Ann Arbor Energy Commission Meeting 1/14/25

001e e e okay it is now 6:02 p.m. and I'm uh good evening I'm calling this meeting to order my name is Gabriel harp chair of the an arbor energy commission um as chair I'm calling this meeting to order and we are holding this meeting from council chambers in an arbor City Hall uh welcome to the January 14th 202 meeting of the energy commission um Commissioners uh let's see public comment today will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public sorry and in person and in person and a person um we're revising the script a little bit here uh to speak during any of the public common opportunities please uh call one of the following to two toll-free numbers 87785 5 35247 or 888 78899 and enter the meeting ID number 956

0028718 7876 on your phone this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city's website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch CN and um we also have public com uh comment via the podium here in um council chambers as well uh we will move on to the land acknowledgement Joe do you mind please reading the land acknowledgement yes um I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies as the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Ana shab including Odawa oji badmi and wand do peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained SE people joining oh wait hold up hey we we

003in counc council chambers oh so we are we're here we see you oh rmany I forgot it was in person okay it's all good okay we'll do our best to make this work I'm so sorry no I can come down I just was confused I was like where is everybody okay I'll be there in like 10 minutes sorry sounds good no worries all right back to land acknowledgement um apologies for that um I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscious ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can

004Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you Joe would you mind taking the role yes all right um You don't have to say where you are because I can see you um commissioner burkewitz pres present uh council member Briggs is on their way um commissioner coven Garcia present chair harp present um Vice chair Hans had a conflict come up uh commissioner Leven here um council member Malik here commissioner mki here and commissioner overp also has a conflict tonight um but chair you have a quorum back to you thank you Joe um we'll move on to the approval of the agenda is there a motion to the approve the agenda as posted and a second uh to approve the agenda thank you second commissioner

005koven Garcia okay uh Commissioners please raise your hand if you want to propose any changes or discussion issue seeing No Hands raised uh all those in favor of approving the agenda as posted please R raise your hand and say I I I I all those opposed please raise your hand and say no the motion carries uh the agenda is approved um and now to the approval of the minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes as posted and a second so and seconded um Commissioners please raise your hand if you want to discuss any any uh aspect of the minutes seeing No Hands raised uh all those in favor of approving the minutes as posted uh please raise your hand and say I I all those opposed please say no the minutes are approved

006moving on to the public input portion of our agenda this is an opportun for people to speak for up to 3 minutes if you are watching on CTN please call 888 78899 or 877 853 5247 and in meeting ID 8718 7876 and this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using last three digits of your phone phone number to raise your hand in your desire to speak please press star9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that's allowing the the host is allowing you to speak um when speaking please move to a quiet area and mun any background sound so that we may hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of

007your comments um and for those in attendance please approach the podium thank you turn off we were on it I should know how to do it there we go thanks um as I was saying Ken gber 28 ham Hill Court this is kind of surreal um but nice I'm glad you're doing this and I hope you do more of these in person um I think um commissioner mury and commissioner coven Garcia may remember as I do the last time energy commission met in person which was in March 2020 um at the an senior senator on Baldwin for a work session at that meeting I was there as member of the public and I was um pushing energy commission to uh move forward with a an ordinance to ban gas Connections in new construction um well

008that that has since uh gone off the table um but the problem's not gone away and basically almost nothing has been done in the last 5 years on this issue and we're still approving uh new construction with gas connections which in 2025 just putting fossil fuel infrastructure in new buildings just seems even I mean it would seem crazy to me then but now it just seems I don't understand why we're not making progress on this um anyway tonight uh I really look forward to the benchmarking presentation uh by Mr Daly I haven't had a chance to really look over the uh report and the slides in detail but I have a few questions um the report mentions a nearly 10-fold increase in compliance from made to December 2024 clearly there's been a heroic effort made

009by Mr Daly and probably others uh to bring building owners in line so I thank them for that they deserve a lot of credit um but uh there's still a huge shortfall the a20 plan timeline specifies a 90% compliance rate by 2025 and here we are um the actual compliance rate as I read the report is 32% for the most recent reporting year 2023 with a uh 50% participation rate um so I guess one question I would have is when will the city start to Levy the fines for non-compliance that are specified in the benchmarking ordinance I think that's $500 for first offense and $1,000 for every additional offense um or maybe we're doing that already and I'm not aware of it um my other question is technical um in the why benchmarking slide um

010there's an example included for a building profile 4 14 413 East hon which I think is The Foundry LOF building um based on the indicated electric and gas usage 30 seconds usage thank you I did my own calculations came up with greenhouse gas emissions about 24% higher than what's on the slide um I'm using OSI electricity conversion factor but I'm using my own gas conversion factor based on one that that um NASA climate scientist Peter colus recommends which includes all Upstream admissions so I'm just wondering why the difference and that's a question I can probably deal with offline with staff but those are my questions and it's great to see you all here and thank you for your work volunteer work on the commission thank you um no callers online okay um we will move

011on to the main presentation um of today's agenda this is the city of Ann Arbor energy and water benchmarking annual report um and the uh report and the presentation are both online uh linked to the meeting notes and agendas um Joe would you just mind introducing briefly the the speaker yeah um joining us today is Connor Daly uh Connor is a um energy coordinator here with the office of sustainability and Innovations uh Connor started uh was it January February one of them January 29th yeah so you know depending how you define starting um but either way started here with us in 2024 um Connor has been doing uh a lot of work uh most notably as he's here to talk about tonight on the benchmarking ordinance um taking this program over um as many of

012you remember uh Thea is the one who has previous running it buta was departing Connor is the one who took over and has been just doing um you know as he'll talk about here a lot of work to kind of get things um to where we are right now um he's been just doing again a lot a lot of work with both the 2030 District as well as uh building owners all across uh Ann Arbor to get us to where we are today um and all of that has led to being able to put out our first report um which I know is a topic that we've discussed many times here um wanting to see said report uh so we have it now um happy to talk about it uh I will turn it over

013to Connor testing well thank you all for having me um it's exciting to be able to give this presentation um so I will get right to it um first Conor Dy he him I am an energy coordinator with osi's office or well the city's office of sustainability and Innovations uh like Joe said I started in January technically of 2024 and took over managing the benchmarking ordinance in May of 2024 um after theist departure so what I'll mainly focus on tonight is the report recently published summarizing basically where we are with the ordinance and what's coming next the report is 66 pages so I'm not going to cover every single page but I'm happy to take questions at the end about anything presentation or report um what I'll start with is a brief background of the

014ordinance itself then get to some of the key findings from the report compliance rates data accessibility data accuracy and any Trends we can see at the moment um in in the data we have so starting off um as you probably know benchmarking is specifically called out in the a20 plan in the strategy 3 significantly improving the Energy Efficiency in our buildings uh the ordinance itself was passed in October of 2021 and it required properties to use energy Star portfolio manager a free tool through the US EPA to track their energy and water usage and then report that to the city through the Tool uh taking one step back to start you probably remember from the recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory presentation that about 2third of our emissions in an arbor come from buildings about 38%

015of those coming from residential and Commercial properties while we have a lot of programs that Target um Residential Properties like single family homes and smaller um under four under Properties or four or under units in a property like the home energy advisor program the home energy rebate program and the herd ordinance benchmarking looks at those larger multif Family Properties four more units and then commercial properties so those other sections of those two um emission sectors it is the first step for addressing those emissions and it specifically targets properties that are over 20,000 Square ft of gross floor area that could be one building that's over 20,000 Square ft or a campus as it's called of property or buildings that collectively are over 20,000 ft together um why benchmarking so we like to I like to

016say at first that when we're looking at building performance we can improve what we can't measure when we're looking to imp improve building performance we want to know where we're starting we want to know where we're going and we want to know where we're at along the way um benchmarking is not only something that is beneficial for us at the city as we're looking to develop programs for commercial and multif family housing it is helpful for the decision makers at those properties that could be owners or managers that are looking to make improvements to the properties or it could be for tenants who are looking to rent spaces in those properties um we do also see that there is um energy use reduction associated with benchmarking the APA themselves did a study of over 35,000

017buildings that used Energy Star portfolio manager over several years and those properties on average improve their energy performance by about 2.4% per year which is small in itself but over time a pretty significant reduction in energy usage um I can if that's I know I've never presented before address the public comment question about the um the score card here it is a mockup from our Benchmark and compliance software and the numbers will come from the uh Energy Star portfolio manager which from the EPA they do have specific conversion factors that they use I imagine that's the discrepancy but I'm happy to look into that specifically um as this um if if we want to get into it this is actually an example from our Benchmark and compliance software of a scorecard that a building could

018get once they're benchmarked of here's your performance here's a easy to digest for someone who's not technical about this at a building owner or manager level how you're performing what the cost is what are some basic next steps to take so as we're developing those scorecards I'm happy to dig into the numbers more but I imagine it's because of the specific factors that energy Star portfolio manager uses when they um do their um conversions looking at who is benchmarking at the moment this is in the report apologies it's a little small if you can make it out uh great if not it is in the report but the Topline numbers here are of the properties currently benchmarking participating we see that multif family properties are the most common property and they account for the largest

019gross floor area of properties participating participating meaning they have started benchmarking they are in Energy Star portfolio manager they're Gathering data they may or may not be completely compliant but we know who they are they know what we know what they are and we know how big they are so uh multif family being the largest and most common office properties being the second most common and the second largest gross area and then the remaining 30% being split between a wide variety of property uses um I will say specifically there that currently multif Family Properties account for 57% of the gross floor area as we increase participation and compliance rates further it's likely to change I'm not sure how much that may affect the actual ratio of of properties but obviously we'll keep an eye on

020that um as we as we get there so in the ordinance itself it does specify some key dates to start the original deadlines are on the left on the presentation here and these are the deadlines the ordinance set which were the first deadlines to submit a benchmarking report that would be for the previous calendar years worth of data so if we're looking at a property that is 150,000 ft of gross flow area that property originally initially needed to submit a report by June 1st 2022 for calendar year 2021 data like I said I started in January of 2024 took over in May of 2024 approaching that deadline we realized a few things uh one while data was available processes were there they had been refined and were being refined with that and the smaller properties

021just having reached their first initial reporting deadline whereas some of the larger properties had reached their deadline years before we extended the enforcement deadlines for the ordinance where enforcement deadline came about was as the ordinance itself was phased in over several years and not all properties would even have reached their enforcement deadline by June 1st 2023 enforcement was intended to start after all properties had been phased in so after June 1st 2024 so what we decided to do was to delay enforcement deadlines to the dates on the right this did not change anything required about the data required to report that 150,000 Square for property still needs to submit or needed to submit by September 1st 2024 their report for 2021 22 and 2023 data so it's just the date after which enforcement would start

022if necessary uh I'll emphasize a couple times in the presentation that while there are fines in the ordinance and we could take enforcement action if necessary it's not the goal benchmarking gives helpful data to everyone involved in a building and that's the goal if necessary we can but it's not the goal and so far when we've gotten to the right person and walked them through what they need to do at a property they have taken the steps to to Benchmark whether complete or in the process uh not only depending how you phrase it public buildings but City properties also need to comply with the ordinance specifically buildings uh or properties in the city uh owned by the city that are 10,000 ft of gross full area or more and they are owned leased or managed

023by the city such that the city regularly pays all are part of the annual energy or water bills where that ends up is that seven properties are currently covered by the ordinance um the properties that are not are either um outside the city like the wheeler service center and not subject to the ordinance or they're under 10,000 ft of gross floor area or in the case of parking structures we own them we pay no utility bills so with the seven properties covered um here's some quick rundown of them um the site eui for these properties decreased from 2020 21 to 2022 uh for terms here eui just for those listening um is energy use intensity so the energy used by property per unit of area square footage in this case site eui is the energy

024that is used on site so that's what you're going to see on your energy bill source for these properties increased from 2021 to 2022 and then decreased from 2022 to 2023 source eui is again energy use per unit of uh of area but that is the total amount of raw fuel that is required to operate a property it not only includes energy that's used on site but uh it includes trans or losses during generation transmission distribution of energy and energy star considers it to be a the uh best way to look at a commercial properties performance across the board um speaking of conversion factors energy star has different conversion factors nationally that are used to determine um The Source energy performance for benchmarking properties um so so that's that uh total greenhound gas greenhouse gas

025emission intensity that's pretty straightforward that uh decreased from 2021 to 2022 and it stayed about the same from 2022 to 2023 lastly water use intensity increased from 2021 to 2022 and then decreased from 2022 to 2023 uh while it's not required by the ordinance OSI is actually benchmarking All City properties most of them are actually mostly benchmarked but not subject to the ordinance not included in these metrics and a couple things may be needing to be addressed in their reports as we go through them so we're working on the rest of them even though it's not required D um and I'm happy to give updates on that in the future so getting into the main findings in the report itself already covered this but again uh currently multif Family Properties are the most common property

026type and they take up the largest gross Flor area um of properties benchmarking so far looking at performance uh the property types right now with the highest eui are Ambulatory Service Centers Laboratories and restaurants and the properties at the lowest eui are parking garages non-refrigerated warehouses and worship facilities uh overall we are seeing that larger properties tend to have a lower eui but that is more likely to be from the property use type rather than inherent in larger properties what we are seeing is that uh multif family properties are disproportionately likely to be those properties over 100,000 square fet and they are as you can see one of the lower euis in terms of property use types so that's more likely to be that rather than inherent in every larger property we see the same

027trends of greenhouse gas emissions the same property types as could make sense uh are the highest and lowest uh greenhouse gas emission intensities with Laboratories restaurants and Ambulatory Service Centers being the highest non- refrigerated warehouses worship facilities and parking garages being the lowest uh things are different with water uh the properties with the highest water use intensity are fitness centers health clubs and gyms hotels and residence halls and dormitories um I'll note here that the residence hall and dormatory property use type does not include U ofm properties U ofm is not subject to the ordinance as is so this would be a a non-university owned dormatory residence hall property the properties with the lowest water use intensity are non-refrigerated warehouses parking garages and then what comes across in energy star is an other technology science

028use which is essentially a a the specific property is basically a manufacturing office it's not just an office but it's not a manufacturing plant it's just kind of this weird other middle Zone um that energy star defined as the best use for it we also look at the percent of energy use that properties have from electricity when we're looking at how properties are changing their energy um use at the at the property overall So currently the properties with the highest percent of their energy use from electricity are parking garages Laboratories and hotels with the properties with the lowest percent of energy use from electricity being K through 12 schools worship facilities and residence halls and dorms I'll note here as well that this does not include the anber public schools while the anber public schools

029are benchmarking all of their properties they are also not subject to the ordinance like umm so their metrics are not included here these would be private K through 12 schools that are covered by the ordinance um I'll also make one note there that um if you're looking in the ordinance the an arbor open school technically falls under a city covered property so it isn't actually included in the city metrics the anra public schools that because they benchmarking their whole portfolio of buildings and looking to the improvements they can make we are making sure that they have the data needed to create their report but they essentially own their benchmarking report it's this weird Gray Zone of where properties fall um for City properties uh moving on to data accuracy and accessibility we do find that

030data is generally accurate across the utilities that our properties are using with some variations in exactly how it is and the issues that are there that affect accuracy overall Constellation Energy is the most accurate data followed by the city of aror water data and then DT Energy data on the right you'll actually see an example from DT's data automation portal of what it looks like when a property comes through with electricity up top complete and then in this case gas data which seems to be incomplete I'll get to this in a future SL in a couple more slides um but this is a focus we have on addressing and understanding data accuracy across utilities when we receive data um in terms of accessibility data is pretty generally accessibility but how exactly accessible it is and

031how it can be accessed does vary across um utilities for example DT and the City of Arbor have automated data available whereas Constellation Energy does not on the other hand dte's automated data portal can be tricky to enroll in and we made a lot we put a lot of energy and effort into getting the city's water automation process where it is now which which is great but it was a lot of work to get there constellation on the other hand does not have any data automation but we found that their data is very easy to obtain um and and high quality so wrapping up um we also found that compliance was it is an issue and it is a common issue it is a common issue for almost every jurisdiction that implements a benchmarking ordinance

032uh for example the city of Detroit recently passed their ordinance and in their first year they hit about a 24% compliance rate by November of 2024 uh the city of Indianapolis uh got to about I think 20% in their first year so it is a common issue to Common issue to um have low compliance rates across um jurisdictions that have this we found that in increasing our compliance rates robust repeated Outreach was essential and that data automation was also helpful the less the properties need to do the more likely they are to comply and it increases the sustainability of benchmarking within ownership and an organization doing that benchmarking for a property moving forward we are looking to increase compliance uh increase data access and accuracy and to Benchmark more City cover properties than those required

033by the ordinance we're also looking to do even a deeper dive into the data we have so that when we are uh building future initiatives for commercial and multif family housing we have a better idea of what the benchmarking data is telling us as we build those initiatives and on the right here you'll see an actual building that is benchmarking in our portfolio that had significant in uh improvements in their gas use efficiency which is reflected in just the quick easy chart up top but then in the actual metrics from energy star seeing over that almost one year uh significant improvements to their energy star score their eui and then importantly the cost of their energy also see we see a decrease so compliance rates um yes uh compliance rates increased about 10-fold over the

034course of 2024 starting off we had about a 3% compliance rate for 2023 and about an 8% compliance rate for 2021 and as you can see that is now leveling off at about 32% um as of when the report was created I'll say uh 32% compliance and then 78% compliance for 2021 participation rates are unsurprisingly higher again that is properties who have started benchmarking and either don't have all their data uh for example DTE does an automated data push once per month we're actually getting that this week as we speak for this month or they may have all their data but maybe they look extremely efficient for that type of property or really inefficient and we want to make sure that their data is correct before we move them into compliance diving a little deeper

