennium, that is still within the two percent rate increases for the next five, 10 years.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay so that that the debt that you're taking for that, is that 20 year money or is that twenty year?

And now used four and a half percent as uh as our rate for that.

Okay.

And so from that, um I guess how often do you issue debt to do things?

Is that every once in a while, every 20 years, or is it every year?

Oh, do we issue in debt almost every year?

Every year.

I haven't yeah, I mean with COVID it slowed down a little bit, but generally I'm either issuing more debt, um refinancing debt, usually putting them together, but it was pretty much annually for quite a while.

So just so everyone knows, I I'm just trying to figure out because when you show this chart, it looks like we're borrowing money for 20 years to do some projects now, but we do this on a continuum basis, so we're always borrowing and it's repaid just with so we we float debt to pay for projects that we're collecting money on that pays for the debt, and it really doesn't our debt structure doesn't really go up, so it doesn't really affect rates.

Is that correct?

Generally, yes, because we're paying more debt off.

So I mean we issued the less debt for the water fund was initially issued in 2013, so it'll be paid off in 2033.

Um so yeah.

But then we also issue debt in 2020 for the water fund that's been rolled into other refinancings, but would be paid off in another year.

Okay.

So we'll continue to borrow money, but we'll still have money through the rates to pay that debt.

So it's just a continual basis.

And it allows us to do, you know, so we don't have to raise rates like 25, 35, 40 percent in one year to be able to actually pay for things, you know.

When that we we're doing like a you know, you buy a car, you pay it off over time, but you're gonna the car will break down and you do need to buy another car eventually after 10 years, and so we continuously do that through the utilities as well.

Right.

I just want everyone to understand how this works so that people know that we're living within our means and it's a flat pretty much rate.

So the best of both worlds.

Yeah, we're not spiking.

We're trying not to basically try not to spike rates, but then at the same time not hold huge reserves, like charge people a lot of money right now to build up a hundred million dollar reserve to then slowly work.

I mean, that's the other option.

We're just kind of in the middle.

You know, we're issuing small amounts of debt, using it for a project and then paying it off.

And the capital projects keep up with the CIP needs, sort of generally, yes.

Uh that's what the master plans bring about.

Again, that's probably more of an Erica question, but yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next slide.

Uh this is just the annual build water consumption over the last 16 years.

I always like to keep started at 2009, because that's when we went to the tier structure.

And what I like to always point out about that, even though the population is growing, also the I guess the top line there, that's single family dwelling, that's the that's where the tiers are at.

But we can kind of see, even though with the population and everything getting larger, we're actually using less total water.

So the um the conservation that was put into that is actually working.

So that's kind of nice.

But you can also see that the volatility in a rainy year versus a dry year.

So we usually try to assume about 1.2 million CCFs of water.

That's what I kind of use for the average year.

So sometimes we're above it, sometimes we're below it.

So that's like when we get back to the budget too, and we're working at like the water, that's why sometimes it's six, seven hundred thousand above, and sometimes it's three, four hundred thousand under, you know, kind of what we budgeted.

It's you know, it's weather dependent, and it's really you know, in the first couple months because summer's right at the beginning of the fiscal year.

So um the other thing that this one actually points out to everyone is how much single family dwelling actually is uh the the customer, I mean the primary customer of the water utility.

I mean, there's we have all of them, but generally 80% of it all goes to single family dwellings.

Next slide.

So to so to summarize, this is kind of what we're looking at for the utility bills.

If you do the you know, the two percent or you know, down a total of a difference of about 3.1% or a little over six dollars to the and or to the average utility bill.

And what we mean by average is if you're using on average 10 CCFs of water a month and eight CCFs of water for sewer.

So you're doing some irrigation.

On average, I think most people use seven, but we use ten, like everyone else around us, like all the other jurisdictions.

I see.

That one third, that's uh that's a 10.

Yeah.

So this is all based on 10 CCFs of water and eight CCFs for sewer.

Yeah, I see.

Yeah, it's sewer is yeah.

Oh, yeah, you have a sewer plant.

We have the you know, a lot of this rate increase initially was because of the lowest pipeline that had to come in, and now because now we have a sewer plan.

But again, 3.9 isn't like it was back, you know, in 2011, 2012, 2010 when we had 25% rate increases on the sewer for four years in a row, followed by water for the water treatment plant.

We're trying to keep ahead of that now.

So when um in 2033, okay.

The lowest will be paid off.

Lois had 25-year bonds to try to keep that.

We had 25% rate increases you selling 25-year bonds.

So it should get paid off in 2036.

Okay, okay.

Next slide.

And then this is our estimates for next year.

It's kind of showing.

So the 726 column, that's what we're we have in here for this year.

727 is kind of our estimates.

The only one that's really different, you can kind of see a streets, and that one we don't ever know, so we just kind of use the three percent average.

So it's almost we're estimating it to be very similar to what we have.

What we're asking for this year.

Right.

Next slide.

You know, when uh I know Director Rooney's back there and we had questions about leaves and things, but um, maybe too around the I I mean, I know we're uh just taking the the typical CPI adjustment on the on the streets, but we've been talking about street uh maintenance and um pavement condition index, and we know that the cost of those projects you know has has gone up, and that if we continue to spend just what we've been spending, which includes the sizable allocation from the general fund, you know, we're still kind of on a downward trend.

So I don't know if you know, perhaps we could prepare some analysis if the council agrees to kind of look at some options for going above just the the general increase if we wanted to raise some more money to put into um to uh pavement preservation um, you know, in an effort to prevent that kind of collapse, you know, in some of the streets, which you know then it gets real expensive.

So I mean, would that be I don't know, Director Rooney?

How do you want to you want to look at revenue options generally?

Because I uh Director Cross and I had a chance to talk last week about the fact that we don't franchise our own utilities, and that's sort of the next logical place to do.

And I understand why we don't do it, because it has the effect of being a rate increase.

But it would be a revenue, it would be a revenue option that's outside the general fund and outside the just jacking up the per household fee.

I think it'd be good to look at, you know, what what what the revenue could raise and what I know there's a limit too to how much we can do.

So you know, just to um see what some additional revenue and can I ask, um, do you think this would be something you'd want to maybe tee up for next spring or summer so that you could consider it a year from now?

I mean, is it one of the things I love about what we do here is we do the master fees and charges increase once a year.

So we don't have rolling increases on utility bills.

So is this something maybe we schedule for spring or summer next year?

Well that so that you could consider it as part of the budget process in the next biennium.

If they've already budgeted out the work, I suppose.

Well, I I guess I have a couple questions on that.

Zach Bangladesh.

As um the mayor said, I think the the pricing of paving has gone up at a much higher rate than our operating expenses per sewer and water, um, to the tune of I think 20 or 25 percent.

Is that I mean it's a pretty big number from five years ago when we I mean it's it um it's gone up.

Um Director Renee, do you want to come up?

It's gone up higher than than the three percent.

I know that because we've been told that we can't do as much paving because prices went up.

So if that's changed, um I mean that from uh my understanding is probably uh paving prices have um gone up since 2020 more than three percent.

Is that correct?

Well, since 2020, everything's gone up quite a bit more than three percent.

Um I mean, our are you we seem to be able to cover our utility expenses, is that correct?

With the three percent increases correctly.

Cost of projects and the other utilities compared to the city.

Compared to paving, which we have to buy on the outside, which has gone up considerably.

All I'm saying is that we really haven't stayed up with the cost of inflation um because paving really hasn't been following the the um sort of the inflation index.

It's been going a much higher.

So it should be following construction cost index, and that's actually what we're doing for most of the public works departments.

So that it's actually you know, we're using ENR's construction cost index for 20 cities, and so like CPI this year was 2.7 for that, but construction cost index is 3.2.

Sometimes it's been six.

Um other times it's been a but yes, I think what he's expressing is that we just in the the one department, it seems like we're maybe don't have enough revenue to do you know the desirable amount of projects is in the street fund.

Well, so we a few years ago chose to raise the the street maintenance fee, as you recall, by 50 percent, and that was to focus on pedestrians.

Yes, which is great.

And so that the pedestrian facilities took the lead and the pavement was less.

It's just sort of this balancing back and forth between the two issues, to be honest.

Those are the two major issues.

So um there's options within the street fund that you could rebalance that again too.

But I think that's but no, no, no, no.

I think that we don't want to choose between, you know, should we do pedestrian projects or paving?

I think we're just like overall we're doing a great job, but pedestrian projects which are important, but we could use more, we could do more paving if we had more revenue without sacrificing you know the other important parts of the street fund, right?

Yes, with more revenue, yes, you could do more, we could choose to do more paving.

That's all we're looking at, right?

Yes, yeah.

And we we did you mention it something earlier.

I think we got actually pretty good paving prices this last year.

This last spring we did it in spring, and so it was done before summer even got here.

Um and we had good prices, they came in better than we had estimated.

Okay.

That's good.

Yeah, it's just that we had that.

I mean, I think the situation we had the boost, the big boost that we did in paving.

Yes, and then we kind of you know plateaued, and we still invest a significant amount of money in paving, but we know that it's not significant enough to maintain and and it's a subjective question.

Some people may say we think it's plenty, you know, but and but some say no, we really want that that conditioning index to stay at 70.

You know, we know that it's gonna take a substantial amount of money.

We we may never, you know, want to or be able to pay for that level of investment, but there could be more, you know, that we we could do.

I mean, we know that it's a 50 cent increase, you know, uh for the street fund on the bill, and you know, if if it was a dollar fifty a month increase, if it was a two dollar month increase, like what does that give you enough to make a noticeable difference or will that change the index?

Yeah, it's a kind of like well.

Yeah, so I think uh as I recall, I think um uh Stefan was Stephan brought us here maybe a couple months ago now, and I can't remember all the details that he provided, but we're anticipating that the PCI will go back up now because we're doing yet another round of uh uh organized pavement management approach.

So five, six years ago, back in the late 2019, 1819, we actually sold bonds to do that.

Yeah, yes.

Um so and then when that ran out, we took a little break and it has the PCI has dipped as we expected it would because our our rate of pavement has gone down.

But but we're hoping to bring it back up a little bit with it, is what I recall he said um a couple months ago when we were here, but I'll have to double check that.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's not gonna, I mean, it's not gonna be 85.

That'd be optimum, but I don't know who has that exactly.

But I don't think it's we're not gonna continue in the downward trend right now.

We're looking at keeping it uh to to reversing it and bringing it back up.

Oh but I'll check on those numbers and let's know that's great news that we don't have to do it.

I if I'm if we could just have the feedback, because I think we're dipped down to like 68 and we'd like to be at 80.

That's kind of the um is kind of the goal.

We we know we're never gonna be at there was some there was a level though that we it was you know really unattainable without a significant investment, I remember.

So yeah.

Anyway, if you if maybe we could review that.

But the the idea would be if we could just maybe take the pavement or the street fund, and even if we took it up just a slight just to start to get ahead of the curve, sort of like what we're doing, just trying to balance things out so we don't have sharp increases.

Right.

Um or get to the point where the can conditions get you know to a point where then we're like, oh my gosh, you know, now we really are deficient in the street fund or right.

But easy and other options as well, you know, it'd be but is it gonna take from like sidewalls?

So let us put this let us put this on your work for plan agenda for 2026, because uh the other thing we don't know is what's gonna happen to the state transportation package.

If that comes in, if we actually get that revenue and it's not repealed by the voters, that will affect the street fund.

But I also think you ought to look at options generally.

Um if your goal is to increase the quality of transportation, then what are your funding options?

We can do that for you.

That's great.

Okay.

In the context of your pavement quality.

Yes.

But also, but I would suggest we do it in a way where if you wanted to make a change, we did it a year from now when you're making these changes for master fees and charges that start in 2027, right?

You take the action in 26 so that it takes place in 27.

What are what are the master fees we're considering right now?

They take place in 27?

In yeah, July 1st of 20.

Six.

Sorry, yeah, yeah, 26.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yes, yes.

That's the next change.

Yeah, yeah, on this.

Okay.

Okay.

Sound good?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's anyone.

Any other questions on the fees?

Do you want to do the leaf the street sweeping now, or do you want to do it at the end?

Well, do you have a quick answer?

Is there is there a change in the sweeper schedule?

Or uh well, not exactly a change, but it what does happen.

And and um uh, you know, you I think you mentioned Iron Mountain.

I'm pretty sure I saw that on one of the lists that it's been done.

But what happens is, you know, two days after we've been through, you can't tell because uh it depend on when you hit it in the season, it's just it's coming down.

There are places throughout the city that we have to do that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

I learned a little bit about, for instance, Boca Ratan has a serious problem up there.

And the problem is is that if we don't pick up those leaves on Boca Ratan, what we have is a flooding problem because they cover the grates on the catch basins, and then if it rains, then we have very deep puddles.

So that's an area that we've been to multiple times this year, uh, because it is a um potential um flooding hazard.

That said, we have been on Iron Mountain, we've been on the arterials, or we're we're not getting to all the small areas.

We are having to do parks, um, some parks facilities as well.

I mean, it takes as an example.

Um, you all probably were down there, what would that be?

Last Tuesday for Veterans Day.

We did that the day before, and it took all day to do the parking lot and the road.

So that does take away from our I'm not saying that's wrong because it's it was needed, right?

We had a lot of big events and everything.

But those things, it's slow.

When you're only going three to five miles an hour, you don't get very far very fast.

They're working it, they're working two at a time.

Usually what happens he's right that there's always something broken on one of them, or the tires are popped, or something broke on the chains, and because they're very, very complicated piece of equipment with a lot of moving parts.

Um there's almost always one in uh in being fixed while the other two are out.

Yes.

I saw your message too about our more people putting their leaves just out into the street and expecting off.

And that slows us down significantly.

Yeah.

Um it can take they showed us an example the other day.

It took um six hours, or no, excuse me, um three hours to clear a spot in front of six houses.

There were so many leaves piled up and super thick.

That doesn't work well as opposed to just naturally falling.

So it's a lot.

Um, but uh it's coming to an end, and we're working on the weekends now.

We're trying to get some people to work on Sunday if we can to get out there and get some more coverage.

But we've got a couple more weeks, three, four weeks more weeks of leaves, probably.

I've seen them out driving around.

They're out there doing it.

They haven't been.

But they haven't been everywhere.

So just give me a call and let me know if there's a specific street and we can look it up and see.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, at your home address.

No, I've just I usually don't get a call.

I mean, yeah, unless it's and this year I've gotten four or five conversations with people going.

Okay.

Did our policy change?

Yeah.

And I said, I don't know, but I remember we had a discussion about parks where we leave all the leaves so everything goes to the ground and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, that's in your yard, not yes, not on the side.

I understand that, but I thought, well, maybe that translated into something else, and we just want all the leaves in the sewer.

Yeah, we've believed.

So and also I think it just you do you do what you do.

I mean, and and I think it's all wonderful.

The real question is do we have enough street sweepers?

If we're always gonna have one out, do we really actually need four?

And does that need to be in the capital budget?

Because I do think there's a level of of um expectation that uh you know we are putting more and more places to walk, more and more people are out.

Um I don't want people to slip and fall, things like that.

Um and and just um I mean, people actually ride their bikes during the winter.

Um, God bless them.

Um, and uh I think we need to have lots of shoulders and uh ways for people to walk.

So that's my only thing.

If if we're if we're deficient, um we need to help you make sure that we have a high level of standard of of uh I guess service.

And I know it happens over an eight-week, twelve-week period, and it's a rush, but um other cities, everyone's in the same boat.

We just happen to have more trees in like Oswego thanks.

We do have a big key.

So we can't do that.

And we and we add we add new things too.

So just you know, as an example, adding Boons Ferry Road, so it didn't used to be a big sweeping road for us, but because we added all the trees in the median, and there are a lot of deciduous trees in the medians now.

Granted, they're still small, but they do put out quite a bit.

Um, that has added a whole new area for us to have to sweep that we didn't have five years ago, three years ago.

So I was like, how can we keep going up and down Boone's Ferry?

Well, because it keeps losing leaves.

So that's been new.

So a few things like that have added to the challenges.

Okay.

Yeah, but we'll work on it.

I appreciate it.

And if you have specific streets, give me a call or send me an email, I'll be happy to look into it.

Okay, very helpful information.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Directors.

Okay, so I'll be back December 2nd with the resolution.

I guess.

And then we'll just talk about what we've made.

Yeah, I'll tell this changes, and we'll talk next sometime next year about street funding.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Well now we're going to talk about to get uh our uh tree regulation amendments uh project.

We have a community development director and Jessica Numonalu and our friends at Cascadia Partners, the consultants on the project here.

Maybe some of our community members.

Okay, that sounds good.

All right, counselors, mayor, thank you for your time.

We're excited to get uh your input on these code concepts today.

Uh my name is Sarah Goldstein.

I'm a consultant with Cascadia Partners supporting the city of Lake Oswego in this tree regulation amendment update project.

Um but before uh we jump in, I'd like to let Jessica Morgan and Christine uh introduce themselves.

Christine.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Christine Johnson.

I'm an ISA board's for IFSRBers here to answer any you know technical questions that you might have.

All right, Jessica New Monolou, community development directorate, and also the uh project coordinator for this project.

Hi, Morgan Holin, consulting arborist for the planning department.

I'd also like to introduce Brandon Nam, if you mind saying hi.

Uh he is the chair of the tree task force.

He is the chair of the tree task force, and he's available to come up and answer any questions or provide a clarification after the presentation.

So next slide.

Next slide.

Sorry about that, I forgot already.

All right, so as a refresher, since we haven't been here in a while, the objective of this project is to amend Lake Oswego's tree code and tree related provisions in the community development code as recommended by the Urban Community Forestry Plan update.

And the outcome of this project is to preserve the city's wooded character.

We just talked about all the bit what the wonderful big trees here and promote a sustainable urban forest while also supporting responsible development.

This project will integrate best practices in urban forestry across the region, enhance the clarity and efficiency of tree regulations, and ensure meaningful community involvement throughout the process.

So today, most of the meeting will be spent digging into critical parts of the code and the four code concepts that were included in the council report and the memo that you received.

I know there may be many questions and comments that came up during your review of these items, and we're looking forward to answering them.

I will give a comprehensive overview of each concept, and then we'll have some space for discussion.

So we'll go one at a time.

Thank you.

The objectives for the meeting today are first to review what clear and objective standards are, and then we'll review the four alternative code concepts and how they are different than the existing code.

We'll compare the two.

And we'll also share how the tree task force responded to these code concepts so that we can get your input and we can translate these code concepts into draft code amendments as the project moves forward.

The parts of the code that we're discussing today impact a specific subset of type two applications.

So this isn't all tree removal permits.

These are critical parts of the code that need to be discussed before the rest of the key issues list because they affect how we approach all of them.

So there's a remaining eight substantive items on the key issues list and 25 technical items that we'll address later on as we move through this project.

But beginning with the most challenging items first allows us to help create a framework for the other key issues since all of these regulatory items are interconnected.

It's important to note that a lot of the code is not changing.

We're just going in and doing targeted updates for the urban community forestry plan.

Lake Oswego's tree code is uh working well and has maintained a 50% tree canopy.

So the scope of this project is not to do a full revamp of the code, it's to make specific changes to comply with state law.

Go to the next slide, the project schedule.

Thank you.

We're right in the middle of this project.

You'll see by the yellow bubble there.

Um, and here is a schedule that just highlights the council touch points.

So we'll be coming back to you in early spring for a work session with the draft code.

Uh last time we were here was in August for the kickoff meeting.

Um we reviewed a list of the draft key issues developed in the code and policy audit of the phase, audit phase of the project.

The draft key issue list at the time included a total of eight substantive issues and 13 technical issues.

The substantive issues involve significant shifts in the city's current regulatory framework and have kind of broader policy implications.

While technical issues, ones in that category are minor, smaller changes in edits with less significant policy implications.

This list was also split into the categories of development and non-development.

And at the kickoff meeting, we discussed uh the draft issues list for both development and non-development.

We just didn't touch on the technical issues, although they were included in your memo, and you had a chance to review that as well.

Next slide.

So from your feedback at the August work session, tree task force input, city staff interviews, engagement with stakeholders, and public outreach.

The team updated the key tree regulation list, key tree issue list for a total of 12 substantive items and 25 total technical issues.

So the changes are highlighted here in yellow.

Um with this revised list, the best practices research was conducted looking at five peer jurisdictions and alternative code approaches were developed for the tree task force to consider.

So zooming in a bit here, when we reviewed the best practices and alternative approaches with the tree task force, there were a couple areas where people raised a lot of comments and questions where a lot of the discussion was focused.

So we determined that the highlighted items on the updated key issues list here needed a bit of a deeper dive before moving on to draft code.

And so this is where code concepts came in, uh, the code concepts that you reviewed.

Uh, for the four issues, one creating clear and objective standards for needed housing to ensure consistency and tree permitting between development and non-development, valuating the appeals process to reduce delays and conflicts, and creating incentives for tree preservation.

These four substantive key issues have policy implications all related to needed housing development, uh and also have policy implications for the rest of the issues.

So we're addressing them at this point before draft code.

So what is draft code?

What's a code concept?

Um, and why is it not the same thing as draft code?

A code concept is a preliminary stage to draft and code, and it's not set in stone.

These are ideas and a tool developed to encourage reactions and important discussion so that we can gather feedback.

These concepts were created based on our meeting with the tree task force, and explore how the alternative approaches can translate into ideas and code that can address the key issues by showing options and trade-offs to consider before moving forward to the next step.

So again, these are preliminary ideas, nothing has been decided yet, and a lot of further refinement will occur before uh code language is drafted.

So last time we were here, uh counselor Wendlin requested an overview of clear and objective standards, which we thought is a great idea since this is a really big part of why we're here today.

Uh and so this is the Oregon state statute, which requires cities to adopt and apply clear and objective standards, procedures, uh regulating residential development, to ensure that the city does not use discretionary or subjective criteria to deny residential housing projects or discourage housing through a reasonable cost or delay.

So the term needed housing here is defined in a separate part of the code, but essentially covers missing middle housing types uh to address the state of emergency of housing in Oregon.

So Lake Oswego, along with all the other jurisdictions in Oregon of a certain size, are required to make code clear and objective around housing development to reduce expensive process time onto housing developers.

So this means that Lake Oswego's tree code uh needs to have some changes done for a subset of type two applications related to development to uh comply with these clear and objective standards.

Next slide.

So how does this play out in Lake Oswego's code right now?

A discretionary standard, which is what uh which is the opposite of a clear and objective standard, requires interpretation by the reviewer and applicant.

So the example on the left here is from Lake Oswego's current code, and it states that the removal of a tree will not have a significant negative impact on the character or aesthetics of the neighborhood.

This is hard to interpret because it doesn't have clear, measurable qualifications, and different people can come to different conclusions.

On the other hand, on the other side of the slide is a clear and objective standard, um, which has specific measurements and details.

So this means that by right, if somebody does all the things listed in the standard, a permit can be administered and they can continue without delay.

