John Taylor
Chapman
A Change needed on Taylor Run
I have toured Taylor Run with staff and separately with an organized group of residents. I have have read through documents from staff, commissioners, and residents. I have received numerous emails from residents fearful about the impact that Taylor Run stream restoration will have on Chinquapin Park.
As more and more questions were asked by the community about the stream restoration projects, I felt it was necessary for the city council to bring forward a discussion on these projects. Thank you to colleagues who have been vocal about their position on this issue and a big thank you to the Vice Mayor for working with me on the memo to bring this discussion to the public, which will actually allow for the opportunity to change the city’s direction on this. Without this memo, we would not be here today, with this opportunity to change direction.
I look forward to asking questions of staff tonight, but I intend to ask my colleagues to support stopping this project, and in turn, directing both staff and our Environmental Policy Commission to work together to bring back to council an update on the capture of environmental credits, with potential credits that we can receive and updated cost estimates and a strategy on future capture of credits. I will also seek the input of my colleagues on my recommendation to have an annual report from the EPC and staff on our environmental credit progress. The aforementioned update would need to come back to city council prior to city council’s break in July. Since the last assessment 3 years ago, I believe there could be opportunities for capturing additional credits that we could know about with such an update: 1) projects that happened in or before 2018 where we didn’t previously consider them for credits 2) projects that have occurred since 2018 that were not fully considered for credits 3) proposed projects that were not known in 2018, which could be considered for projects.
I ask for this update knowing that projects in these 3 areas may not fully cover the credit requirement that we need, but it will give the community and city council a firm understanding of our current status, real opportunities, and the cost, without the stream restoration projects that our advisory policy commission and our community are against.
Again, I look forward to tonight’s questions and council action.
-Councilman John Taylor Chapman