035into Data accessibility um going one by one DT is obviously the largest energy utility at the moment in the city of an arbor almost every property uses them for electricity if not electricity or gas you can get data in essentially four ways from DT a property owner manager could get uh data from bills issue with bills is that one it's all manual it's a lot of work also a property manager and owner usually does not have all the bills for a property so it's not going to capture tenant data and that means it's an incomplete report you can also directly request your data from DTE by email with a form also manual uh also that data um I actually don't know that any property has chosen that route there are just other ways to do

036it and better ways to do it um it also is likely not to give let's say for 150,000 square foot property it probably won't actually give them data back to 2021 so not the recommended process a property owner could actually use their Landlord Portal online through DT and that would usually actually get them their tenant data as well but it also usually doesn't go back to 2021 like some properties need so the recommended way to get data uh from DT is to use their DT Energy data Hub which is a automated data portal they've set which provides aggregated building level data for benchmarking properties and it connects to Energy Star portfolio manager so when it connects it will automatically upload data into Energy Star portfolio manager into the future significantly reducing the amount of work

037required to comply that said uh it is a little tricky to enroll in it sometimes if the person benchmarking is not the person who has access to the online DT account Andor is not an authorized user on the DT Landlord Portal it can be tricky to get that worked out just to get the form assed and enrolled um that said the portal itself is is excellent and is a a real help to a lot of buildings um doing that and DT is working on a slight easing of the process to do that enrollment the other barrier is that DT has kept the data Hub in a pilot phase due to the cost of running it at scale for the entire DT service area so properties enrolling in the data Hub just need to join the

038Anarbor wash not 2030 District to enroll in the hub it is free to join and the District offers free support for benchmarking uh working through DC's enrollment process submitting the report to the city and solving anything with a report that may need to be fixed after the report is submitted um so it is completely free to join free support but it is another step to get to the the data for GT constellation is the a choice energy provider and is the only one I've encountered in an arbor so far they mainly provide gas data there's a couple properties that have electric data from them from constellation again you can use your bills to get data but that does not always capture all the properties usage if there's tenants who have their own separate accounts um

039conversely from DT you can actually request your data directly from constellation from a representative and it is actually very quick and easy to do that and it comes in a very digestible format to then re-upload to Energy Star portfolio manager um you can also download data from constellation in your online account that kind of like the bills you may not get all your tenant data so depending on how a a property is structured in their metering um an online account or direct requests to Constellation usually are pretty good we it would be nice for constellation to add data automation there are benefits to it for the longevity of benchmarking but so far it's not been a barrier to properties getting their data from constellation the city of in Arbor water data we are the sole

040water utility in the city uh and you can get it again your data from bills same issue depending on the property you may not have all the bills for the usage you can also use Aqua Hawk um some of you may be familiar with aquahawk is was actually launched before the benchmarking ordinance was implemented and it is a water data dashboard that uh water utility customer can access to see pretty granular data down to the hour for meters if you want to you can download usage from aquahawk also in a pretty digestible format to reupload Energy Star portfolio manager but the recommended process we have is to use our data automation process we've set up uh it's a lot of work on the back end for for a property it's basically setting up your property

041in energy star setting up your meter profiles connecting with a city managed account and then our city managed account through an API created by Our IT team and customer service pushes meter by meter water data month by month for every meter linked to it um it took a lot of work on the back end to get that to where it is now but it works very very well so it's the recommended process for that in terms of data accuracy uh DT is generally pretty accurate most properties have a gap here and there um nothing that often something that wouldn't affect their report too much but there is a small sub subsect of properties that have had more severe issues uh like one multif family property that had hundreds of gaps small but hundreds um another

042property that had one big gap of two years for half of the property those are pretty rare um but the bigger issue we're finding is when properties have these small gaps is when it's presented as it was in that slide that had the the gaps in the data if it's a multif family property where the unit has a gap of one month in the summer and they have gas heat and it's vacant and the AC isn't running that might not be a gap that may be no usage that's coming through as a gap but if it's 3 months in the winter that's unlikely to be that so how how can we understand that better when this happens so we're working with DT to better understand that when it comes through um that said it is

043rare and in the case that that property with extended gap of 2 years DTE it took a few months to fix but they kept on it with us for 4 months and it is now almost completely fixed almost all the data has been has been corrected um so can't take time but DT does work with us to resolve that um I'll note that the data Hub has two dedicated staff who run it so it's it is helpful to have two specific people we work with on this for Consolation Energy we find that they're generally very accurate it's pretty rare to have any gaps um at all and and if there is any it's usually one or two very short just a some meter issue and it skips a read uh the worst example we found

044was a property that had no gas usage for several years and it was just a physical meter issue um with how constellation uses their energy it actually was a DT meter so we worked with constellation and DT to fix that meter and now it's getting readings so one benefit practically a benchmarking there uh one thing we I don't know how impactful it is but it certainly plays a is that properties have much fewer constellation meters so that property that had hundreds of gaps in the DT meters over 200 individual DT electric meters it had one constellation meter and one constellation account for the whole property as an example uh city of Van Arbor water data touched on a bit that is generally very accurate and can be very granular especially if you're using your aquahawk

045portal um we find that almost every Gap in that data is due to a meter or meter transmission unit being replaced so if a meter breaks and it needs to be replaced that will result in the Gap in data it's usually pretty short it can be longer if there's something like a a cable needs to be procured that is on on back order or somewhere something like that the main difference between the gaps that we see with water data versus data we see on the energy side sometimes is that we can almost always explain what the Gap is one because it's pretty reliably some kind of equipment uh related issue and because we are the city and it is another area of our organization it's easier for us to work through and find those issues

046than working through multiple layers of a separate organization so wrapping up with some Trends as of now the trends that we're seeing right now looking at 2021 to 2023 data are upfront they're just not representative of the overall building performance in the city reason for that being is that as the ordinance was phas in 20121 has only buildings over 10 thou 100,000 squ ft whereas 2023 has buildings that are 20,000 ft or higher so the types of properties the sizes what they are is just different across there so what we're going to be looking at for sure is when we get 2024 data that's going to be more apples to apples with 2023 data to look at actual Trends across the whole portfolio overall that said what we're seeing so far is that uh as

047I mentioned earlier larger properties tend to have lower euis in greenhouse gas emission intensities and tend to have higher water use intensity which is more likely to be because of the property types those sizes of properties that said uh of in those compliance years site and Source eui increased from 2021 to 2023 again more likely to be from the types of properties being phased in there rather than the overall an arbor buildings increasing their or decreasing their efficiency over that time we actually see though that greenhouse gas emission intensity increased from 2021 to 2022 but slightly decreased from 2022 to 2023 and then similarly water use intensity increased from 2021 to 2022 and then decrease from 2022 to 2023 so wrapping up with that we're going to be looking when we have 2023 more apples

048to apples onward see really what those Trends start to look like with the um more fairly compared um property portfolios overall and with that uh I will take any questions you have on the presentation or report thank you Conor it's really encouraging to particularly see um The Contours of the program laid out and um I think I particularly appreciated the granularity and the details on on the data uh acquisition and quality um uh overall I would I would um just sort of for some questions just some things to think about also is um for the commission um what both in terms of the trends that Connor presented as far as the benchmarking also I think one of the things that would be helpful for the commission to think about is sort of what are the

049some of the takeaways and how do we sort of look at what the the report and the presentation suggests in terms of um priorities as a result so just just as a way of um uh framing that a little bit more too so I'll open it up for questions from commissioner members yes council member RS yeah apologies for coming in late um I just a point of clarification the residence halls and dormitories is that sororities and fraternities is that primarily what that is or I don't want to so specifically that and one thing I'll also note with that is that some property uses thus far may only have one two or three properties in there so it could be one property in that type I'll say that I think that one is a it is

050actually not a a fraternity or sorority house it is a a nonprofit student housing um Cooperative of some type for that a lot of the fraternity sority houses um off the top of my head are just just under the square footage for 20,000 yes uh yeah I just had a question thanks for the presentation first of all very informative um if you've looked at um sort of like how things like temperature during the winter uh how that compared over those years and we're looking at a decline in energy use potentially and curious how uh seasonal weather may have affected that also May with water use especially it would be interesting to see like water use in the summer versus winter and how much water like how was it like a drought year so we use

051more water or just how that affects the overall Trends year to year that's a good question um for energy for sure what the um the eui that we are using is energy star uses Regional weather data to do a weather normalized eui so it takes those that weather into account year to year so it's a more apples to apples across year to year um I don't know that there's anything like that for water data um that said when getting into the nitty gradia benchmarking when we do water benchmarking we do separate out meter by meter in energy star and it's labeled generally as such of indoor outdoor sprink so on so one example of what the an arbor wash not 2030 district is trying to do with their properties is if they have sprinklers or

052irrigation is look at that usage separated out how much could you save on water and potentially bills looking at things that you use in the summer that you may not need to use in the summer and and really diving into that different usage um seasonally if that if that answers that question commissioner bz uh thank you um well first of all thank you for this wonderful presentation um I want to give congratulations to the city of an arbor and the office of sustainability for um implementing this um it's remarkable to think about um there are you know uh huge cities all across the country doing benchmarking but an arbor to my knowledge is the first one in Michigan uh maybe paved the way for Detroit you know adopting their ordinance in 2023 and starting on

