January 9th, 2009
Our Group: Christopher Alguire, Rene Barrera, Joyce Basciano, Phil Moncada, Bob Patterson, Nicole Sanford, Tom Suhler, Damon Waitt
(our group's notes are in orange, other colors were other group's suggestions)
Notes:
(our) Urban Forestry Initiative:
Define TREES as natural infrastructure in the City's Land Development Code.
1.) Elect public officials that support initiative
2.) City wide referendum
3.) Education of the Initiative
How can we ____________?
How can we work together to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future?
- Elect public officials that support UF as a priority
- Education and getting public officials/people involved
- "GIS" collection
- Connecting data/communication/regulation
- Recognize trees as natural infrastructure and change definition in the LDC - i.e. ecosystem services, carbon offsets, "Quality of Life" values
- Fiscal Conservation
- Open dialogue between: developers, utilities ...How open? Define process that is open + flexible, yet also has parameters to make it fair and predictable
- Interdepartmental communication ...Single point of contact for each
- Elect public officials that will help establish coordination + cooperation among city departments, boards, commissions, citizenry ...Platforms include specific systems, like GIS shared through departments
- Regular meetings with stakeholder groups
- Make structure easier for citizens to participate
- Recycle
- Improve reporting of (GIS) protected trees
- Form changes of building development applications
- Regulate growth rate (i.e. Maximum of Permits/year)
- Educate the public, developers, policy makers
- Emphasize cost-effectiveness of current investment NOW in green infrastructure
- Encourage preservation, conservation, and planting of high quality trees in appropriate locations ...identify range of locations and appropriate tree planting opportunities
- Develop a Plan!
- Plan ahead for open space/parks in future development areas
- Efficiency & coordinated efforts
- Site planning before development & land clearing
- Elect officials who see trees as a priority for the future
- Give more authority to environmental reviewers in the site planning process
- Need central coordinating body with spokes off of it (diagram shows central body with spokes)
- Require that natural parcel features are part of site development
- Engage the community to determine current needs and project future needs
What we can do NOT to make these goals happen:
- No Communication
- No Education
- No Regulation
- No Beautification
- No Preservation
- No Cooperation
- No Mitigation
- No mediation, more litigation
- More polarization, procrastination
- More back room deals
- No Planning
- No more tree planting
- No more Conservation
- No Diversification
