Land Use & Environment Committee Meeting – June 26, 2026
Land Use & Environment Committee Meeting – June 26, 2026
The Land Use & Environment Committee of the Olympia City Council met on June 26, 2026 (note: the minutes indicate June 25, 2026; the date used here follows the provided timestamp). The meeting included a briefing on the Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP), a preliminary discussion of 2027 work plans for the Planning Commission and other advisory bodies, and public comments urging immediate protection for large trees.
Consent Calendar
- The agenda for the June 25 meeting was approved.
- Minutes from the May 28, 2026 Land Use & Environment Committee meeting and the June 11, 2026 special meeting were approved.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Lynn Fitz-Hugh, Executive Director of Restoring Earth Connection, expressed strong support for a moratorium on cutting the largest trees (over 40 inches diameter at breast height) while the UFMP is developed. She noted that in neighboring cities, large trees have been lost even while tree policies were being drafted, and she urged the city to act immediately to protect heritage trees.
- Heather Penns, an Olympia resident, also supported a temporary resolution to protect trees over 40 inches DBH, emphasizing that large trees sequester more carbon, reduce flooding, and cannot be replaced by saplings in the short term.
Discussion Items
6.A Briefing on the Urban Forest Management Plan
- Kim Foley, Public Works Associate Planner, and Leanne Wells, Urban Forester, presented the scope and timeline for the UFMP. The plan, funded in part by a federal grant, aims to address tree canopy goals, update tree code, and incorporate environmental justice. Key points:
- Olympia's current tree canopy is 42%, which is high compared to regional targets of 30%.
- The plan will take approximately two years, with final delivery by May 2028.
- Challenges include conflicting priorities (e.g., housing vs. trees), limited staff capacity, and infrastructure impacts (e.g., sidewalks, sewers).
- A robust public participation plan includes focus groups with overburdened communities, open houses, and an online story map.
- Committee members expressed a need for more education before making policy decisions. They raised concerns about tree loss during the two-year process, sidewalk damage from mature trees, and the effectiveness of the existing tree unit system (which incentivizes preservation of larger trees but is often circumvented).
- Tim Smith, Community Planning & Economic Development Director, noted that the city's tree code already requires soil and vegetation conservation plans and that a blanket moratorium could be drafted with flexibility for staff to grant exceptions where preservation is impractical.
6.B Preliminary Discussion of 2027 Work Plans
- The committee, joined by Greg Quetin (Planning Commission Chair) and Daniel Garcia (Vice Chair, online), discussed priorities for 2027. Topics included:
- Aligning work plans among the committee, Planning Commission, and Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC).
- Transportation planning: updates to the Transportation Master Plan, shared streets, speed cameras, and traffic calming.
- Parking management: exploring shared parking, land value tax adjustments, and the high cost of parking garages ($50,000–$100,000 per space).
- Zoning simplification: consolidating the city's many zoning districts (currently 18–21) to reduce complexity, with a focus on the Plum Street corridor.
- Other items: sea level rise funding, design review board future, and monitoring state legislation on ADUs and design review.
- Staff noted capacity constraints after losing a planner position and emphasized the need to prioritize projects that can be accomplished with existing resources.
Key Outcomes
- Referral to Full Council: The committee agreed to send a referral to the City Council requesting a temporary ordinance to protect trees 24 inches DBH or larger (based on Leanne Wells's recommendation) during the UFMP process. The ordinance would give the urban forester authority to grant exceptions where preservation is not feasible.
- Next Steps for UFMP: Staff will continue internal and public engagement; a draft action plan is expected by mid-2027. The committee will receive updates and provide input before the plan goes to Council.
- Work Plan Alignment: Future meetings will include transportation planners and BPAC representatives to coordinate work plans. A follow-up discussion is planned for later in 2026 to refine priorities based on staff capacity.
- Reports: Tim Smith reported on recent development projects, including 272 affordable housing units at Harbor Pines, a 35-unit apartment building on Henderson, and the West Bay Yards appeal (decision expected by early August). He also announced new staff hires: Kern Lean as Planning Manager and Ashley Chambers as Housing Director.
Meeting Transcript
Sure. All right. Welcome to a meeting of the land use and environment uh committee of a city council. I'm Robert Vanerpole, your chair. Um I have my folks want to introduce themselves, we'll just go that way. Sure. Clark Gilman, committee member. Paul Barron, um City Council member uh committee member. Cool. All right. Can I uh get an approval of tonight's agenda? I I move to approve the agenda for the um June 25th meeting. Second. All right, all favor say aye. Aye. All right, we have public comment. A few folks signed up. Yeah, um online. We have a person, potential person. All right. Would you like to start us off with your you can come up here if you want or even it's up to you? A little less awkward. Yes. Um for the record, Lynn Fitzhugh, um, executive director of restoring earth connection. And I've had the pleasure in the last few months of talking to uh Robert Clark and Paul about all my interests and concerns about trees, and also have talked to Leanne and Kim. Um on many occasions about this. Um so after eight years of asking the city to please, please update the tree code. We're thrilled that things are underway and that a contract is signed. Uh, we do wish that it would not take two years. Um a lot of our concerns center around what is historically happened over that period of time. So for example, um when both Lacey and Tumwater have looked at LIDAR data that shows some look back period, um, they will see significant tree loss that has happened. And even if you get like two percent a year, um that means that in five years you've got 10% loss, right? So it can it can look like oh, we're not getting that much loss, and then really it's adding up to quite a bit of loss. Um, and Tumwater has just um looked at the LIDAR data that they had for 2023 to identify their 10 largest trees. And then when they went out to look for the 10 largest trees, they discovered that two of them had already been cut down, two of them are slated to be cut down any day now. Um, and that includes the largest tree they had in Tumwater, it's about to be cut down. Um and part of the sadness of that is Tumwater had started on uh a tree ordinance in 2023 that if completed would have protected that largest tree. They got interrupted from the process, and so while waiting, now the tree is gone. Um five more of the trees are on Port of Olympia land, so who knows what will happen to those, and so there's one that they can potentially protect. Um when we did our tree ambassador program and we went door to door and we looked at trees in the city of Olympia and we identified the largest that you had of each species. One of the things that we found, which was sort of a surprise finding to us, was that um all of those largest trees with maybe one exception, uh, are on lands that are highly susceptible to redevelopment, uh, either either an elderly owner or a slum lowered sort of rental situation. So um they're very likely to wind up getting cut down. So our concern about the two-year period is that you know, will those significant trees get lost in the meantime? And I think in general, when people think about tree policies, there's sort of this feeling of almost like the trees are static, and then we'll just well, when we get to the tree policy, we get to the tree policy. Well, the trees are not static, they're they're being lost in the meantime. So um I have you know spoken to council people and really want to encourage a um resolution that would put a moratorium um in place on the cutting of the largest size trees while this tree policy gets worked on. I I hope that by the end of the time when we get to the end of the tree policy, it'll have its own protections in place, but I think we have to do something in the interim um to make sure that they don't get cut down. And you know, at this point, the county based on landscome water intended to adopt has created tree designations of heritage trees for the largest size and landmark for the next largest size. So I think those are categories that can be made use of in order to try to identify trees that we would protect. And having looked at plans for places like Spring Creek and other places where development is happening in the city.
openpublica.com