City staff presented options Oct. 2 for mitigating the removal of protected and heritage trees associated with two city utility projects: the wastewater treatment plant Phase 1 expansion and a new 500,000‑gallon ground storage tank at Plant 5. Kelsey Delgado, the city’s project manager, outlined three options: pay the required fee‑in‑lieu under the Unified Development Code, host a free tree giveaway for residents (staff’s recommendation), or claim a city exemption for city projects.

Delgado detailed the mitigation math: removing 12 trees tied to the wastewater project (including one heritage tree on golf course property) would require replanting roughly 94 trees on a trunk‑circumference basis or paying about $102,000; removing four protected trees for the Plant 5 tank would require 26 replacement trees or about $21,500. Combined, staff calculated mitigation equal to about $123,000 or about 120 replacement trees if the heritage golf‑course tree is handled in the same way.

Staff recommended hosting a free tree giveaway on Texas Arbor Day (Nov. 7), providing smaller, easy‑to‑carry 3‑ and 15‑gallon stock to residents, and offering 11 trees to the golf course to offset the one heritage tree loss. That option has an estimated cost to the project of about $5,000 and would not fully meet the UDC’s 1:1 trunk‑circumference mitigation standard but would be lower cost and support an educational event.

Council members discussed alternatives, including paying the full fee in lieu (placing funds in the tree mitigation fund) or combining a giveaway with a transfer into the Oak Wilt program. Staff noted practical constraints on replanting large numbers of trees on public property (space and maintenance) and the labor burden to maintain newly planted street or park trees. Council signaled support for staff’s recommendation and asked staff to return with a formal resolution at the Oct. 16 meeting. No final vote to change the UDC or to waive mitigation was taken at the Oct. 2 meeting.