is Staff ready okay I have 1:00 so I will call the uh March 6th 2024 meeting of the environmental and natural resources advisory committee to order um would you please call the role Elsa Lamers present Jessica GW okay Wendy Anderson Tyler momberg Sarah [Music] Lee Bob fit Simmons John hobick Jack seret here Bliss Jameson Bill lights Bernie LEF Alex zinski Suzanne Shyer Donna brosmer okay and we have just some staff that are listening online but we don't have anyone participating online and of the members or anything thank you first of all I'd like to thank all the members who attended the resilience Workshop a week ago Wednesday thank you for taking the time for that um and ginger may have a comment about that going forward I don't know we just need to be careful and in any of those workshops not to be in a group together which was tough because there were seven enri members and two breakout groups but um it was a publicly noticed meeting so you know there was at least that yeah and and any and there was no impediment to attendance because it was online um the second thing I'd like to do is thank all the members who were present yesterday in Chambers I saw going around the room Wendy Jessica Jack and Bill um H was anybody Suzanne you were there I'm sorry I didn't see you that's I was about to ask was anybody else there physically or online yesterday okay so eight of us um and no one two three four five of us um and thank you Jack and Wendy and Jessica um for your remarks I'd like to start today we do have to um eventually get to the tree ordinance but I worked on a summary sort of a four-point summary of what I heard yesterday in Chambers that I'd like to share with you and then get your feedback about what you heard um and also to inform discussion I went ahead and downloaded the resolution that formed enra the charter portion the portion of the charter that's relevant to enra the portion of the Land Development code that's relevant to that resolution the portion of the July 2022 minutes that that established enra um and the uchia County Council goals for 2024 and and that was because of what I heard so if it's all right um I'd like to share just I I really tried to cut the summary down to very Bare Bones first it was very clear that a preponderance of the members wanted an update on what enra had done um which was a bit ironic because on the 20th of February we were slated to give our report that's been ready since the end of the year and our work plan going forward but they took away that agenda item in favor of a discussion of whether or not all advisory boards would continue or or be combined so we do have that information available we've been prepared all along it was always our intent to share that with them and we are required to share that with them but I think we would always want to anyway the second thing that I heard was they requested a change to our priorities and um for texture at the beginning of the meeting there were a number of people who are suffering flooding on their existing properties and that kind of set the tone for the meeting so they want us to prioritize storm water but they didn't really talk about liid which we presented in October which of course at the planning phase would work keep storm water on a property rather than allowing it to to flood a neighboring property um so they they want us to deal with that storm water but specifically they're looking for flooding um we've had I think in the past 20 years at least three 100-year floods in the county so our rules that were based on the 100-year flood plane might not be quite as relevant um then they also asked enra to go through at least in my understanding to reduce the number and complexity of ordinances in order to facilitate permitting that that was another very clear ask and they asked that enra bring our priorities and goals in line with those of the vucha County Council goals um I'd like to know who what other people heard I'd also like to say that I find these elements to be in quite a bit of conflict with one another but perhaps we can find our way through it collectively so anyone who'd like to speak I'm opening up can you um the fourth one what was the fourth item the fourth one was to um harmonize or bring NRA's priorities into in line with the valua County Council goals for 2024 I I'm I I know we we all we all have we all have those feelings but I'm may have feelings about that but I'm going to ask that we really try hard to to be serious about this Mr Irvin yes ma'am uh basically a continuation of what they did from their goal setting last year uh you'll see that uh I think um one of the things that they've emphasized is improving efficiency and Effectiveness in our permitting process uh one of the members is looking uh hard at our rules and regulations to see if there's overlap with uh state and federal regulations and so um looking as to whether or not we need to have standards above and beyond minimum standards or deferring to other agencies just not a new thing that's I suggest if there's a April 30th Workshop which is um supposed to be targeting on some discussion of zoning changes where we were taking special exceptions and making them by right conditional use changing the uh special exception process to allow the planning Land Development regulation commission to approve some of them rather than going through both planning landel regulation and the County Council um which is actually what we used to do many many many years ago but short story that's what that Workshop is about but they've also identified a need to discuss some of the permitting issues because we uh reported back on some of by chapter what's the um reason for that specific requirement and we broke down chapter 72 pretty well and this kind of be part of the packet excuse me for interrupting yes it will be um and so that's what April 30th may give greater input to this organization what we're trying to focus on we have a question about the time of that Workshop if you know it 3M thank you um I'll just really really quickly the clay mentioned Mr Irvin mentioned five priorities create a more efficient regulatory framework increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations particularly Public Safety and economic development related functions develop and Implement a plan for expanded Recreation and sports tourism continue and enhance fiscal stewardship Foster and support a solution oriented culture culture so as he said the the increase efficiency and effectiveness of of operation there you go thank you does anyone who is there have anything that they'd like to oh Wendy thank you yes in all seriousness um for a solution oriented culture yes the problems that we have all seen and that were presented early yesterday you know are countywide flooding and they did ask us to focus on that storm it's my understanding and staff can can correct me if I'm wrong the whole point of the entire storm water management chapter the whole point of managing storm water is to address flood risk there's nothing about storm water management that isn't about flooding so we do need to dive into that chapter we need to get to that chapter ASAP and um and as I've said for 18 months liid touches all of these chapters but it is first and foremost a b it is a it is a catalog of solutions for storm water management we know what the problems are and we have a whole toolkit of solutions um I also think that you know for all of the situations like we heard about yesterday no laws were broken no laws were broken in any of those situations where people have chronic flooding even pre hurricane flooding and it's because the laws don't work here and it is time to change it is time to change the policy so people stop flooding that is what has to happen and we are the body we are the body that is going to make the recommendations on those policies and I think it's time for us to get to work and do that um I also think that we have to as you and Clay were just saying have to stay mindful of what constraints the the state puts on us about that but where can we as a county have more stringent regulations than the state requires when can we do that so those are the questions we have to ask we as ginger has reported um from last time we do have a student intern who is currently working with each of the Departments to identify places in the chapters that they work with most regularly to find places that might be barriers to L or incentives um but yeah using the code audit tool the L code audit tool and that's great that's ongoing work but I don't know that we have to wait for that to be done for us to start our work I think we can work in parallel we should work in parallel we were instructed yesterday to work on this as soon as as soon as possible thank you uh Jessica late I'm here um my take away from yesterday is kind of that battle that that we're going to have kind of on a policy perspective of lessening regulations while dealing with impacts that are currently permitted and so I think looking at the balance of I'll say I'll caveat that I think that we've come a long way since 1985 right in terms of Regulation and the scope and the protections um but we have a lot of Aging infrastructure we have maintenance issues we have things that um we hear from residents every single day you know you can design a project but that relies on upkeep it relies on County maintenance of canal systems it relies on all of these things and how do we build in protection for those elements as well not only just capacity and treatment but long-term maintenance enforcement and things like that so thank you and I just uh for one second going back to the liid and storm water I believe and ginger and um and Keith correct me if I'm mistaken Wendy emphasized that it only deals with flooding I think we said that one of the issues that it could deal with too would be water quality I think Tyler might have said that Tyler was the one who said that um and also the underlying legal stuff that supports our committee does talk about stopping pollutants that's a that's a direct mandate that we have thank you Bill I'm just going to go around go that way okay Jack thanks I uh yeah I found the meeting interesting yesterday you know we went from uh being disbanded completely to meeting twice as much um you know we are uh you know we're we're insignificant and then vitally important and by the way solve that flooding problem while you're at it you know today you know get that let's work that in right now um so I you know I heard it essentially the same but a couple things one the update issue I found real interesting and I've had a lot of experience in businesses where you know folks want updates that means we're we're not not particularly happy with what's going on there so we we need to know more about what what you guys are up to and uh and so my my recommendation is to go beyond what the requirement is and give them more updates because I think if they had a fuller understanding of what we were dealing with I think it'd be good to them and and so perhaps we should do it to where we're putting more things together and showing them along the way even if we don't have recommendations but you know evaluations or we're finding an issue I I think I think that would be valuable to them and I I think as much as they didn't say that uh and I and I thought the same thing you know we we have it here if you want to see it right and so I think I think there could be more updates that may be helpful the um you know the priorities you know I think were interesting and I and I think appropriate they're dealing with um a flooding issue which was current and parent right there and I think you know we you know it it definitely fits in what we're doing and so they thought hey here's here's a group that can maybe get that straight to me what's interesting about it is we're trying to deal with the things that help flooding in the future not drain the flooding of today and and that was kind of where they were as I saw it they were thinking H how can we make this go away now you know and you guys solve that problem by working twice as hard um so you know I think uh I think they're they're a little misguided in in that approach and I think they're dealing with a a current problem that has been festering for an extended period of time and and uh as we've talked about before we take more proactive role at addressing these ordinances and rules um to try to help it going in the future and I think it'll have an immediate result but I'm not not kind of what they're looking for I think ours are more long-term Solutions um the you know as to priorities in general you know I think that you know and fitting harmonizing let's let's talk about the harmonizing thing yeah I you know I get that I I I think a lot of it is trying to reduce um regulations I think it's being thrown into the big Hopper of of less government less red tape I don't want to I don't want to have to get a permit for that shed I want to build in the back you know it's it's into this big this big picture which is um really um you know understandable everybody wants to do those things and and I think it's true you know there are things that we can streamline and make them better and perhaps you know condense things to where there are less Hoops to jump through maybe so and I who you know who needs that but the bottom line is in order to improve a lot of these circumstances there are more regulations there are more things that probably have to be put in place and that's that's a hard you don't get to cake and eat it too here and I think uh I think they want a bit of that um and I think uh that eventually that will come to pass when we recommend things to them and we say hey by the way we think this is a better way to go and I think Li is you know low impact development is a is a great example oh we we like that um voluntarily but but gee let's let's step just a reminder in uh October when they heard the liid we were under sp250 they couldn't I know and it was easy to pun it yeah but but I wonder what the situation would be today and I'm not sure it'd be much different um but perhaps you know there can be some harmonizing anyway as far as priorities I think we have our priorities straight I think it's just that we have to shuffle the deck because they've got an issue that they see as more immediate and I agree so it's not you know that's no big deal I think we it's it's on the it's to be it's slated there I think the the connection to liid is going to be most interesting because that is is an obvious way to try to solve the problems or some of them um so you know I I don't know I thought I thought the uh the meeting was was okay and as a friend of mine put it you know they they always become more receptive when the pitchforks come out um and we were uh and so you know everybody was very supportive of inra at the end um but to begin they probably weren't so uh anyway I'm glad to be here and and have our meeting today thank you Jack I'm just going right down the table so Bob that's a really good no that's a very good question because you know if if we're already working towards it what is it that we're doing uh Ben Bartlett and his folks over Roden Bridge uh Lorie Coons whoever sees that division they are aware of it trust me uh on a daily basis the amount of calls and it's not just from the area where Figaro lives we're experiencing it over in new smna beach we're living experiencing it in Northwest areas we're experiencing it basically anywhere anyone lives we are experiencing Flooding at this point and a lot of it is um going to be first of all looked at from RH and Bridge