e e e e e e e e e e e may represent the City of Phoenix it was not a leisurely event Chris warned me that I would be on my feet for 12 hours a day and I can confirm that she underestimated that time it was closer to 16 hours we met with CEOs and potential Partners from around the world and it was a very busy and successful experience the life sciences industry in Phoenix is hot and growing one of one of the highlights was hearing about one of our local companies who is focusing their research on the cancer vaccine looking forward to the lifechanging developments that we will see come out of our bioscientist Corp here in Phoenix next slide please I wanted to share just a few highlights of how we celebrated 602 day in District 8 I was honored to host a 602 celebration in South Phoenix on 24th Street in Broadway we spent the morning with Incredible music resources and food to celebrate the spirit of Phoenix the residents of District 8 really showed up and showed out for the first city of Phoenix 602 day next slide I want to thank the over 15 City and Community Resources tablein and offering services such as blood pressure and glucose checks we also had a robust Farmers Market where fresh produce and vegetable boxes were made available to the community finally we enjoyed the dance performances from local youth groups in the area that included Mexican folk dance and step team dance and D on the diverse delicious food offered from neighborhood food vendors next slide I also want to thank all of the city staff who volunteered who offered their support on this event with us and came out to provide information to Residents in the south Phoenix area especially thank you Zach Wallace his team of volunteers and the neighborhood services department I also want to thank the residents that came out in the morning heat to celebrate our city next Slide the summer festivities are not quite finished yet we look forward to the district 8 pool party this Saturday June 15th from noon to 2 at elpr Park on 19th Avenue in ALA Vista Road we invite District 8 residents to come out and escape the day's heat with some pool time food and games next slide that is all I have as always do not hesitate to reach out if you need help with any city services or notice an issue in your neighborhood thank you mayor thank you councilwoman any additional updates vice mayor just very quickly I wanted to congratulate councilwoman Ann O'Brien she won the greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce award last week The Sentinel award I won that a few years ago it's quite an honor congratulations vice mayor thank you any additional updates all right then we will go to item one and welcome our planning and development team we've been working this was an item of importance to the entire Council and to our entire city we want to make sure that whether whether you're updating your home or building new homes for our community that there's the best process possible uh every council member has worked on this but uh vice mayor has been particularly involved and I'll turn to her to introduce item one thank you uh mayor as we all know I used to be the planning and development director um many years ago and um I've of course retired along with a lot of other great employees of planning and development and we have a whole new staff out there some some I know some I don't but I'm one of those dinosaurs and I get to call myself that but you don't get to Josh but um recognizing that uh a lot of the senior staff left about the same time I did um Allan and Josh were in charge of relatively new but very smart staff but still maybe not as season as some of us old dinosaurs and the same time Along Came the pandemic and so so the Planning Department lost staff and you were having a hard time recruiting staff you were competing with the private sector and during the pandemic the permits didn't stop and I suspect a lot of people sat at home and thought I need to remodel my house I think I'll go get a permit and do that so they continue to be very busy and because of that we started getting some complaints about the level of service and how long things were taking and so I had the opportunity to talk um to the planning staff and it's not just the planning staff that does development it's also streets transportation and water services and ask them to maybe look at processes because when I was the director we went through a pretty aggressive process Improvement um and pro procedure and we came up with a lot of great ideas and so I I asked Josh to maybe take a look at that and I know other council members were also talking to the planning staff as well um overall you guys do a terrific job but I do think it's important that we continue to look at ways we can improve our level of service it doesn't matter it's just in the planning department but the entire department and so much to the credit of of Josh bener and his staff they stepped up and they started a great process and reached out to the development community and to neighborhoods that are also very deeply involved in planning and development and I think they've come up with some really good suggestions but I also think it's a start and one of the most important things that Josh did say to me is Der we want to make this a yearly process we want to stay engaged with our customers and so that I really appreciate mayor I've had a chance to look at I think um other council members have also had a chance to look at some of their preliminary um uh recommendations and so I'm very excited for the presentation today again I really want development for stepping as well as other departments that water and streets so with that thank you mayor fabulous we will turn it over to our Deputy city manager Ellen Stevenson and our planning and development director Josh berar thank you mayor and vice mayor uh as you stated we're here to discuss the Planning Development harb process improvements uh these improvements help facilitate the construction of new buildings for employment opportunities restaurants and Retail establishments for City residents along with new homes and apartments for residents to live in the Planning Development Department has been a leader in development over the past several years and will continue to build on the strengths of providing the highest level of service while continuously looking for ways to improve that service and strengthening our Partnerships with Allied Development and Construction professionals to continue building a great City collectively these components combined with a multimodal transportation system quality parks and open space along with thought thoughtful leadership of the mayor and city council to balance the business aspects of the city with creating High wage high quality jobs excellent neighborhoods and a vast array of Support Services will continue to allow Phoenix to flourish in a highly competitive 21st century before we jump into the the actual presentation items uh Josh is going to cover all of those uh I do want to thank the mayor and Council again for your leaders ership uh you all have been very gracious with your time uh and energy I know you get a lot of calls from folks that you represent and the stakeholders as well as residents with concerns and we have uh listened to those and appreciate the time that you've all given us uh I also want to thank uh private sector development Partners they're they're never shy about picking up the phone and calling uh you guys as you know or calling us and talking about things letting us know their thoughts but it's really that private sector investment that helps build the city at the end of the day I do want to thank my colleagues and City manager's office who help break silos surrounding new development projects all the time and also uh grateful for the help of our partner departments who play a role in new development uh but especially streets uh Transportation water services and fire department for helping suggest ways to improve our processes along with helping to resolve development issues along the way and finally I do want to thank Josh for his incredible leadership of the Planning Development Department and his executive team for the hard work day in and day out to strive for continuous improvements while looking for Positive Solutions all the time with that Josh please proceed thank you Alan mayor members of the city council I present to you with a great sense of appreciation for your leadership and the responsibilities I have in this role I also want to reiterate my thanks to our development Partners our partner departments and our PDD team members I want to especially recognize the PDD management team who is with me today in the audience they are a brilliant and dedicated group of leaders that I am privileged to have as part of the team and I thank them for all that they do every day for the department and our city before we dive into what we've been working on I want to take a moment to celebrate the beautiful vibrant City we are preserving shaping and Building Together Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the US with one more than 1.6 million residents just over 800,000 employed residents more than 68,000 residential units with more added each day 529 square miles in size and a median age of 34.4 years we are a big booming and Young City this growth will continue greater than 1.8 million residents by 2030 with just over 1 million employed residents and 700,000 housing units helping to ensure that this growth occurs in alignment with the vision of our residents and you as our Council for making sure that it's safe and sustainable is a large part of what we do every day in the department we have a diverse and talented team of Professionals in the department we make maps support dozens of boards and commissions review plans manage records inspect buildings and so much more we have 488 team members across dozens of disciplines and supplement that with $8 million in on call contracts for plan review and inspections each year the Planning Development Department thanks to the incredible leadership of past directors vice mayor Stark and Deputy city manager Allen Stevenson has a variety of innovative programs and processes to assist our customers the self-certification program allows Architects and Engineers to quickly secure building permits by taking responsibility for code and ordinance compliance the UDS man's office provides one-on-one service for customers needing help getting started or navigating the process our recent partnership with solar app has resulted in thousands of solar permits being issued in just one day of processing time the annual facilities program provides a dedicated team for plan review and inspections on large existing projects like our hospitals our permit by inspection program allows residents working on small projects to secure a building permit in most instances in just 3 days and our shap Phoenix project is modernizing our entire application and permiting system helping us be more efficient Nimble and data driven The Last 5 Years have seen increased in levels of investment in Phoenix fiscal year 2122 saw record numbers of permits and permit valuation the last two years alone have seen close to $20 billion in investment just based on permit valuation all that investment provides us an opportunity to serve just last year we served more than 39,000 customers at our counters issued more than 14,000 permits for residential development and conducted more than 280,000 inspections 97% of which were done within 24 hours thanks to the leadership of this Council the planning and development department has worked with you applicants neighbors the Planning Commission and our 15 Village planning committees to facilitate approval of hundreds of rezoning cases The Last 5 Years that have led to close to 60,000 approved ready for plan review dwelling units this is a tremendous accomplishment and one we should be extremely proud of as a city now in addition to all the work that we do day in and day out for plan review inspections and rezoning we're also hard at work on other projects like updates of the general plan impact fee program historic Phoenix plan and shape Phoenix relace 3 we started off this process Improvement in the effort in the fall of last year having a good sense of where we needed to get better and had started to make some changes but wanted to hear from our development partners and our team members to that end we held four customer listening sessions and three team member listening sessions we started the conversation off with two big questions what are we doing well and what do we need to do to be to get better and here's what we heard from our customers a desire to have a better idea of who does what in the department and who to contact instead of the management team we heard that at times there can be inconsistency between what's approved by the plan reviewer and what will be accepted by our inspectors and a desire to find more ways for us to collaborate and find Solutions with our partner departments we also heard from our customers that they'd like to see more opportunities for face Toof face with uh interaction with our team members that processing times for admin review should be an area of focus for us and then our new team members need to be better equipped to make decisions instead of having to check with supervisors from our team members we heard that they would value more opportunities to cross train with other department section they gave us some great ideas for process changes to eliminate overlapping reviews They al also expressed a desire to connect more with our colleagues and other divisions and better understand where they fit within the organization so how are we responding and ultimately enhancing the service that we provide we've emphasized the commitment to service as the defining element of the Department's culture a service with three core tenants personal seamless and Innovative our first step in help helping manifest these three tenants this past year has been to one reorganize the department around our primary service areas to start finding efficiencies in our processes for not only our customers but our team members as well as an example now all plan review functions are under one group from submitt to final reviews second and in response to what we heard from our customers about not knowing where to start or who to engage when they need help we've created an extensive set of photob based or charts and team function chart charts that put faces to names outline roles and responsibilities and provide contact information for all the department supervisors as Alan mentioned at the beginning of the presentation we are grateful to have our partner departments collaborate with us on this effort Embrace embracing the culture of service attending our listening sessions and contributing their own or charts as part of this expanded resource for our customers again special thanks go to Chief Durant Chief Walker and especially Chief Christ and the fire prevention team Joe Brown Brianna valz Eric froberg and the rest of the street transportation department leadership team and try Hayes Brandy Kelo Jim Swanson and Dr Max Wilson in the Water Services Department in addition to our culture our focus on a culture of service the process Improvement report outlines dozens of initiatives we will start this year in response to what we heard from our customers and team members we've organized these initiatives into seven action areas which include updates to our processes modification to plan review and permit requirements enhanced collaboration depl deployment of new tools and resources education for Te PDD team members education for customers and Boards of commission members and updates to our codes and ordinances the following slides Spotlight actions within many of these categories and how they align with the feedback from our customers and our team members for updates to our processes we will be rolling out a campaign this Summer that reinforces that while appointments are the preferred and most efficient way to visit any of our fully staff service counters in City Hall every day of the work week we want to emphas ized that walk-ins are welcome and we will be transitioning our zoning adjustment hearings back to inperson format this fall we will be working on reformatting of our preapp and prelim reports to make them easier to read and highlight the most important information we will be committing to efficiencies and maximum times for our pre-log and admin review processes and outlining procedures for team leaders to work with technical leads and our partner departments to reduce the need for technical appeal hearings we are looking forward to partnering with the water services department on a reexamination of water meter install timelines and we'll be identifying options for inspectors to administer changes in the fields to plans with sealed exhibits for modifications to our plan review and permit requirements the plan review division will be developing a phase out process for CIT and certain wall permits and will be a simplifying site plan requirements for certain projects forh collaboration we are committing to annual customer listening sessions which will include smaller Round Table discussions with specific teams we will produce an annual report with updates on the current set of initiatives and what we heard at the latest listening sessions and share the report with you at this time next year we'll be rolling out new tools and resources including our new Adu process guide and website working with the fire department on a new guide for high-rise development and begin a comprehensive mapping effort of all the Department's processes to provide Clarity but also to identify additional efficiencies we've already begun the development of a comprehensive customer service training program that will launch later this year and one identify additional time to allow for more opportunities for team member engagement and cross training we'll be expanding our library of training videos for customers and offering in-person training and developing videos and present presentations for our two dozen boards and commissions to reinforce their roles and responsibilities we are committed to executing this action plan and look forward to continuing this conversation in the report we outline three areas we will explore to ensure we are positioned for Success the first is dedicated time for education for for our team members from customer service to cross trining the second is moving forward with strategic efforts to secure adequate resources through implementation of a financial stability plan the plan will focus on fee structures that support fair and full cost recovery and improve resiliency of the Development Fund a more resilient structure will be better position the department to navigate changing economic cycles and shifts and development activity while ensuring that we have the funds necessary to compensate and retain our excellent team members and to recruit highly skilled staff to fill critical vac canes and last we are going to partner with the budget research department on a staffing study to identify what our Baseline Staffing levels need to be I want to reinforce our commitment to not only keep this conversation going but to measure the progress you make we highlight four areas to measure what we have outlined in the report is making the expected impact from monthly turnaround times and statistical reports to secret secret shopper exercises and customer satisfaction surveys mayor and councel I'll close by thanking you all again for not only your support for what we are doing but for the high standards you set for the service we provide and the development that occurs within our city we are just getting started and believe that embedding this improvement process into our service model will continue to make us a leader in the field and position us to provide outstanding customer experience for for our customers but for our team members as well that concludes our presentation I'm happy to answer any questions thank you so much for that important update I think we'll begin with councilman Robinson thank you mayor you know Josh I'll I'll start with this presentation is exceptional especially like this very last slide about keeping the conversation going continuing the lead and providing the best experience possible I know you have a great team you all are to be congratulated on it but I want to Echo what the vice mayor stated in her opening comments this is great the fact that you're willing to do this move forward I think it demonstrates your pursuit of and you guys are probably already there at that level of Excellence that the citizens the Phoenix really deserve my district like all the other districts we get challenging zoning issues and you guys have to Dive Right into them and I really appreciate the level of professionalism that you and your staff provide each and every time I I I can't say enough good things about that I'm really happy to see this process in place and the fact that you are willing to do everything you can to continue to um improve so with that thank you very much mayor thank you for the time councilwoman hon Washington May thank you mayor um like vice mayor and councilman Robinson I do agree that this is excellent excellent presentation I specifically um I know we we many times we are focused on what the staff can do for us and our when we're dealing with our constituents really like the fact that we are investing the time to ensure that we are giving the staff what they need to be successful whether that that's education the resources and making sure that they're not overworked so I'm very much excited about this proposal and thank you for all of the great work that you guys do councilwoman O'Brien thank you so much mayor and I also want to thank Josh and and the department and Allan for um this extensive and exhaustive process um I I just have I have a couple of questions um regarding the self-certification process us about how many folks do we have registered for a self-certification mayor councilwoman O'Brien one moment while I find that answer on my sheet here mayor councilwoman O'Brien right now we have 241 professionals registered and 374 74 permits issued this past year dur in the self-certification program okay and um of the so the 300 47 do we know about how what percentage that represents roughly of what could be done through self-certification of all no I don't mayor councilwoman O'Brien I I don't have a percentage that that would take away what what I certainly would acknowledge and I think what you'll you'll hear from uh Jason Blakeley who oversees our plan review section that there's some opportunity to to Really promote and highlight that program uh we feel like there's an opportunity for more folks for more individuals to to participate in it over the years that program has been expanded there is a variety of processes and permits that you can now do via selfer I think we're one of the leaders in the entire country in that way what I certainly would acknowledge though is that we we need to get more people into the program and utilizing that wonderful and I appreciate that can just out of curiosity can a do-it-yourselfer go through self search mayor council O'Brien the the program is for registered Architects and engineers I can if I'm a registered architect maybe correct all right I appreciate that um a couple of the other things I I want to talk about is that will you believe these processes will get our inspections done more quickly and get our permits done more quickly mayor councilwoman O'Brien you know from an inspection standpoint statistically we're doing great as I mentioned in the presentation I think we're at a 97% turnaround time within 24 hours what I certainly highlight in here and what I want to emphasize is that in keeping this process growing we certainly understand that there are some opportunities to refine our processes and I think that's why you see us committing to dozens of improvements but what's critical I think to really see long-term results is to reinforce a culture of service and that's why we're starting with this if if you think about our emphasis on this I think you'll see hopefully less focus on culture because we have that well established and maybe more f focus on some changes to our processes when I come back to you next year I I I I'm confident that part of what we're able to provide right now is a variety of ways for you to engage with us whether that's through selfer whether that's through our our permit by inspection whether through its our all facilities program that there is a lot of ways in which you can engage with us that you can't necessarily do with other departments across the country that certainly does require a lot of Staff time I think there's efficiencies that we can build into that with our existing staff I I think future changes that we might need to make are going to come as we have continue this have a conversation and we map out these processes in more detail May oh yes I'm sorry U Council ran I could real quick add the thing that with inspections and uh and also the plan I think part of what Josh highlighted in terms of Education um and being able to resolve some of those issues more quickly will help with inspections where we get out there very quickly uh in terms of the inspections you know 97% of them within 24 hours it's being able to have experienced staff to look at something and say yes okay that