053their program and I've heard rumors that Grand Rapids is exploring this and U maybe even Lancing so um just want to say thank you and Kudos um to to start off um a couple comments and questions um so first comment um noticing the um data Trends from 2021 to 2023 one of the thoughts I had as well was that um maybe one of the reasons for the increase uh is that that um you know in 2020 we had this pandemic in 2021 we were not really still out of it yet um and so I think just a lot more people were in buildings um of the commercial scale um versus residential um over time you know during the period That's mapped here so um I wouldn't get too bent out out of shape about it

054that seems like a pretty understandable Trend um and then I had a question um so you mentioned uh first of all the U ofm properties are not subject to this and just talk through the the dorm residence hall side of it you mentioned the same thing about the an Arbor Public Schools that they are not part of this they do their own benchmarking but you guys help and support um but you did say there were other like K through 12 schools in the portfolio can you just help me um understand what like what are those yeah so we I'll I'll be up front that we are waiting for a final legal take on um individual property uh report disclosure on exactly what that looks like so try not to identify the buildings by name um

055I would also be happy to follow up afterwards with a little more information on that um but they are one example of what it could be is a a um let's say a k through2 um property use at let's say a religious institution that has that as well that could be an example of what that is that doesn't fall into the ad aror Public Schools um that's actually not what those are but without identifying them that's an example it's is not necessarily even what it is what the business is but even in a specific property property use could be divided by space in that property so that that's an example of what that could look like without it being an anab public school property but still being a k through2 Institution for example that's a

056really helpful example thank you um and I'll say on the um s site site eui increasing again I it's more likely to be the the properties phasing in um but in terms of the post-pandemic performance uh specifically at office properties that's something that I'm I'm interested in and I know we received a question at Advance about you know are there other metrics that are be helpful to look at or is this all we're looking at and this is this is not the only metrics we'll be looking at we will be looking at all sorts of um metrics especially as we look to Future initiatives that this data could be helpful for so these are Topline numbers in the report overall performance especially with this being the first report um this year but um it it

057is is something that I've been thinking about of when we're looking at some of these trends like at office properties do we see a big increase um or or not absolutely yes Connor good to meet you also fellow Commissioners good to see you in the flesh I don't think I've ever actually seen even Joe In the Flesh before so it's it's really nice to be together and and see people uh thanks a lot for your presentation really good I'm really happy to see this going um and uh I'd like to start out with um an additional compliment uh I reached out to Jan Culbertson who uh I've known as a friend since high school uh I won't say since when that is but it's a long time and uh I had a couple of questions

058and uh I'll read read you her very first statement Connor is doing a great job encouraging supporting people to comply with the ordinance so uh thanks very much uh uh I think most of you know Jan is the the lead of the 2030 District um and so uh I I I really appreciate um you working together with the district and with all these other entities to get this going um I have a couple of comments and and questions um first of all I have to admit I I only looked at the the slideshow I didn't look at the 66 page report um and I don't know if do that but um a couple of questions in Concordia University does it apply to them and are they uh uh participating and are they complying yet because

059that's obviously a large a large entity first um I'm taking notes on my computer so pardon my typing secondly I can answer questions one at a time or or all at once whatever you prefer um yeah why don't you go ahead and do them one at a time because they may not be related all that much um so Concordia University specifically this gets into to um the ordinances definitions for covered properties and the exemptions for spaces that do not have traditional commercial leases or rentals in spaces Concordia does not actually have anything leased um and while they do have dormatory residences those per our legal understanding is well through legal's decision is not actually uh covered by the ordinance so Concordia does not have to Benchmark their properties okay y good to know um in

060terms of compliance um I'm disappointed in our landlords and and owner building owners I mean I assume that if the city sends out a property tax notice um then the compliance is is pretty high and Jan um went through a whole bunch of issues as you mentioned that uh have been problematic in terms of getting um participation and compliance rates up why why why is it so hard to get get people to comply yeah so without speculating too much and also caving that a a lot of before my time I don't have a lot of insights into but what we're what I'm finding from my experience is that um well one on the tax bills the benchmarking is not noted on the tax bills um it's actually something well actually I'll take a step back

061the and say that the 2030 District we actually have a contract with them for support and they do a tremendous job they support us through and properties through every step of benchmarking and like I I appreciate all the kind words but they have done a lot of work as well supporting me with this um when we have been doing Outreach to properties surprisingly uh a lot of properties have not heard about this when I give them a call even some who have supposed to been benchmarking for a few years and I think there's a number of things that go into that including um nitty-gritty we sent postcards this year to building owner addresses to the owners themselves and that got a lot of people who got back to us and it was the first year

062we did that so going into the robust Outreach diverse Outreach methods have been helpful call email property managers um owners postcards I've even called tenants sometimes like hey can you pass this message to your to your owner I'm having trouble getting a hold of them and it's and it's worked so doing that repeatedly but also in diverse ways we found that some properties just need to be contacted differently um and they just haven't heard about it uh frankly it's been a few years they've had turnover as well so one thing as we're not only increasing compliance rates thinking about how we create make this sustainable in those those organizations um in terms of compliance I I'm not actually I wouldn't necessarily say that we are unusually low for a city in their their third or

063fourth year um I was a little surprised to see that it is an issue across jurisdictions and um I know Jan was sharing with me recently that she was looking at a bunch of jurisdictions and they 75% compliance rate is great 9 is is excellent and extremely uncommon so it is lower than we'd like but it's it's not out of line with a lot of jurisdictions and as you saw from the participation rates I'd expect our rates to increase significantly this year um with continued Outreach that that's what she mentioned to me too she said I think Cambridge is 95% compliance and they've had the program for 10 years y so fortunately and but on the other hand we don't have 10 years to to really start to make this work um I'm hoping that

064you can uh pull up slide five and spend some time talking to us more about the the report that you showed there can you go back and sure and uh as you're doing that my my sense is that how buildings compare some of the the comparisons that you draw drew um is really less important than what I would call peer-to-peer performance so how does a fitness center compare to a fitness center how does a parking garage compare to a parking garage how do parking garages in an arbor compare to parking garages elsewhere and so the idea or the fact that let's say a fitness center has a higher eui than a parking garage is really not all that in Illuminating I think what really is Illuminating or important is like I I was saying how

065do fitness centers uh within an arbor compare to each other how do they compare to them uh Nationwide what are the trends like is Ann Arbor decarbonizing ored decarbonizing um the into reducing its energy and water use intensity faster or slower than in other communities um those are the kinds of things that I think are really really important and what I would like to see hopefully address addressed in uh future reports um and I'm hoping that you can I don't know if you can blow up that portion of the slide but maybe you can just do it with your cursor tell us a little bit more about the report Jan told me that um there was a survey done of commercial buildings in 2003 and uh the US Department of energy has set some targets

066within building I'll call them classifications um for reductions compared to that 2003 level um she said it is 25 to 45% by 2030 and 50 to 65% um by um 2050 I think it is uh uh no let's see yeah I'm not sure I think there's a date she left out in any case I it seems to me like I said that is really really important and I'm hoping that you can talk a little bit more about that how that information is conveyed to building ERS so that they get a sense of what their performance is against true peers as opposed to like I said a warehouse compared to a fitness center compared to a whatever I can yes and they are different metrics that we're looking at for different purposes so we as OSI

067are going to look at this data not only at individual properties for how they should um individually improve but also if we're looking at initiatives that look Target well not Target but are benefit commercial and multif family properties that are looking to decarbonize what what uses should we target when we're comparing them across property uses what should be our Focus what will be most impactful overall what will be most impactful for a specific use so that's where comparing across property types comes in that said what energy Star portfolio manager does is it Compares Apples to Apples the energy star score that a uh fitness center gets yeah so like this one for example multif family I believe this would be um that is that 71% is a well it's a bell curve so that is

068more efficient than 71% of comparable properties and it Compares not only by the property type but the it there are a bunch of calculations that it does on the back end for um the square footage parking is included gets really specific but enclosed partially enclosed open parking that's included too if a like some of our multif family properties do downtown they have a small restaurant underneath that is also included in the overall property eui and it Compares um when you look at your weather normalized CER Source eui in energy star it is going to also show you the um the relative performance to comparable properties of your size use and so on so while we did focus on broadly the portfolio overall energy star what it does is compare you to other properties so when

069we look into doing these scorecards for more properties that's what's that that's going to show like for example it's hard to make out here I apologize but in that top um triangle graphic you can see kind of where it's sitting right so there's that tiny little yeah if I can rest some assurances that that is what energy star does so I didn't focus on it as much here but certainly as we were looking at what to do with this data uh use to use comparisons we'll be looking at but then also within each of do certain sizes of multif family need more when we're when we're looking at their Eis um to to do that so so let's say I'm um the recipient of this report and I got a report a year ago and