Cities are required to offer a clear and objective track, although there can still be discretionary tracks as an option.

So are there any questions about clear and objective standards?

Yeah, what's the standard?

DVH, yeah.

The measurement, the diameter of the side Yeah, yeah, of a tree.

Yeah.

15 inch is 15 inches one of the standards.

Is one of the standards, yeah, always is the same.

No, on the clear and objective.

What's 15 inch would be a clear and objective.

15 inches at DBH would be a clear and objective.

And what else?

Uh anything that's measurable, quantifiable, um, a number, a percentage, a distance, tree height, canopy spread.

But is it per state low or just uh because some the things that are not measurable that are very important in taking into account and that has always been with the former attorney, what's his name again that I had a problem with the clear and objective that so yeah, like no aesthetic no character of the neighborhood, we just like remove that, but those also can be objective views of these tree you remove it, we won't see anything, you know, like it will cause some problems.

We just like remove that, but those also can be objective views of this tree, you remove it, we won't see anything, you know, like it will cause some problems.

It's it's not measurable quantitatively, but qualitatively, it's measurable.

So I um I have problem with clear and objective.

Yeah, and I would say I would comment that there's some things that we are able to translate from a qualitative you know measure to a quantitative measure by measuring you know the canopy spread and how large the canopy is, which maybe is a representation of health or aesthetics, um, so we can have discussions about that through these.

So is it gonna be taken into account that like some qualitative measure that you can quantify?

It could be which is weird, like to say, but I guess I just don't think that we all it's a really something that uh you know uh I don't like that way of thinking that it's only things that we can measure.

That's a really reductive of the sentiment of people who live in the neighborhood and who have because this is a technician who will come, oh yeah, this is 15 inches, but the tree represents more than that in the neighborhood and in a city.

So we can if we come and bring our laws by using some positivist view of because that's positivism, big time, 100%.

And it like I don't, you know, see the same way a tree than like a clerk from the state or from the city will see it, like just come, oh, 15 inches, oh yeah, yeah, you can cut it.

No, it represents more than that for the neighbors and for and your study should take that into account.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Bob.

Thank you.

All right, so we're gonna move on to the draft code concepts here.

Oh, council.

Can I can I ask a quick question on the clear and objective standards?

There's a um something in there that says reasonable fees or time.

Uh so to me, that's not clear and objective.

So what does that I mean it?

Do you guys have any sort of an idea of what their intent of that language was?

It is not defined.

I I that's that's all I can tell you.

And I it is it is kind of ironic that they require cities to be clear and objective, but then they have this very non-clear and objective standard that we have to meet.

Um, it's one of those things where we're gonna have to make a proposal, and I think as long as we stay within reason, um, and we don't go to extremes.

So, for instance, we can't say you can't remove any tree over six inches in diameter.

That's clear and objective, but I think that a case can be made that that is unreasonable in terms of cost and delay, because it'll just put almost every application into the discretionary process.

Um that that's all I can remark on it.

Um I say something.

Oh, I just know we're having the um I just wanted to say uh, you know, um it is the irony.

I I see where you're coming from.

I will say the I think part of why they included a reasonableness standard was because they it was actually a way of giving cities more discretion than the rule would otherwise indicate, because right, it's not um think about it in terms of the standard of review, it's not strict scrutiny, it's not heightened scrutiny, it's just plain reasonableness.

So I think part of what they were doing was trying to set a standard that was in terms of a standard of reviewing our actions at the lowest standard of judicial scrutiny, but your your point is absolutely well taken.

But you know, it's only attorneys that love the word reasonableness.

We think we know exactly what it means, but you're right, it's not uh it's not precise.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, can we stop there, please?

Thank you.

All right, so um, we're gonna start our overview and discussion of each of the code concepts, and they'll be structured the same.

First, I'll give an overview of the existing code and compare it to the alternative code concept.

Uh and then we'll jump into questions and discussions.

Um, but I'll first share how the concept was received by the tree task force, so you have that for context.

And the tree task force, which I've mentioned a couple times, um, is a diverse advisory body of 12 stakeholders with many perspectives in and around Lake Oswego.

It includes people that interact with the tree code very frequently, like arborists, conservationists, and developers.

So there's a lot of voices in the room, and everyone there is is very very qualified and knowledgeable about the tree code.

Next slide.

So the first key issue is creating clear and objective standards for residential uses.

And so this one is actually pretty meaty, so I've just broken it up into three different chunks for the presentation, uh, so that we can compare it side by side with the existing code.

All right, so the way that the code works today, if a site were being developed for housing and there were existing trees on the site, the process would be first that the developer would apply for a type two tree cutting permit.

And the city would determine if they could or couldn't remove the tree based on the existing discretionary code, which is shown here on the left.

Uh so tree code removal, tree removal should not have a significant negative impact on erosion, soil stability, flow of surface waters, protection of adjacent trees, existing windbreaks, or the character and aesthetics of a neighborhood.

So trees are already being removed under this current code.

Uh, and tree removals for housing development uh comprise a large chunk of that 16% uh bar in the graph there, um, which is representing uh type two permits for uh all development.

And so state regulation requires us to have clear and objective standards for a lot of reasons, but to make it easier generally for staff to administer the code, clearer for developers and users of the code.

And this also is an opportunity to allow us to align the regulations with the values outlined in the urban community forestry plan.

So the first part of three of the alternative provides two clear and objective approaches that the applicant can choose from.

Uh, one to retain a percentage of total trees on the lot, or retain a percentage of total DBH, so diameter at breast height on the lot.

So we're still in conversation about these percentages, that's why they read TBD.

Um, but this is just where they are now.

We want to make sure not to get too hung up on the percentages exactly since we'll continue to review them throughout the remaining project process.

Um, but if you have feedback, we welcome it.

Um we just do want to keep the focus on whether these two approaches and this concept are appropriate, or if there's a preference for one of the other in the discussion that we're gonna have.

This is the diagram and example site from the memo that you might recognize, um, giving an example lot.

So the example lot shown on the left.

Um and the right shows a table uh that kind of explains how there would be two different scenarios where the developer could meet this preservation requirement if they got the option between choosing between percentage of total trees on the lot or percentage DBH.

Next slide, please.

The second part of this alternative concept provides exemptions for trees within the building envelope, which was a suggestion by a tree task force member.

So exemptions for trees within the building envelope could be for small lots, uh, 5,000 square feet or less, or lots no larger than 15% of the minimum lot size required in that zone.

So in the last meeting with the tree task force, someone asked if a small lot exemption would make it possible for a developer to take a larger piece of land and subdivide it into many small lots to avoid preserving trees, which is a good question, and this was brought up uh by some members of the public as well.

Um but the retention requirements in part one that I just went over and just outlined would still be required outside of the footprint area of the building.

So it would make it feasible to build if there are trees on the potential lot, but they would still be required to meet the uh clear and objective standards for the remaining space on the lot and the remaining trees outside of the envelope.

Next slide.

Um we brought this to the task force as well.

Counselor Wenlin requested data on how many lots would be affected by this alternative.

Uh so we pulled that here.

Currently, in all residential and mixed-use zones that permit residential use in the city, there are 4,065 lots that are equal or less than 5,000 square feet.

Uh but these two graphs on the left show the seven residential zones that have minimum lot size requirements.

And there are a total of 1,869 lots that are equal or less than 5,000 square feet.

So on the top here shows total lots, and on the bottom is the percentage of the lots within that zone listed on the bottom, the seven residential zones I just mentioned.

So this data points to that to R3, high density residential zone, and how that one would be affected the most, both in terms of total number of lots and total percentage of lots within the zone.

All right, and here's a brief quick map of uh where those R3 lots are in bright red here.

So R3 is under 5,000 or under.

Is that first column in both of the graphs?

And so there's 683 lots in R3 that are small, so 5,000 square feet or less, and that's 75% of all our three lots.

But R3 is a high density residential zone.

Right, but it's 683 lots out of how many lots in Lake Oswego.

Out of I don't think we were able to get the data.

No, I didn't idea.

Oh, you did end it.

Um I think it was around 14,000, roughly, give or take, uh, lots in Lake Oswego.

So you're talking 15% of our lots are under 5,000 square feet, 5,000 or under.

Well, there are a total of 4,065 lots that are less than or equal to 5,000 square feet that allow residential use in the city total.

Oh.

And so it's about a third.

Okay.

So we're talking about a third that are 5,000 and smaller lots.

She has all these numbers that just roll over her head all night on every next slide.

Uh moving on to the third part of this concept, uh, starting off with how the code works today.

Currently, if a tree removal meets the criteria for issuance of a type 2 tree cutting permit, but it's determined a significant tree, it can't be removed under the type 2 permit.

So significant tree is not clear and objective.

So trees all need to be treated the same now under type 2 permits.

Um, but currently, if a tree is significant, it can be removed if it qualifies for two, one of two exemptions.

Um, one, if there's inevitable damage by the tree to structures, infrastructure, or utilities, or if an alternatives analysis by an arborist deems that there's no alternatives to the removal.

Um native trees right now are kind of folded into that significant tree term.

They're more likely to be considered significant, but there's no benefits of keeping them.

Slide, please.

And the alternatives concept cuts out this alternatives analysis by an arborist and routes the applicant to the percentage standard that we discussed to determine if removal is okay.

But the key here is that the discretionary term significant tree is removed, and the code concept provides bonus credits for uh preserving uh retaining native trees of 125% DBH credit of the tree.

So instead of listing listing out a discretionary term, there's going to be an incentive to keep native trees as well.

Next slide.

And so we asked the tree task force to provide their initial reactions to these three parts of the code.

And highlighted in green is what the task force supported with a two-thirds majority polling exercise.

And before we ask the task force to respond to polls as a guiding principle, we wanted to connect their charge statement to the urban community forestry plan goals and just ask them to consider when responding to these polls if they think that the options laid out here in the code concepts create clear and objective standards that are efficient, effective, and meet long-term sustainability goals for the urban forest.

So what we see here from the poll results is that the tree task force supports the concept of offering an option of retaining a percentage of total trees or a percentage of DBH to introduce flexibility in how preservation can happen on a lot while still retaining trees within a required threshold.

The tree task force supported tree exemptions for small lots only, equal and less equal or less than 5,000 square feet, which impacts a smaller portion of lots in Lake Oswego than if it was to expand to modestly sized lots or all lots with no size limit.

And then the tree task force also uh believes that it's important to preserve native trees throughout the bonus credit retention incentive.

Um so with that, we'd like to hear your thoughts about this first code concept and have the team answer any questions that you might have.

And just to clarify, the the the bonus retention credit is as kind of as explained in that diagram, you're doing the calculation, get extra DBH for the high value tree.

Okay, okay.

All right.

Um Councilor Corgan, do you have a short question?

Oh, yeah, please go ahead.

Start us off.

So first of all, I'm just curious how you arrived at the was it 33% as opposed to 25% or 40%.

Is that was that comparison with pure cities, and who are they?

Oh, well, um, that's just a placeholder right now, that 33% or that 50% uh for uh retention, and then the pure cities were uh Portland and um uh DC and I want to see Seattle is the last one.

Bellevue, Bend, Bellevue.

Uh Cooper Mountain, Oregon, Plan, Milwaukee, Portland, and Washington, DC.

And do they use the 33%?

Portland has a flexible um retention rate that is different based on density.

Um, so that is something that you could also consider, and I think that would be something that would come along further in the process.

Um yeah, that's it's possible.

Okay.

Um so one of the one of the problems I know that folks had with the way that we ran before when we had a when we had a lot that was being developed, was we would have a tree permit for the actual building, and then there would be successive permits for landscaping.