as to what is it impacting on our facilities does the facilities that the county manages and maintains is there anything that we need to be doing is there a blockage then it's going to be digging down into the larger uh like kind of 10,000 foot view is there something obvious that has occurred is there something that's you know we hear that development is occurring okay have they done something outside of their plant that have been approved or are those plans that were approved erroneous so we're kind of going through this Miss shyt's gone through that right now with uh up near Halifax Plantation where uh Old Dixie gets inundated with water and sometimes it's not necessarily related to rain events so there's there's some concerns there uh we lake talage is another example we've gone in there so we're working through all of those on individual basis I think that long term you're probably going to need to have updates to a lot of our Basin studies that we have um because at the heart of whatever you do from a public works perspective whatever you do from a regulatory perspective you need to know what that storm Basin consists of where it's coming where it's going and I know that Ben Bartlett has identified a need to update many of our um Basin studies um anything that you said we need that information of course we need to get out of this Basin thinking because the Basin up here when it drains drains into the Basin down here you know and so anyway that gets more technical into the whole thing can I just interject sorry finish y um my my anecdotal I've been in this County for almost 40 years I've been in Florida my entire life my anecdotal observation and you know that's why I'm asking you this question and we it doesn't look like anyone has done it anecdotally I would have to say that 75 to 85% of all the flooding that I ever see when I drive around and investigate just my eyeballs and what I understand about storm water it's caused by the fact that we have a hundred years worth of sins preceding us you know whe whether you're looking at the flooding downtown to land that buries the corner of Florida and 44 or many other areas they past sins that need to be corrected and the reason I think a study like this and that information is so important is we need to know where to focus should we really be focusing on all the new stuff coming down the pike or should we be focusing on trying to repair all the sins of the past and I think thank you b as we go through this too and we talk about what we can focus on is it actionable for enra and just as an aside Flagler County just greenlit a huge expenditure to fix those past sins Dinger sorry I just wanted to throw out there that um the discussion about the council meeting and all that um you know I think we're pretty clear that our priority for tackling next is storm water and when we do that when we have these conversations that we're starting to have now really probably want to do that when we have the Public Works folks here as the experts because we aren't the those experts and so I don't I'm not trying to stifle conversation or anything but those conversations probably need to happen at the next meeting when those guys are here um thank you thank you that helps keep us on on track because really we're just doing the top line of the of the meeting but it is all good discussion suzan you were up next so I was at the meeting yesterday and the gentleman who got up and spoke had a five minute news story five full minutes on television with him and his neighbors and they're flooding um everything that Jack said I 100% spot on the only thing I'm going to tack on to that is sitting there listening to them it was like this committee was going to fix last previous flooding like what Mr Simmon fit Simmons just said so the question that I have is are we here to fix previous fun flooding or are we here to look at Future flooding because at this point I don't feel confused or at least I didn't but based on yesterday I am asking because there is and and there are times that new neighborhoods go to previous next to previous neighborhoods and I believe flooding or um a new subdivision was approved in that area that was already flooded so I you know I don't know am asking that's exactly the sort of the same question I ask if it's the purview of enre but I think when the Road and Bridge people are here and can talk about because we do we are examining standards and ordinances we not allocating funding so when rad and Bridge is here I think they'll delineate for us those things that might be in our baileywick and those things that are really outside of our ability to to approach thank you and Mr recton Wald even even stated that he said enra really looks more toward future things and and what they're suffering through as a council right now is a bunch of people angry about the flooding in their homes currently Tyler so I think one of the things that I take away and I had a little bit of a heads up because it was on the news last week and like was just mentioned um and so I've been doing a little bit of research on what Sciences they on establishing groundwater tables and um you know we have flooding in different parts of the county that have different characteristics the flooding that's happening between Nova and US1 and Holly Hill through Port Orange that's a basin that really doesn't have a lot of fall to sea level it's only drained by man-made canals they are under Patchwork of Maintenance it's not one agency they're not equally maintained and they may be over capacity in many locations so that flooding issue nothing that we do here is going to make a difference about that's going to require funding from Council the issues in new Suna are somewhat similar they're a little different but um that's not really necessarily an issue that I see is solving the flooding that happens in Dand that happens on our Sand Ridge here which is more closed Basin type of drainage we don't have direct discharge to the ocean or at least not quick discharge to the ocean it's really hard for us to establish what is the seasonal High groundwater table and FD has guidance that you use basically soil staining indicators the iron um deposits and uh the erosion of those deposits as an indicator of where is your typical seasonal high for our storm water design we typically use soil borings there's some methods of using a grid and looking at slope of groundwater surface and some other things and measuring with Peters that our Geotech Engineers have been recommending the last few years but ultimately there's a lot of areas of science that go into our design the the different flooding types are going to require us to look at different things it one and and part two of this the you know Wendy mentioned that we've had a lot of large storm events the way that that affect fects Us in D Land versus the way that that affects somebody in the more Eastern Coastal basins is substantial and so that's where um you know as we start seeing these INR rinf events we may need to be looking at what is the science on that I don't know that there's really been a study since the early 90s I think 1991 is the newest data that we have thank you if it's okay let's save that's going to be extremely valuable information when we get into it in the actual storm water element um billly you were up next just some of the same kind of things um one is that um the storm water ordinance will talk about water quality not just flooding um and new samna beach did a study after Ian that looked at whether the new development was causing the flooding and and it showed it wasn't it's the old stuff so we're going to have to Grapple with this um you know we're talking about ordinances now um for new development and how do you go back so a lot of the statements of all this new development the way that it's happening is causing all this flooding is a bit misleading and I don't think that you know that's kind of what we have been hearing and I think it's important to kind of realize that maybe it's not so thank you Bill I think first and foremost our methodology is to fact find as as best as we can and when we have the the the proper group here that'll be helpful and then look at where we can make a recommendation that will help things um and where there's nothing that says we can't say look we found this was outside our pview but we think you should be looking at it with the appropriate body um I don't know that we have to say anything about the other part of the asks that are kind of outside enra or just as we go through we'll just look at them all okay um so I'm sorry I'm sorry Bliss it's hiding behind your drink please well I apologize to all of you for being late um I had wanted to hear the beginning of this conversation um I had listened to the meeting but um gender I wanted to ask you you just said that um the you know Ben Bartlett and Roden Bridge people will be here next time are they going to have a presence at more of our meetings or yeah so for the duration of the conversation about storm water and flooding it really they're going to be the subject matter experts because that's their section of the code to implement and you know they're the engineers and that sort of thing so um we we'll meet with them before the next meeting and kind of talk to them about how we run our meetings you know we try to get information out early and give you you guys things to look at and and all those sorts of things but um the the information that you're going to be reviewing is really going to come out of their shop so okay and um with that I also wanted to ask about any other um Department being represented you know at our meetings um several of the U councilmen were talking about how you know diverse our and you know well diversed and knowledgeable our um committee is but then in the staff we have very knowledgeable staff here but we only have one department and so this is Road and Bridge coming is great but um if you also listen to the council they're saying that um in especially chair brower's comments was we want to attract business we don't want to scare them away so with that um are we going to have an economic development department person attend our meetings I mean because that is one of the things that I say continually is you know is it balanced and are they you know are there going to be any unintended consequences um based Economic Consequences based on the decisions and recommendations that we are putting forth I see clay I'm gonna give you a quick answer uh we are fortunate enough to have just hired Lou Paris as our New Economic Development Division director uh he has been tasked with working with our staff to come up with um uh for lack of a better term in on budsman role so I'm sure that Lou will be involved with the discussions that are occurring here as well whether he makes it to every meeting I'm not I cannot say that just yet because is I'm sure he's got quite a lot on his plate right now walking into it but he will be uh provided with the the agendas again we we share the agendas that are available for the staff members that want to participate we'll just make sure that he's aware that there is interest in making sure that his uh comments are also included would that thank you would that mean the um Ombudsman would be you know attending the meetings in his place well no that they would be the on budsman role Economic Development Division is going to take on a role as an non budsman to help navigate uh our business interest through the County's development process when needed oh okay I'm aware of that I was just yeah didn't know if they would have a presence at this meeting yeah so we will make sure that Cyrus Callum is aware of it who's the director of airport and economic development as well as Lou Paris our new economic development director so that that way they can have uh an interest in participation here in this event or this organization well with that said um you know we're bringing in the Road and Bridge people and the storm people because they are the ones that have that knowledge and understand all the ins and outs of those questions um but here it the question I'm asking about Economic Development representation is we don't have their comments and their their input into how our decisions are going to impact Economic Development until after the fact they aren't here to discuss it with us and have impact on the recommendations that we make and I I'm asking this as clarification and so yesterday there were all these advisory boards and the advisory boards all have things that they're supposed to be looking at and they're supposed to tell the county what their what the County Council what their recommendation is what their findings are each of those boards in a way is kind of a purist board they're examining and our our responsibility is to ensure that the minimum standards protect the environment from harm the council gets to decide okay before we take action on this one we're going to send it over to another department we're going to look at it in another way some kind of other analysis but we will have complied with our responsibility of evaluating whether the standards are correct at least that's that's my understanding I don't know if clay wants to tell me I'm wrong yeah internally share information amongst departments there we try to avoid silos between departments as much as possible uh I hear your concern I will make sure that Lou is aware of that and making sure that they are U monitoring what's going on here and participate to the best of their ability because you're correct it does meld into some of the uh uh goals that were identified by the council both last year and this year so we'll make sure that we integrate them into the uh preparation of the documents the review of the documents and and where they where they deem appropriate they can be in attendance uh I at this point I I I'm not certain that I can mandate that they be there but I can make sure that their presence is requested by the board s um something for consideration at the next meeting uh new samna beach did do a study uh right after Hurricane Ian and Nicole and it was solely for the purpose of evaluating um the flooding and uh the impact of the storm water regulations new development versus [Music] um conditions and there is a significant part of unincorporated valua over in the new smyna area and water flows don't observe jurisdictional boundaries and um I I remember being at the meeting where the engineer uh Consulting Engineers presented and to my knowledge they are an outfit that uh limits their practice to uh public sector clients um and it may be worthy of um of some knowledge of that study because I think we're hearing some issues certainly you can't ignore uh what water tables are what are being used to calculate uh storm water requirements and what storm events are we still using when we start getting into the code so it may be meaningful to um have some familiarity with that study whether that be with um County staff and I suspect County staff has looked at that's mr's nodding his head yes so that's what I was about to ask yeah our pre-read thank you Wendy so on that topic um I've read that study carefully several times forwards and backwards I've studied their Maps I've studied their data that they use I have spoken with elected officials in new smarta and City staff the purpose of that study just to kind of put a critical IAL thinking angle on this the purpose of that study was to protect the city it was to determine if the city was at fault for any of the flooding that happened cya we'll call it a cya and um and and it's and of course the engineering firm found that they were not at fault so I just want to point that out that that was the purpose and that was the outcome and yet they had a sample size of two they focused on two developments and determined that those two developments did not cause any flooding to surrounding areas well one of those developments doesn't have any surrounding areas and the other one um the the flood way off of their property goes into an undeveloped area and so so I mean in my opinion the study was somewhat flawed and I think we should review it as a study but I think we need to go into it with some critical thinking thank you so when we get when we get to discussing right now we're just kind of talking agendas prospective agenda storm water so that's a study we can bring in and and it we can Rec critique at that time Tyler so to finish what I was going to say earlier that's not getting too much into the weeds of the Sciences growing up I know that when I was very young in the house that my parents lived in right before I was born the whole yard went underwater when I was about 3 years old and that was a regular occurrence it didn't happen for another 20 years and then it happened again when I was about 20 and then it didn't happen again until last year and now it's happening again now so we've been through a drought cycle we're at kind of the wetest point that we've been in a long period of time and so some of this flooding is showing up that's one of the realities that we all need to go into this with I do think it's important that we have a discussion of storm water I do think it's important that we recognize that a lot of the flooding is historic I pulled up the new samna study just cuz I wanted to see what it was showing they found 1348 reported flood locations I'm looking at the map and it's like a heat map of the inter Coastal so if the inter Coastal stages up and floods the property there's absolutely nothing that any of us are going to do with storm water code that's going to have anything to do with title rise those are things that I also want to make sure that we look at I mean there are some other areas that there's flooding on the south side of State Road 44 between I95 and the inter Coastal there's kind of poor drainage from there there's not a lot of canals or other things so that there are going to be some things that we can draw conclusions from but I think in a large context it's really wet right now versus what it's been long it is so just something to remember the County Council is getting yelled at and the council doesn't like to get yelled at and our job is to look at the facts like you're talking about but when we go through the storm water work that we're going to do okay cuz we got to do trees today sorry to be to storm water will be if we get through trees yes and suzan okay so if it's thank you Suzanne so if it's okay um another thing that was said yesterday but it didn't it didn't get on my list of four things um but another thing that was mentioned was our speed and in all fairness it took us a long time to figure out how to how to work efficiently and I I think that was very appropriate it's taken the council a long time to figure out how to work together it took them about a year um and we came up with for this year the presentation by staff of the issues and they give us pread and we look at these issues in the light of the staff presentation and discussion then deep dive discussion and then discussion with an eye toward we're finalizing we might not get there but I'm proposing that that be something that we strive for as a committee okay thank you so let's climb trees and always with your thinking cap on and always being polite to one another no just okay we left off on on page 15 last time um we we had um at last meeting we had a a motion to bring back language about the rideway we went back and and looked at some of our notes in previous meetings and the board had previously voted to strike that language so we didn't bring any language back because you had already previously voted that so that was is our mistake um I guess I will Rec um so there was some language in the exemptions about exemptions for road projects and we had quite a bit of discussion about this a year ago and then we had discussion about it again at our last meeting what we failed to tell you at the last meeting was you in fact made a decision a year ago um to just um strike that language so the discussion that we had last time last month um you didn't you didn't make another motion it was all fine we don't have competing motions or anything or uh but just where we left it last time was we'd bring you back some language but in fact you had already decided that so we didn't bring back language so we're done with that yeah I just didn't want you to have an expectation that we were gonna talk about it again and we we don't have to unless you wanted to revisit it and remove that old motion and all that which whoever made the motion has to do that this is just Illustrated but I don't think we have to start here we go to the well we talked about it in a previous meeting I mean un let's they want let's they want to revisit the 15% the replacement cost or the 20% of the lot clearance did yeah okay so um some of you that were previously here we had discussed this before um the code currently requires 15% replacement of the total cross-sectional square inches uh that are removed from the site commercial is a little bit different than residential in residential we're only looking at the buildable area or the zoning setback areas not the buildable area for replacement in commercial like a final site plan we'd be looking for the entire site so this is just a general statement and I'm explaining the yeah so yeah here's a here's an example uh this is a residential lot um you can see that all the the trees that in the buildable area are being removed however they're not uh they're not required to replace those trees unless they're historic trees when you say commercial you're in it's great you're including subdivisions residential subdivisions okay so does that include residential subdivisions what tree replacement yes the tree replacement is the whole lot when you're subdividing what's the the entire cleared area yeah just for clear and your your infrastructure your roadways your retention yes so there are two sections in the tree code okay can we go back yeah um so they're basically the three peas for how you replace the trees you can plant you can preserve you can plant and you can pay obviously we preser we we prefer that you preserve trees on site whether you know they be in tree preservation areas or in your zoning setback areas um you know our next uh next preference is planting and our last you know our last option is payment or you can do a combination of all three have any questions on that Tyler that your John so I remember this reviewing this last year and going through this and the formula I think is adds hours of extra work for large large scale um so why can't we just use the 15% of the dbh versus going through all of this formula I mean you got a you got a 10-inch tree replace it with the you know uh that 15% smaller uh when you go and replant I mean that's a lot of math for an engineer and that group to go through I mean if you count 100 trees and you got that much dvh then why can't you just and we and I just trying to simplify the formula or simplify the madness behind the method it's it's fairly simple I mean pi r squ is I mean it's it's a fairly simple formula so it's I mean that's an industry you know a lot of Industry standards I mean Arman Beach does 10% of the cross-sectional scenes so I mean if you if you're wanting to reduce the cross you know the percentage wise I mean that's it's a typical some some cities or municipalities use um something uh that's like a canopy percentage which that is absolutely terrible to do figure out how much of the property is canopied and then replace that canopy well you can't really replace all of that canopy so you you have to you know you have to start somewhere so I get that but my question is how do you simplify that and just by using dbh rather than going through a formula I mean we're talking about trying to make things easier in the permitting process and and doing these kind of things I'm just asking why we can't do it a simpler process so I just did the math real quick so 15in if you if you said you have to replace 15% of the dbh you're it's a 2.25 dbh is 15% of 15 okay if you do it the cross-sectional square inch way uh you would have to replace 23 cross-sectional square inches which is equal to a 3 in dbh tree so it comes out I mean a little bit it's it's close to the same it's actually a little bit less three three entries so yeah it's a lot so if you do 15% of the dbh the replacement is significantly less so is the goal to same amount of replacement you could say it would be 30% of the dbh 50% is your goal to plant back more trees or to plant fewer trees his make easier okay I mean I I think that's probably the easiest calculation that Ty's got got you know has to deal with I will say this too we we do provide folks with a spreadsheet where all they have to do is plug in how many of each size tree and it does the math for you but um yeah if you're you know a owner Builder or something there there's a little bit of explanation that happens with cross-sectional area and owner Builders we we help them through the process we we'll help them do the math we'll help them through the entire thing so oh you decided to oh oh okay okay go for it is to make it simpler and we currently have an ordinance that you know tries to assess ass everything that's on site uh and then establish some replacement schedule but our ordinance also has a minimum in there so it would seem to me that you know at least in residential developments you know maybe this wouldn't apply to commercial but since you already have a minimum number of trees that have to go on a home site um you know to go through all those calculations and all the area where home sites exist you know it seems to me to be a horrible waste of energy time money uh the whole nine yards when as your you know the description that you put up there you know we get to exclude this area and we only count those areas and rather than you know doing something like that focus on you know maybe the RightWay uh you know the the preservation area certainly and make the minimum more stringent but get rid of all of the silly calculations that you have to go through on and again just for dis purposes of discussion on hites one acre or less or you know where you're not and and again everything that I propos to try and simplify this uh process exclude specimen in historic trees I I'm I I'm all for trying to do whatever we can to save you know truly historic trees not Laurel Oaks but live vokes cypress trees Big Pines I Black Jacks I would say that if you if you make it you make it cheaper you have less replacement you're not saving trees what saves the trees is that it costs to replace them it's it's the money factor if you have a minimum I mean I don't get on oneon-one back and forth here Keith but if you have a there is a minimum I know but it's it's one tree per 2, 2500 thank you uh square feet so you know on an acre piece of property um that's 16 trees and you know at one and a half inches a piece that's pretty minimal you know so if if you leave the discretion of which trees to save and all your Sav trees continue to be counted towards whatever that more stringent minimum standard is I don't see how you end up with fewer trees or how you end up in a situation where the Builder doesn't want to save those trees if it's at all reasonably possible but you eliminate all the Rigo in between I I I'll ask a question about that so um I think for sure if if we did something like that the minimum needs to change right because one tree per 2500 square feet is very absolutely yeah but then are we um is there an unintended consequence where you you know because some every lot is different right or every area is different so there are some Lots where we come across where there are a lot of trees and maybe they're they're you know it's nice habitat it's good trees and then there are some areas that you know there are very few trees or they're really you know cruddy or whatever so I don't know but I mean maybe there's um a value in having a way to do that that recognizes what exists there now rather than treating every every just because it's single family lot treating them the same I don't know if you had a more stringent minimum stand standard it would you know I don't know my brain it seems to me it would balance out if you're building or developing in an area that doesn't have any trees you're going to have to put a whole lot there and yes the area that has a lot of trees may suffer but the truth of the matter is in a residential development those trees are going to go anyway and the Builder is going to have to pay because you can't save all of those trees in a high density subdivision there there is already a way in the code to do what you're talking about it's the one per 1,00 option on individual lots and we discuss and we discussed that last year so you you wouldn't have to do any of these calculations you would just replant one tree per 1,000 foot of lot space on the individual lot lots that's already in the code we already have way to do that so if you if you're talking about doing these individual Lots this way there is something in the code already that handles that situation and Builders use it all the time um it's it's still the it's still the minimum size excuse me staff for a second it would be very helpful for those of us who do not do this all the time for a living if we specified that our comments are to residential or or subdivisions so that you might have and I might not have heard you it might have gone over my head that can happen was specifically talking about residentials but one one like o owner Builder no no no subdivision okay that's what I mean just always say I'm talking about subdivision here but those regulations apply but they weren't okay see here we go but those regulations apply the same on the singular Lots no they we've got a sidebyside slide with differences somewhere in there I recall saying but well it's just an area that they exclude it's the buildable area There are rules for existing single family lots already platted Lots that's the picture you have up here and and there is an option for Lots under a certain size to choose this one per 10,00 where the minimum is higher but you don't have to do any of the tree survey or removal and replacement calculations a new subdivision where you're creating new lots that doesn't follow these same rules those are different and that in in that case it's up to the developer how to permit the tree removal on those lots either it can be permited through at at the time of the subdivision or they can leave all the trees on the Lots you know do the infrastructure the pwns the roads all that and each lot gets permitted at the time of building permit and then it would follow these rules right so it really depends on how that subdivision is permitted so I I think it it is important to make sure exactly you know kind of what kind of development we're talking about because the rules do vary well yes and no because if if at the time of the subdivision the developer says I'm not going to clear if they say I'm going to clear the Lots in the subdivision okay then there's removal and replacement on that entire lot if they say I'm going to leave the Lots wooded and as each individual home comes in for permitting they'll follow whatever the tree rules are then it would be this where only the trees in the setbacks are or the one per 1,000 right so it's really at that point up to how the developer sets up that subdivision but any existing ploted lots that aren't exempt right because they're not one of the exempt categories follow these rules and I just kind of want to point out really quickly and we discussed this last year that and you can't really see it because we can't zoom into it but this particular lot they removed a lot of trees trees right and you would think looking at this that if you develop this way you would owe a lot in tree replacement they saved a couple of trees in the buildable area and those trees count torch all their replacement they owed zero so if you do your subdivision and you set it up to where you cleared the Lots individually you save the trees in the zoning setback areas and you save a couple of trees in the building area well then your tree replacement pretty much goes away thank you Tyler then bill then Wendy so I think existing ploted Lots the the single lot stuff there's a pretty big exemption in place effectively against replacement so I don't really have a lot of comments on that I also don't deal with it a lot with what we do professionally um I've had one subdivision out of dozens that we've done that didn't require complete regrading of the Lots in order to make the storm water work the land that's left to develop in the county is relatively low talking about the fact that storm water code is coming up it if you're subdividing land you're probably regrading the Lots unless it's some special circumstance larger lot something so looking at it under the context that we have to kind of replace everything um three of the goals are increase efficiency to have better fiscal stewardship and to have a more solution oriented culture back at the beginning of all of this conversation over a year ago I said that I have a problem with the fact that we look at replacement instead of a prescriptive solution I think Bob was kind of saying the same thing yeah that instead of saying hey we need to go survey these trees we need to figure out what the area of tree here is do a bunch of maths figure out how we're replacing them and paying into the fund we say we need to have this much for this 100 acres and if you want to go survey the trees that you're going to save and count them if you want to you know whatever do that the only thing it leaves is we have specimen trees and historic trees that we still need to identify that there is still a survey component but tree survey takes a while and it's expensive so talking about ways that we can streamline our process I I felt from the beginning that we could get the same end results with the prescriptive policy and in fact that avoids all the things of these folks having to chase after somebody that owns land under an egg zoning clears all the trees makes it more valuable to a developer and then a few years later sells those types of things are worthless all of a sudden if it's a prescription of minimum coverage right and so that I don't get that entirely I don't understand that entirely so explain it to me like I'm a 5-year-old please so a forest can only grow so densely when we cut down a forest and we replace at some ratio against the densest Forest achieving some coverage and against a field we're achieving zero coverage with replacement let me ask my question another way um from what I what I know I own I'm going to develop a subdivision a a a large property and it's got trees on it right now and right now I hire someone to do a tree survey and they're going to flag any specimen or historic trees in there but they're also going to do a sampling of What kinds of trees are in there and how many there are of them they use sampling they're not going to go count every single tree they're going to do everything's six inches and bigger okay it has to be okay six in okay so there's one labor thing there they're going in they counting every every tree I'll use the busiest example and so now we know we've done our survey and we know what we have in terms of specimen we know what we have in terms of any historic trees and we know how many trees we have 6 Ines or bigger that will trigger my replacement or protection or payment options yes correct okay so take me from there so nice to us and does one foot per inch so at least I don't have to use pie or anything else there um so if we impact more than 25% of the root Zone it is assumed that we have killed the tree there is some wiggle room that we can work with Keith and you know but just in a closed box interacting with just myself I have to assume I kill the tree so I need to know trees beyond my lot line if I'm grading to my lot line things of that nature um so then I do my math I figure out what my replacement is I lay out my development I figure out where I can put trees and I see if I'm paying into the tree fund or not and that's pretty much it at the end of the day I lay out my development other way same example starting at that same point we did do a survey take me the so I know where my specimen and historic trees that I need to avoid R I may be able to take some of them out or you know that may be a conversation but I'm going to know where those are I'm going to lay out my subdivision I take my minimum coverage I survey my trees that are remaining I apply that and I go okay this is how much more I need I lay out my trees I see if I meet the minimum coverage or not and whether I have to pay into the tree fund I'm done it saves me the survey of everything that I'm clearing so basically what I'm suggesting is if we're going to kill the trees why are we spending money on them let me just paraphrase what I understood you to say to make really really sure you're saying instead of surveying every single tree and calculating what you have to pay input back you're saying let me just look at my buildable area where I'm actually going to be taking out trees I'm saying look at the total lot size and have a coverage of you know right now it's one tree per 2500 square feet so say it was 50 trees per acre and I had 100 acres I need 5,000 trees now I need a minimum size that that tree is defined as so some municipalities call it 6 in now I need 5,000 time 6 in of dbh on my site if I preserve it in existing trees if I plant it with replacement however I get there I've achieved my coverage and I don't have to survey all the area that's going to be cleared it's going to save me time on the front end and it's going to save me money on the front end well you can currently do a statistical analysis without without surveying all the trees that's already in the code it happens all the time I mean every week we're looking at statistical analysis so they do a couple of plots and they come up with a cross-section square inch per foot and apply it over those areas um it it happens on actually most developments so this they they located every single tree that's rare um and you know most of the time they only have to um actually survey the specimens and historics and everything else can be done as statistical just on T on the idea of a prescription [Music] um is there a way like how how would we encourage preservation of existing trees over clear cutting and replanting of trees because it's it's it's not like it's a terrible idea right like it's if if you end up and you you'd have to figure out how do you end up at the same place right like what is that prescription that gets you where where you get now or something but how do you like you focus on we would really want to to encourage people to preserve what's there rather than cut down what's there and put back something new it's that you look at the trunk area instead of just the dbh because the existing trees that are 9 10 12in diameter trees have a lot more area to them than a 4in tree and a 4in tree is expensive if I go buy a 4-in oak tree at any Nursery today it's over $500 right now so you know installs yeah am I wrong and that and that and that yeah yeah and that encourag you that encourages you to keep more trees but also Jessica you had your C you had your card oh okay all right thank you I I I would I encourage everybody to go back and look at pictures of STS and and wonderful City that's known as you know the Op City of the world back when it started the whole area was clear-cut you know thousands of acres clearcut and what do we have today so one of the things that happens with the method that I think you know both Tyler and I are trying to promote is I now put trees in areas where they're likely to thrive if I am forced to save a tree through economics which I am regularly forced to do that tree often times is not in an area where it's going to thrive it's going to fall on the person's house in a few years I'm sorry no when I save it when I'm forced well exactly um you know e even if I'm not you know I've got a house here I've got a house here and each you know home is 15 feet away from the tree um or you know in the C whatever had to happen I I mean I'm not speaking out a turn when I'm telling you that I've had three homes uh that I've built in my career that were axed by trees that were saved during the development process all right they came down in a storm they went right through the middle of the house and in all those in all three of those instances I fought at the time not to save the trees you know so we do things one one subdivision was in a St a um sand pind I think they're called the one the stands that are real close together I think those are sand Pines aren't they Keith the the ones that grow real yeah that that they have to be close together to survive you know every one of them is 80 feet tall and they don't have a branch for the first 50 feet and back in the early days of the tree ordinance they forced me to save a couple hundred of those things fortunately uh most of them didn't chop houses in half because we were able to keep them away but none of those trees should have been saved except in a in a area where they're all nice and tightly together all right again just going back to a nice and and I'm all for that prescriptive method being way more stringent than it is right now but it gives us the latitude to come back and go hey I can put trees along here and they're all going to live and I'm not going to do what did in Victoria Park and put all my oak trees this far from the curb and that far from the sidewalk directly over the utilities East okay I'm gonna put them back just a little bit like I did in Glenwood Springs down here off of 15a the subdivision is 20 or 25 years old now we set them 10 foot off the sidewalks on both sides hey guess what we got a canopy 25 years later look at the look at the Live Oaks that line the boulevard every one of those areed and yeah but you can't guarantee those trees are going to stay there either when you when you sell the lot um what we see all the time all respect Keith you can't guarantee that any trees is going to stay there forever whether it's one I saved or one I planted we're going to do everything we can to see that they are but there are no guarantees there right but what I'm saying is is just planning the lots and and saying that those trees are going to be here and they're going to have a canopy in in 50 years what we're seeing when we're coming back out and doing our reinspection CU we're seeing a lot of these trees have been removed uh they they remove them they put in uh non-native species they just take them down which which is another section of what we have to talk about yeah so I I I I want um Bill and Jessica to and and Wendy to have their say but I I want to say I want to reiterate something that you said um Bob and a tree is not a tree is not a tree because some of them have Horticultural requirements like the sandpine needing to be in stands um and not as isolated trees but our code looks at them as a tree as a tree is a tree and I know Tyler's had thoughts on that that are different but um Bill actually no Jessica because she's been waiting a long time I just wanted to ask on the statistical analysis because I know that it's possible I know it's possible but is it clearly outlined in the code kind of when that applies and what methods or is it kind of a case by case they bring it forward and you say oh we sing three plots here it has to be the same habitat type or how does that that's not laid out in the code right now right well you know it's it states that the habitat has to be of like species so like if you have like um a mixed mixed hardwood area and you have a pineer you would just you know do your your transects and then cover those particular areas and perfect I know that's how it works but is that can somebody who's not us go to the code and say got it instead of doing a full tree survey I just do this is that in the code because that may be helpful well yeah I think we would we would we also tell people this consistently too you know we get questions all the time do I have to do a full tree survey and the answer is no you don't have to do you could do a statistical I just want to avoid the situation where we pull subdivision requirements and it says full tree survey and we can say but here's the alternative outline in and when we when we're we're writing this tree this tree ordinance we're talking about you know reorganizing things and putting things we have a section where you're going to have all your requirements for each individual um submitt and all that stuff will be you know bulle tized out how you do these things and so it's very clear right now it's not clear you got pieces and parts different direction so that that is the goal is to make is to simplify it and to make a list so people know what is required and excuse me for stepping on you for a second Bill and Wendy that's something that's really bothered me and and you're talking about laying out something you can do this or you can do this and here's what you do under a here's what you can do under B rather than when we I think the learning curve that was so painful with the tree ordinance was trying to see the forest for the individual trees to use a to use a metaphor with each each ordinance so uh love to hear more about that bill so um when we were talking about this last go around I was discounting um Rob's idea of this prescriptive thing but now that we're coming back around I think it makes a lot of sense and Rob has dealt with this he has been in the throws of it with for years so he understands it better maybe he could help us understand what he's talking about and then with the um the statistical it's not clear but we do sometimes tell our clients when they come and say oh my gosh we need a whole tree survey we say no no we can support you by doing it a statistical and we do a lot of them um so that's all um right now it's not specifically stated in the ordinance but there's no reason that we couldn't say that right and come up with the language that you know they have to be substantially similar and areas and stuff like that that's what we tell people um but even in the ordinance we that we've been talking about like to make it more clear um it doesn't specifically call it out so I'm making a note Wendy okay I'll be brief um I just want to reiterate because it's um you know it came up yesterday and we keep saying it over and over and over that we want to simplify but we can be more stringent and I think that that's that's a clarification from yesterday because I think that there was an assumption that simplifying means making the standards lower I don't think that that's that's necessarily true um I I'm all about simplifying I've I've loved the prescriptive idea from day one I I nod vigorously every time you you open your mouth Pop um and then my other question is and this is an ecosystem or habitat type question for Keith or Bill or any of you who are just very familiar with the entire County um you know just like groundwater varies and soils very um is every area of this County supposed to be forested even if it was even if it was clearcut 100 and 150 years ago were we originally forested everywhere you know besides Marshland um and so is the goal to reforest the entire County is that the goal and so are there places whether I mean let's say You're Building on a cattle you know a cattle pasture that has already been clearcut then yeah you're not required to put so many trees back in because you know you you got that land already cleared um but is the goal to reforest it is is it appropriate and again you know putting the right plant right plant in the right place you know you want to make sure you're planting appropriately for the soils the water the habitat the original habitat type it gets complicated there but um but do we in the goal of simplifying but perhaps having more stringent rules are we still shooting ourselves in the foot to have kind of a one-size fits-all policy can I can I just speak to that real quick um in the council program we have something in there about adding a waiver to the tree minimum standards based on site specific conditions to address that issue because right now there's not but you know again it seems like we're getting into the into the you know individual weeds of this instead of kind of what we had said we were going to look at the big picture stick with the council work plan make votes on those types of things how you know so but it's up to you how you want to do this however I want to make a correction about the statistical tree analysis it's in 728 36 E2 it's States in there you know how you're supposed to do that so and just for for Dr Anderson the county has habitat maps about what what was everywhere like they have the gopher tortoise map so that information is available and to my knowledge not everything was forested Bill um I think you're right back um be pre-colombian let's say um only places that are herbaceous Marsh or bases Prairie would have not been uh forested the um most of our rolling Sand Hills and even some of our Flatwoods would have been really old growth long leaf pine at 50 trees per acre or maybe five trees per acre but then we as humans came in cut the whole Eastern Seaboard at the turn of the century so and then we did Citrus so that's when it really was in cattle that's when it was really herbaceous um and I'm sorry Bru yeah just historically too if you think about it and read about uh some of the history Florida burned it's supposed to burn and you know everybody wants to save a forest but they don't want to manage it and too much density creates a very big Hazard and but it back in the days there are records of people That Could See For Miles off the top of a hill because Florida burned and there weren't as many trees as you'd think as a as a county we do do control burns but as development has encroached on those areas that need to burn we don't burn and we pay a price for that um Bliss uh just one comment um we've said it in different ways but um trees are a renewable resource and here when you compare that to water quality water quality is not that fixable but uh trees are replaceable renewable resource and and many times cash crops um so I would oh Wendy and then Ginger Ginger so I I love this conversation about the different habitat types and that was in my head when we were talking about a prescriptive approach as well because one good thing about the removal and replacement is that replacement is based on what you have and if you have an area say it's in scrub where you really don't have a lot of protected trees then you're not putting back trees and changing that habitat now if you're putting a house on it you're probably changing the habitat people are going to plant you know stupid stuff and whatever but um so in that way the removal and replacement is more um suited to like different habitat types of was it a very forested area or wasn't it at the time of permit not to say that you couldn't figure that out in a prescriptive approach but it in one way it may be a little bit more complicated because would you say you have a minimum whatever it is dbh or whatever your measurement is there's a number you have to get to when you're done but would that be dependent on your type of habitat and like what if part of your lot is marshy would you count that toward your 5050 trees per acre like I I guess we would just have to be very deliberate about what the prescription is based on maybe where you started I I don't know and even that gets tricky because for instance let's say we could develop in tamoka State Park not but let's say we could that's not a pristine Forest it's got Indigo in there from when from that when that was cropped it it it has we walk in and we go oh this is a wonderful nature walk a a botanist or a an arborist walks in and go what the heck happened here because of what's happened over time and the land has been it's reforested itself I I would um Bill asked if Bob could or if staff understands what exactly Bob Means about the prescriptive approach to understand how that would be workable if once again I'll tell you what I think I understand and maybe it's right and maybe it's not is that rather than what we do now with removal and replacement calculations and we'll set aside specimens and historics for the moment that there's just a a number of trees or number of square inches or or a number that you have to get at the end and how you get there could be the same as now right you could plant or you could preserve I guess if it's a minimum you can't pay right but how you get there on your site is less important than that you get to a certain minimum standard of tree coverage um rather than sort of you right now the incentive is to not cut down trees because you have to replace what you cut down right so it's but would mitigation method you get to a point to where you just lose Lots on subdivisions depending on depending depending on how much area you're cutting down if you get to that number if there's not a a preserve plant or pay there's not a third option there's a potential where you're like well you you're not going to meet your minimum how many lots are you going to cut off to meet your minimum in terms of so so I I thought I got it the the less math and no pie method which is there are this many trees and we're going to keep 80% of them and well no not 80 but whatever no I don't even think it's about how many you started with it's like at the end everybody has 50 trees per acre or some some some standard but at the end you have this much of trees yeah that that that piece so 50 I would to so we've heard what's positive about that now I want to hear what's bad about that after Jessica and Bliss if that standard would the that canopy have to be in a tree protection area that's the problem that's the problem that's the problem why would you I I mean I'm not well currently you you you have your 15% tree preservation herea obviously that would work into it now you have to have an NV area over top of the tree preservation area so you would have to make that tree preservation and you know that NV area kind of similar in in my opinion so it would it would be an addition too but we don't put trees that you put on individual Lots one tree per 25 acres in a tree protection area right and that's what you're talking about so so real quick way way long ago we talked about a couple of us getting together and trying to put something and that never happened I don't know whether Chris yeah Chris well I think he said all we had to do was publish I mean you know make it public and we could two or three of us get together and work on that issue is that correct or am I misguided it's possible but it has to be um minutes have to be taken has to be published um so there are some hurdles to go through for sure but you know it is possible there there can be addition I I mean I I'm I'm still willing to do that I'm going to speak for Chelsea said she quit if she had to sit through those meetings she was looking at me like uh uhuh well uh maybe I can just have a suggestion maybe that's something that you know you uh task um staff to see what other counties are doing or how other replacement is done in other areas and we bring it back to you and you guys take a look at that I I I don't know we can't decide that you someone has to make a or or direct staff to bring back more information to you I'd almost rather that we hash it out expeditiously we've kind of heard the benefit in terms of speeding things up or making them less complicated not but we haven't talked about what the unintended consequences might be and I need to recognize Tyler Bliss and Jessica so I think the question that you have of would we need to have a tree protection easement over the trees that we're putting in on a prescriptive basis if we're preserving existing trees or if we're using nv's natural vegetation retention area at least for the minutes um what that's referring to is us getting credit for existing trees smaller than 6 in so they're not legally trees yet but they can be counted towards our replacement value this is all the complexity of what we deal with so if you're preserving a natural area on the property and preserving the trees in it and counting it towards the credit I think that makes sense to have a tree preservation area but I think consistent with how the code is applied today that if you're planting replacement trees along a road whether it's on somebody's lot or you know in the road right of way that it doesn't necessarily make sense to have a tree protection easement over it because that means you know what to somebody in 20 years what can they do to the trees but you know maybe we do need to have some type of the survivorship that those trees have to be here in 5 years or I know Port Orange has something that's maybe a little stricter than what I think works well but there is a balance to be had there but I don't think individual Lots with a bunch of easements on them is the goal that we should strive towards well and we don't like those individual tree easements the um the the the Nuance here is that under the current system system if you don't remove a tree you don't have to replace it but if at some point you want to remove it assuming it's not on a single family lot which is exempt after it's on or occupied right but if at some point in the future you want to remove it then you will have to replace it then right so they're still protected because we have removal and replacement if what you if what we get to is a certain number per acre or whatever um those trees aren't protected anymore because you don't have a me mechanism to permit its its future removal you see what I'm saying so then the question is how do you protect those 10 trees per acre um in the future because you've removed the removal and replacement requirement right so that's where yeah maybe you do want all your trees that count toward your minimum to be some in some sort of protected area although I don't think that's really very effective because in in theory they're kind of mixed around in your site right so how do you protect them next year if you didn't take it out this year I mean but what you're talking about are existing trees that are preserved that are count so we didn't have to deal with replacement during development but we don't specifically protect the replacement trees that are used that are planted to replace the trees that are cut down so in the future those can be dealt with in a different mechanism as well right well what happens now is you planted a tree in your parking lot at the 7-Eleven and 10 10 years from now you want to remove it you have to come and get a tree removal permit for it and we require you to replace it but if you don't have removal and replacement requirements if all you have is a minimum number requirement then let's say you plant your minimum number at your 7-Eleven and in 10 years you come in to take trees out of the parking lot how do we make sure that replace them okay so let's set 7-Eleven aside let's pretend it's a residential subdivision the trees is in somebody's front yard 10 years down the road the person cuts the tree down well if it's an owner occupied lot at that point and it's exempt and only if it's historic that's right um which is what I'm saying is those trees aren't currently protected but but typically we don't let the replacement requirement for the subdivision occur in an individual lot if you're taking trees out in your subdivision for your road and your storm water and all that and you're putting in replacement trees you're not putting them on the Lots you're putting them in common areas you're putting them in easements you're putting them in landscape buffers you're putting them in your tree preservation area they're not going on the lot because I can't can't um make sure that that tree stays once it's an owner occupied lot I'm going to have to review some plans because all the other municipalities count the trees on the lots and it's just been a long time since I've done one in County we count the trees on the Lots but we count the minimum standards on the on the lots and they have to remain for two years so if you're you're talking about doing you know what you're doing you would almost have to uh do away with the exemption for trees on Lots so that means single family residential lots would have to come in and permit their trees for removal and I don't have the staff for that they wouldn't have to come in at all they just have to meet whatever ever that prescriptive minimum was and when they and when they don't when they don't do that that is a violation of the code and then you need staff to take them to code board you have inspections and people are going to want to remove trees it it that will be a nightmare I'd have to double staff to to deal with all the Lots in un Incorporated fuchia County so um you offered a little earlier Keith to try to find some other ordinances that we might review and you know I would love to see an ordinance out there and I believe there are some that are based on a prescriptive method rather than what we go through so I mean that that's a great place to start if we can't if if Chris won't set us up a little mini meeting the only thing about that is we're not going to have this done today but I was overly ambitious Jessica and I asked about the TPA because we run into it a lot on plans and we run into it in the context of free preservation area versus common open space requirements and how much can they overlap and it's you know something that has to be reviewed and kind of making those pockets of okay you need 15% canopy you need this much natural vegetation this much open space they should all overlap and so it's building in kind of that plan of making sure they overlap and how that operates so I'm pointing it out as a I would flag this as an issue we can probably work around it I mean there are a lot of jurisdictions that say and I'm not going to say who because I don't know if it's strict application of the minimum standards um yeah but where they say 15% canopy preservation or planting to that standard to 15% coverage on the lot and then they just say say you have a residential subdivision you have that 15% you have the one per 2500 and