From public trees to private pools, the Des Moines City Council’s Mar. 5, 2026, Study Session navigated a dense landscape of fiscal responsibility and urban management.
Thursday meeting’s primary focus centered on a strategic handoff, as Surface Water Management (SWM) prepares to take over the city’s tree preservation, a move that may require a utility tax hike to fund.
Beyond the greenery, the meeting addressed community concerns regarding a potential federal detention facility, and the council waded into the debate over amenity rentals, weighing the high costs of business registration against the growing trend of residents monetizing their private spaces.
Surface Water Management Tree Preservation Program
The council heard an update on Surface Water Management (SWM) taking over the care and maintenance of trees on public property throughout the city. Transferring management of the tree canopy to SWM will save the general fund money, and reduce the required Parks budget. Trees are relevant to SWM because of the inherent benefits of healthy tree clusters in managing stormwater. The city will create an updated map of the current tree canopy, and in the future implement codes to preserve this canopy.
According to the presentation, 29% of the city is covered by trees. Of that 29%, 16% is city property. This comes to over 200 total acres that SWM will be taking care of. Their priority is to protect existing trees, managing things like invasive species, homeless encampment cleanups, and removing dead trees.
The cost for this would be $331 annually per acre for just the maintenance of trees, plus an additional $75 annually per acre for encampment cleanup, plus property taxes, coming to a total of $744 per acre that SWM would be paying for.
This money will likely come from a utility tax hike. A 5% utility tax increase would net SWM an additional $300,000 per year, which would be enough to proactively manage the trees. A more moderate 2.5% tax increase would net an additional $150,000, which would cover the basics needed for essential management.
The city has grant funding for an arborist who will assess current tree health, and determine the kind of proactive maintenance that the trees need. A city stormwater technician is getting certified as an arborist now.
No Detention Facility In Des Moines
City Manager Katherine Caffrey explained that, while the federal government has put out an RFP for construction of a new detention facility near Sea-Tac Airport, it will not be built in Des Moines. Caffrey said that several cities have entered moratoriums to disallow new construction of these facilities, but that they are already not permitted in Des Moines.
The city also released the following statement on Friday, Mar. 6:
“As you may have heard, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is exploring sites for a possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in the Pacific Northwest. Some Des Moines residents have asked if the City would support an ICE facility here.
“No site in Des Moines has been considered. City zoning regulations prevent siting a detention facility inside city boundaries. This includes vacant land adjacent to the SCORE jail. SCORE is a municipal jail and falls into a different zoning category than a federal detention facility.
“Another vacant parcel north of SCORE is in the City of SeaTac, which preemptively passed a moratorium on detention facilities.
“The Port-owned business park on 216th cannot legally be used for detention or ICE enforcement, by order of the Seattle Port Commission. While the federal government may have powers that supersede local authority, the City would exert all means possible to prevent an ICE facility in Des Moines.”
Amenity Rentals Discussion
During Public Comments, two speakers shared their desire for the city to make it easier for residents to operate amenity rental businesses. They said the current fee to apply for this business is onerous. Amenity rentals include renting the use of any outdoor facility. The family who spoke has a backyard pool that they rent out; other amenities found on offer in the city include eleven parking spots, three backyard pet parks, and one backyard camping spot. City Attorney Tim George said that current city code prohibits renting out a backyard camping spot.
Should you want to officially register an outdoor amenity so that you can legally rent it out, there is a $7,403 fee to set it up. This is the actual cost to the city for all the steps involved, including having a preapplication meeting, staff processing, coordinating for Notice of Land Use and a public hearing, and paying for the hearing examiner. The hearing examiner alone costs upwards of $1,900. If the fee was reduced, staff time would have to be paid for by the city budget, something both Councilmembers JC Harris and Jeremy Nutting were strongly against.
The council also discussed the impacts to the community of the different amenity rental types. They could not reach a sweeping agreement on policy or cost when impacts could vary so much. Some rentals such as those that involve many guests could end up with increased calls to the police, thus another cost to the city.
Councilmember Steinmetz said that this is the future, and if the cost is prohibitive to register their amenities, people will simply keep them under the radar. He thought the cost should be reasonable so that these amenities can be regulated, and that there should be different regulations for different categories of amenity. In the end the council agreed regulations should be crafted based on usage numbers. Staff will look into what other cities are doing around amenity rentals, and bring this back to a future council meeting.
Video
Below is full, raw video of this council meeting:
