City Council Study Session Summary 2015 08 11

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City Council Study Session Summary August 11, 2015 Page 2 of 6 Mr. Newland read the role of the Board noting they are to review and give comments on landscape projects. HFAB feels they are not getting development plans early enough in the process to offer a timely opinion. They had a conversation with Planning Director Troy Russ to address the issue. Mr. Newland reviewed events of the past year including Arbor Day tree planting, seed presentation and pruning workshop. HFAB Discussion topics for this coming year: • Awareness of Public Landscaped Spaces • Smart Choices o What value do we place on public landscaping? What is the sustainability? What are available resources? • Weed and pest management plan • HFAB will review Louisville pest management to assure best practices. • Council member Dalton suggested not hurrying the process and simply adopt what other communities are doing. Mr. Newland showed photos to voice concerns about public landscaping and showed photos of planting beds and areas in need of attention. HFAB wished to use photos to raise awareness of the importance of design vs. cost to maintain. Mass planting may be a viable solution but may be expensive to maintain. Questions HFAB posed included: How does City assess current landscape issues? Manpower costs? Audit of current landscape costs? HFAB suggests the City should know costs before approving landscape plans. HFAB believes it is impossible to keep all city areas looking great with current staffing levels. They encourage Council to increase resources and work with Parks. Landscape plans are investments and the City is failing to keep those investments viable. Council member Dalton said this is one of the many programs we look at in the budget. Council may need to look at landscape as program area. The issue has been made clear and is valuable. City Manager Fleming thanked HFAB for the presentation. It was eye opening. This item should be tracked and considered in terms of performance measures. It does raise a question of the best way to landscape in terms of water, eye appeal, conserving resources. Parks and Recreation Director Joe Stevens said there are tradeoffs with cost. The irrigation systems in some areas are 30 years old and difficult to maintain.