that is okay and we can allow that and so that's part of that education component that will really help on the plan review and inspection side and I appreciate that and and as I explained to Josh before as a for former School Board member I I think it is important for staff to have dedicated time whether that's for professional development or for collaboration with the other department ments that you work integr with water um streets as well as fire so that we are working together as a whole team um instead of individual Department sometimes in Partnership together with the developer um so I do applaud uh that part of I mean I applaud the whole plan but especially that additionally because I think it will help to build relationships and and make us a better working um team and one of the other things I I ask you often but I I just want to um do so here on the record is that you know if I can't um if I want to not stand in line sometimes I for DMV right I go to the the private person that does the title registration or can help me with my license and I pay a higher fee where are we at in the process of maybe looking at having a qualified vendor list where if somebody gets in a pinch not maybe necessarily because of what we're doing but their own time frames could they possibly have a private um company to go to to get the same services from the city mayor councilwoman O'Brien as as I mentioned in the presentation we have a a robust set of contracts with with private contractors right now that the staff utilizes uh day in and day out to address when we're maybe falling behind or needing extra attention to something with respect to having uh opportunities to sort of maybe not visit us directly but go to a third party I I think one of the best examples that we have and one we're really celebrating is this relationship with solar app and I think if you think about where we're going as an industry as as just a society with technology I really think that could be where we need to explore further is what kind of relationships with like organizations like solar app that drastically reduce the amount of time associated with reviews for solar again you get it you're in and out in one day thanks to that relationship I I certainly hear you I think we want to evaluate all opportunities as we look at our process I I would certainly say that I want to lead and look at what are some opportunities that a combination of maybe folks outside of the city but technology like solar app that we could build on for other other permit processes wonderful um and then I do want to share that in I was speaking with some folks about this plan and this policy meeting today and they had talked about how thankful they were that you had put together the org charts not just for your department but for all of departments that um have input in the in the Planning Development department and they took those um that idea to several of our sister cities and have requested that they follow likewise so um and those cities are are starting to do that so to C kudos to you because I think it once again proves that relationships are incredibly important um in what we do in the city and and while zoom and and some technologies uh can make it a little a little bit more convenient it's not always the most productive um as way to do it so thank you for that thank you uh vice mayor for your leadership on this and to all the council members who have um put in made input into this thank you mayor thank you vice mayor thank you just a couple other thoughts um and I I was remiss for not mentioning fire I know you're an important comment uh uh component of uh building safety so I apologize for that um you know I think what might help is I know you want to do this on a yearly bases but I think with some of the industry if you could look at quarterly meetings with them just to talk about certain issues whether it's inspections or plan review or standard plans I know when I was the director we used to meet routinely with the home builders and multifam and Valley partnership and so if you can make yourself avail and it's not necessarily the planning director it may be they need to talk to the fire marshal or they need to talk to water and that's that's my second thought this isn't just planning and development I mean you are the lead when it comes to issuing building permits and I think the quicker we can issue the building permits we really do help with issues like affordable housing and getting our shelters built and making sure that we're building commercial for economic devel development and and and other offices and things like it's important that we try to get the permits out as quickly as possible always keeping safety in mind but I do think it's very important that the other departments step up and recognize even though planning and development is the lead you guys are important too what you do is important and when they call and they need your assistance I hope you're available to help them I I know that we heard some critic I think you handled it with how our relationship between planning and development and Water Services were going with regards to water meters and I think you guys have really stepped up and addressed that but I did attend one of the listening sessions and that did come up so I think it's critical that we all work together um all the Departments because we do provide that vital service and right now affordable housing is a critical issue for the city and I really do believe even with all these amendments we're making with adus and parking getting building permits out through the door fairly quickly makes all the difference in the world because those developers are riding along with interest rates and the longer they have to wait for us to permit something the cost of housing can go up so we're all really a part of this important issue of addressing affordable housing but I do think if you can maybe look at routine meetings um with all the different uh industry leaders I think that would be helpful because they may have some suggestions clearly I don't want us ever to forget about building safety I used to always say that when people are running out of a building and the firefighters are running in to to protect that building we want to make sure our firefighters are safe too as they run through that door so I think it's critical that we look at that and really partner with um our industry leaders uh and and again doing this yearly is great but I think maybe if you could look at it um more frequently that might be helpful and then the other thought is I know that appointments are probably the way to go but the problem is is if you make an appointment with Planning and Development can you make sure that there are other departments may be available recognizing that the issue might really be not Planning Development but it might be fire it might be water it might be streets and so somehow if you can really collaborate and make sure that is happening I know when again when I was director we didn't have appointments people just came in and they would grab people hey by the way can I talk to you as well so if we can make sure we're having that open dialogue with other departments even Al though they may make an appointment with Planning Development if the other departments can make themselves s accessible I would appreciate that I think again that would help and go a long way so appreciate everything you're doing I you know I'm of course everyone knows my favorite department is planning and development so sorry to everyone else but I do think you guys do terrific work and I'm really very happy to see you step up and really try to address issues that we've been hearing about so thank you again thanks mayor thank you vice mayor she loves all the Departments though we just want to be very [Laughter] clear well thank you for the very exciting update I want to acknowledge that Bloomberg philanthropies helped assist us on this update so thank you to Rose and the Bloomberg team and we'll continue to take steps to move this forward including as soon as tomorrow we will vote on some on call assistance that can help sort of force magnify what our staff is already doing uh you mentioned solar app we've actually gotten some national attention for how many solar uh installs we've gotten through that program and put up as a model for other cities who want to move forward on helping people reduce their energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions I think this is important for a variety of different things this is real money for folks whether you're doing an addition on your home or you're a small business trying to reuse an existing building at it helps move our city forward and appreciate the commitment for this to be an ongoing process I too have heard about the org charts being so very popular so that we may have discovered a best practice for the entire city and it's just nice to see who works where with whom and and what their current processes are I think during covid we got a lot of things online and that's something we want to continue there are some people who love the face to face meetings but for others they would rather just be able to do as much as possible from home I'm a big fan of the mobile inspections where they're appropriate and appreciate that um so thank you so much and seeing no final comments I think we are ready then for the next item thank you for the important update and please keep us posted we next move to item two which is the tree and shade Plan update want to thank the office of heat response and mitigation for leading this planning effort with the support of Staff across many departments and Community organizations a a trend I have today I want to thank Bloomberg Associates who helped us achieve this comprehensive plan in a very timely fashion so thank you to to Jacob and Adam and their team it's exciting to see this draft of shade Phoenix and present it to our residents for their thoughts and ideas it is the time of year when we recognize even a sliver of shade makes a difference and we see people hiding behind a traffic signal to just get a little bit of shade this plan is much bigger than that and looks across many many City departments we are looking at a host of options from federal grants to federal grants to plant trees to our exciting upcoming Sombra shade projects in partnership with Bloomberg and local artists and we had huge enthusiasm from our local artists who wanted to help with artistic shade and of course we've been hard at work on this new master plan draft to guide our long-term strategies around shade in Phoenix the team presenting today worked hard to ensure the 37 strategies to expand shade are specific and measurable and responsive to everything we've heard from our residents over the last several years much of this is inspired by the council's signing of American Forest tree Equity pledge back in 2021 we were the first city to do so it this and that inspiration helped us include strategies that support all neighborhoods to achieve meaningful shade coverage something that is particularly important during our hot summers the plan is very intentional about increasing both trees and manufactured shade in areas that need it most to maximize the impact for our neighborhoods including areas of high pedestrian activity like our Transit corridors the plan represents 50 million in already allocated do dollars 25,000 new trees and 500 shade structures important for our health and safety of our residents and helps Phoenix be a city that moves towards our vision of the most sustainable desert city in the world I am especially pleased that this plan isn't just about how many trees we'll plant and shade structures we'll build on city property it includes how neighborhoods can benefit business owners can contribute and how we'll work to create jobs Pathways to get more people involved in sustaining our Urban canopy a connection to the last presentation we're also using our codes such as the walkable Urban code to get more shade in our communities want to thank everyone who worked hard to bring this plan forward we've had a CH a trend when Dr Honda presents it always rains and is cold so we we I don't know we we have broken that today but uh it does feel very relevant to be doing shade with temperatures where they are now so I will turn to our director of heat response and mitigation thank you mayor and council members we're honored to be here uh with you and thank you for that generous introduction and excellent synopsis of the plan I'm very pleased to be joined by Deputy Parks and Recreation director Scott Coughlin and Deputy Street Transportation director Jesse dwarte who will later in this presentation showcase some of their Department's actions that are related to achieving the vision and as you alluded to Mayor this has been a team effort to bring this plan to you today we're so appreciative of input that we've had from you and your colleagues on City Council in many conversations over the past months and years we've learned an incredible amount from our colleagues in 32 different city departments our network of dozens of local Regional and state Partners we want to especially acknowledge the voluntary contributions of members of the city's public advisory boards and commissions that provide input on these topics and members of the general public who have taken a survey attended Workshop added a comment to an online news story about trees and shave all of which have contributed to our thinking the logos on the slides here acknowledge my colleagues from Parks and streets but also some of our key external Partners including Partners at the State Department of Forestry and fire management our thought Partners at Bloomberg Associates and American forests and our funders and thought Partners at the US Forest Service who are responsible for a significant injection of resources into this plan and finally before we get into the content I would like mayor to give a special shout out to our team in the heat office that has been working very hard with our colleagues and other departments to bring this document forward thank you to my teammates mayor as you alluded to we are here to talk to you about a resource that the community really cares about a resource that is as you alluded to top of mind this time of year but one that is really vital here year round it's vital for people who are walking around our city vital for people who are using our transportation system vital for people who are waiting at an intersection vital for people who are making a decision about visiting a restaurant and seating outside vital for people who are taking an essential break while performing outdoor work and vital for people who are thinking about where to take their children on a hot summer day for safe outdoor recreation and that resource of course is shade today we are presenting the first draft of a new shade Phoenix plan a comprehensive action plan to maintain and expand built in natural shape in Phoenix this plan will expand and build upon the 2010 tree and shade master plan which for the past 15 years has been a primary policy tool related to tree and shade initiatives in the city why do we need a new plan A lot has changed in the 15 years since that last document was passed I'd argue that some of our principles and priorities remain as they were in 2010 but there are also some new ones we'd argue that we need a new plan to better inform our program and policy development we need a better policy tool to guide our day-to-day decisionmaking we think our partners can benefit from and be energized by a new plan we think it'll help us compete for more money from federal agencies and other partners out there and we think it's important to tell the public the full story of what's happened since 2010 and have a meaningful conversation with the public about where we are going and with your leadership mayor and council members we have made some really really significant strides to improve shade coverage in Phoenix this new plan captures and synthesizes where we are today and we hope you agree builds a better pathway for where we are going it's intuitive that shade is Bene beneficial to to us why is it so beneficial this diagram which is from our office of arts and cultures let's talk heat booklet educational booklet shows different temperature measurements between the shade and sun and there are some familiar terms on here like air temperature you can see there might be a minor difference between sunny and shaded environments surfaces in the sun are certainly hotter than those in the shade but I'd like to draw your attention to this perhaps less familiar term in the Box the radiant temperature this describes the net heat load on the human body and as you can see it is markedly reduced in the shade on a hot Phoenix day like today the net heat load on the body in the shade is approximately 30° lower than it would be in the Sun and another way to think about this on a day like today when it's approaching 110 outside