you have one tree per lot in the front yard and or one tree per every 40 linear feet or whatever it is so that if you have 50 you have two like and you have to meet all of those but then you can have trees on lots that count and so there are ways to do it but it does go back to enforcement I mean but I think our current system goes back to enforcement so yeah the current system is for enforcement for the New Lots after two years then all that enforcement goes away and and like we discussed with the historic trees you have a tree on a lot and it's hanging over a house you know you have to you have to provide some sort of Permitting system if you're protecting that tree and that's and that takes staff time ho go def funct all the time and and then we're left with nothing friends we are at the 238 Mark and usually at 2:30 we succumb to biology um so is it okay okay to stop for 10 minutes and take a little come back in 10 and keep going going once going twice musical chairs you're going to lose your seat oh no no no no no no no I got enough problems yeah yeah I'll think I I no so let's let's start this up again and just to sorry so the the the land develop M code to answer a question that came up Tyler that that came up a while ago the purpose and jurisdiction under the land planning for trees is uh protect and preserve trees and enhance tree cover but that's a great statement it's big it's broad to get there it it's proving complicated um and it was brought forth that maybe we're actually closer to maybe being simpler and achieving that simpler and how or maybe not because Ginger's talking about if we went to just saying we're going to save 20 trees on a property to make a silly example what happens in five years and someone cuts down two of them how are we keeping 20 on that property yeah so um I don't know if I should put this in a motion or not but you know Keith and I had a conversation real quick about providing examples of ordinances that use prescriptive methods uh you know so yes that should be um yes because I think we it should right because we instruct we ask staff to do that or no no they're just going to do that okay shall we then continue with another portion of of this ordinance wait oh no I just I'd like I'd like to better understand what is going to happen essentially you're looking at other ordinances from other places that are more in line with what Bob has been talking about is that right and so you're going to come back and say in Orange County they do this which which is closer to a prescriptive method is that is that what's going to happen we'll try we can we can look for that uh we can look for other ordinances in the area and and provide a couple of different solutions or or different ways than than the way we do it so maybe there's a a a different way that we're not aware of we can look for other ways to do it and bring back those and that's that's where I was going because versus just looking at these other places I I think it'd be good if you interpreted what they said and said hey this is this you know we maybe there's a step in between that makes even more sense U but I do think we may very well be closer here because we may end up the net may be we have more trees and and a more simplified system which which would be a beautiful thing so you know it's something that we're uh we may be closer to it than we know and perhaps these other folks have some insight that knock a few of our our our negatives that are associated to it so thanks just to add on to that as you're exploring these different codes or regulations pick up the phone and call your cohorts and ask about the pros and cons of each thank you because if somebody picked up our code and looked at how we do it they would not necessarily get the picture of how we do it because the code is so out of date and we're we you know whatever so yes we would definitely talk to those folks as well okay so this slide is uh the potential um replacement changes I think we'll skip that right and then we're going to go to oh SK um last or next to last bullet point perpetuity is that the right word because that means forever and ever and ever I mean a thousand years from now you're not going to have that tree there or a 100 years from now yeah I think that means I think that means I think that means the Natural Life of the tree that could be changed to something like that you know it's again it's all always going to be about condition like you could plant a tree and in 20 years it could have a major defect or or you know something some disease you know hit it and and it needs to come out so again everything's always going to be about condition of the tree let's clarify that if we could please yeah and maybe you need to put a um a pool in or something right then you would have to you know plant it somewhere else or replace it or something like that okay Keith says we're not skipping this so one of the questions was um require additional tree replacement if the it's a subdivision and the proposal is to clear all the Lots okay uh what I would skip is the first one of this one because we need to we need to look at the replacement right so we'll we'll table that first one I think the next three should be fairly easy so we we're talking about um Palm Replacements there's a section of the current code that talks about palms it's very complicated um it's uh a reduction of the The Palms so what we're talking about doing is is you know remove that section either all together and just replace Palm for Palm and you know when you get to doing cross-section score inches for palm trees that's a monocot it's not necessarily a tree it's it's a grass anyway I mean you probably shouldn't be doing cross-sectional sore inches you could just do a palm for Palm replacement or a palm for non-pm so if you're taking out um one 16-inch palm tree you could plant it with a 2in oak tree or 2-in magnolia tree it would make it so much simpler and you wipe out a whole section so is is this is is the intent of this just I I I took out four sand Live Oaks and I put in four sable palms to try to meet a requirement no so this is like if you have let's say you have a a site that's got 10 10 palm trees on it instead of counting every palm tree doing a cross-sectional square inches and have to replace um you know a bunch of of replacement trees it would just be a one: one ratio for Palms either Palm for Palm or Palm for non-pm but but you can't replace a hardwood with a palm right right that's going here right canot no pie yeah Palms lack you know secondary growth so they're never going to get any bigger they are what they are is it one to one today this would be a gross and grease in Palm replacement what was your question no how is this modifying the Palm replacement required of today so so technically if you're replacing um palm tree or replacing Hardwoods with palm trees you would have to take your total cross-sectional square inches of palm trees and divide it by 16 so yes just the replacement required for Palms today what what is it and what is it proposed to be so if I cut down a Sable Palm today regardless of its size what am I required to replace so there's a a chart in the in the code and it has what you can replace these Palms with and Palms four so you could do what you can do is you can replace Palm for Palms but it removes the section of the cross-sectional for palms and palms for for non-ps yeah right now you have to do the cross-sectional calculation for Palms what we're proposing is that you don't do the cross-sectional calculation and you don't replace a non-pom with a palm you don't have to do the complicated math if you're taking out a hardwood you're putting back a hardwood and just make it easier I'm good with that it just sounded like we were going to not allow a reduction in the count of Palms on the site right yeah yes you could do it the other way that's my question that's what I misunderstood you can't currently but you you can yesing pal yeah instead of replacing a palm with two or three trees you would just replace it with one tree yeah and currently you you're not what it said the code says is you're supposed to replace uh like species trees unless you have our permission to do something different well we typically don't allow you to replace a live oak with palm trees unless you're somewhere uh Beachside where you have no option H let me get this clear so you can replace a palm with a hardwood replace a palm with a heart with a non-pm right not the way that we're talking about it right now it would just be a palm for non-pm or a palm for a palm Noy you're tricking me you're tricking me on that that language thing right now what I'm saying I have a palm tree I want to cut it down okay and I want to replace it with an oak tree can I do that yes you can okay John but you can't cut down an oak tree and replace it with a pal Jessica in the situation where you are on the beach and you should have palms for a nonp palm or live yes sure um potentially could you put in that from a certain distance from Atlantic Ocean you replace two Palms per one non-p Palm in that situation where that species makes more sense for the location so you're not stuck you don't I I I think the answer is that when we're looking at site plants we're trying to make sure that people are putting back plants that grow where they're putting them I I didn't quite follow the plant two Palms back for a hardwood the it's the city it's the city of Daytona Beach standard is two palm trees can count for one nonp palm tree so that's if you had a non-p palm and you had to replace under your current rule if you're on the beach you can't but could you say within 500 feet of Atlantic Ocean you can at a ratio of two Palms per the one tree or whatever we could if that's what you tell us you want to do currently replacement is based on habitat um we have the habitat planning guidelines and if you're in that habitat and you're replanting trees we want you to plant trees that are based on that habitat habitat type so if you're you know uh sea grapes um palm trees sable palms those types of things in in those type of areas yes okay um I move to do what he said um I second it to simplify the Palm ordinance for um direct replacement of palms for palms or non- palms for Palms one for one any discussion and we need a second okay oh he did second yeah uh okay all those in favor I any opposed yay another easy one here um lower the minimum replacement size from 2in caliper to 1.5 in caliper so that's basically going to take your um 30 gallon or 45 gallon depending on your tree species um 2in caliper trees to a 15 gallon size tree just going to make it easier for the Mom and Pops to go pick up their trees at a nursery and plant them themselves it's going to make them cheaper you know you'll be able to meet your minimum standards it'll be cheaper to meet your minimum standards and have better survivability just just to prove that I don't always disagree with you Keith I move we approve that one yeah Onna seconds uh so um any discussion all those in favor I any opposed Donna so the third one is just to clarify in the code that existing trees on the site that are below 6 inches so that be greater than the minimum size which is now 1 and a half inch caliber up to six inches can be used as replacement stock it's just not real clear in the code right now do we have yeah yeah we do would someone like to move okay Jack cette moved and Jessica gal seconded it any discussion oh I'm sorry okay Sarah Lee I'm so easily confused um yeah I I didn't want to say but um any discussion I I was just going to say if we come back and say we're not going to have the the complicated calcul on replacement because we're going with prescriptive this might be mot yes would it be moot okay good question okay any uh Bob yeah this is one of the things about our existing ordinance that I've I've never been a fan of so a minimum tree can be planted that's an inch and a half in diameter now based on our change um however it a a tree that you save that's an inch and a half or two inches in diameter cannot go towards the replacement it has to be at least six Ines in if it's put in the natural vegetation area that right well that's what I'm saying that that that's the the philosophy here is because 6 in is a protected tree that you don't get to count towards replacement stock any tree that's smaller than tree right now trees under six inches six inches and Below to to what was right right two can be counted as replacement tree a tree that's six inches can't count as replacement because it's protected right even though it's in an area that it's being saved right because because that tree is already protected you don't get to count you you don't get credit for protecting it because it's protected but you saved you don't have to replace it but you but you saved the tree anyway that that has always been you know an aspect of the ordinance um you know and then the other part of that is to utilize the credit if you're talking about it now I'm out there surveying inch and a half to to 5.9 inch trees which you can do on a statistical analysis we we we allow that as well um and you know maybe that's something that we should clarify in our list of of tree you know tree permit application requirements um but yeah so you can do your statistical for those and get get a per cross-section square inch per square foot and find your replacement that way vegetation of tree species that are being used as replacement stock to four removed trees a tree is 6 in and larger if by code by definition a a live oak that has a 4 in diameter at breast height is not a tree no that's it's not a protected tree so the definition there's a definition of a tree and then there's a definition of a protected tree which is six inches and greater maybe this has changed I read it that but that's part of it is the the I thought that a tree was to six Ines and above a a protected tree so okay so maybe this is a point of confusion of mind that I need to go do my homework on my apologies the second thing I was going to bring up is is more the the discussion of replacement how do you incentivize that a large tree be preserved if it's prescriptive I think this is exactly the point that Bob was making trying to is that right now in our tree preservation areas we save a 24 in Live Oak it's a beautiful tree we don't get credit for it but we don't get penalized to where we have to replace but what would further incentivize our protecting that tree versus another Tree on the site or combination of trees on the site would actually be to have that prescriptive coverage because that 24in tree has a lot of value and it versus a bunch of 3in or 4 in trees that we can grab in nbras or replacement stock so not really as much on the item that we're discussing but just because there is a lot of replacement versus credit or whatever discussion preserving trees is incentivized I think the s to the committee is we do want to make we want to preserve the trees and we do want to make this simpler so hopefully the examples of codes from elsewhere will help us is this a decision point that we can proceed with though add okay yes we were doing discussion weren't we thank you um any further discussion could you restate the motion again please because I'm afraid I'll misdo it yeah clarify in the code that replacement can include retaining existing native trees between 1 and a half Ines and 5.9 in dbh thank you and we had that seconded all those in favor I any opposed great motion carries the next bullet point is add that replacement trees must remain in perpetuity uh we had a little bit of discussion about that so you know uh what what would you like us to add besides perpetuity yeah take perpetuity out the trees must remain must remain preserved for like currently uh replacement trees on single family lots have to remain for two years two years two years I want to clarify that I was right the life the life of the tree what they are six inches in your definition what protected trees trees 15t tall 6 in diameter breast height okay we look so uh how long I say they should be preserved as long as they're help me viable me their life lifespan of the tree lifespan of the tree yeah it is nice it's ambiguous Tyler were you looking at definitions in chapter 72 is that 72 definitions three okay and then the last item on here was um and we don't need a motion for this because you don't know specifically what they are but we have identified some places where there's inconsistencies or need for more Clarity sorry um I have your answer 72842 it has the um size 6 feet high 2 inches uh for replacement trees the definition of tree is any wood any Woody self-supporting plant characterized by having a single trunk of at least 6 in dbh or multi- stem trunk system with well-developed crown at least 15 ft high as measured from its base shall be considered a tree yeah that's the definition protect the tree but he says it's tree so I now I I remember so we stand corrected but we were proposing to add a definition of protected tree to make that Clarity right because something less than six inches is still a tree so we were GNA clarify that in it's not currently a tree it should be it should be a tree but it's not currently a tree so the clarification that we're voting on here is going to be muddy as crap if we don't also have the prote Ed tree definition included right we okay I couldn't listen because there wasn't a recording and there weren't minutes so I'm sorry I missed the last discussion oh who's going to jump it again it was the replacement the replacement trees uh must remain preserved for its life life Natural Life lifespan any seconds Bliss seconds any discussion Tyler has his name up themselves up for an argument with with using I I agree with it I think we should have a chart suggesting maybe we include that I guess it's and that was instead of in perpetuity so I I mean the other alternative is as long as the tree is is healthy right or doesn't meet the definition of deteriorated that that could be an alternative this trees must remain healthy and preserved period I so John has to John has to amend his motion to what Keith or Ginger said uh yeah so so for the what did I say um as long as the tree is is not considered deteriorated right because we have a definition and do we have a second of the second yes but you're okay with it too right good any further discussion are you putting your name okay all those in favor I any opposed motion carries okay this is a topic we actually um talked about a year ago uh about um So currently 15% of the square footage of any development it must be designated for the protection of existing trees um this we saw this diagram last time this is in this example what 15% of a commercial site looked like um we talked about prent potential changes um and this actually was something that was discussed by Council was this idea of a graduate ated level of tree preservation area in sensitive areas including Norma and Eco you know maybe it's not 15% in those areas um we had a little diagram I'm going to skip we had a diagram that we talked about last year like what does 20% look like what does 25% look like ultimately last year um March 1 you all voted to not have graduated protection you voted to leave the tree preservation area at 15% in all areas of the county so unless someone on the prevailing side of that boat wants to revisit it that was the decision at this time last year um I no longer remember the discussion around that but I find it odd that we didn't ask for further Protections in Norma and Eco uh Wendy made the motion on that one uh Tyler was the second and it passed unanimous for everybody that was at the meeting except for Bill Bill voted no to change the the language the the no was to do we want to increase tree retention areas in Norma and Eco and the answer was no we want to leave the whole thing at 15% yes yeah we yeah yeah sounds like Bill's the only one that had a clue yep that's why I'm saying I'm wondering that's well it doesn't it it doesn't sound like us to leave it at 15 that wasn't how it happened though well Wendy made the motion she could no so on the prevailing side yeah let's let's revisit it here I'm gonna can I share you with you the minutes um so um we I asked if you wanted to increase it in Eco Norma um uh Bill responded he would not be in favor of an increase of greater than 15% in Norma and would like to open space inclusion using and Ed landscape buffers that was a whole lot so Wendy expressed support of open space so having the tree preservation be open space overlap right um we talked about whether retention areas are counted um the um so Wendy U motion to accept sections a through e but not include the landscape buffers in the 15% that that failed because there was no second right so then we talked a little bit more um [Music] um uh discussion included allowing landscape buffers to count toward preservation if it remains in its natural state um member Anderson motion to approve as written like approve the code as it's written uh oh to approve the proposed change as written I don't think that's not how I like after the meeting we were all like oh I guess we're not increasing anything yeah and so and then it was actually it wasn't um Tyler it was um Bernie that seconded the motion and then so I if that was not the intent we can revisit it if one of the prevailing members I move we revisit okay do we have a second to revisit it Sarah Lee second okay discussion well vote to I think you probably probably need to vote to do the revisiting and then do discussion on how you want to proceed okay oh I wasn't here then so I do I vote on this to bring it back again yes you do thank you that's a good question okay all those in favor of revisiting I any opposed the motion carries to revisit this could you read the Cod so there is no code language well so what the code now says is 15% of the land area of all development must be set aside for the preservation of trees it doesn't apply to existing single family lots right platted Lots um The Proposal would be that it you know the question is is 15% enough tree preservation and this was one of the things that came to council because you know people were at Council hollering about these clearcut areas right where's the tree preservation um so there had been discussion at Council um in in the work plan the council work plan about you know is the 15% tree preservation the right percentage and it should there be graduated protection in these other areas like Norma and Eco and we had the Norma map and Eco map up when we were doing these discussions okay Wendy I just want to add to it real add what she said real quick I just want to add to that that the county Forester can provide a waiver to that so if you have a subdivision that's like all pasture or something like that we would take a look at that and say hey this has been agriculture for for years and years and years and I can provide a waiver to that section for site specific reasons um Bob I was reading from the minutes from the March 1st 2023 meeting and that was uh this discussion started on page six but the motion is on page seven line 31 is Keith wanted to make a clarification and Bob ask a question so it was it was Wendy's question and then you jack right so obviously I'm still scratching my head about why I would make such a motion and um and I do remember objecting um deeply and I still do to not including um to saying we should not be including the trees in the in the required buffer in the tree preservation area and and the point there was that often times these buffers are so narrow that the trees don't really survive and um you know it's just not a healthy environment for the trees by the time you've done all the things but I but I vaguely remember and maybe you know maybe there's something in the notes about this that when we did talk about Norma and ego that those are already protected areas and even though you can get a variance to to to push into them there's no I would say there's nothing Norman Eco that precludes development now um there's not typically Urban Development um right right well you can you there's an increased Wetland buffer in Norma but yeah in other words properties within Eco and Norma can be still developed it's right so again it it is a situation that the Norma just puts a heightened level of protection and heightened standards in regards to Wetland protection but the but the percentages are the same the 15% for the correct you you could have a site in Norma that doesn't have any Wetlands on it at all it could be completely Upland right so then it would just be the typical 15% like it is everywhere else so do you want to do you want to increase that in those areas is the question did you I think you just showed us there it is the comparison one 15 and the other 20 this is because if I'm not mistaken Tyler had a great uh rebuttal to the 20% that this project wouldn't happen in because of this increase in that or something if I remember this project did this project did happen and that's the that that's the approved plan that that happened on this particular property now the first one is 15% the top one is yeah 15 and then the additional is that blue blue area is yeah it's 20 yeah yeah think the difference between the 15 and 20 and this conversation was that this project wasn't feasible as a result um maybe I'm wrong yeah the areas that he has would not count under the code the landscape buffer and all that happen within preservation yeah in each of the three locations my apologies one of the reasons or biggest reasons they didn't move forward is we had a really big tree replacement cost and or tree fund cost because this is dense trees the the whole site was trees and um they weren't necessarily high value and the sense of they weren't historic or we didn't have a lot of qualifying specimen trees but we had a lot of nasty Oaks out there that had big Trunks and we couldn't replant fully on the site so they reduced just to make it economically viable which I think when this came up previously the discussion that I had added was hey you see I was able to permit it but it wasn't economically viable so the tree replacement code is doing its job of holding us to a higher standard than 50 % unless there's a really driving economic demand for land in that area and so it's why I was against increasing the minimum 15% area to a larger percentage there there aren't a lot of projects in commercial projects in in Norma anyway um in Norma in Eco so that's something to keep in mind um but you know this project happened this was an old home site so not it wasn't like the entire site was heavily treed there was a yard there was a backyard it wasn't like it was wall to--all trees it was Redevelopment yeah I could only walk 100 feet on the site and it's like 500 feet deep until Geotech took there's extensive there was extensive bamboo on the site which you don't have to replace so in general um nurma and Eco have very many requirements to limit development and again in general I don't see the need to increase the tree preservation area from 15 to 20 or 25 and why why would you do that so I don't support increasing the tree preservation area about a commercial site um I'm I'm the one who always brings up industrial sites and then Keith just mentioned mened um Norma well if you go back and the look at the the maps about Norma you know that was a wide brush of really anything that is not within a city is in Norma um and if you look at Future developments um or the future demand for development in the areas of the county and the undeveloped areas of the county um a lot of development is potentially going to be in Norma so um yes as Keith pointed out there are plenty of Uplands within Norma but there are some wetlands and Keith and I spoke during the break about um you know this prescriptive um minimum for the tree preservation and how that would and if it would affect an industrial development and I'm talking 20 50 100 Acre tracks of land I'm not talking about a 1 acre track and if you go back to the council meeting we don't want to discourage business way would there are already restrictions in Norma and they exist for a reason um I don't know I don't know if you want to revisit that for a second or it's not Germain let me give you some background okay and I'm gonna contradict a statement by what Keith was saying Norma was a based on in 1989 based on quad maps and basically uh folks from county attorney's office and the planning office looked at it and started drawing in Broad Strokes around Wetlands so the whole idea was that normal was to identify the Wetland communities in Valia County unincorporated Valia County um so it does have majority based on what were 1990 or 1989 quad Maps again that's why we have policies in there that allow us to ground truth exactly where wetlands are and some of these other things as well so as you look at it Norma also was primarily in the agricultural forestry resource and Conservation area so I am not certain that you will have uh a considerable number of commercial areas in there even with something like the commercial space industry opportunity overlay we still said that you still had to abide by the environmental standards because when we went forward with that overlay there was an outcry that this was a way to undermine the Norma and Eco requirements and so therefore it was made very clear in the policies that that was not the case so if y'all feel that additional protection is needed that's your it's your decision to make it I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the intent behind Norma is that it's low intensity residential development that occurs in these environmentally sensitive areas that's it it does not prohibit development it just restricts it and it puts additional environmental standards in regards to buffering so if you feel that as we've done with Wetland buffering where we require strict 25 feet outside of Norma but 50 SE feet within Norma if you feel similar situations should be applied to tree preservation that's your prerogative thank you clay um observation I'd like to make if I may uh Norma is also if I'm not mistaken there there's Wildlife Corridor through Norma they're very very close there's some some areas because of the age of Norma and the age of the wildlife Cor or they may not Jive exactly okay thank you um we have said some things that some trees are I think trashy trees I think was the the the word um habitat preservation does matter we're not there yet but I'm going to just make an autobond statement we have lost 60% 40 to 60% of some of our song bird species because of we've taken away habitat and what we put back is non-native so I I I do want to say that trees have value to Wildlife species but that's all I'm going to say about this at the momentarily the Norma designation does not survive annexation doesn't exist in cities but wait let me clarify but we do have the right through the vgmc to identify it as part of their annexation process we can identify that the area was natural resource management area and that these were the land use and Zoning designations so if there's a situation where we see that there's an egregious change going say from um the land remember Norma is not