Staff Summary: Spring 2023 Community Stakeholder Workshops

Updated May 2023:

The second round of public engagement for this project occurred March-April 2023. There were six total workshops over each of the three proposals (see April 10, 2023 proposals here) that were broken into two parts, of which the second set of workshops built upon the first. In total 22 people participated, 16 represented external stakeholder groups and six were internal City staff. Represented stakeholders included landscape professionals, landscape architects, nurseries and wholesalers and engineers.

The discussions were engaging and insightful! We learned that overall, participants agree with the draft proposals for commercial landscapes but had varied perspectives and more questions about the residential proposals. Additionally, they highlighted the importance of considering how turf would be used when deciding where it should be allowed, and they largely agreed on the need to have landscapes that are attractive and use less water, as well as the challenges associated with making these changes in the context of our community's long-standing tradition of widely using turf.

Some general themes that came out of the workshops were: