Lawsuits and scooters and bikes, oh my.

In its final meeting before summer recess, Dallas City Council voted Wednesday on a plethora of impactful items, such as scooter and bike-share regulations, a massive settlement for police-and-fire pay lawsuits and new fees meant to boost greenery.

Here are some of the biggest actions taken by the council:

Dockless bike share and electric scooters

The city now has rules of the road — and of the sidewalks — for bikes and motorized scooters.

Nearly a year after five companies started raining rentals all over the city, the council unanimously approved regulations that will require bike and scooter operators to get permits and force them to pay the city per vehicle.

The new rules will give operators — which had been blasted by critics who viewed bike-share as colorful litter — time limits for collecting bikes and scooters after complaints are made to 311.

Until Wednesday, the city's strategy was decidedly hands-off, a deliberate decision in the hopes that the market would regulate itself. And it appears to have done so. LimeBike, for instance, once had 10,000 green-and-yellow two-wheelers in the city. A representative told the council Wednesday that the company now has only 3,000 out and about.

The companies will have to pay an initial $808 application fee, as well as $21 per bike, to operate in Dallas. One operator, Ofo, complained about the "exorbitant fees" in a prepared statement sent to The Dallas Morning News this week. Representatives from LimeBike and Bird, a scooter company, were silent during Wednesday's council meeting, and Bird lauded the council in a statement after the vote.

But after some discussion and lingering concerns over the way bikes were used, the ordinance passed unanimously.

The debate over electric scooters was much more contentious and often confusing as the council struggled with procedures. It took nearly two hours for the council to decide whether to allow the vehicles, which had been prohibited by a long-standing ordinance.

North Dallas' Lee Kleinman and downtown's Philip Kingston pushed for outright passage of the ordinance that would make electric scooters legal citywide — except on downtown, Cedars and Deep Ellum sidewalks.

"We made order out of chaos on the bike share," Kleinman said of the initial free-market approach. He also scoffed at the initial criticism of bike share and scooters, noting that in the early 1900s — "when cars started showing up taking up horses' spots" — there were likely panicked council members.

But several council members said they could foresee untold injuries caused by scooters, which reach top speeds of about 15 mph, especially if they are allowed on neighborhood sidewalks. Adam McGough tried and failed to send the item back to his Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee.

"I am really excited about the future of scooters in our city," McGough said. But, he said, "I don't feel like we're ready to roll this out."

North Dallas' Jennifer Staubach Gates' middle-ground solution won in a 9-5 vote. Her motion made scooters legal for six months, after which time the council will revisit the subject to see if there have been injuries, complaints and noncompliance with the rules.

The big payout

Dallas police officers, first responders and their supporters attended a meeting at Dallas City Hall asking for a raise on Aug. 3, 2016. (David Woo / Staff Photographer)

The council disposed of a decades-long legal dispute — which threatened the city's fiscal future — after about three minutes Wednesday. A few brief comments were followed by a unanimous council vote to authorize the $173 million settlement for the last of the police-and-fire pay lawsuits.

Police and firefighters had argued that City Hall had failed to abide by the language of a 1979 pay referendum, which maintained pay differentials between ranks. City officials countered that the referendum was only meant to apply to a one-time raise, but their position was weakened because previous city leaders had made efforts to comply with the language well after 1979.

The settlement appeared more feasible after the council last year agreed to settle four related lawsuits — with fewer plaintiffs — in Collin County for $61.7 million. But as the state Supreme Court weighed an appeal in the case, both sides faced an all-or-nothing proposition: billions or nothing.

The mayor in recent years had fretted that the suit, along with the beleaguered Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, could push the city into bankruptcy. Now, the council can pay for the lawsuits without raising the tax rates, and the 8,700 plaintiffs will finally get some money.

Kleinman said he was pleased the council had "moved forward to clear the deck of these items."

A greener city

In a series of votes, the council decided that green is good.

A rewrite of the city's tree preservation ordinance, known as Article X, passed unanimously after a decade in the making. The ordinance was the result of compromise between two parties who eyed each other with great suspicion: developers who have long claimed it was too cost-prohibitive to spare trees in the course of building housing, and the environmentalists who had seen the tree canopy replaced by developers' cranes.

The Article X redo will, among other things, incentivize developers for sparing trees or making their housing more sustainable, encourage the planting of new trees and find ways to finally spend the $7 million in the city's reforestation fund.

Steve Houser, former chair of the Urban Forest Advisory Committee, told the council both environmentalists and developers were "equally perturbed" by the Article X rewrite. And that, he said, was a good thing.

The council also approved another new requirement that won support from people in the real estate business and parks advocates alike. The park land dedication ordinance, which passed unanimously, will require housing and hotel developers to add green space or pay a fee to fund parks. Many other cities already have such an ordinance.

The money will be collected and spent in the same parts of the city. But the funds collected in the growing city center, which is already getting some new parks, will also pay to improve citywide trails.

Far North Dallas representative Sandy Greyson tacked on an amendment that could allow the council to waive fees if developers provide affordable housing.

Greyson also won approval for $3 million in 2017 bond money to help revitalize the Hillcrest Village shopping center in her district. The plan there includes turning a parking lot into a park.

In addition, the city will turn over century-old Reverchon Park baseball field to Reverchon Sports and Entertainment LLC, which is promising to build a new ballfield and stadium on the Oak Lawn site. The company is promising, among other things, to replace aging facilities with 1,400 permanent seats and an additional 600 to 1,000 temporary bleacher seats. The city is hoping to use it as a year-round venue — for music events as well as sporting events.

'Granny flats'

Dallas neighborhoods could have accessory dwelling units — often called granny flats or mother-in-law suites — under a new zoning tool approved Wednesday.

Residents can now ask the city's Board of Adjustment for permission to rent out such a unit on their property. And neighborhoods could request an accessory dwelling unit overlay in their area.

Some council members and residents have expressed concerns about potential ills. Council member Rickey Callahan opposed the ordinance, saying the added density in single-family areas would lead to "the slumification of our neighborhoods" and "potential future blight."

Supporters, especially Kingston, have pushed for the plan in hopes that it will increase the number of affordable units for renters. Neighborhoods will become "more resilient and sustainable" as a result of more income and age diversity, Kingston said.