Tree Board discusses SFI grant, canopy-mapping options and KCD contract

The Tree Board discussed next steps for two related urban-forest projects: a Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) grant to fund a third-party assessment of the city’s urban-forest practices and a canopy-assessment contract funded through King Conservation District (KCD) funds to produce a TreePlotter/Planet Geo mapping and change analysis.

Victoria Coutaz, vice chair of the Tree Board, and Drew (a staff/consultant presenter) described the SFI grant as a program that supports a third-party benchmarking assessment of community forestry across topics such as climate and community engagement and provides optional funds to support follow-up work. “SFI is the sustainable forestry initiative, and they have their own benchmarking standard for sustainable urban forests,” Drew said, describing the assessment and optional implementation funds. Participants recited the approximate grant cap discussed in the meeting at about $68,000–$70,000.

Board members pressed for clarity on timing and approval steps. Elizabeth, assistant planner for the city, said the grant agreement officially could be signed by year-end but that SFI and the U.S. Forest Service are urging quicker progress; SFI staff were described as eager to move earlier than the official deadline. The board agreed the next action is a small working meeting with Mark (Mark Hoffman, city staff, who was not present at this meeting), SFI staff and Tree Board representatives to confirm scope and cost items before presenting recommended scope to the City Council for acceptance.

Separately, the board reviewed canopy-analysis options offered through Planet Geo/TreePlotter and discussed which map filters they want included if KCD funds a canopy assessment: individual parcel boundaries, city-owned property filter, riparian/critical-area overlays, zoning/land-use subareas and a change-over-time layer using 2017 as the baseline and 2022/23 image data for comparison. The board generally prioritized parcel-level data and a city-owned filter as top priorities and asked staff to confirm whether the city can provide the requisite maps for those filters. The KCD-funded work would use KCD-held funds already allocated; the KCD board must approve a contract (KCD’s next meeting was identified as August 12) before funds can be released.

Drew and other members demonstrated sample TreePlotter/Planet Geo interfaces and noted available features: color-coded current canopy cover; plantable-area calculations that exclude hard surfaces to show planting opportunities; scenario modeling to estimate canopy change from hypothetical planting programs; and a change layer showing canopy loss or gain between baseline and recent imagery. Board members asked for the data export option so the city would retain mapping data after any contractor-hosted portal contract ends.

No formal acceptance of the SFI grant or canopy contract occurred at the meeting. Planned next steps were: schedule a working meeting among city staff, SFI representatives and Tree Board members to refine scope and costs; confirm what city parcel and city-owned-property maps are available to include as filters; ask KCD to finalize its contract language for its board review on Aug. 12; and seek a City Council date to present the recommended scope and acceptance of the SFI grant. Board members discussed internal staff capacity at the city to accept grant reporting and whether that capacity might delay acceptance.

The meeting record did not show final decisions or votes; the board will follow up with targeted staff meetings and then seek council and KCD approvals as appropriate.