First item is the Greenway Master Plan, and we have Adam Foreman from Parks and Rec.

Members of the Council, thanks so much for having me.

So this is an update.

Last May we came and spoke about some greenway land use matters to kind of get you up to date on where we are moving forward with and get the green light.

Want to come back and mostly share good news of progress we've made some continued aspirations that we have for greenway oriented development and get your approval to move forward.

So just uh overview.

Uh the Greenway Master Plan will give some background on specifically the land use uh components of the Greenway Master Plan that came out uh in 2022, some accomplishments to date regarding the comp plan amendments and upcoming UDO amendments, uh the next phase of implementation.

Uh and then this is somewhat separate from the greenway oriented development uh and land use, some safety updates uh that council had requested.

Uh I'll hand it over to my colleague Lisa at that point to talk about some safety upgrades along the greenway.

And uh Adam, just to interrupt you, uh Counselor Lambert Melton cannot make the work session, so he should just go as an excused absence.

Thank you.

Uh some overview of the land use components of the Greenway Master Plan.

Um the first Greenway Master Plan was in 1976.

Um it designated Greenway corridors as well as easement dedication um on new developments.

Uh our most recent master plan, which came out a few years ago, updated these corridors, designated some priority trails that we want to focus on, um, and also proposed new kind of greenway trail-oriented development, developer-built trails, uh, and also more active use along our greenway, so not just for leisure and recreation, uh, but also for kind of active use and commuting um to getting to school, getting to work, getting to services.

So it's those land use components that we've been moving forward with and have a few more proposals for you guys to consider.

Um so specifically accomplishments to date.

Uh we adopted the new priority corridors and proposed trails in the complan uh and updated some of the policy language uh that happened last year.

Uh and very soon uh we'll bring for public hearing um a couple of key UDO amendments.

Um have had a chance to review these, want to present them to you now just in case there were any follow-up questions uh before the vote.

But this has been approved by the Text Change Committee uh by the planning board uh and has been scheduled for a public hearing.

And specifically it's easement dedications um to align with our proposed trail, some developer incentives, recognizing that we have aspirations for hundred more miles, hundreds of more miles of greenway trails, um some public-private partnerships are going to be needed um in order to execute on those plans, uh, as well as some kind of administrative tweaks uh to the UDO.

So the first one, uh this you'll see that different uh widths of easement um are allowed in uh new developments.

Uh when it comes to the greenways, 150 feet for Noose River, 100 feet for Crabtree and Walnut.

And then there's this language about all other tributaries as established by the Raleigh Parks Plan.

That was a floating document.

Uh and we wanted to link it to the new 2022 plan and particularly the priority trails.

So you'll see this is the updated language.

It's all those proposed trails, priority trails will now be 75 feet easements.

All other corridors are 50 feet.

Getting that 75 feet width is important just for the topography, for the distance to the stream bank, making sure that those are constructable.

Secondly, uh this does allow for reduction of this is language that was kind of inspired by Kerry.

Um a reduction um to 30 feet if the developer builds the trails.

Um so a lot of incentives around developer built trails uh that they only have to designate a 30-foot easement um if the developer themselves build the trails.

And importantly, newsripper buffer rules would still be um uh entailed in this, or would still be in play, so this doesn't in any way negate that.

And what's important is this developer Greenway Trail City of Raleigh standards.

So they could only reduce it to 30 feet if they are upholding the City of Raleigh standards in terms of width and constructability.

We've actually had a lot of success um in recent years working with developers when they bring in site plans to encourage them to develop and uh to build trails.

Unfortunately, a lot of cases it'll be four foot width, six-foot width.

There'll be staircase involved, it's not the trails that we want.

So by putting this in and incentivizing developable trails, but also the type of trails that we're looking for, and not just at their behest um is really important.

So this is a small tweak, uh, but an important one for getting a more kind of fluid greenway network uh and also working with developers and developing these requirements and incentives.

And along those lines, there's also this open space incentive where if you the developer builds the trails themselves, that easement width counts two and a half towards your open space incentive.

Um so it's a way to, once again, encourage developers to build more trails.

Uh we're excited about these.

So and we can swing back to those.

Those are coming to you guys soon for a vote uh on those easement widths on those developer incentives.

Uh but we also want to talk about some next steps for greenway trail-oriented development.

You know, obviously these this package of UDO amendments, which is coming to you guys soon, has a lot of this greenway trail-oriented development, thinking about developers building trails when they construct their um new buildings and thinking about those easements uh and integrating um construction uh with trail-oriented with trails.

But we want to kind of more zone in on this um this angle of trail-oriented development, you know, inspired by places like Atlanta and New Orleans and Bentonville who have done a really great job connecting trails with new development and encouraging active transportation.

Uh so this is something that was been in the comp plan that we've heard from council um, I think specifically after the interlocal trip uh to uh to Atlanta.

But you know, the benefits of greenway trail-oriented development leverages existing infrastructure, so we're not just building new greenways to existing develop to um populated areas, but also bringing population to the greenway, bringing services to the greenway, bringing schools to and jobs to the greenway so that people can use it uh for active use, uh the vibrant walkable communities, obviously sustainability in terms of encouraging biking and walking for daily trips.

And then a really important one is we have made a lot of surgical investments over the last years to make our greenways um more appropriate for active use in terms of, and we'll talk about this lighting in tunnels, in terms of glow in the dark strips, in terms of um lighting with solar lighting, in terms of neighborhood connections.

So we're building a greenway network that can be used throughout the day throughout the seasons for trips to work, trips to school, trips to services, trips to shopping.

And so we've made these investments and we want to kind of welcome uh more development along these trails so that people can use it uh for that use, not just leisure, which is and recreation and exercise, but also for those uh transportation trips for the commuting.

So, in terms of case studies, and this is important, you know, working with um transportation and working with planning.

We looked at a bunch of um you know other cities that have very active uh trail networks and have greenway trail-oriented development.

And I think there were kind of four key takeaways from this research uh and this work.

I think one is we have a very distinct type of greenway.

The belt line, of course, was built on rails to trails, mostly outside uh of floodway.