Charlottesville Water Resource Protection Program Advisory Committee

                                 Final Minutes for Meeting #14

Date: August 7, 2017; 3pm
Location: City Space
Attendees:
Advisory Committee Members: Brian Becker, Morgan Butler, Dustin Greene, Rebecca Quinn,
Michael Ramsey, Trey Steigman
City Staff: Dan Sweet, Bob Brown
Public: Jeff Adkins, Anne Coates

• Agenda: At Ms. Quinn’s request, the AC agreed to add back to the agenda a “Comments from
  the Public” item for this and all future meetings. Mr. Becker explained he had removed it from
  the current agenda only because no one from the public typically shows up.

• Prior meeting’s minutes: The draft meeting minutes for the committee’s April 17, 2017
  meeting were approved with no changes.

• Staff Updates: Mr. Sweet offered updates on a few items:
  (1) The City has reissued and executed the Memorandum of Agreement for the CCAP
      incentive program. The only noteworthy change is that administrative costs had formerly
      been handled as a sliding scale; they have been made a constant in the new MOA.
  (2) Staff recently had a kick-off meeting with EPA Region III on a joint program to promote
      public-private and market-based approaches to stormwater innovation. The program comes
      with a $50,000 grant for the City’s stormwater program. More information on the program
      will be provided at the AC’s October meeting.

Staff Presentation: Mr. Sweet went through a draft version of the presentation he will be making
to City Council in September as an update on the Stormwater Utility Program. A final version of
the presentation will be available later in August. [final presentation available at
http://www.charlottesville.org/home/showdocument?id=59364.] Some points of discussion
included:
         The current impervious surface base layer is from 2013 and is updated regularly
            based on permit data.
         It will take roughly 12-18 months to get the master plan projects moving forward.
         Overall, staff feels the utility program is healthy. Revenues have been spent for the
            intended purposes of the program, and opportunities for cost efficiencies and savings
            have been realized.

• Discussion of Credits, Incentives, and Stewardship Programs: The AC had a general discussion
  about how to strengthen and increase the public’s use of these programs. One problem is that a
  cost-share and reimbursement format does not work for low-income residents who do not have
  the capital to provide for a project. The AC recognized that the utility fee is generally too low
  to stimulate much interest in the existing credits and incentives programs, so thoughts turned to
  whether the AC could create some type of stewardship recognition program. Various ideas


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 were discussed including similar programs in other jurisdictions, such as a “Green Gardener”
 certification, but the general consensus of the AC was that none seemed to fit the City’s utility
 fee circumstances well enough to justify the resources necessary to implement and oversee it.

• Other Items:
        Mr. Sweet noted that staff would be presenting a new five-year business plan to City
            Council next summer. Staff’s primary focus areas for the next year will be
            continuing progress with the rehabilitation program and moving forward with Master
            Plan jobs.
        Mr. Ramsey informed the AC that he was no longer a resident of Charlottesville and
            was unsure whether that impacts his ability to continue to serve on the AC, though
            he said he desired to continue doing so. No AC members voiced reservations about
            his continuing to serve as long as doing so is consistent with the AC’s by-laws.
        Ms. Quinn noted that the City’s Neighborhood Development Services department is
            updating the City’s Comprehensive Plan and pointed out that two draft chapters have
            been posted that include information about stormwater. She urged AC members to
            review those chapters and submit comments as individual AC members. Mr. Becker
            offered to provide links to the draft chapters to AC members.
        The AC’s next meeting will be October 30, 2017.

• Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at approximately 5pm.




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