So am I interpreting this appropriately that this would be one and done.

We're looking at the lot, and we're saying if you retain these amounts, this is how we're gonna, we're not gonna have any successive landscaping requests after we go through this process.

I I think what you uh what I hear you asking is that could someone apply for true removal meet the minimum requirement and then come back later and remove more trees as part of it.

Some kind of a landscaping ask.

The answer is yes.

However, um, if they if they just met their minimum percentage requirements and they went through the clear and objective process, when they came back for landscaping, it would not be through the clear and objective process.

They would have to go through our discretionary process as we're proposing it right now, which would mean they would have to show it's not gonna have a significant negative impact on the characteristic of the neighborhood, et cetera.

So we would apply our current standards.

Although I do want to know um note before, because I'm sure this will come up, we do plan to try to make our current standards for the discretionary process to improve them to make them easier to administer, but um I I the threshold will not be purely clear and objective for that.

Okay, okay.

Good, thank you.

Yeah, it's a good question.

I know it's coming up later in the presentation, but the the question of whether or not we apply the clear and objective standards uh to all you know applications.

I think Counselor Corgan's point is one reason why it's um I'm sure why you all are recommending that we do not apply the clear and objective path to all types of tree applications.

Uh counselor woman.

You want to go?

No.

Oh, yeah.

Either way, we'll go.

Um, I guess I'd look at it as uh what's with the 5,000 square feet, because I if that's only a third of our population or our lots, we pretty much have two-thirds that are not included.

And I don't I don't see any rationale really for not having any lot.

I mean, if if in essence, if you're if you're going to apply it to one house, I mean it should be a standardized and so you I think we need the pros and cons for that.

I know when in the task force meeting, it sounded like great.

I'm I think it was a little bit your materials were kind of um subjective and not clear in the sense that people didn't know how many 5,000 square foot lots we have in Lake Oswego.

So I think it's part of it is if we're making policy, we really need to make sure that we're covering at least me 80% of the at least 80% of the lots.

Otherwise, um we're going to have difficulties, I think, in justifying why these and not those, and and you're certainly looking at the minority part.

Um I love the bone the bonus retention credits.

I think the the group was um uh almost unanimous on that.

Um but I and then the other thing is um 15 inches, uh again as a non-tree person, okay.

I'm not an expert in this.

I am in Lake Oswego, and I don't think there's a Douglas fir that's less than 30 inches.

So is 15 inches going to basically take almost every tree in Lake Usuego and disqualify it?

So I I don't know how you come up with a number, but I think you have to have some statistics to s to educate policymakers and task force to say, okay, this is what we're dealing with.

This is a, you know, if it's 15 inches, we're gonna have 98% of our permits not be able to actually do it.

Um so I mean, and I'm not saying it's just Doug Furs, but I think all type two trees, I mean, 15 inches is only this big, and that's a pretty no, that's a yes it is whatever you can argue.

Back and forth, it's not this big, and I just know that there's a lot.

So my point is is we have no idea really as a policymaker is 15 inches the right thing, or is four inches or is 90 inches?

No idea.

So I think from that standpoint, I think in order to move forward, at least for me, or I think to have it an intelligent discussion, you need to bring in what are the averages.

I mean, I don't even know if the permits that come in, um, if most of them are type two permits.

Um, you know, you're asking how they came up with these numbers.

Yeah, I just think we need some criteria on the five square foot lot, right?

Okay.

So if that makes sense.

Yes, good questions.

So I I can address the uh 15 inch um and where that came from.

So the reason why we specifically chose that, and this is actually part of the existing criteria for the type two, is um for type two, we look at um, we consider a tree to be significant if it's over potentially significant, excuse me, if it's over 15 inches in diameter and it's healthy, or it's uh I can't remember what the other aspects of it are, but non-invasive, thank you, not dead, um, etc.

Um 15 inches is a magic number because we allow type one trees to be removed if they're between six and fifteen inches in diameter.

So that is the threshold between type one and type two, and so that's why we chose the 15 inches.

So it does have it does have a specific meaning.

And then as far as um the footprint and uh because there's uh we're the proposal is to exempt trees within the footprint for true for lots that are 5,000 square feet or less in size.

We chose that specifically because the smaller a lot is, the smaller the building envelope is, and also the area outside of that building envelope that is available for tree retention.

So we wanted to recognize that it's some threshold, it you we need to not um uh you know grapple over trees that are in the middle of the building envelope.

Whereas if you were in an R15 zone and you have a 25,000 square foot lot and you have a footprint that is way larger than you're actually gonna build out, we don't want to automatically just give away the trees that are in the building envelope.

So that was kind of the rationale that you want to do.

Why would you not if it's a 15,000 square foot lot, you can only put a certain size house, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So why isn't that allowed?

Why are you treating one class of people differently than another class?

It's because um on these larger lots, um, they're they're they're usually much they're usually not exactly the lot size of the zone.

So in the 50, and so in the R15 zone, many of the lots are gonna be larger than 15,000 square feet, and so you're gonna have a larger building envelope that is not necessarily that you can't necessarily fill because you have a maximum, say 25% lot coverage, you're not actually gonna be able to fill that building envelope.

So what we don't want to do is just give away trees that are in the just because they're in the building envelope, even if they don't need to be taken out for the actual building footprint.

So that that's the that was the rationale.

But we can certainly look at that, and one of the considerations we had was well, maybe this should apply to lots that are no larger than 15% over the minimum lot size of the zone, and that would allow that building envelope um within those lots, but not ones not allowing trees to remove from building envelopes that are on oversized lots or significantly oversized lots.

Right.

Yeah, my point is that I mean, if one of the rationales that I think was brought up by the group that everyone liked or seemed to like is that if you're allowed to have a footprint for a house that you're developing, I mean, City Code says everything says you can.

Um, why can't you do it just like I mean, why can't that be a common um requirement?

Um and yeah, maybe you take the the five percent of lots that are gigantic or whatever and have a different rule for them.

Maybe I I get it, but I just don't see if if I'm a person that buys a house and it's a 10,000 square foot lot, um, and it says that I can take up what is it, 25% or 30% or whatever of the lot.

Uh I mean I should be able to buy the lot and put the house where I want to.

Um and uh and you still have uh two-thirds of the lot that's open.

Does that make sense?

Well, I thought that the purpose of what this was getting at with it is that it would be really difficult to um for anyone with a smaller lot to to meet the clearing objective track.

Isn't that right?

So we're providing this path so that otherwise it's gonna be really challenging for anyone to even use the they'd all be in the in the discretionary track.

Is that right?

Is that where it's coming from?

So it's not like trying to create a different set, it is trying to kind of make it between the different lot sizes, because otherwise every 5,000, which is a third of lots in town, they they might as well kiss us goodbye, you know.

Would be I guess I see it a different way.

Yeah, I'm I'm just looking at uh two-thirds of your lots are over 5,000 square feet.

And if I'm a somebody who wants to build a house, tell me if if I'm wrong.

If um if there's it's an empty lot and there's trees on it, and I put my footprint where I where I want to have it, um will I be able to do what I want to do with clear and objective standards.

Maybe not.

Um you're you're right, you might not be able to.

And if you don't, it doesn't mean you can't remove trees, it would just then bump you into the discretionary process.

But yeah, yeah, and frankly, I think we'll be in trouble as a city if two-thirds of our population is automatically going to be popped into the into the discretionary.

I mean, I that doesn't I mean I can see we'll have lawsuits right away.

I and you may be the attorney that is optimist, but um I just see having legislation that we come up with that um basically two-thirds of the lots are discriminated against.

Well, I I don't, yeah, I I guess I disagree with this kind of discrimination characterization.

I don't think that's the aim here.

And I certainly don't think that anyone's that this group is not trying to discriminate against classes of people, right?

No, it's lots of.

Well, you had mentioned classes of people, so I just want to make sure we're not no one's discriminating against classes of people.

Yeah, no, no, okay.

The concept with the exemption is um when you have that base calculation to calculate your clearing objective diameter percentage or total tree quantity percentage is uh the smaller lots, the trees within that footprint would be exempt from that calculation.

So you still have to meet those calculations outside of that building envelope.

And that's gonna be true regardless, and it's gonna really depend so much on the quantity and the size of the trees you have on your particular lot, which is gonna vary from site to site.

Well, I think that yes, but so I I agree with what counselor windlin is um well, you don't.

No, I don't but I but what you're saying though is that if if our clearing objective path set this whole 5,000 square the lot size aside.

I mean, if if it's not working for any development, if what you say is true that that folks of all different lot sizes come in and they just cannot use this clear, then I think we are gonna be, and I mean that is not the goal of this, right?

Then the state's gonna come back and say if no one can use the clearing objective path, then it is not reasonable.

I would imagine that would be an objective way they'd look at it.

Well, if if it if no one can apply it to their lot, then it's probably not too reasonable.

Yeah, then we're gonna be right back here at the request of you know DLCD talking about a different standard.

So I imagine what we're trying to craft here is a clearing objective path that we do feel is going to apply to maybe not a hundred percent of lots, but to right isn't that's the goal.

Right.

Yeah, okay.

And and you know, part of this is going to be how we're gonna set the percentage.

Um, because I know there was some uh this you know discussion about is 33% right, is 50% right.

Again, that that's not the purpose of the study session here is for us to arrive at that right now.

Um just whether this concept is on the right track.

And I think what we need to do is take some case studies, and um, we know um, and I don't think I have this data right in front of me, but I I did collect it is we know what the average lot size is in each of those zones, and so we can look at an average case and say, okay, if if if they came in and we can do a case some case studies on the lots to see what kind of results we're getting, and that will help us arrive at the right percentage as well.

Right.

Well, if um do I I as I understand it, maybe one way one way we can all look at this is that the exemption for small lots is an attempt to make the clearing objective a reasonable path for those lot sizes.

Yes, it's also an incentive in a way, too.

And an incentive, yeah.

Okay, that's a good question.

Yeah, I I mean I think Councillor Wenland is changing my mind on this because it's like 30%.

Yeah, no, honestly, like why are we saying that it's only these folks that we will allow to go this route, and all the rest will go the discretionary way.

And is a discussion, yeah.

Is a discussionary way gonna be an impediment for development for us, like so.

This is one of the items that we have in our in our discussion as um it we're we're kind of focusing on the the clear and objective and how we one of the ways that or a few of the ways that we might apply that, but there's a bigger question here as to whether or not the clear and objective standards should apply to all type two, or if we should continue this bifurcation, because we know we've heard from the community, we treat development is treated differently than other reasons for removal.

Um the issue with that is that if you want to make all of the standards the same, the clear and objective standard would have to apply to everything because we're required by state law to have the clear and objective standard for housing.

So if you want to make everything the same, it has to be the same as what you apply to the housing.

That may be a standard that lowers the bar, which allows more tree removal than we allow today.

And so that is a that's a very significant policy choice that that needs to be made.

Um of course we don't know what those results will be until it's actually applied, but you can imagine that if people only had to retain a certain percentage on their site, that a lot of people would just go down to that minimum percentage because they maybe want more light or or whatever.

So we need to balance our goals of trying to maintain our our current canopy um as much as possible with also applying uh complying with state law, which um at least the project team and the consultant is recommending that we still have that two-track process, but that is something we'd like the council to weigh in on.

Um, and I don't know.

No, it's uh it's clear now to me.

It's uh and you know where I will support.

I would, you know, I would quote that the other thing that I have not, and I'm repeating it, it's the clear and objective things, even if it doesn't apply to all there's uh and and maybe you can help me here because folks think that the city allows developers to do whatever they want compared to like folks, I have a tree in my home, it's very dangerous, I want to remove it, and they say no, you can't.

