Environmental Sustainability Council

Environmental Sustainability Council Meeting April 20, 2017, 7:30-9:30 PM, Dogwood Room, City Hall Minutes 1. Call to Order Members: Cory Weiss (chair), Thomas Cash, Andy Crawford, Chris McCloud, Philip Skotte, Hannah Trauberman, Tika Wallace, Jon Ward City Staff & Council: Chris McGough, Kerri Oddenino, Paul Stoddard, Dan Sze (City Council Liaison), Kate Walker (Staff Liaison & Environmental Programs Coordinator), Jason Widstrom Public: Peter Adriance, Andy Young 2. Appreciation for Peter Adriance The ESC thanked former member Peter Adriance for his many years of service to the ESC and saluted his many contributions to the Falls Church community. 3. Approval of the Minutes (March 16th) Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed to without objection. 4. Staff Presentations Storm Water Management: Jason Widstrom gave an overview of the City’s storm water management program and its key activities. He noted that the City is planning to pursue a storm water-related CIP project in Crossman Park to daylight a section of Harrison Branch on which the existing pipe endwall has collapsed, and protect an exposed sewer pipe in Four Mile Run. He also outlined a proposed plan to start a RainSmart Grant program in which the City would partner with a local non-profit organization to provide residents and business owners with funding to install small-scale best management practices. In response to Jason’s invitation, the ESC indicated that it would welcome the opportunity to help City staff review applications from non-profit organizations that are interested in leading this effort. With regard to the City’s voluntary concession framework used with property developers, Jason indicated that the City cannot require developers to meet higher standards than are in the building code. Based on Jason’s insight, the ESC agreed the LEED credit for storm water management is better than what the City requires of developers. Regarding specific projects, the Founder’s Row project has been designed to detain 100% of storm water; Jason requested 1 inch of storm water detention for the new Insight project, whereas the LEED storm water credit would require capturing 1.5” of storm water . Bikeshare: Kerri Oddenino and Paul Stoddard made a presentation on the City’s plans to bring bikeshare to Falls Church. They outlined the benefits of having bikeshare in the community and indicated that the City plans to launch bikeshare by 2018. They discussed the potential costs of such a program and also walked the ESC through maps with proposed bikeshare stations around Falls Church. The ESC expressed its support for the bikeshare initiative. Curbside Food Waste Collection: Chris McGough discussed with the ESC a plan to launch a new City initiative to collect food waste curbside. The City of Alexandria did a pilot of a similar program that had good success. Chris noted that he is in the RFP process and hopes to have a contract signed in May 2017. He discussed with the ESC how best to set the monthly cost for the service to ensure sufficient participation among households. Chris noted that he is aiming to have 600 households participate in the program. The ESC voiced its enthusiasm for the new initiative and made some suggestions for how to publicize it. 5. Staff Updates An updated calendar of the tentative schedule for project reviews and other key dates in the City administrative calendar was provided. 6. Next meeting Wednesday, May 17, 2017 in the Dogwood Room at City Hall (together with the Tree Commission)