if we're in the shade today that's like being in the sun in April or in May on a day when it's perhaps 90° we can change the experience by orders of months by moving into the shade leading Scholars and professional societies are calling for Action by all levels of government to do a better job in providing shade because of these significant benefits it has for for our health and our quality of life and our economic activity uh in nature one of the world's leading scientific journals uh last year shade was called an essential solution for cities an academic study the year prior found that shade is largely missing from local government plans and professional societies like the American Psychological Association are saying that we need change we need change to policy we need change to programs we need change to the infrastructure of our cities to do a better job protecting people and those experts are fine and we respect their opinion but the best experts that we can think of are the residents of Phoenix no large city in the US experiences higher temperatures and persistent Sun quite like we do we have learned from our residents to inform this plan and we've learned from them through several different mechanisms we've learned through the village planning committees through our Environmental Quality and sustainability commission through the regional urban forestry Roundtable through a a public facing Innovation Challenge hosted with our office of innovation through Community workshops and through an online questionnaire that now has more than 1,400 responses including several hundred that have come in in just the past couple of weeks perhaps because it's getting warm and what does the public say they say there is not enough Built shade or trees in Phoenix 90% of residents to the questionnaire thus far have made this claim and of those 90% many say that there's a severe shade deficit 59% say there's a severe lack of trees and 39% say that there's a severe lack of Built shade in the city we we've also paid close attention to the formal recommendation from the city's Environmental Quality and sustainability commission which is the public Advisory board that is most closely related to the topics in the tree and shade uh planning efforts of formal recommendations made by eqc in recent years I'm pleased to report that with your leadership we've already achieved several of them and that includes reestablishment of an interde departmental working group the hiring of a full-time tree and shade administrator who's with us in the room today and the prioritization of our programs to focus on pedestrians Transit users and heat vulnerable people as captured by the tree Equity pledge that the mayor alluded to there are other eqc recommendations that we are still thinking about and working on and that includes the question of how we're going to do a better job incorporating green storm water infrastructure into our our city streetscape how we're going to keep improving our cool Corridor program that you'll hear about in a few minutes how we'll publicly report on tree and shade progress and how we can do a better job of incorporating the concept of equity throughout Citywide tree and shade initiatives I've really enjoyed hearing from City staff through this process we've I think done a great job of leveraging the professional expertise of City staff from many different departments and we've learned a lot from them we've learned that tree and shade management is highly decentralized right now across different departments 12 different departments manage trees here at the city and they each have a unique approach to do so that introduces some challenges we consistently hear about contract difficulties managing contracts ensuring compliance and inconsistent performance our colleagues on City staff have told us that they feel like there's not adequate funding in all cases to replace or add trees particularly when unplanned costs emerge for example When Storms unfortunately rip out trees uh during our monsoon season our colleagues like the public and like our our thought Partners at other agencies have told us there are real Workforce needs we need to expand and improve our internal and external skilled Workforce we need more Built shade and like members of the public staff here at the city perceive conflicts between our tree goals and our water related goals we've complemented what we've learned from the community with state-of-the-art analysis of the most recent and comprehensive tree and shade data resources that we could find we're going to give just a few highlights of that analysis analysis which is more formally detailed in the full plan you have here's a map of tree canopy coverage throughout the city and the the middle-of the road census track the median has 10.9% tree canopy cover uh today in in Phoenix excluding the area covered by buildings but variability is the name of the story we have a tremendous range between the census tracks that have the least and the most the census tracks that have the least have an aage average of 2 to 3% tree canopy coverage today in some cases those are desert and agricultural areas where we might not expect high tree coverage but in other cases they are neighborhoods where our neighbors are living experience very low tree canopy coverage today the highest census tracks are in excess of 25% so it's more than a tenfold difference between parts of the city that have the most and the least today 75% of Phoenicians live in a census tract with less than 15% tree canopy and 15% is what American forests currently recommends for Desert Cities like ours so we have work to do in addition to the CommunityWide data we've been also focusing on tree and shade efforts on city property the larger graph on this figure shows what our tree planting Pace has been over the past 10 years and you can see that we're pretty regularly around 3,000 trees per year since 2017 many of which have been planted by the departments represented to my left uh updating the city's formal tree inventory is a priority action proposed in the plan so we have a more accurate total count of our current assets and mayor and council members I I absolutely agree with the spirit we even heard in the Pres previous presentation that we need to lead by example and pay close attention very close attention to our public resources but we do want to provide for you and the public critical context about the geography of the city the city of Phoenix land areas where we could plant trees account for only about 8% of the total footprint of the city so while we do need an excellent plan for city property CommunityWide success will require a larger focus and as you alluded to Mayor this plan strives to do both and we'd like to highlight for you that in addition to the great tree canopy data we also have a comprehensive first ofit kind shade analysis for the city thanks to our partners at uccla and ASU this allows us to be even more strategic in understanding where our needs are to provide more shade and how to address them and to give you just a peek at the data on the image here the pink shapes are buildings right here around council chambers and the black areas are where a computer model projects that shade would be cast on the first day of summer at noon on the left hand side we're extracting pieces of this data for example we're looking at how much shade is there on sidewalks and at noon Citywide we currently project about 177% we can look at this at different times of day the figure on the right shows at 6 uh 6 p.m. and of course we have more shade we almost double the amount of shade provided on city sidewalks at 6 p.m. relative to noon uh these metrics are reasonable but compared to some standards that are shown in mag's active Transportation plan toolbox we have work to do the guidelines in the active Transportation plan toolbox which an ASU team that I had the privilege to be a part of helped helped establish uh show minimum recommendation of 20% a good Benchmark of 30% and excellent ENT shade of 60% we desire to increase shade in our high highly used pedestrian corridors uh up to that excellent Benchmark and I'm excited to share that we're working with many partners to interpret all these data make them digestible and accessible and use them to guide our programs and one of those key Partners is American forests as you alluded to uh mayor uh to to remind the council in April 2021 Phoenix City Council adopted a memorandum of understanding with American Forest to pursue tree equity