Council discussed next steps to disannex city property on Lavon Lake and next steps to implementing an urban forest master plan during two recent work sessions.

The work sessions were part of the Tuesday, March 28, meeting held at City Hall where council also considered a memorandum of understanding to fund traffic signal technology improvements and three rezoning cases.

Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Brent Stowers presented data from the most recent tree survey, informing council the software used is no longer supported after this year. Council could consider contracting an outside firm to update the data with more modern software or purchase a new platform with select staff obtaining their arborist’s license.

Stowers said the software used to catalog over 5,400 trees at a number of public green spaces in the city does not interact well with a geographic information system used by the department. With a new software that better interfaces, staff could more accurately identify trees and maintain accurate maintenance logs.

“This was the first step in moving forward with an eventual urban forest plan,” Stowers said. 

Before moving forward with the urban forest plan, Stowers said he would support allowing city employees to obtain an arborist’s license, which would assist in collecting data about trees planted in the city. It would also allow the city to conduct another tree survey in-house rather than through a third-party contractor.

“Understand that this recommendation is not to move away from an urban forest master plan, but allow more time to find a better software that will speak to the inventory we already have,” Stowers said. 

Council directed staff to move forward with obtaining arborist’s licenses that will be offered through a paid course.

Deputy City Manager Renae Ollie also provided an update information about a potential disannexation of select property surrounding Lavon Lake. The land provides no taxable value to the city, she said, and will likely not develop since it is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The city does not provide utility services to the land outside of first responder support from the Wylie Police Department and Wylie Fire-Rescue. Both the fire and police chiefs expressed no concerns about a lack of emergency service coverage if the land is disannexed.

The city of Princeton plans to annex the property since it provides some utility service, said Ollie. Council expressed a desire to move forward with disannexation as long as Princeton pays for the metes and bounds survey of the property.

For the full story, see the April 5 issue of The Wylie News.