Planning and Zoning Commission backs 3-year Forest Resource Pilot to prioritize wildfire resilience

The Planning and Zoning Commission on May 28 recommended that City Council approve a three-year Forest Resource Pilot Program that would alter Flagstaff's resource protection overlay to prioritize wildfire resilience and to use lidar and other remote-sensing data to guide tree-retention decisions.

The pilot, presented by Tiffany of city planning staff and Neil Chapman, wildland fire captain with the City of Flagstaff Fire Department, would create an alternative forest-resource preservation methodology that relies on high-resolution data to model individual trees and optimal retention scenarios before site grading. Tiffany said the program would create a “3 year limited term pilot program” and that the code changes would “prioritize wildfire resilience” alongside preservation goals. Chapman said the lidar dataset would let staff and developers “model tree retention before we cut a single tree.”

The pilot would apply to both developed and undeveloped properties within the resource protection overlay and is intended to coordinate planning and fire objectives so neighborhood layout and tree retention are decided in parallel rather than sequentially. Staff said the city already holds lidar data they could share with developers, reducing extra costs for applicants. Chapman described a process of “individual tree segmentation” from lidar that would identify tree height and diameter and allow staff and developers to test retention scenarios on large sites.

Commission discussion focused on implementation limits, workload, and development trade-offs. Commissioners pressed whether the pilot would permit mass grading (staff said the city does not allow mass grading and that the overlay also preserves slopes and floodplain limits) and how cuts and fills near tree drip lines would be evaluated. Tiffany said the program includes a draft agreement to be signed by the developer and the planning director; the agreement gives staff control to terminate the pilot for a project if outcomes do not meet the code’s goals and would let a developer revert to conventional code approaches if the pilot is ended.

Staff emphasized the pilot is experimental and that if the program cannot produce products that meet the code’s purposes, the amendment would not be adopted beyond the pilot. Tiffany said the pilot would “not be about deforestation” and that staff do not intend to set a base, one-size-fits-all standard immediately because the city lacks sufficient evidence on optimal outcomes for different densities. Commissioners were told staff and fire will take on additional workload early in the pilot; city IT has committed time to processing lidar data.

The staff report ties the amendment to Flagstaff’s regional planning documents, the city’s forest management plan and the city’s carbon neutrality and housing plans. Tiffany noted possible interactions with affordable-housing incentives that rely on resource-protection reductions and said staff are trying to account for that in the pilot agreement. The proposal also includes transparency measures: staff said they will show planning and zoning examples and check in with the commission as projects come through even when administrative review applies.

The commission moved to recommend the proposed city code text amendment to City Council; the motion was seconded by Commissioner Ian Sharp and passed by voice vote. Staff requested that City Council consider the amendment and invited the commission to future work sessions and demonstrations.

Implementation details left open in the meeting included the exact lidar vintage (staff referenced “2019 or 2023” data), the final form of the developer-staff agreement, and how the pilot’s lessons will be incorporated into permanent code if successful. Tiffany said staff would return with visual demonstrations and refined draft agreements as the pilot proceeds.

Looking ahead, staff said they expect to test the pilot on a range of project types (residential, commercial, affordable housing) and to return to the commission and council with findings, examples, and any recommended permanent code changes.