which was described in thatou as a future in which all Phoenix neighborhoods reach a minimal standard of tree canopy cover that is feasible and appropriate and we're working closely with American Forest on six different thematic areas to pursue that Vision but also working with them on data tools including their publicly accessible tree Equity score map and tree Equity score analyzer of which you can see a screenshot on the right so we are armed with a lot of information from our analysis from the community uh from our dialogue with you mayor and council members let's look forward with all of these data resources and Community wisdom the shade Phoenix plan is proposing a vision of a future where all residents and visitors to Phoenix experience the benefits of trees and Built shade throughout the city and it's anchored around six core values that reflect the priorities we've heard from stakeholders the first value is to focus on people first the actions in this draft plan are targeted to keep people safe and on areas where shade can have the greatest impact on human health and well-being with a focus on vulnerable populations the second value is to recognize that shade from built and natural sources is a critical infrastructure and resource provided to Residents by public and private assets the third value is to lead within environmental justice and Equity lens to help address historical inequities the fourth value is to respect the unique desert land landscape and Heritage of the snor and desert the fifth is that collaboration is essential within and Beyond city government and the sixth is that we need to go beyond the status quo we must innovate and do a little bit of risk-taking to change the current trajectory to realize the community's vision with that Foundation we've worked with our city colleagues to identify 37 specific actions that will work to achieve a future that achieves the vision those actions address four broad strategies that you can see on the slide here Community Education and empowerment adding shade preserving and maintaining existing shade and evaluating and institutionalizing the process that achieve the three former strategies collectively the actions in this plan as you alluded to Mayor represent at least $50 million in investment that will make our community better in the next 5 years and that is a significant investment perhaps the biggest in tree and shade efforts in the city's history but we do want to acknowledge that this is just a step forward it will not get us to the finish line of that Vision our interpretation is as we look at the data is that achieving tree equity and meeting the community's vision and needs for shade will require resources beyond the scope of this plan working with colleagues in budget and research and other departments we're working on different analyses to ensure that the next version of this plan will provide to you projections about what the scale and timeline for additional resources might be but we are indeed quite enthusiastic about what we can achieve with what you've already committed and led us to invest and now we're excited to tell you about that what are we going to spend money on we're going to spend money on new trees new Built shade maintenance and Workforce and programming roughly proportional to the numbers that you can see on the slide here with our best estimates where's the money coming from a combination of sources including the general fund and capital Improvement program grants and American Rescue plan allocations that you've made council members and the general obligation Bond as passed by voters last fall and which communities will benefit from these Investments those that have lower tree and shade canopy coverage today the graph on the left with the green bars shows how tree canopy varies throughout the city when we divide up the city into different income groups and today wealthier neighborhoods have more Tre shade coverage so the actions in this plan take the counter approach to that current pattern by overinvestigation different departments who have informed this plan including those from the 12 different departments that manage trees we found it very interesting and fascinating to learn about tree and shade processes that engage multiple departments simultaneously for example processes that involve both Neighborhood Services and planning and development we've learned very clearly that the majority of our tree and shade assets are held by Street Transportation Parks and Recreation public transit and Aviation and I am quite delighted and thankful that colleagues from two of those departments are going to highlight some of their efforts in this plan starting with Scott coflin from Parks and Recreation thank you Scott mayor members of the council thank you for the opportunity to present on the tree planting initiatives that the forestry team has been involved in and will continue to support in the new shade Phoenix plan over the last 10 years the parks and recreation department has planted more than 15,000 trees in part and in in cooperation with our streets department cool Corridor program this demonstrates the Department's commitment to enhancing green spaces and promoting environmental sustainability our tree planting strategy is planned in alignment with each Park's master plan which outlines the designated area in that Park where trees can be planted irrigation requirements and archaeological concerns this ensures that each tree is planted in the right location in contribut to the overall health of the tree and function of the park the selection of tree species is determined using the Arizona Municipal Water users list specifically low water use trees and adheres to the right tree right place policy this approach guarantees that the tree species chosen are well suited for our local environment along with the tree planting initiatives these trees will need to be maintained and it's important to highlight the efforts of our forestry team the team consists of 32 members who are responsible for maintaining approximately 100,000 plus trees in parks and along major arterials and feeder streets throughout the City of Phoenix this team also provides a 24-hour response to requests from the water streets Aviation police and public transit departments and is responsible for responding to storm Cleanup in streets and parks through a program that is arranged through to the Arizona Community Tree Council we have been able to create an Isa certified Arborist program the Arizona Community Tree council is an authorized provider of the ISA certified arborus certification in return for using a Parks facility as a training location one day a week for eight weeks the ACTC provides free Arbor certification training to three forestry staff and offers continuing education credits for the certified staff at no cost of the city This lends to The credibility of the work performed by the skilled and capable staff and also provides training for staff that do not have the training funds to do that I would now like to turn it over to Jesse dwarte with streets mayor and councel I will briefly talk about streets Transportation role in the shade Phoenix plan first of all I'm going to talk about landscapes Citywide in 20 in in 2023 Street Maintenance transitioned to 30 million square ft of landscape inventory to be maintained from quarterly to monthly the inventory included medium islands and areas mostly on major streets but also including inventory on minor collectors and interior streets in the city uh Network the annual budget for this program is about $3.2 million next one we'll talk about is cool corridors and our troop replacement program C corridors we currently have about $1.4 million for the C cor program the program was established in 2021 and to date we have planted 2,945 trees this fiscal year the contractors are planning approximately about 135 trees per month we have a total of four contractors working the program we are working with both the heat response and mitigation team and Parks and Recreation team to identify new locations for the trees next thing we'll talk about is the tree uh replacement program we replace dead trees dead or missing trees in the Citywide maintenance uh RightWay we have approximately two 392,000 for this program we evaluate the locations and select the trees based on the right tree right place uh policy we currently replace approximately about 700 trees per year next one we're going to talk about is the shade structure program Street Transportation design and construction management DCM division is working with the heat response and mitigation and in Innovation office to build 25 shade structures incorporating local art and highly used public rways the program has about $3 million budget the design is at 60 to 80% and is scheduled to start in fiscal year 2526 and with that I'll hand that over back to David thank you very much Scott and Jesse we'd uh like to wrap up by highlighting a couple of actions led by other departments as well as our own team in the heat office we are very proud of and impressed by efforts in the public transit Department they've added more than 1,800 shade shelters at city bus stops since 2010 and we're now at 75% of city bus stops with a shade structure public transit will continue to install at least 80 structures per year and they Pro check that shade will be provided at every city bus stop where it's feasible within the next 10 years truly remarkable we also want to celebrate the leadership of our office of arts and culture as one of eight National winners in the Bloomberg philanthropy public art challenge which awarded the city a million dollars for Innovative public Arts projects for shade the particular project that was referenced at the start of the presentation called Sombra will produce temporary public art oriented shade installations in public space and nine Dynamic and inspiring local artists have already been commissioned for this work and this is just one of several ways that art is being integrated into our shade efforts and to wrap up by highlighting a couple of programs that are our office is leading again a huge shout out to to teammates including some of our newest hires that are making these programs succeed we have three tree and shade Grant programs focused on schools and neighborhoods by the end of this plan cycle we project that 10 10,000 trees will be added in low moderate and middle inome neighborhoods through these Grant programs we've already done a thousand this spring with American Rescue plan act funding and council members we've seen some of you out at those events we will construct 47 shade structures at schools the first few of which have just been completed including the one you see on the slide there and part of our inflation reduction act award from the US Forest Service is to invest directly in community members with a paid tree Steward program as part of our broader efforts to create and expand Pathways for careers in urban forestry a need we heard very clearly from the community and our colleagues at the city we are very glad to be at today's milestone for a direction setting dialogue with you all uh but the work is not done with your guidance today we will begin our summer work to create performance indicators and timelines for each of the actions that will appear in the final plan we will be developing site specific shade targets we are eagerly awaiting the results of a research study from our colleagues in the budget and research Department about Landscape Maintenance and other topics we are committed to additional community and stakeholder engagement ahead of the final plan welcoming additional feedback we will hear from you today and in the coming weeks and look forward to being back in the fall I want to again thank my colleagues up here today and across all departments who have worked so hard to put this plan and its programs together thank the many members of the public who are engaged and interested in these efforts and mayor and council members we appreciate your leadership on this topic that's so important today and throughout the entire year here in Phoenix thank you thank you exciting to see what we've accomplished so far and what is possible with additional investment council members councilwoman O'Brien thank you so much for today's um uh presentation the draft format and I look forward to what we'll have in the fall I just there's a couple of things that we've talked about um in briefings that I want to make sure um that we we put on the record and um I have asked you all to make sure we understand what it takes to take care of our trees the water um the maintenance it's wonderful that we're investing all these dollars into ensuring that we would have shade um I start looking for shade when I'm walking outside prob in April and my motto in the summer is we'll walk for shade when it's I'm parking my car so um but but it's important that we have that cost it's not enough to have the money to plant the trees um I I also um you talked about some a thousand trees that have been planted and and we've talked a little bit about a management program like how will we know what trees are still thriving and what problems we have um early on in my uh this first term there were some trees planted in one of my communities and um they didn't last for very long and that was very frustrating to my community so I want to make sure those are I I know that we've talked about it but want to make sure folks know that we we've talked about it and you intend to put that in the plan um and Comm continue that community and stakeholder uh engagement so thank you very much for all the hard work you've done so far all three departments um I also would very much like to see as I read through the whole plan that we have so many departments that take care of landscaping um would like to see if that could possibly be under one area so that um it's not so scattered I know that even I get a little frustrated in trying to figure out who's supposed to take care of what as I drive through the city so thank you so much thank you mayor councilwoman gado thank you mayor you know I just want to say thank you to the team for all of your hard work and then also um a special shout out um to North Glenn square and District 5 to St Clair and to all of the all of our constituents in that area I believe in that area um we've been able to plant a little bit over 200 Tre so we're very um excited of of not yes on on all of the great work and yes on the shade plan and yes on how this is going to going to make us a better City and being able to have this shade plan but also how this has brought Community together and has definitely um driven out the leadership of a lot of our neighborhood leaders to take some leadership to take some ownership over their communities um we did the same thing over in in mville um with one of our newest um neighborhood associations so shout out as well to Amy and to the group out there where we've also planted a little bit over 200 trees um so I think that this plan is amazing um Dr hulah hope you know wishing wishing you the very best with what's coming and looking forward to supporting everyone and you know excited to see what what our city is going to look like a few years from now thank you mayor thank you any additional comments councilwoman HUD Washington thank you mayor um I just wanted to say I think the plan as presented is very Dynamic I love the Partnerships throughout the different departments um I when we met about this I talked a little bit about ensuring the continuality of the plants making sure that they're properly maintained and I'm grateful to see that that is Incorporated in this report I'm specifically looking forward to seeing the results of some of the next steps including the budget and research study to determine how best we are ensuring that these Investments continue to be placed in the right communities um we talked a little bit about um how to better reach some of our lower inome communities to ensure that those that need the trees and the additional um shade are actually responsive to that information so I just wanted to say I think it's a great first very um very Dynamic Pro uh plan and I look forward to seeing the results job well done any wonderful well thank you that the City of Phoenix has been recognized for leadership by a bunch of national Publications American forests and more but we know we have a lot of work to do and a lot of neighborhoods that need more shade so thank you for this important first step we are adjourned that is good for all of us we can't have a lawless society and I understand that there are other problems the city needs to address but keeping our um families and our visitors safe as to be number one for the council and I know since I've been on there has been a change of attitude and I I hope our men and women who are on the streets and in the uniform understand that we do support them and we know we need them so that's important to me and proving that every person even people