07012 months has passed and a lot of other things have you know come at me how do I remember how does this report tell me any kind of trend information so um this year or let's say now it's 20 12 months from now um last year was 70 71 um How will I know that um my 71 dropped to 65 or maybe even worse or that I improved and how can I see from each annual report whether I went from 71 to 65 to 60 to and so on and so so forth that it seems to me would be really really nice and to be in one report as opposed to me having to pull up something that says this is what you look like 12 months ago 24 36 Etc months ago it's a

071good point um first I can say that granted it's a little more technical but if you if you if a property owner is doing their benchmarking in Energy Star portfolio manager what they'll see on their overview page is that it is going to show them over time and they can change the years that they compare uh um and again with the sustainability of benchmarking within ownership or management what I'm now that we are increasing compliance rates one of the next steps is how do we make sure that not only do does compliance continue but that they're not setting and forgetting with the automation that we are doing automation helps compliance but we don't want them to set and forget I know the 2030 district for some of their members who um the district actually uses

072the same software you use to track um benchmarking Beyond energy star they are generating their own scorecards for their their members separately and they what they are doing is for some of them is sitting down with those properties here's your scorecards here's what you might want to do next so what we will be thinking about is exactly that as compliance increases and it and it is easier to do how do we make sure that that doesn't get lost and that property owners know how they're performing and know what they should be doing next so we are we are thinking about that definitely um in terms of targets um you know overall to0 is carpet neutrality so I don't I can't speak to specifically what Jan was referring to but that said if the commission has

073any interest in specific targets you want to know about or that we could should consider you're obviously welcome to share that um but again also we're going to think about that as well and when we're developing future initiatives that might um focus on these property uses the targets might be different for for different properties oh yeah what a multif family property does versus a restaurant is going to be very different so we'll make sure to incorporate that as well in terms of targets I assume targets will apply for basically ever certainly the foreseeable future because even if a let's say a building is carbon neutral because it's all electric it's still consuming en energy and so it will still want to understand and water and we still understand whether it is doing so efficiently and

074whether it's continuing to reduce its energy use intensity even if it's uh carbon neutral definitely so again not getting into specific targets but yes if a new build was all electric we still want them to know how how efficient they are y when they're build exactly yep that's all thank you our question over here here we go all right thanks this is really very very interesting to me so uh the an arbor Charter Township has um last year we uh set up our facilities you know in energy start portfolio manager and just like it listening to your presentation which is really great um is helping me understand further ways that the township can can utilize the data and um one of the things that I wanted to um make a comment on was a previous

075question that was asked regarding you know why isn't there higher reporting higher compliance and it's it's kind of It's tricky to set it up and from what Connor's um responses have been is his description of the process is you really the person who actually sets it up sets up the account has to understand it has to know the building very well because there's a lot of very specific questions that are being asked about not just the utilization but the square footage and a lot of other detail so that's part of one of the hurdles as far as setting it up with concerned that was something that was challenging for for us as well um but also when you said sustainability do you mean like as in ongoing reporting to the city or or or what

076yeah if I'm if I'm catching what you're referring to I'm thinking of the sustainability of benchmarking in a in a um let's say the owner of a multif family property odds are so far the owners are not doing the benchmarking they're ultimately responsible for it but it's the property management and maybe a third party service so if that property manager leaves and they were the one doing it we want to make sure that that is sustainable to continue within the organization is that am I answering that right and also so one of the things that I learned in setting up uh the account for our different facilities is that there is um a contact you know email that that can get lost in during transitions yeah so this is going to be really technical you'll

077learn more than you needed to but so each account and Energy Star portfolio manager each property has a property data administrator and that is the the highest level of permissions an account have if that person leaves an organization then that property can still be transferred but it's trickier when you don't have that person to log in so one thing I am advocating for is that properties use a a general email they have so it's not one person even if that's the person doing it it's a city at an arbor deck of that's not cityil but you know what I mean so that that that can continue um that said within a property you can have different users that have different permission levels and I haven't had to do it but my understanding is that energy

078Star portfolio manager support can actually transfer properties and help you with that if something were to be lost um but in terms of specific access that is something that we've run into of oh I think we started this before but they can't get to it so we have to find the person with the login transfer something and that is an issue we've run into once in a while okay all right thanks and it is I can also say that yeah it is complicated to set up properties um but one thing that I'll say again for the data automation it is helpful for DT for example to have the automated data portal um what you do need a lot of information but it's relatively depending on what the role is it can be easy or hard

079to get like number of units uh all the service addresses uh for some commercial properties or more like Municipal facilities it can get a little trickier um because of some of the things you need to know I can Al I can say frankly for things like our water treatment plant energy star has specific things for water treatment plants they have a whole webinar um that that I've been to on benchmarking water treatment plants but it's weird they have flow meters for all the meters through there um and uh we found that our water treatment plant I did the flow meter but uh building usage is not separated out so that's something we found in there but it's um it gets really intricate yeah in in different property types setting up um data center usage there's

080a whole way to do that depending on the equipment type how it's powered where the meter uh the usage is measured so it it's kind of a roundabout way to say it it can be really tricky for properties and we're trying to ease that um especially when we have a lot of properties who are multif family or office properties trying to get kind of streamlined ways to do that okay so it's going to be a little bit the numbers are going to just as far as participation will creep up year after year as you contact the right people seems kind of a challenge is really getting a hold of the right person yeah it it was especially early on um it was a challenge to get to the right person and especially getting into getting

081the data itself let's say we find the right person in to do the benchmarking for a commercial strip mall they say yep I'm doing it tell me what I need to do if they're not if they don't have access to that online DT account or they're not an authorized user that's great we found the right person now we need to figure out who has access to that and who's listed or get that person added so we can get that data so it is finding the right person to do it finding the right person to get the data from the utilities and then um or if it's a really specific question like I don't know if we have sprinklers I have to talk to my maintenance manager about that now too so also catching when we

082start to get to those scenarios of oh you mentioned you have irrigation let's catch that before we get to that later or up front do you have access to your DT account do you know who does if we can find that out up front that also helps out a lot when we're getting started with with a property so trying to catch those pain points early um and we're getting better at it as we get more properties through the process certainly I imagine same thing with the the 2030 District when they're helping other municipalities they're probably learning a lot about Municipal facilities yeah and the intricacies there yeah thanks for giving us that granularity because it really helps us you know everybody understand what the process is and what the challenges are I will also say

083that if you a lot of different properties types can be benchmarked if you own a single family home you can Benchmark your own home and see what that looks like a little bit um you won't be able to use the energy data Hub but if you just use your bills or download your usage from your account you can go through through it for for that as well can I yeah go ahead go ahead I'd like to clarify one thing U so I reread what Jan wrote me it was had to do with targets and what it she wrote is 230 derives their targets and what she means by that is the 2030 District derives their targets not the city but what I would like the city to do is think about targets they wouldn't be

084binding but what their targets are their direct DED from a percent of a 2003 commercial building energy consumption survey and they're the 2030 District so if you're a member of the district you're being fed Targets in 2025 the target would be 35 to 45% of the 2003 median and by 2030 the goal is 50 to 65% and I don't know why the range is so big of the 2003 median so the 2030 district has Target and it might make sense that we as a city start to communicate a Target quote unquote to buildings which is let's say commensurate with what we're trying to do with the 20 or with our our a20 plan did that make sense what I just it does and I okay we certainly something we will be looking at as what

085our goals are for energy use reduction I think if I can clarify I may have missed it those percent decreases are in greenhouse gas emissions I believe not energy use overall is that right could be she didn't say what the unit is I believe that's it the 2030 District as a whole for its members has specific targets not only for greenhouse gas emission reduction but also vehicle miles travel reduction and I I believe those percents are greenhouse gas emission not 35 to 50% of energy use reduction she just says they run their buildings through the zero tool to generate the 2003 Baseline to calculate the Target and I don't I'm Loosely aware of how they yeah set the metrics so you could touch Faith with her and go from there she's the expert weekly good

086the one the one last thing I would say is what we're seeing here is confirms the uh the motto what gets measured gets done exactly Council M uh thank you so much for this great presentation um it is clearly like a treasure Trove of data that you know can lead to so many great things um and I know I for one will definitely be checking out Aqua Hawk had never heard of that before so I'm really interested in that and then also you just saying that uh you can Benchmark your own house definitely be looking into that um I had two quick questions for you um you mentioned a lot of percentages and things related to participants do you have the outright number of properties participating right now you know an aggregate of everything I

087just like exact number but um it is in the report actually and it gets more granular than you may want to know or may you may want to but I do break down in the report I believe the total number of properties who are initially covered based on the the overall initial um criteria in the ordinance like multif family and Commercial properties over 20,000 square feet of gross FL area period after we take out properties who are not subject to the ordinance like University of Michigan and our republ schools I believe I have that number and then the percent of the currently required properties who are required to comply with the ordinance who are not exempt which will show you the number out of the properties who are not U ofm not anber Public Schools

088properties for that compliance here who are not vacant those can be exempt as well so things like that taking out exceptions it will show you I believe the number who are then required to and then the number who are compliant so different levels of those um so when I when I look at compliance rates I'm looking at the properties who have to comply they're not exempt they're not U ofm they're not vacant so there are more properties who may be covered um or a property who is vacant one year and is not another year but that's that's that percent is of who needs to who is but there are there are more levels to it um in in the report awesome thank you I'll I'll look for that uh my last question then is so