But if a developer comes, they let them cut everything, like clear cut, and we've seen it, but like we all like I have a tree that's threatening the building of my school.

I called the park to tell them that they say, Oh, you know, this is no.

And there are many, there are many residents that have you know things like that.

But if when it comes to developers, they just cut.

Is it true?

Or and can we have a percentage like saying the 2,000 trees that are cut every year?

Uh and major trees sometime.

Two-thirds by developers or two-thirds by residents.

People say like it's a no resident cut more trees than the developers.

Can we be I'm saying it loud because folks are watching, so we know that the city is not here only for developers.

That's not a fair characterization.

And you want to yes, we have good uh tree data based on our tree removal permit applications and the the permits that are issued every year.

Um, on average um 2,930 trees were permitted for removal each year.

And of that, um only 16% of those trees, or about 461 trees, uh, were related to development of some kind.

Some of that would be housing, um, but other types of development as well.

So those are type two permits for development as well as verification permits.

Um again, that's 16% annually, which comes out to about 461 trees each year over the last five years.

The main reason for removal, I think it's 67% is for dead hazardous or invasive trees.

So that that is by far the most tree removal that we have in the city.

Okay.

Do you want to weigh in on how do you think about the proposal?

No, yeah, and that's what I was I should we retain both.

Is it I think we should allow both.

And what do you think about the small lots exemption?

Also, like you said it.

I mean, if you don't have that exemption, they won't be able to develop anything.

So you know, I trust you on that.

Yeah, I think yes.

Only small lots.

Okay.

Um, counselor could thank you, counselor.

Council.

Yeah, yeah, I've got one more question.

And that is uh in our peer group, are there cities that have used this concept and gained the state's approval?

No.

Well, uh, I know that uh so the the requirement that tree codes specifically have to be subject to clear and objective standards just passed with HB 2138.

Now, there was there's probably an argument to be made that even before they passed that law that specifically applied to tree codes that we were still required to pull apply clear and objective standards in our tree code to housing development.

Um so I don't know that that's been tested yet.

Okay, I know the city of Milwaukee has specifically a clear and objective approach to their tree code.

I do not know if that is um has been specally found to comply with state law, but I know that they designed it to be clear and objective or or to provide a track that's clear and objective through housing.

Some of the other peer cities that we looked at, um Bellevue, they don't have the same laws we have.

Um Washington DC doesn't um and I I can't remark on Bend or Tiger has somewhat has a clear and objective standard as well.

Why would we compare ourselves to Washington DC?

So if you uh this is in the report, but um maybe you can well I can um I would say historically we're we're similar in the sense that we have large mature trees that we're trying to retain, which is you know similar um in that aspect, and then also our our density and our our our size of our city is also similar, and similar tree canopy coverage as well.

So there was uh criteria.

So we there was a report that they did um regarding peer cities, and there and they just the consultant discussed the rationale as to why they chose these peer cities, but it had to do with population percentage of tree canopy cover, um, how recently they redid their tree code so that we're staying, we're we're only gonna be comparing to cities that have also recently done their tree code too, so that we're most current with what we're what we're recommending and the the canopy percentage and and those types of things is where the industry is trending as far as development goes and how to balance that preservation and development.

And I also want to point out that we looked at um we also looked at these peer cities based on different challenges that we had.

So we didn't look at Washington DC for everything.

It was um it may have been that the they have a program for write-away tree preservation or something like that, because we had specific challenges that we wanted to look at and see what other peer cities did.

So it's not that we're comparing all of our tree code to say Washington DC, but there were aspects of their tree code that had similar challenges to what we have.

Yeah, you have a follow-up question.

So do we need to specifically gain approval from the state of Oregon, or we just need to have a system that's defensible as we go forward and manage our city?

Both.

So one of the things that we'll have to do, because we are making um changes to our uh community development code as well as our tree code, is we will notify DLCD and they will review.

So there will be a um uh plan amendment review by the state.

Um, and then of course, it we have the housing accountability and production office.

So if we got complaints about it, then it could be reviewed at that level as well.

Okay.

All right, the next question I had, and then I'll I'll weigh in.

So do we know anybody who has used this concept where we could look and see what impact it has had on the canopy?

Is there anybody out there like that as you guys are looking around?

We don't know yet.

The closest that I would think uh would be Portland if are you uh in reference to the percentages of preservation that concept, right?

It would be it would be Portland would be my yes, Morgan.

Okay.

And the city of Milwaukee also, I mean, but they updated their tree code just a few years ago.

It has it hasn't been in effect all that long.

And we also have to recognize that both of these cities do not have the same level of tree canopy that the city does.

Like we are already the highest, one of the highest in the region.

So and and I the other thing I would point out is we don't have any minimum retention requirements right now.

We are just purely reviewing it under discretionary standards that says, is this have a significant impact?

We aren't saying is it going to reduce the canopy cover or anything like that.

So we don't currently have a minimum standard.

So it may be that this will increase our tree canopy cover.

I again, I'm not maybe try not to be too polyannic about that, but um uh but uh but we don't have a minimum standard, so we really don't know what the effect is going to be.

Okay, thanks.

I think this is really good work when I read through it.

I thought, wow, we are we are we're stepping up.

So I would support allowing both.

And I think that we should look at those exemptions only on small lots.

And the retention credits are a wonderful idea.

So yes, yes, and yes.

No, I I have questions.

Oh the um, I I also I agree with all the with what's laid out here and and agreed on by the committee.

Um, but I do have a question about the um uh the the fee in lieu.

Uh so if we have this part of this proposal, right, on the uh clear and objective track is if they don't meet the clear and objective track, they can pay a fee in lieu of going the discretionary route.

And how um what could we do to stop people from simply because you know one complaint we've had in the past is people just don't follow the tree code, in fact, they don't even apply for a tree permit, and they come in later and say, oh, I'll pay I'll pay the fines.

And so we don't want to create a system like that where they do apply it, but they just pay basically to cut down the trees, you know, clear cut the lot and pay.

Um I don't think that would be desirable.

I don't know, to pay just to, you know, to cut down trees that aren't that don't need to be removed because of development.

So what would we do to stop that kind of behavior?

There's a couple of ways that we could go about this.

Um that's why um if so the the issue is if in the clear and objective track someone cannot retain the minimum amount of of percentage of tree can't uh tree number of trees or DBH, then there would be this option to, or they they would be required to pay a fee in lieu per inch for the deficit that they have in meeting the minimum retention requirements.

If they didn't want to go the right, they didn't want to then go to the discretionary path.

So there would be a couple of ways we could deal with this.

The first is we need to make sure we write size the mitigation fee.

So this it needs to be a disincentive to do this.

We do not want it to be a just a given where someone just says, ah, I'll just pay the fee and move on.

So I know that the city of Portland has a uh program like that, and I don't know if Ms.

Johnson can speak to that.

Um, but that's one option.

The other option is that you just don't allow them to do the fee and loo, and instead you just make them go to the discretionary stand um process.

Um, this is what Beaverton does, as well as the city of Portland for land divisions, because um and and it can be a way to discourage um removing more trees because a lot of builders and developers don't want to go through the discretionary process because there's a lot of uncertainty in that.

But I don't know if you have anything to add to the city of Portland's.

Yeah, the city of Portland has a 472 dollar per inch fee.

So if you want to remove a tree, that would that would be the cost per inch.

Um and it has I have experienced it where with two clients, one where they did end up removing a tree because their house was sliding down the hill and they didn't have another option, they kind of had to take it out.

Um, but another was a undeveloped lot in a neighborhood, and um there were a lot of trees and it was sixty thousand dollars to take all these trees out because they could not preserve a single one with the way that the lot was oriented.

Um not in a single one, but they couldn't preserve enough.

So they had they they have a threshold essentially if you don't meet that threshold, you pay beyond that threshold uh per inch.

So that lot is still standing.

I don't know a developer who would pay $60,000 to develop one, you know, lot.

And there's not a just uh this uh discretionary path they could go down just to oh well, so we'd always have that option.

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's not just that they only have the fee.

Yeah, that's it.

Oh, that's not good either.

Well, it's a good it is a good question, you know.

I mean, is there a way to look at it in terms of trees that are in the building envelope versus you know, say like they just can't meet it, and I mean, and yeah, the trees in the building envelope, we can say yes, you pay a f uh there's a fee to remove that tree.

Um, but no, you know, no fee option exists to remove these these kind of excess trees, we'll call them like outside the building envelope.

I don't know if that's the way to go about it, some kind of middle middle ground to not just force the person with that just that one tree and say, well, sorry, you know, you know, reconfigure the house or go through the discretionary process.

Uh yeah, the the current process is essentially like that.

With if I'm preparing a type two tree removal permit, I I list you know what what is in the building footprint, what's being removed due to grading, what's being removed due to a utility, and I have to defend each of those decisions, and then the city's consultant and planning team, they review that application.

So that would I would I would assume that that would look very similar with the discretionary process.

So yeah, but you're right, it should be calibrated in a way or people to say, well, what's the cost?

Yeah.

Oh well, I'll just pay that, you know, and then I don't think that would you know be so be so hot.

Um okay.

That was that was my question, but otherwise, I think I think we have consensus around these clear objective um policies, council woman.

So I just want to make clear in my head, then if somebody is larger than a 5,000 square foot lot, how do they and they have a house that they want to build and they are allowed a footprint to take up whatever 25% of the lot, and there happens to be a tree that's in the way, what did they have to do to get a tree permit to remove that tree.

If we if we as a city they they follow all the codes, all the billing codes, the state codes, all the codes, and it just happens to be that the tree is in the middle of the lot, um how are they gonna get that tree?

How how can they build their house?

Well, they would have um two options.

The first is if they go through the just clear and objective option, then um, and if all they want to do is remove the one tree in the middle of their building envelope and there were other trees on the site, they would just need to show that they the the remaining trees on the site would comply with the minimum retention requirement.

If it just so happens that that one tree that's in the middle of their building envelope and they're over 5,000 square feet in size in the lot is the only tree that's on the lot, and they can't meet the minimum retention retention requirements, then um the concepts as proposed would say you could either pay a fee in lieu for the um for the inches that you're missing, or you could go through the discretionary process instead of clearing objective.

Okay, which would be easy if it's literally in the middle of the building.

Yeah, so it depends how many trees are on the lot, of course.

The the scenario where you wouldn't meet the retention requirement would be if there's the trees are kind of centered in the center of the lot.

Right.

Um with a large lot that's that's unlikely.

I mean it's possible if where exactly they want the house is where all the trees are, where over 50% of the trees on the lot are.

Um so that would be the scenario if they wanted to build the house on a large lot and over 50% of the trees were in there, or over 66% of the DBH were within the building where they wanted to build the house.

And of course, those percentages are going to be under scrutiny, and we're gonna kind of but they would always have a path to request.

And that's my concern.

I uh so my whole thing on this, and and I agree 100% with um having clear and objective and and making it good, but I think in some ways um the tree task force is is looking at from the forestry plan viewpoint, and you started off your comments about that, and we're gearing everything off the forestry plan.

We as a council have been sitting for three years, four years on housing production standards in in Oregon, and there's a lot of pressure in Lake Uswigo and everywhere else to build more so we can have less of a housing shortage.

So I'm just playing devil's advocate a little bit to make sure that we're not just looking at from a forestry plan standpoint, because I totally get that, but I also have to say that we really should give credit to like us we go people that live here.

We're trying to get the one percent of the people that may push the envelope.

I mean, I look at every development or every house that's been built, and they start planting trees because it's a value that we have in this community.

And you look at houses that were built 10 or 15 years ago, and they have big huge trees in there in their yards and whatever, and they're exactly how they are.

And so I want to give people and like us we go credit for they do value trees, and and I think we have to have that lens sometimes when we're doing policy that we want to make it for the people who really care and want to support Lake Us we go and not just look out for that one or two people that we're going to try to make it so complicated that everybody is going to be having to deal with that one that one idiot that is going to try to 1% that caused 99% of our problems.

Well, and and when you look at it, you you said 16% of our trees um 461 trees a year.

I bet you we have probably a few hundred thousand trees in Lake Us We go, just a idea.

So that's a pretty small percentage that we're talking about.

I so I'm just putting things in perspective.

So well, I thought you guys all um uh you know uh preface this entire thing really well that we have a tree code that really does work that despite you know mass redevelopment in the community over these past couple generations, you know, we have one of the healthiest, uh the healthiest tree canopy, you know, in the region, and the canopy is only growing, you know, despite that development.

So the code really works, but obviously it has to be uh compliant with current state law, and so these kind of surgical elements to to bring the code into compliance, but still provide the um uh uh and provide some additional flexibility and incentives, you know, to to do that, uh, the preservation of the right species and looking ahead to the changing climate as well, which I know is you know, things coming later with some of these other aspects of it is all you know good work, but I really I appreciate councilwoman's comments that uh yeah, we're not trying to you know micromanage the uh community here, but these regulations exist so that we can have you know um the I mean it's the regulations we have thus far that have produced the the canopy.

Um we see in communities where they don't have the same regulations, they don't have the you know, they don't have the canopy for a reason, you know.

So um it's uh it's it's a good good point.

Okay.

All right.

On to the next slide.

They're number one.

All right.

Great.

This was the biggest one though.

Yes, this was the biggest one, yes.

All right, um, next slide, please.

Thank you.

So moving on to the second key issue creating tree preservation incentives.

Uh so currently developers go through a variance process uh in order to receive a 50% building setback reduction, but this isn't used very often because they don't want to incur the time costs that it takes for the variance application process and the uncertainty of it being approved or not approved.

Um, and this isn't necessarily going away with this new concept, but this alternative concept puts forth an additional option for developers who are uh from the beginning retaining 50%, of course, TBD, or more of trees on the lot.

Um and they could still apply for this variance, but this would exempt them from the new concept.

So they could either you know still apply for the variance and get a 50% building setback reduction, or choose to get this exemption this incentive as well, uh instead of.

So next slide, please.

Uh and this incentive would be if high tree retention is met, so 50% or more, the applicant would be exempt from public notice and appeals, and or is eligible for small adjustments and dimensional standards, so setbacks, building height, um, other things that might increase uh uh the incentive to build or small amounts of square footage, things like that.

Um, and they wouldn't have to go through the variance process.

So uh next slide.

The uh tree task force polled on this as well, and six of the members supported the concept of small dimensional adjustments as an additional incentive for tree preservation.

And the other four supported the small dimensional adjustments as well as the exemption um from public notice and appeals.

So again, the tree task force officially to get a majority vote, uh they need to vote two-thirds in favor.

Uh so two-thirds did uh support the small dimensional adjustments.

It's just unclear with the face of these two options if the exemption from public notice and appeals should be an additional incentive.

Uh so those who chose both show a stronger preference um for incentivizing preservation, while those who chose small dimensional adjustments are in favor of more kind of incremental incentives in tree retention.

So we look to you for your feedback here as well.

It's uh definitely a little bit more of a succinct, shorter concept.

Yeah, this is a trickier one.

Yes.

The retention is triggered.

Because again, it goes back to the fact that uh if we're for premised on the fact that the current code is working pretty well, it's like, do we why go down this, you know, one hand, why go down this path?

Um, I do wonder like administratively, would this be challenging to go through?

I mean, then analyzing well, how how many little inches, how many more inches do you get on the roof?

And of course, you'd want it to be kind of a butt for standard too.

You want to be like, well, I I somehow had a lot with that had like just a massive amount of periphery trees, and so yeah, great.

I was able to meet this 50% requirement, no slide off my back, and I can build to the full dimensions, and you're gonna give me extra height, you know, or I can change my setbacks.

It's like, well, but then analyzing that, so I don't know.

When I read this, I thought, oh, this just seems like kind of a headache that's ripe for you know, all sorts of random different situations that would come up that wouldn't really meet.

That's what we're getting at.

It's like, hey, you know, build your house different than you would otherwise, you know, and save a tree and we'll give you a little something extra, but it could go the other way too, or they you know, could build the house just as they would, and you know.

So that's what I'm I don't know, might be more trouble than it's worth.

What do you think?

Personally, I think it it just puts just a lot of ambiguity in it because I I think there's so much subjective part in here.

I just um I'm not in you're basically saying change our code, our building code around a tree, right?

Yeah.

The zoning some zoning coincidence, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, if you're you know, and what happens if the tree goes away, that house is still gonna be there, hopefully.

You know, and and they may be closer to your neighbor, and you're you're looking like, oh gosh, I have a seven-foot lot line on the left and uh uh 13-foot lot line or space between on the right.

Like somebody would go, gosh, what were they thinking back then?

Yeah, this this concept came out of a stakeholder focus group that we had with developers.

Um and there was a lot of feedback that having small dimensional adjustments would be a significant incentive uh for preserving trees.

Uh, because right now a lot of developers are developing multiple lots.

They have uh, you know, they own many lots in Lake Oswego, and it's easy for them to uh plant their mitigation trees elsewhere.

So that's kind of why people are seeing a lot of these lots from the you know the mouths of the public clear-cut, because they're not replanting the mitigation trees on that lot, they're replanting them somewhere else on one of their other properties.

And so there is the need to incentivize developers further for keeping the trees on the lot.

And so these kind of dimensional adjustments, although they haven't been nailed down, they gave us a couple examples of you know what might make it possible to get the initial square footage uh a little bit more flexible so that they could you know move, move the the building envelope over a little into the setback, maybe build it a little higher, um, and then they could build around a tree where ordinarily they couldn't.

Um so that's where this did come from, just for context, it came from that that stakeholder interview with the developers.

Yeah, but okay, but I mean for incentives, I mean like for money, maybe, but incentive on variances.

I know I am against that.

And and also, of course, developers will ask for that.

But as and for us, we are here for you know the city, we had the steward of this, we are saying no to that.

I mean, it's not like I was shocked when I saw variances like because you and also even what kind of trees.

I was telling the mayor about that.

You know, the emerald ash board will kill all the ashtries if they only have ash trees in there and say, oh, we are keeping all the six-story house.

Yeah, yeah, come on.

I mean now for me, we are going too far.

We are pushing the agenda too far on that.

Like first of all, we should not cut they have the developers, they have they are some trees like the one we were talking, uh eight hundred tree that can live eight hundred years.

They could have saved it, but they cut it.

And it stayed in here with me.

So honestly to come back and tell them, oh, not only you can do that, but oh, you can go very into you can move to the neighbors and build clusters and stuff.

Even if we accept it, it won't fly in Lake Oswego.

They are not gonna accept that, the folks.

And would that be difficult to administer?

And then I mean, I'll be honest with you, this was not one of my favorite um things that came out of the focus group in terms of recommendations for that reason.

Um number one, we have to figure out okay, well, what what percent or what how many feet or whatnot?

And and then it and it shifts the burden to impacts on on the neighbors.

Um and it I don't know that we can come up with small reductions that are really gonna move the needle on saving the trees.

And the other thing that I heard, and this actually came out at the tree task force meeting was uh the bill we have a couple of builders on on the task forces, they said what we would like more is more lock coverage.

And I said, Well, isn't that kind of getting across, I mean, if you're getting more copper more lot coverage, then that's potentially having more impact on trees.

So I so I I'm getting kind of mixed messages on that.

From my perspective, then the reason why we included the public notice and appeals process, if we if they saved more than a certain percentage exempting them from that process, if they're going through it's clear and objective anyway, so I'm not sure exactly how someone is going to what their objections are going to be on appeal, except for maybe not everything is 100% clear and objective.

I don't know.

Um, but that might be an incentive because that increases a certainty and um and reduces the time it costs for for the builder or developer, and that seems to me more valuable.

I think that I like the number one at least, but just not the two.

Yeah.

I mean, if if if they do the one, then I mean if they're whatever percentage you decide, they know they can just go through the permitting process and they're done.

That gives them to me, that's incentive enough.

They don't need an extra bonus round of doing things.

So I'm all for if they are following the rules.

I mean expedite it.

Okay, so council wouldn't support some an expedited process.

Um counselor Corgan.

Yep.

So I guess maybe I'm jumping ahead, I'm not sure, but this is this is something that I've been thinking about for years, which is allow tree retention to receive on-site stormwater management credits based on the size and types of trees that are retained.

I mean, for years we watched people take down these big dog first and then dig holes in their lots to take care of the stormwater.

I'm like why.

So is it is this gonna be on the next page, or is there some way to be a have that be a credit?

I mean, how can we I think that absolutely should be happening in most beautiful?

It's in the staff report, it's the third item.

We might have missed it in the presentation, but that is one of the incentives that is.

I think we we need it.

That's a good one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The stormwater credit.

And is that administratively?

Is that yeah?

So we are vetting this with our engineering department, so I'd like to get further feedback from them.

But it is something that's being implemented in the city of Milwaukee right now, so we know it is implementable.

So we'll um dig further into that and get some feedback from them on how that's been going as well.

Okay.

If that is a concept that you all support.

Stormwater?

Yeah, that'd be great.

Yeah, I mean, I again I I kind of like uh for the rest of these though.

I don't know, I'm like, you know, the current again, the current system seems to be working.

Sure, there could be ways that improve it and whatnot, but you know, I'm more in favor of just otherwise sticking with what we have regardless of um you know the the tree retention rate.

Okay, you're all in agreement with that.

Are we just looking at the stormwater then?

Okay, okay.

Number three how fast we are.

Number three evaluating the appeals process to reduce delays and complex between groups.

H OK.

So currently notice and appeals process is three weeks for all type two removals.

And if there is an appeal, it currently goes to the development review commission, and then further can be appealed to the city council.

Uh so recent data shows that there's on average about three appeals per year.

Um, and so over the last five year period or between 2020 and 2024, uh, eight were appealed to council out of the out of these appeals to the DRC, but only one of these decisions was overturned.

So it shortens it to two weeks total for applicants that meet the clear and objective standards and retain, but retain less than 50% of the trees or less than the percentage of DBH that's decided upon.

So if there is an appeal, it goes to the DRC or a hearings officer.

But it cannot uh any longer be appealed to the council.

Slide.

And so polling shows that all tree task force members were in favor of having a more streamlined process that isn't unnecessarily cumbersome if the clear and objective standards are met.

The three weeks to two weeks is um you know just a significant enough time, especially since the DRC meets, you know, two times a week, and that we were uh sorry, two times a month, and um a lot of folks um in the public were kind of talking about how the the appeals process plus scheduling you know hearings and a council hearing just can move the uh the timeline out dramatically.

Um and uh second, in a unanimous decision, all of the tree task force members present supported the concept that an appeal should go to a hearings officer instead of the DRC.

Um, and this is because a qualified hearings officer uh can make informed, really consistent decisions more quickly than the DRC, um, which holds hearings twice a month.

Um and then lastly, 60% of the task force members present supported the idea that the decision by the hearings officer, or if other people feel differently, the DRC should be final and not be further appealable to city council, although it's notable that this was not a two-thirds majority, and that's why this isn't notated in green.

Okay.

Uh so as you all are directly part of this.

I didn't get to vote, so it would have been you vote for.

I mean, we should no appeal.

Oh no, I I think we should appeal to city council.

We yeah, honestly, for me.

It should be appealed.

The reduction to two weeks.

What is the the like the city stuff?

What are they thinking about?

Is it more work for them or in the like well, it is a it's a tighter turnaround time than than currently today.

Um, and I know um uh Miss Sissel uh who administers our our tree code is here, and and she commented on that.

Um the other the flip side is is that you know uh Ms.

Sissel spends a lot of time with applicants trying to get a complete application.

So that three-week period does not account for the time that she has the back and forth with the applicant just trying to get them to submit a complete application because our standards are kind of hard for them to, they don't usually address them well, let's put it that way.

So the clear and objective standards will probably help in that respect because the applicants will know exactly what they need to show, and that we don't have to go have all this back and forth with them.

So there'll be some time savings from that.

Um it's one of those things where we'll probably have to um administer it to see how it works.

But yes, it will be a change in our process that we'll need to have a quicker turnaround time, so it will impact uh staff.

But at least the feedback that I got from Ms.

Hissel is we do think it's doable.

Okay.

Yeah.

If it is, yeah.

So you otherwise support it, but you think it should be appealed.

But yeah, it has to be appealed to council because that's why we are here, because folks can do whatever they want.

I don't want to give my power to a hearing officer that I don't know who's not elected.

We don't know where they're coming.

We see our court, how it's working in America, even the Supreme Court.

Why would I you know for me?

I am elected here to defend the people of Lake Oswego.

I should have that power.

It's okay.

Yeah, it's for me.

I don't vote for that.

Okay.

Gotcha.

I hear you there.

Um, Councilor Corgan, what do you think?

Yeah, I'm wondering if you can remind us of the one time when we did overturn a decision by the DRC.

What was that about?

That was in 2020, and it involved a lot that had um that was almost entirely encumbered by sensitive lands.

And so, and it was a quite a large lot, and so they were building in the area that wasn't uncovered by sensitive lands.

And um in that case, I believe they had to reduce the size of their house.

So I'm not necessarily sure.

Again, I'm not gonna second guess the council at that time.

I don't know that that was the right decision based on on the code, and I don't know that that's the same decision that we would make today.

But nevertheless, it was what happened.

And so they ended up having to, I think, reduce the size of the house to accommodate a tree.

Um thank you.

It was not unanimous.

I did not do what I mean.

What do you uh well?

How do you feel about the question?

I'm just probably going to further complicate the sorry.

Yes, I do support reducing the notice and appeal time.

And kind of a thinking about the same things that Counselor Maboop is concerned about.

If I I would believe that the appeals should go to a DRC, it's a larger group of people, they have they have more varied points of view.

That's I'm sure the hearing officer would be probably very professional and very good.

But I'm thinking about the people filing the appeal being concerned about bias or a particular point of view that a hearings officer might have and losing credibility, city losing credibility with just one set of eyeballs on there.

I don't know.

I feel like I kind of feel like if it I feel bad putting it all on like if we're going the the hearings officer route, putting it all on the shoulders of our poor DRC, you know, and then it's not appeal.

I mean, obviously the current route is DRC, and then they can be appealed to the council.

So they kind of and oftentimes we you know um make the same, it sounds like in 99.9% of the times we make the same decision as the DRC and it kind of affirms them.

So I'm thinking if we go the other route, I I you know leave it with the hearings officer, not have it all rest on the poor DRC, because I do know that that I mean those are tough.

Those are like the most, and we don't have them that often, but when we have had them, they can be really contentious, and I know it weighs heavily on the DRC, and honestly, it can make it difficult to attract people to want to serve on the DRC because who wants to sit there and then be the ultimate voice on these on these very you know emotional things.

Um what about if we uh you know, and a hearings officer I know is widely used with success throughout the country.

Um and again, I mean, I there have been, in my experience on here, I mean, such rare times when we've tweaked with any really, I think the staff here does such a good job vetting the applications, working with the applicants that I mean it's like I mean, the results.

I mean, we've we just it is takes up a lot of time, it takes up a lot of staff time, a lot of community energy, and I just don't know if we're actually getting any good results from it other than like a cathartic type therapeutic um session.

Yeah, for folks who then after so much energy just go, okay, I guess you know so I do think everyone's time and energy could be better spent.

Um and and I would I support the the current path here, including no appeal to the um to the to the council.

I I appreciate what councilman boop is saying, you know, but I mean I think the point of having the hearings officer is it's not a political decision, you know, it's supposed to be a clear and objective, you know, rational decision, not influenced and you know, we don't want people running for office based on how they hear tree appeals that rarely occur, you know.

So I don't know, that's how I feel, but I see that kind of I'm I'm in a complete agreement with the which I was actually surprised that um they thought this way.

I have pleasantly surprised.

Honestly, yeah.

But I will tell you that we have some really good professionals um on the tree committee that have gone through these processes and including we have two that's we're on this DRC.

Yes.

One or two.

And they they basically said, oh my gosh, no.

Yeah, go to the hearings officer because it's um uh because I've said it from the beginning um when um they politicize the process.

I would say most of the time it's a politicized process of people just wanting to stall the process.

And um, and I think we don't have an appeals process for all the other decisions that City Hall makes.

I mean this is a very unique sort of thing, in my opinion, um, that they can continue to just keep appealing for political reasons or for you know whatever they're thinking.

But they can to DLCC, like well, it kind of would be high now.

So but the the bottom line is I think um we're trying to get a efficient system, we're trying to reduce the the cost of housing, and I will tell you now that there's a time value on money, um this is costing housing housing costs tremendously.

I mean, it if if you spend uh um and and we've had some appeals processes that have stalled out a project for six months.

And if you take a million-dollar lot um for uh at the rates of interest, that's a 30,000 to 40,000 decision that we're stalling these you know, people from moving forward.

And I I think that's that to me, you would appeal the other way and say the city needs to make up if they're if they're successful, then we need to pay their interest.

I mean it uh there's a cost to this.

And so I look at that.

And uh if you went through the process um uh and you followed all the rules and you were sub, you know, you have clear and objective standards.

Um it's uh I just um I don't see why we listen to tree appeals and we don't listen to um almost every other rule that we have.

Um because they're controversial and I think citizens also have the right to appeal decisions made by other bodies and because what are you saying?

This is the bias on the side of developers.

And oh, it makes housing more expensive housing are expense.

All these folks that are building there, it's not affordable housing, as we could say.

They are making big money.

And I'm not against that.

We are in a capitalist society, but we are also in a society where there should be the voice of the people.

It's a democracy and a democracy means people have the right to have oversight on things that are happening.

And I feel we say, oh, hearing officer, we have the Supreme Court.

The highest in the land, they're defending the most horrible things, and no one can appeal it.

Are we gonna bring it to Lake Oswego where someone who think that oh developers should have this and everything that come hearing officers said this and we sit there and say, oh, they cannot appeal it to us.

I think we should oversee the hearing officer thing.

We should be for me, there should be an appeal.

I know I will be vote, you cannot vote for.

But I I just want to voice my thing that the people should have the right.

It's not slowing down the development.

We just say no, in the thing we say two weeks.

It was three weeks in the middle of the year.

No, no, no.

That's that's the application that's notice an appeal period.

No, yeah, but that's what I'm saying.

The app they have.

But that's not this whole process.

No, then go through the appeal.

No, yeah, but it's anyway, we reduce the time that they have from three weeks to two weeks.

And no.

No, I don't think you're reading the process.

No, no, no.

I don't know.

I'm reading no the appeal.

No, I'm the appeal process.

Months.

Yes.

No.

Is it no, it's a no month.

Months, yeah, but we can why we cannot make it that when they appeal, we come and work on it.

Takes forever.

Yeah, but it takes forever, like what?

Because the DRC make a decision, we can they appeal it, we can yeah.

I mean, it's just if the thing is we have this long history, and I don't maybe we all disagree, but I've never seen one of these applications before, wow.

I am so glad this what a miscarriage that happened here.

Yeah.

I mean, what how did this even make it through?

How did this get through the planning department?

I mean, not once have I ever seen something, I've been like, what an egregious example.

Thank God we have this appeals process.

You know, it's always like, what are we doing here?

You know.

Maybe the reason I've never heard one good reason.

But honestly, but maybe the reason because there is appeal that people make sure when they what they bring is something that is clear.

And they're getting prepared to come.

So then they'll be able to do that.

Let me ask you this question.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this question.

Do you think the peel the people that go through our municipal court system uh who have a judge uh who makes a decision should be able to appeal to us on decisions that the judge makes?

No, but that's it.

No, that's not because a hearings officer is really a trained professional button.

Why then you judge?

But why you don't give it to our judge and that way?

Okay, then that's why it's not also our our winning.

The hearings officer is a trained professional, yeah, just like a judge that's a professional decision maker.

Yeah, but based on code.

So But folks who are appealing are trained.

We saw lawyers appealing this case.

I think that's not folks who could just I know.

Okay.

You guys are everyone's making good points.

We why don't we we'll put a pin in this one?

Yeah, well, and maybe we can I think we have oh I well no, I don't think you have a oh yeah, but I think you're on the same page.

Maybe we could bring it back when the counts, you know, that when the whole group is that's probably better since we are yeah, we're down.

Okay.

But I mean it's noted that the task force, and I do agree, I'm supposed to say and can I make one last point?

Of course.

Um one of the appeals that we had was 300 pages long.

And if you put um let's just say 100 a page for staff time to develop the page, to write the page, to review the page, all that kind of stuff.

I I mean, what's 300 times 100 really quickly, 30,000 for a tree?

And I'm not saying that it's not great, but all I'm saying is that the time and effort and expenditure that we're putting into that that we're taking staff time away from actually concentrating on things that they should be um dealing with, I think is part of the decision making on my part.

Um so and I look at that pages is not something now people you can whoop on 300 pages.

Five seconds.

We're gonna keep all those we're gonna we're gonna mull this one over.

It's understandably it's uh you know, but we'll see what our other colleagues think about this.

And I listened to all 15 of those appeals too, by the way.

And I that's all 15.

I mean, at the same time, it's not that many.

So we got okay.

Okay.

Number four.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

All right, so we're moving on to the fourth code concept, consistency between development and non-development tree permitting or type two.

So uh currently type two removal permits are granted.

If it does not have a significant negative impact on the character or aesthetics of the neighborhood, and this is further broken down in the code um for tree removals that are significant, serve as a visual screen, a street tree comprise more than 50% of a stand of trees, or will, or where the removal will alter the features or the skyline.

So if it does fall into these categories, removal under a type two permit is only allowed through the following exceptions that I mentioned earlier.

Um, if there's inevitable damage to a structure or utilities, or two, an alternative is analysis by an ISA certified arborist deems that there are no other alternatives to removing the tree.

So currently moderately moderate risk trees don't fall into either of these exemptions, and there's no clear path to removal of these moderate risk trees.

So we've heard from many people in the community, including the council, that it's a priority to have homeowners be able to remove trees that pose risks to their safety.

And we want to address this while not having it be an open door for people to remove as many trees as they want, um, because this could significantly alter an impact the overall canopy of the city.

So the alternative concept suggests a third exemption be added to this list of current exemptions.

Oh, you're already on it.

Thank you.

Uh this concept allows applicants to remove moderate risk trees, even if the removal will have a significant negative impact on the character aesthetics of the neighborhood.

If a qualified arborist classifies the tree as moderate risk as a baseline, and then either determines that there's no way to currently reduce the risk rating to low through alternatives like main maintenance or pruning, or determines that there's a demonstrable history of similar tree failure in the immediate area.

Next slide, please.

And so we pulled the tree task force, and 70% were supportive of this concept.

But they did bring up two significant concerns, and and these are gonna sound familiar.

Um, one that allowing moderate risk trees um to be removed uh with no other documented concerns would increase the overall removal of trees in the city, but that also Lake Oswego needs to provide homeowners with the ability to remove trees that don't fall into this moderate risk category, but perhaps have roots that affect walkways or interfere with decks and patios.

So we welcome your questions and discussion about this concept as well.

So some thought it was too broad and some thought it was not brought in.

There's there's a wide array of professionals on the tree task force, and you know, that's why we've assembled them all as part of this advisory committee.

Um, but yes, those are you know, those are the two more extreme ends of the spectrum there, and that also remains kind of the underpinning of this whole this whole code concept discussion as well.

Well, this was a big topic, you know, for us in providing this path for people to uh remove these moderate risk trees, trees that are perhaps on their way to to failing, but um allowing them to be removed ahead of that that failure is um important into um uh tree removal folks as well.

Why, you know, I mean, so they're not trying to remove these like badly damaged dead trees, you know, climbing up into them can be dangerous.

Um so I do I mean support this, but I I disagree with expanding it to allow because we've traditionally again the tree code works pretty well, and I want to open the door to and we've had people try to remove trees for like moderate damage to decks and sidewalks, and it's like we're erring on the side of preservation, you know, here unless it's something really catastrophic, I suppose.

Yeah, Councilor Corgan.

Yeah.

When you get a fire-wise evaluation, sometimes you'll look at a tree that's close to your house and say that's too close.

How how are we gonna manage that with our new schema?

I can answer that.

So I'm actually there's a new PNW uh wildfire risk reduction qualification that you can have.

So that's something you could require your arborist also to have if that's your reason for removal, but because we are not or Lake Oswego is not in uh a high risk area for a wildfire.

I don't think that that's uh an argument that can really have a lot of merit in this situation.

Um so that would be my recommendation.

Either they have a certification that tells them, or you're you don't use that as an option.

And we've had somebody um, I I can think of one example in particular where someone had a tree that was growing right next to their house, right next to their chimney, and literally like half of the canopy was over their chimney.

We let them remove the tree.

That's clearly a fire hazard.

And you can't just like take all the branches off of one side of the tree.

So we aren't unreasonable here.

Um, you know, we'll allow people to remove trees if it is you know a significant fire risk.

But a lot of folks will just say, I just want to create defensible space.

And frankly, um, we're one of the things we're focusing on in other aspects of that aren't we aren't talking about tonight is talking about fire resistant um landscaping and making sure that we um update our um uh our tree lists and our landscaping lists and our um uh need a plant list to talk about what are fire resistant landscaping that people can include, um, emphasizing trimming trees back, but not necessarily having to remove all the trees.

But yes, if you do have a situation where a tree is very close to your chimney or or some other thing, then there are avenues to remove trees for that purpose.

Yeah, that's helpful.

Okay, so I I support finding a way so that people can take at-risk, medium at-risk trees.

Okay, good.

Okay, council women.

Yeah, I'm I agree, and also I think um we need to have somebody from the insurance industry come in and talk to us because uh I heard of two instances just recently in Lake Oswego that uh they could not get their um house uh uh fire insurance insured uh because they had a cedar roof on, and they said, well, no, I'm I'm on we're in a whatever a green zone.

Nope.

Um, and the only reason why you have a policy is you've been an existing customer, but they couldn't sell the house until they got it replaced.

So all I'm saying is that I believe that the insurance industry, as well as we had the um a great presentation from our fire department that is working with the county on um uh the hazard space the clear zone, the 10 feet around, whatever they call it, the safe safe space.

Um and I think that's going to be more and more of a conversation with um insurance companies, and so we need to get that one right.

I don't know the answer, but I I think we do need to get some sort of a um input uh because it uh it could definitely we we should have it in the policy now so that we're in front of the situation instead of reacting to it.

But um uh they're starting to look at things differently now since the Southern California fires, even if we're in green zones, they're just looking at things differently.

So um uh most houses are okay, but they're starting to talk the language.

Um certainly Central Oregon is on that page.

There's all other there's a number of insurance companies that are talking about it, and they just say Oregon.

I mean, they don't necessarily talk about uh specific areas, they just like look at okay.

This is a policy that we want uh to ensure that we have um uh and it's just basically it may not be trees, it's bushes, it's things that's the thing.

Yeah, I haven't heard of trees a big part uh in an impediment to people creating the defensive spaces.

I I'm just saying let's just make sure that it's checked out and we've um we get some sort of uh industry um opinion on it just thank you.

The uh insurance company consultant is noted and we'll we'll look into that.

That's like somebody just to confirm, yeah, where the insurance uh business is going because I I just want to make sure we don't miss that one.

So but I agree with your uh with the uh tree task force.

Yeah, it's yeah, we've we've seen that.

I don't know why because for example, my Mike Buck and I we talked to the city about a tree that was very risky.

We had an arborist came and said, no, these trees should go.

They allow one and the other one, they say uh because it's in this area, but like three weeks later, it fell.

And it could have it's on a parking lot.

So I agree that we need to, you know, allow folks to so just for the at-risk trees, not just yeah.

All right, and now we come to kind of the last discussion point here of the consultant and the project team's recommendation is to maintain the the two-track process, having this clear and objective track for type two applications for housing development specifically.

Um, and then keeping the discretionary track for all other type two applications.

So the the discussion questions here on the screen, we we'd like to kind of have some guidance from council about whether the clear and objective standard should only apply to housing to comply with state law, or if they should you know expand and apply to all type two uh permits, not just housing.

Okay, did the tax force have a recommendation?

Well, the the what we presented to them was the consultant's recommendation, and so that no none of them took issue with it, but we didn't expressly ask that cost.

Okay, oh, I see, okay, okay.

Okay, counselor Corrigan, what do you think?

I I do agree with the two-track process.

I think we have housing is such a is such a sticky wicket that we need to get it right, and we need to get that to go the way it has to go in order to be meet our standards, but we do have a beautiful canopy and we have very wonderful neighborhoods, so I think we need both.

Yeah.

Council.

Yes, two track.

I so this is saying one set for what for people who are right back to the building.

Yeah, and two sets of standards and that would yeah, one set just applies to housing development and what and everything else is the other one, is the other track.

And that set would be have whatever this concept that we presented to you, you know, will turn out to be.

Yeah.

I I think it's what's good for one person is good for all the people.

And I don't think it's separate, separate uh I would rather have one clear and objective standard um so that everyone deals with the same thing.

But so I would like to follow on with that, and that has to do with the request for landscaping that you see that happen after you know, after the house is put in.

So in my neighborhood, we had a situation where we had a house that was put in and it was a gorgeous house.

And later on, they asked they asked for a permit, and they put a they put a concrete pad down so they could put chairs on it, and it killed a hundred and fifty-foot dug fur.

Um it's so we need to look really hard at these things.

It landscaping is different.

We have a lot of requests.

We want people to do to be able to landscape their houses beautifully and make their property as as valuable as it can be, but it's really complicated when you get into the secondary landscaping permits, which is why I think we really need two tracks.

Yeah, they might still be able to do it, but it's important.

Then through the discretionary track, they can go through with staff and look at alternatives.

Um, I think it is important to have the uh the the two-track process.

Again, we're going into this recognizing that we have a code that is working.

We're trying to make some tweaks to comply with state law, and I think this would be a tweak that is that is uh that goes well beyond that, and I think it'd have unintended consequences, and and I think works against uh preservation of the canopy.

So we have consensus for the two-track.

All right, great, thank you.

Um, next two slides.

Great.

All right, so next steps are to bring this same presentation with your comments as well uh to the planning commission on December 8th, hoping that we have a majority present.

Um and we'll report to them the polling and discussion results from the chief tree task force as well as today.

Um and then we'll start uh with the team uh discussions to start drafting code amendments after that, and then uh we'll bring those through the tree task force and bring those back to you all for a work session.

Great.

Yeah, thank you.

Were there um were we gonna look at the definition of that significant tree as part of this to make that a little more um objective?

Uh yeah, so uh the current just if since we're keeping the presumably keeping the two-track process, we definitely want to um refine our existing criteria um because I I agree the definition of significant tree could use some work.

Um so yes, we will be working on that.

Okay, that's great.

That's great.

Is that one of the technical items or not, yeah?

Yeah, we're not I'm not sure if it's on the technical item list, but if it isn't, we can we can add that.

Yeah, we need to refine the existing criteria.

Great.

Um and uh I think through this process too.

I just one uh comment would be great if we show.

I mean, a lot of times when we look at the data, we're always looking at how many trees were removed, you know, how many trees are removed, what type applications, but we don't really show how many trees were planted, you know, and and we haven't talked about mitigation like at all in this conversation yet, but I know that's something that we're looking at, and that we all know right now we don't mitigate for most tree you know removals, and that's something we had also talked about.

I think that is on the list, right?

We're looking at that is on the list, and we will be looking at it.

We also have been keeping track of it.

Um more efficiently in recent years, and we did report it in April for the previous year, and I'll continue to report it each April in our urban and community forestry newsletter.

We've got some numbers.

Just heard it.

So in the in last year, um, so on average we the city uh approves removal about 2900 trees, and we required 689 trees to be replanted uh for type two or verification permits last year.

So you can see it's a small, but again, most of the trees that are being removed are dead hazardous or invasive.

So one of the things that we are looking as part of the tree uh update to the regulations is requiring mitigation for more tree removal types.

It may not be appropriate for all, but we're we're evaluating that.

We'll make a recommendation.

Okay.

That's great.

And I I know the parks planted over 20,000 trees this year.

All ash.

No, no ash.

With little board things included.

Yeah, we got a great deal on them, I heard.

Yeah.

Okay, well, uh, thank you all very much for the great work and the clear presentation.

And this was kind of almost nice with a smaller group being able to work through this.

Yeah, thank you for the direction.

Thank you.

I just have to give a shout out to the tree uh task force.

Um great group of people, um, and they're giving their time and expertise.

I will say that sometimes it's uh way over the I I just want to caution we've got to make sure that this is understandable when we're all done with this, that the average person can come up to the counter and say, this is what I want to accomplish, and it doesn't take us um three hours to explain everything to them.

Um I get where you want to have one set for the developers, but the code for the average citizen is really what I've heard for the last seven years on council is I'm afraid I'm never gonna I I can't take a tree down because um the city won't let me.

That's basically what this the understanding of people out on the street is.

Um, and they're even saying, you know, a two-inch bush, they're just afraid of doing it.

And so I think there's um uh we just need to make this simple and then have it uh understandable is is all I'm saying.

Um, so that um people can um actually not be afraid of what they're doing.

Yeah, and so we have fewer things like the mayor said um crews coming in on the weekends because they just don't want to go through the process and they sh make things happen and uh we don't want that.

So anyway, yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks for your liaisoning to the task force and uh Brandon, thank you for the first time.

Thanks for sitting through the presentation twice.

We appreciate your good work and to the rest of the volunteers.

Thank you very much.

Okay, all right.

Uh council, any information to share before we all burst.

I have one small thing, which is the first replacement signs for the 25 to 20 mile an hour speeds are gonna start going up this week.

Uh uh they're going up in a very small part of the mountain park so that we can also do the education outreach and sort of follow-up uh law enforcement conversations in that neighborhood to pilot how it goes.

Great.

Uh I'll send you the map on Friday in the Friday email.

Okay.

Thank you.

It's great news.

All right.

All right, we adjourned.

Thank you.

I just want to show yeah, I want to see.