a land use category it's an overlay so if a city annexes in a city a parcel that has say agricultural uses and we see that they're proposing to do something of a nature that's not consistent with how it is we can express concerns through the vgm volucia growth management commission that under the current rules and regulations that does not necessarily caus for a public hearing because the um the rules have been um reduced in regards to what uh the county can say on some of the cities and vice versa but we do have the ability to voice concerns over any kind of intensification that we feel is inappropriate I can't think of any in the eight years that I've done been here to be very honest with you yes yeah so the additional protections that we have in our in the environmental codes are is really limited to the fact that the Wetland buffer is increased so um most of the county the Wetland buffer is 25 ft in Norma it's 50 feet the any other protections that are afforded Norma have to do with um future land use or whatever really the the the main thing that's different in Norma than everywhere else is the Wetland buffer and that's it well in theory the minimum standard applies everywhere including within the cities and so those cities should have ordinances that protect trees Wetlands all the things but Norm the Norma designation doesn't exist in a city so they don't um they're not required to have an an increased Wetland buffer because they don't recognize Norma as a thing it's in our comprehensive plan it's not in their comprehensive plans so they don't have to have a increased buffer in Norma if it's in the city we do have a real world example that went through with farmton where portions of farmton were annexed into uh the city of Edgewater uh we required them to put in their comprehensive plan similar policies they've since as for that particular thing they've identified compliance with the natural resource management area requirements of the compant but this will not survive annexation either because this is chapter yeah all right I don't know the Order anymore so I think I'm going to go Jessica Bill Tyler or Jack Jessica Tyler Jack hey question on on the and I know we probably did this last time but I don't remember on the tree preservation area increase in Norma does that include Wetland area or Wetland buffer um the well the Wetland and the Wetland buffer can count toward the tree preservation area yeah if it's not a surface water right if the Wetland is a surface water you're not going to let us count it towards tree preservation yeah if there open water and there aren't trees in it then yeah right so so Norma is set up to protect our predominantly Wetland areas we're going to have preservation of a large swath of people's lands we have an increased buffer on it they have to put tree preservation either within that buffer or the Upland area um if we increase the percentage of conservation we're going to be reducing the developable Upland area we're we're substantially limiting development capability on this land through this committee I've learned that roughly 35% of our county is in permanent conservation whether it's government ownership of an easement or an easement that has been granted through one of these development processes or otherwise of the land that is left to develop we're still setting aside another 15% wetlands are protected additionally beyond that we really we don't have a lot of developable land left when we start carving out all the protections I think increasing this just really shoots ourselves in the foot as a county um so I'm gonna be against it um it was next Jack then Bob just a couple things one I was a member of the valua growth management commission for five years and no one ever came in front of them and and basically was a rubber stamp because of the comprehensive plan in particular and so you know I never saw any I never saw an objection made by anybody ever uh and and uh you know that one of the reasons I quit that and came here is for better protection um but the you know I wonder about Echo too Eco right and Eco does e and Eco doesn't have more than the 15% but it does have more protection than Norma okay there you go it does and so that's you know but that's the only thing so theoretically and that and that is more protected area for a reason I'm assuming right and so maybe there's a place there where there could be additional protection beyond the 15% versus Norma and so maybe there there's something there because it's more precious if you will um the you know but the the debate it's funny because it sounds like the debate we had before was just the opposite of what it was and you know we're and and so it's really good we are looking at this again U because I'm I'm leaning to the protection is adequate today and Norma but would like to look at Echo more yeah Tyler brought up something um that I've asked before you know when when when have we when have we preserved enough is it 50% is it 60% is it 70% um I you know John had an interesting question he didn't get an answer to uh from uh a chief biologist at the state level you know when do we take the manatees off the you know off the endangered list when there's a 100,000 of them when there's a half a million when there's a million and and the the person said I can't answer that question I I really think it's a fundamental question to what we're doing because we have to have areas for commercial activity and for people to live so what is enough I think we need to answer that you can't drop a bomb like that when we need when we need to end probably about five minutes early because staff has a has a meeting and that's a big deal question um and there are organizations that have posited how much is enough but that's a pretty Bill well can we go to the question that we're voting on now I I um increase the tree reservation area requirement in environmentally sensitive areas so I make a motion to vote no on that is that I mean I am saying correct second any additional discussion yes I would know about Echo let's talk about it as an exception from Norma because perhaps it should be more than just the 15% so so maybe you guys can describe the differences between the two and whether it's Justified Jessica Eco is also another overlay right now we have natural resource management area we have environmental Corridor overlay and then we also have the commercial space industry overlay opportunity overlay Eco is a more refined area of Norma Norma is larger Eco correlates to the and I'm looking at right now the Florida forever priority Al lands and portions of the environmental systems Corridor uh these are basically the areas that are not just the wetlands but they're also the Uplands to provide for that Corridor through the basically the middle of the state exactly and and so Eco was identified as giving it was developed a little bit differently though than the wildlife quarter it was devel it was basically a computer model that took all of the existing conservation lands or priorities and made connections like through GIS connected those areas to say okay where are the priority areas that we need to preserve so that Wildlife has migration routes right so that the these larger areas are connected so it roughly follows some of those areas but then it's not exact right because it was a different exercise um but it's really intended to be those most important areas to conserve to create that connectivity from so to North and so and just one other point this came in the early 2000s as Valia County went through its smart growth initiative and this was basically through that exhaustive discussion that went through they said this is the areas that we need to protect and that was the same time the valua conservation Corridor was was identified as well about that time um so so to recap what I'm hearing so Norma was a less scientific methodology to establish predating back in the 80s based on Wetlands the the environmental Corridor overlay had more sophistic ated thinking in it but more importantly it had a different kind of goal it wasn't just Wetland protection it was Prime habitat protection to especially allow for wildlife Transit which also preserves their bio biodiversity keeps them from becoming too inbred let me put it that way so I think Jack is on to something was saying rather than look at all of Norma perhaps maybe in the I don't know is it is it developable is it developable today yes you know and and so the protections what are the protections that are there that are different than Norma if you're within Eco you can do a conservation subdivision which would allow for uh a density bonus so that you do clustering and those types of things that are basically trying to prevent sprawling type of no farmton and we actually have two applications in right now well well I mean they're using them so Jack the price up for well it's so it's yes and no it it in the comprehensive plan it says Eco is is important and it should be the most protected area um there aren't any chapter 72 regulations that say in Eco you have to do this much more or it's there really aren't any regulatory protections there are some protections because of the future land use that exists primarily in Eco right um so the density is often less there is in the comp plan the ability to do a conservation subdivision which um I I I mean you could maybe say that's more protective it's just allowing a type of development that's not allowed in other places of the county the only other thing is that we applied the 50- foot Wetland buffer in Eco so if you're saying what show me the codes that say in Eco you have to be do better I can't and and also just clarify it's it's a preventative measure from a staff's perspective in that if we had anyone proposing to change the land use Within These overlays we would have justifiable reasons to deny any intensification it's a protective measure and so I I really go to the the increase the tree retention do we get anything by increasing the tree retention within Eco because it sounds like there's quite a bit there but you know should we say oh it should be 20% and and does that make us happy you have to tell us what makes you happy you're the ones that are dealing with it on a practical level I'm I'm just saying hey if you know if if it's an improvement we say hey there's I I think it would follow through on the promise that there is more Environmental Protection within Eco because currently we really don't have anything that's different than that's in Norma for a chapter 72 requirement so I mean I think we'd be fulfilling that comprehensive plan you know policy that it's more restrictive how restrictive is up to you do you want 20% in Eco do you want 25% in Eco that's what you have to flush out um and yeah Jessica has a suggestion she says p and we're running out of time I think that for this something happened with the minutes and we're not exactly sure what the former motion was I want to say it was adopting 20% in normal and 25 in Eco but you don't agree nobody agrees with that so I think we need to kind of rewind the tape on that and figure out what that was maybe we can send the recording out to the team for homework um and get that discussion I mean I think part of the struggle and kind of what you're talking about is that tree preservation areas as a practice are supposed to be outside of lots but Norma and Eco have lower densities which leads to larger lot sizes so that also causes concerns there's some interpretation that one of these I think it's Norma requires one acre lot sizes it's just one unit per acre overall but there are struggles in terms of how that's implemented with increasing tree preservation having large lot sizes and what that works out to and so I don't think we're going to solve it today and I'd like to know where we landed last time when we talked about it yeah y it could be tabled but we could also who gets to table do I get the table okay who made the motion again Bill okay all those in favor of not increasing tree protection in Norma and Eco raise your hand I think at this point I'm unsure motion carries unfor J and I have you can though I guess I get to say that we're a juring for today well so next time we have we have a decision to make are we going to finish up with trees or we going to have storm water folks come and do storm water tomorrow and we'll reconvene trees out yeah so wait wait let's clar wait wait wait I just want to clarify the motion from the that um council member Santiago is to finish up the business you got going and then get on the storm water I would please because as you can see you take a Year y'all can't remember what the hell y'all said back on March 23rd okay all right I guess well it let me ask a question do we feel like we can um kind of skip around a little bit right like next week next month we could have well I know but um uh we could have the presentation From The Storm folks you could have homework you could start learning about it there's nothing that says we have to focus solely on storm water for X number of time we could weave trees back in there at some point yeah agreed you're GNA have to will you close me out of here and that's it yeah it was okay go ahead and go we'll hash I'll I'll let you okay the tree ordinance stuff if you guys recall we started out reading ordinances we didn't work the way we're working now with a presentation from staff about what are the issues in a broad brush stroke and maybe we're not going to make a decision but I just want to revisit that and we got very lost and very confused and we couldn't make decisions CU we were trying to both understand legal language and the the actual underlying standards and then we had to stop to work on Li because there was a grant timing and we spent a lot of meetings working on liid and then we moved on to storm water and it wasn't till now almost a year later that we've taken up trees again and we have made progress since we took it up so that's my point that's what I'm maybe not informally how many people want to finish trees well let's let's get trees done because that's all these hands I'm not going to be able to do all that research and you you it will not be done by next meeting meeting there'll be another meeting on trees if you want to keep going with the trees well we've got yeah yeah yeah and and when you when you meet with the storm warer people you're going to have to give you know they're going to have to have time to research the things you want them to research too so these things take time they St take staff time so you're it's not like you're going to be on storm water and run it for the next three meetings they're going to need time to do that work as well so maybe it's a meeting that you have and you you direct them to what you need and then the very next one is trees and then we finish it I mean It ultimately does this make sense okay it makes sense to me okay so well yeah so next so everybody revisit trees in your own time as you wish for our not next meeting the meeting after that and we will do storm water at our next meeting we'll start our learning on that yes Jessica because we don't remember can we have the text of everything we have agreed to so far like protected trees and whatnot sent to us before the next time we recom or at least working Word document you want you want you want the minutes the word docent the word document because I think you guys are tracking it in one document if we could the like that you can extract it and send it out okay and the and you got you want the recordings the recordings are online the recordings are online we are adjourned okay thank you