089like I said this provides a crazy amount of data uh in what ways I guess is the city you know planning to use some of this data Beyond just this specific exercise and I'm thinking you know one of the uh metrics that was reported was uh average percent of uh energy from electricity uh you know some of the lower uh percent of energy use include K12 schools worship facilities residence hall dorms are those you know for instance then facilities that the city might Target to try to Electrify or provide extra resources noting that they're already kind of lower in the electric use is that something that's you know on the City's radar and ways to use all of this data a lot of the metrics that we're looking at are going to be on our

090radar but we're well I I imagine we are going to look at electrification and then relative energy use intensity across properties um I can't speak to specific initiatives yet but but with that answer is that we are going to try to take all of this data to look broadly of we worship facilities seem to be using a lot of gas so yes let's do some Outreach there and see is there interest in electrification what are the barriers what's the interest um restaurants have maybe an even split but they're really energy use intensive and it's really tricky to Electrify in some cases or some some uh unique barriers there and like what what do different uses need what do they want what can we do what resources can we we have available to them what's feasible

091and kind of take a broad look overall and then start looking at uh what we should Target and I'll say that if the commission has thoughts or priorities that they want to communicate I think you have to go through Joe but you can let Joe know what what what you want us to look at we're going to be looking at a lot but if you have priorities please communicate that uh also not to I don't mean to um skip over specific numbers I can say for the number of properties I believe generally the total number of properties by square footage is somewhere around the 700 plus number the total nonpermanent exceptions you could say like U ofm is closer to 400 and something and then the total depending on the compliance year like for 2023

092excluding some other exemptions is just under 400 or so so overall it's about you could say 375 to 400 properties moving forward um hopefully we're you we may have some new buildings coming in as well but that range is the total number that we're working to get compliant awesome thanks so much I look forward to seeing where this kind of data and stuff plugs into various initiatives and seeing where this goes so thanks I agree it was it was really interesting to look through the data frankly it was really exciting to to see some things start to emerge yes um so a couple questions enforcement is being is approaching so can you remind me what that looks like in terms of the process itself or process or um yeah what to I'm sure I approved

093this I can't recall the details around enforcement and you know if that's a so I I can say that OSI has enforcement capacity I am not the person who would write tickets so I can't speak to the specific process too much what I will emphasize again is that we are going to be sprinting hard at compliance and our our goal is to not issue tickets we probably will have to but our goal is not to the goal is to get the information to folks um with a 10-fold increase last year I'm optimistic we can get really really high compliance rates um if we have to ticket we will but that's not the goal um I'm sure we could we could get some more details um on exactly what that looks like um after the after

094the meeting I I'm not the one who would issue tickets I don't have a lot of information on it $500 yeah that's what I okay yeah I just couldn't couldn't quite remember it wasn't it isn't it 500 the initial up to a th000 per day up to 500 for the first offense up to 1,000 for the for each subsequent offense um and the offense definitions are in the ordinance and it gets beyond my it's okay I'll I can go refresh my my memory on that one um and then on the um obviously other communities are providing you know uh saying that our compliance and you know it's it's to be expected in terms of where we're at are we comparing our data to other communities in terms of seeing if our Benchmark data is sort

095of in terms of building types and usages is fairly comparable across communities and that's a question I didn't answer from commissioner mki either um by accident I actually we it's not something we've looked at yet and I I don't know if what we theoretically probably could do is look at all the properties shared with our energy star profile and look at how that compares um overall um it would do some some data work but step energy star for every propert property will at least show how it compares to the national median so we could dive in deep into all the properties sort by use type and see overall on average how we're comparing Nationwide I would have to look further into comparing to specific properties um or specific other jurisdictions and how they're they're performing

096um but I will put it on my list because that would be interesting especially with um Detroit having their first year of benchmarking as well seeing if um compar Michigan communities have any kind of trends that we can we can see yeah and I part of the reason I asked that is I would assume that you know one of the we're obviously leading in some areas and then in some some ways obviously have got other communities that are ahead of us and so um being able to turn to them in terms of um obviously we want building owners to take action um and so kind of what has been successful in terms of moving the needle for those different types of building types um I suspect there's been some learning curves across across communities for

097that so I was it's part of where I was going to that question it is definitely something we'll look at um I'll say not all the metrics that we're looking at got into the presentation or the report because there's um it's like 300 and something metrics that energy star can generate um what I will be and have looked at a little bit is on average how are properties the average eui compared to the national median and we are seeing that some property types overall tend to be more or less but getting into that we also the in between step is working with the the utilities to make sure the data is accurate if we're seeing a proper use um compared to the national median is 70% more efficient than the national median want to make

098sure that that's accurate um if we're looking to compare to um not just the national median but other jurisdictions so long answer of yes that is something that we're interested in um and I will look into the best way to do that to specific jurisdictions but and then also on what what do we do next also something we'll be looking at is what have other municipalities done when they're looking to Target um initiatives to help properties become more efficient what have they done what have they learned also something we're looking at and then I suspect this differs by property size um certainly but in terms of the taking action component in you we're going to be obviously measuring progress on what types of actions being taken but thinking about the the type of work that

099it's taken to get compliance and get this information up and going we've to some degree cultivated a small group of experts in our own Community um around their building type and maybe they're the ones that are getting the reports but they may not be the ones who are charged with taking action I guess it probably depends on on property size but I'm wondering if there are ways that we're thinking about how we might be able to is there a disconnect I guess between between those user groups and then you know are there ways to be cultivating that group that actually has maybe a more in-depth knowledge now of their the energy usage within their buildings if I can clarify the um I think correctly the concern being that we are maybe working with folks who

100are doing the benchmarking but not those who will be deciding whether to make improvements to properties yes it's something that I that I am thinking about um even down to the level of for multif family housing property managers probably doing the report or working with their billing service but does the property manager or the um the service manager do they are they involved at all do they do they have the time do they have the capacity are they ready to if a furnace goes out can they put in a heat pump are they ready to or are they just going to get another gas furnace because that's quick and easy so it is something we're thinking about when we look to Future initiatives of when we're looking at different types of properties what are all

101the barriers including um maybe a a let's say a restaurant that doesn't own their building and they need to do some work that involves working with their the property owner restaurants can't stay down for weeks waiting to to figure out what to do with their HVAC system so something we're thinking about is not only those the disconnect but um how do you get how do you get properties ready to do that if they're not ready to now because they don't need to necessarily do everything today but if they know their furnace has 5 years left how do we get them information to start that that conversation now absolutely commissioner burtz just uh hearing talk about enforcement and next steps um spark something for me um just a comment um uh last year we had a

102little working group that was in uh researching the incentives or disincentives for um gas usage and buildings um and uh a lot of the research kept leading me back to building performance standards um this is essentially a requirement that buildings you know become more efficient or use less energy or emit less greenhouse gas emissions or water uh usage as well um and you know I don't want to get ahead of anything um but I'll just say like uh the vast majority of cities across the country that have uh passed or adopted building performance standards most of them started with a benchmarking or ordinance and um like getting the compliance levels up figuring out how it works talking through all the things that you just laid out Conor like all these nuances and intricacies and the

103difference between all these portfolios and in the privacy issues and things um were kind of the path I think that it took a lot of them to get there um so I'll just say that you know if at some point in the future uh Council the city is interested in requiring buildings to hit something or commissioner mki mentioned setting targets for the benchmarking performance um uh you know this is I think um a key piece in getting there if that ever were to be a policy that folks wanted to pursue I'll briefly touch and joke and add if if needed on um I think By Design building performance standards need some type of benchmarking so you can you can track it but it currently we're we're not able we would not be able to implement

104them on the local level um due to preemption by the state um so if we were looking at Targets it would be goals for properties and goals that we're looking to help them get to not yeah not requirements uh I'll just say I don't think that's the case for building performance standards or building emission standards those are not preempted uh by the state to my knowledge expound it I maybe use some wrong terminology like building codes are we we've gotten some guidance around difficulties around it I'm not sure what the exact specifics are but yeah as of now seems to be there is something blocking it to some extent absolutely and I'm not suggesting that we go into this with if there's you know fuzzy areas in there um you know there a lot of

105cities like New York they're defending their building performance standard right now at the courts so you know want to wait to see how that coure case shakes out they have a strong case they should be fine but you know the city of an arbor wouldn't want to jump into this until all of the legal situations are settled but I do think there's author anyway um would love to talk about that more offline if and when that ever becomes a pertinent conversation here I can't speak to the authority but I can say when when we are looking at an isses that is that is part of the conversation of if we're not requiring this we need to make sure we communicate the benefits of this to to properties here's the initiatives here's the benchmarking here's the

106opportunities um like here here's the cost savings you could have especially if it's an owner that pays part or all of the energy bills so in without the requirements showing them that there are benefits benefits to this um and and talking them about what they want you know what are your goals do they align how can we help all questions will we'll be try to ask amen just just one one quick uh quick question and then just a clarification and and then we'll we'll we'll move we'll move on um with respect to the compliance around the multif family and Office Buildings that seem to be higher um on average and I I I was just hoping if you might be able to clarify whether that was primarily due to and my assumption is that there

107may be teams managing those buildings and and so there's capacity in a sense to do the work around the benchmarking and I was just wondering if that was something you were able to comment on um the accuracy of that assumption or if there was something else maybe happening and if there's given if that were true one might imagine that some some additional support around benchmarking might be beneficial in the for those other buildings that might be having you know trouble navigating that which I think is already there or happening but um can I clarify it's not this slide it's the the compliance for the calendar year 2021 or or this as well I I can touch on both yeah I believe I think it was this I think it was this one yes so this

108is when we looked at the metrics for who's benchmarking actually I I think this is in the the start of the report but in the metrics in the report for who's benchmarking we looked at everybody who has started because we know who they are what they are how big they are um for compliance and the actual performance metrics we looked at compliant properties because those have those are compliant they have generally accurate data particip properties could be someone who has set up their account and has gas data but no electric data no water data so here for participation this is just folks who have started and when so getting to this be kind of a long and maybe specific answer on property uses and the intricacies but we when we were focusing on compliance because

109of how the compliance and enforcement is phased in we first looked at 2021 calendar year larger properties tended to be those multif family and office properties so by nature of the just the chronological prioritization they were the more office and multi Family Properties have started um I'm actually not I could I could look into this more specifically but it may not even be the case that multif family properties are more compliant than other properties when you get to the number of properties um in terms of participation that is at least part of of why multif Family Properties are are a high percent um one they are a lot of square footage and they are a lot of properties but we we focus on those larger properties that tend to be those in terms of what

110is what is easiest and the and the barriers um I'm really interested to see how that shakes out um as we alluded to earlier large properties can have a lot that they have to work out if you have hundreds of meters how many are there what are the service addresses do you have irrigation do you have this do you have that the properties themselves get more complicated and benchmarking support or Utility Billing comp compes don't it it helps but they're often not on site so it is kind of a conversation amongst a lot of people we had a I had a zoom call with the 2030 district and eight members from a property support group because they had two properties in the city and different people working on different properties so getting everyone together to

111try to work through that when you have a smaller property you may have less people to work through but they have less resources to dedicate to helping you with that so I imagine there's going to be different challenges I'm not sure which one's going to be harder or or if one will be harder um in terms of DT specifically a smaller property there's just probably fewer people to work through to figure out who is on the account rather than contacting your finance department to contact the Benchmark and to support to figure out who does to run it through corporate to get access and permission to be added to the account and then do it so they have more more resources and some properties have even not used the data Hub because they they get all

112the bills and they build tenants through utility building and their company does all the benchmarking they don't need anything from us a lot of properties do so there are different challenges at different level part third party billers too which is another layer yeah or in one case the two properties same management same utility billing and benchmarking support company one had paid for benchmarking Services already one hadn't so then they they added that so the um I'll keep an eye on it I'm not I'm not sure what's going to be harder because there are different challenges to it when it comes to the and I'll bring up the data Hub a lot because almost every property has chosen to use that because it's just the best way to do it there definitely could be some ways

113that um smaller properties have an advantage to just less layers to work through for that um but when it comes to other parts it may be tougher but maybe one person who runs the whole or is the property manager and does all the work and they need out to go figure out how many meters there are here and there so definitely we we we'll see different challenges um and and we we could look further especially when compliance rates increase to see if there are differences in property uses that will tell us potentially um exactly what you mentioned of who needs more help is it different sizes is it different types and that we can we can look to um to put our support to the places that need it the most right now it's been

114chronological focused but I imagine that will come to play as we pair down who needs support yeah definitely thank you that was that was really helpful um and thank you Connor for the presentation um clearly this is coming into a lot greater focus and Clarity and this has been super helpful I think for everyone to make sense of not only the program but also to start to think about the Contours of it and how it's going to pan out in different ways um and uh I think we it's speak for everyone wishing you lots of lots of uh encouragement and success with with helping helping uh uh roll it out and and and uh improve it over the next the next year year or two thanks thank you I appreciate that um I will note

115for the report it is 66 Pages it's a lot of charts and pictures so it's not quite that long if you want to look through the whole thing it's a lot of charts and pictures and a good in a good and bad way it's there's a lot in there so um yeah and again any questions you missed tonight send them on over um there's a lot in there I know it's the first report you all have seen so anything that that comes up please um let Joe know and we'll get answers for what we can thank you very much thank you [Applause] okay we'll be um moving on to commission business uh we have on the agenda uh energy commission 2025 priorities um I'm hoping this will be a fairly brief uh discussion um in

116the sense that we heard from council member Briggs and council member Mal last last month on on some of the priorities having to do with um uh the seu um as well as comprehensive plan and and perhaps some of the the things that might come to the commission regarding those um I will note that um for the next few months some of the things that we've sort of scoped out in terms of the agenda have to do um obviously this month in terms of the building energy uh uh benchmarking ordinance um next month I think we are planning for a um an update on the uh rebate program through OSI and the city around Energy rebates um in the months following I believe we want to look at um uh energy use intensity uh reductions

117in in new construction potentially and and um potential for uh some uh recommendations around that um as well as uh an update on the seu um roll out as that matures as well um and that and that develops uh through oai in the city um so those are some of the things sort of now through the next few months that that we're looking at and we sort of have scoped out a little bit for the agenda but in terms of I'll just raise and open the question now in terms of other broader priorities that we want to um focus on that we might have missed in that um in that uh update for the for the commission commissioner mki in the list that you just mentioned you did not include a reconsideration of the resolution

118first reviewed by the Commission in September 2023 of levying a carbon fee um is was that embedded in one of the topics that you mentioned or is that something that wasn't on the list and is therefore not likely to be considered in the next several months that was one I was when I was mentioning the one so with energy use intensity and new construction that was that was that was one of that was sort of embedded in that as well so um I know I know that's that's being worked on and and um uh potentially being brought to the commission um in the next uh month or two and um so I I think we'll plan to take that up when we see it any other comments or suggestions okay we will move on then

119to the staff report I'll do my best to be brief it's a little longer than normal um but um I believe most have heard but just in case anyone has not um the city of an arbor we did receive a $10 million Grant from the US Department of Energy's uh Community geothermal Technologies office to begin implementing a community geothermal heating and cooling system in the Bryant neighborhood um for those who've been following this award funding represents a second phase of support to Ann Arbor from the US Department of energy uh the first phase supported that deep engagement with Bryant residents as well as our different collaborators to understand the heating and cooling needs and design a system capable of meeting those needs um this second phase of funding uh will allow the city under the

120newly created um and ongoingly created sustainable energy utility or seu uh to build and operate a community geothermal system to provide nearly all of the heating and cooling needs for all 262 homes in the right neighborhood along with um the expansion to the local elementary school and um you know the community center there as well as across the street um as funding comes in um over the next several months the city and our partners will be finalizing the details of this geothermal design and initiating the Contracting process with the goal of having a fully operational geothermal system in Bryant by 2028 um we are also currently hiring uh for an electric vehicle coordinator uh this position is going is Grant funded and is focused on developing co-leading and supporting the identification Planning Development implementation and

121deployment of incentives and electric vehicle charging infrastructure throughout the city of an arbor um I mentioned the position is Grant funded for a period of four years and if you are anyone you know is interested let them know the job posting is on the A2 jobs website um starting back up in 2025 um trying to remember the years here uh but you can join us at the downtown branch of the anara District Library for the first session of the 2025 ability Forum series and here directly from the people who are expanding uh an Arbor's Urban Tree canopy creating beautiful rain Gardens to manage storm water and reduce air pollution and establishing native plant Gardens to support our local pollinators and learn how you can be part of those initiatives um we're happy to announce that

122peace neighborhood in partnership with the city of an Arbor's office of stain Innovations uh was selected as one of 22 community-based nonprofits for the buildings upgrades inspiring local transformation or built uh funding opportunities through the US Department of energy uh peace will be receiving up to $100,000 for efficiency improvements that will lower their energy consumption and save costs on their energy bills those dollars can go directly back into the critical care services they provide to our community daily and the funding is helping them uh with the foundational work in Pie's transition to becoming another resilience Hub here in the community um next to our repeats but just as a reminder uh the city of an arbor OSI is inviting members of public public to contribute to the a20 community cookbook a free cookbook to help

123promote our work towards sustainable food ecosystem the uh deadline to submit recipes tips and stories is February 1st 2025 um at 11:59 p.m. and then uh lastly the Ambassador applications are still open uh folks can join the seventh cohort of a20 ambassadors to gain increased knowledge tools and resources to discuss sustainably broadly and specific option actions you and your community can Implement to advance carbon neutrality folks can learn more at OSI ov.org ambassadors and that is all thank you um we'll move on to reports from uh Council I guess I I have an update um trying to get my brain back into the space of remembering what we did um so when that was notable in the last council meeting is that we um uh moved to uh postpone um a phase 2 study for

124the municipal energy utility um to make sure that we were sort of in better better alignment with Community between the different entities that have interest in this subject so um that's likely to anticipate that would come back to council for consideration at some point but um um I know some folks who are paying attention to energy commission meetings are also tracking what's going on with potential Phase 2 me meu study so good um just just by way of clarification is um are there any elements of that that would be worth it for the energy commission to um consider and and we and we or or weigh in um down the line potentially down the line I mean I think one we have to get to the the you know Contracting for a phase two study

125which we have a you know we have a contractor in mind but assuming we contract for the me me us has to get past that getting to the results and then yes I would anticipate that there is going to be interest and need for the energy commission to to share some thoughts as well okay but I'm not sure what that timeline would look like yeah thank you thank you uh and then did you have a comment on on that or yes okay go ahead uh frankly I was disappointed to hear that staff went directly to city council with a recommendation of a phase two um if we all remember I think it was in 2022 or 21 where we devoted nearly three meetings here in the energy commission where we had probably over the course

126of those meetings 35 speakers from the the community including many from uh an aror for Public Power where we talked about uh the idea of a phase one um what it needed to include um we developed a resolution on that and in this case that completely bypassed um this uh commission which is supposed to be making policy recommendations to council and um I'm yeah I'll just leave it at that that was a disappointment and and I would think that it would be a disappointment to the rest of the commission as well okay um and then any updates on um environmental commission uh the uh energy commission M met last on the 12th of December uh the environmental commission met prior to that and did not have a December meeting after that and its next meeting

127will not be be until this one so there's updates from the environmental commission okay thank you okay we'll move on to uh last opportunity for public input again this is an opportunity for the public to speak for up to 3 minutes and if you're watching on CN please call 888 788 0099 or 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 956 8718 7876 this is displayed on the meeting agenda and on the video feed and City staff will select callers that have raised their hand uh using the last three digits of your phone number please press star n on your phone to electronically raise your hand and your desire to speak or come up to the podium um and uh uh um if you'd like to speak as well um when speaking please move to an

128area mute any background sounds and um please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments any callers I've got to turn this back on again I think ah there we go um you think I would have this down by now um so yeah thanks for the great discussion it's still really great to be with you here in person um yeah on the benchmarking I'm really glad the city is making real progress on this and as you touched on it really opens up some possibilities of leveraging this data and this information in order to um get better performance out of buildings you know I'm especially glad that commissioner burtch brought up performance standards which I know nothing about but seemed to on the face of it seemed to make a lot of sense

129there was um seem to be some disagreement over how legal that is and this sort of Echoes the discussion around the green rental housing ordinance I mean both of these involve you know existing buildings but the city seems to be invoking um you know a well-known uh state law um called act 230 or the Still d roset hail single state construction code act um which was designed and intended to create a uh a uniform construction code across the state of Michigan um and but doesn't explicitly apply to existing buildings and to the extent so it's a gray area I think and I would love to get some legal Clarity over how much that law applies to you know our existing buildings cuz that's not I've read it it it doesn't really talk about existing buildings

130at all but that seems to be the inference of our city legal department so um yeah I know commissioner L has legal expertise but it's uh I don't want to put the whole burden on him but I would love to get some um some clarity on that question um because I'd love to see performance standards and even um some like Cambridge Massachusetts has done with their larger buildings which is to put a um a fee based on benchmarking performance that would be levied in the future I think 2035 is the date they have but would have impact in how buildings um perform now in anticipation of that I'm not suggesting that we go that way I'm just saying that we it would be nice to know what we can do legally as a city so

131um but in the short term I'm really happy with what's going on with benchmark marking and uh finally and um I'm happy you guys uh are meeting in person so I hope we can do more of these and thank you again for for all your work thank you uh no further callers or attendees thank you um and last time item on our agenda is our uh items for the next agenda as I previously mentioned we're aiming to have a discussion and a presentation around the rebate program uh and an update on where that stands um and is there anything else that I didn't touch on that might be useful y yeah I would like to address one other topic it's a topic um that I addressed um with you about uh uh email via email

132and also um in a a zoom meeting uh the energy commission currently has nine members the bylaws allow for up to 15 members um with two council member Liaisons um that means we only have seven um at large members versus 13 which could be um the case um with that expertise and those personal experiences Etc um we have no youth members right now um I've brought this up repeatedly probably I think every everybody knows every other meeting or so and I frankly don't understand why over the last 18 to 24 months this is already before members started dropping off in May of 2023 um why those seats haven't been filled um I I'd just like to add to that that reflects my concern that the energy commission isn't valued um as a policy recommend recommending

133body um as it once was in the past uh I just made comments about the uh Phase 2 municipalization study um if you look at um the work that the energy commission has done in years's past versus which it's done more recently um I think there's a number of other IND indicators um you know in the past um Missy as a department head used to attend all the meetings I recognize she's managing a much larger Department um pursuing grants worth millions of dollars etc etc um if you look at we're getting a lot more reports um as opposed to really looking at policy recommendations and I just um want to express publicly that I'm concerned um about the future and frankly the the present um in terms of how the energy commission um is um

134valued as a partner in decarbonization we know that uh the globe is warming uh it's now 1.6 Dees above pre-industrialization um we know that the globe and the country um and uh the city are not decarbonizing fast enough it seems to me this is a case where we need to have all hands on deck and um right now we have a miss that only has nine hands on deck and we could have 15 hands on deck um and I'm wondering if anybody's willing to comment on that yeah and I'll just say for my part I I apologize because I had um fully intended to follow up in more detail on that question with um with other staff and council members too in between the the commission meetings and I that slipped through through my hands

135in the last month um so I apologize for that um but I'm going to um prioritize that too also in the in the next couple weeks just uh particularly next week as we set the next agenda um to just make sure that I follow up um on that topic as well just to get some clarity around where we're headed um with things as well in appointments I don't know if there's yeah council member bricks and you know simply to state from the um Council perspective I mean and as previous commissioner myself before I was on Council I served on multiple commissions um I you know recognize the desire to fundamentally let me just say we greatly appreciate everybody who takes their time to volunteer and serve the city um on every commission um across the

136city it is it is you know you could be using your time in other ways in other spaces and um the fact that folks are willing to come and serve on these commissions and um take your time and your energy and and provide feedback it's really valuable um and maybe it doesn't seem as valuable in some ways to provide feedback on a report like this from my perspective in the Council seat it's incredibly valuable to have a set of expertise eyes that are outside of City staff we don't most of us on city council don't have te technal technical expertise or in-depth knowledge so to be able to go in and take a look at these reports and provide feedback both ways is it's a real service um and so I don't want to Discount

137even um the fact that reports are you know that that is coming to the commission we really need that that um participation and and insight that you can bring um we've talked about this over time um commissions particularly energy commission environmental commission the changing departments in the city there's a little bit of an Al learning curve in terms of as we've grown our staff expertise what are the roles of commissions look like and particularly in this one where we we when we you know increase our level of internal capacity what is that how does that shift at the council at the commission table and you know we're kind of sorting through the the pieces of that and trying to figure out um as Council shift too you know and and we move forward with plans

138how do we how do we best position ourselves to have that advice that we need and so it's not always smooth sailing um that doesn't mean that we don't really incredibly value folks that are here so um I think we're you know trying to sort through some of those questions and having cross commission conversations around this and you know I'm sure we'll we'll get to that in terms of um figuring out um next steps offer one more comment sure uh in terms of uh people that are passionate on energy and climate and uh their willingness to serve as Commissioners I'd like to point out someone here in the room uh Mr Garber who turned in an application to be a commissioner um many years ago when I was chair um I'm aware of other people

139in fact I made recommendations specifically about people who would be willing to serve um one who works 100% full-time in the energy field um in industry is extremely uh well informed so as I said um through this stepbystep reduction in the membership of the commission we are missing an opportunity for people to weigh in on benchmarking on M municipalization studies and so on and so forth and as I said we need all all hands on deck we need to decarbonize much faster than we are that's no no criticism of an arbor the whole globe is not moving fast enough and uh we can only see the consequences of that um in the last weeks in Los Angeles and every single week around the world um so I don't need to say more comments well taken

140yeah council member Ricks I'm just going to add a little bit to that I appreciate um appreciate those comments you're absolutely correct you know we know that we have to move rapidly on this that um we have um I'm so proud of the city staff that we have that's working so hard on this and and the group of um folks here that are putting lots of energy in um I mentioned having served on previous commissions prior to being on Council I also put my application into commissions that I did not get selected for and so the fact that certain folks don't get selected for C misss it's nothing to do with with you know there can be whole lots of reasons um for that and so um you know that's um greatly appreciate everybody's willingness

141and um those who are serving as well um I just want to thank before we close tonight I just want to thank everyone for um being here and taking the time out to be here in council chambers and and have the energy commission uh meeting tonight in person and for the extra effort that took um to get down here um I think it's been it's very valuable and um it's it help I think it'll help set the tone for the the next year as well um as we continue these conversations and and move forward so um I'll say now that it's 7:55 and as chair I adjourn this meeting and look forward to next months thank you you're welcome e