001e e e it is is 6:02 p.m my name is Gabriel harp the chair of the an Harbor energy commission as chair I'm calling this meeting to order I'm participating from my home in an arbor uh welcome to the September 10th 2004 electronic meeting of the energy commission we will conduct this meeting like in-person meetings Commissioners during roll call please indicate your current location and also during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during in person meetings finally M mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only and to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call one of the following two toll-free numbers 877- 85352 47 or 888 78899 and enter the meeting ID 9956 8718 7876 on your phone this information is
002also available on the public published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.gov.org CN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgement statement yep um I acknowledge that the land the city of Van Arbor occupies as the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Anish shab including and W not peoples 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 Empower us in our
003work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you and Joe would you mind uh taking the roll call yep I've uh heard inance that council member Briggs will be unable to make it today um missioner burkowitz president in an arbor commissioner coven Garcia pres and aror uh chair harp presid and an aror uh Vice chair Hans president in N Arbor commissioner 11 not seeing yet uh commissioner msky here in Seattle Washington commissioner overp here in an arbor and council member Rina here in an arbor chair you have a quorum back to you thank you we'll now move on to the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda is posted and a second so moved second commission second uh Commissioners please raise your hand
004if you'd like to propose changes or discussion issue um seeing No Hands raised all those in favor of approving the agenda is posted uh raise your hand and say I I all those opposed please raise your hand and say no okay the agenda is approved we'll move on to the approval of the minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes as posted in a second commissioner burwitz is there a second second SEC commissioner mki thank you um Commissioners please raise your hand if you'd like to propose any changes or discuss an issue seeing no hands rais all those in favor of approving the minutes as posted uh raise your hand and say I I all those post say no okay the minutes are approved we will move on to the uh time for public
005input this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes if you are watching on CTN please call 888- 78899 or 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 956 8718 7876 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 the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star N9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments uh first up we
006have caller ending in 01 0 [Music] there we go sorry about that 010 hi this is Wayne Appleyard former member of the energy commission for about 26 years and share for around nine or so and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the green rental housing ordinance first of all three minutes is not enough time for me to really respond to all that's in the ordinance and what's been handed out um you will hear from you have received something from John Mery and I totally agree with that and you may hear something from Ken Garber um who's done some really wonderful work along with Rich fine on um this proposal um or response to it I want you to read I want to read one thing eb11 strengthen housing code energy standards for rental properties rental
007properties are currently governed under chapter 105 of the city code which regulates housing by establishing basic requirements for inspections heating lighting and weatherization R units this plan recommends enforcing the current standards and expanding the housing energy code standards for rental properties because the rental inspection cycle of every 30 months is firmly established the yber already has the enforcement and compliance assistance structure in place to implement this change more rigorous enforcement of the current code will greatly benefit both condition and Energy Efficiency in the rental housing stock question is what did I just read I read eb11 of the Anarbor climate action plan from 2012 it is 2024 once again we have taken far too long to get to this place hasn't anybody ever heard of the emergency of of climate change we have to move
008faster and it may mean that some of the things that don't reduce greenhouse gas emissions have to be slowed down in order to beat up the things that really make a difference time is running out thank you thank you um caller ending in 534 good evening this is Tom stalberg calling from 1202 Traver in N Arbor uh I'm a landlord that's my job relatively small landlord we have mostly very old houses and a lot of duplexes and we have a lot of room for improvement this is going to mean a lot of work for us but guess what I'm totally for doing this we need this change and so what I'm in business get to work Tom I was on the task force for this a few years ago so I knew this was coming
009I've been expecting this I'm glad to see it here before you today I won't go into into the details because yeah I've only got three minutes like the last caller said um I do want to mention a couple quick things we do have in our portfolio a number of affordable and Workforce uh priced units and whenever you're making any uh considerations always consider that uh how the cost of work can impact the affordability of living I know that's a difficult balance uh some of these items are going to cost money and how can we make sure that that doesn't turn into uh you know pass through for higher rents for tenants so I know some of you have that uh already in mind I just want to remind you and I look forward to however
010this gets implemented we've got to do something uh so I'm not gonna be nitpicky about the little items uh I would love to talk to any of you who want to talk at length uh about half of you already have my contacts uh if uh if you need to contact me uh it' probably be easy to find out how to contact me and have a lengthy discussion so mostly I will just listen tonight thank you very much thank you [Music] um there was another are off the line so um just noting we do have another opportunity for public comment at the end so if they're able to rejoin we will hold for them so no further callers at this time okay thank you Joe um and thank you to the callers for those comments um
011much appreciated tonight we have a presentation and uh following we'll following that presentation we'll open up for discussion on green rental housing as some of the uh callers alluded to and so um tonight that presentation I believe is going to be driven by uh City sta USI staff Joe Lang is that accurate yep okay um and so I'll hand it over to Joe in just a second um as as Commissioners are sort of thinking through and and and listening to the presentation if as we move into discussion if it's possible to sort of bundle some of the comments um and we'll sort of go around um the group partially just to sort of be efficient with our time um and get feedback I know a lot of it will sort of come up in through
012the discussion as well but if you're able to sort of um pull some of your your comments together in the following discussion that might help us just in terms of time and then I'll also try to um just maybe hold a discussion on the um resolution in support of the audience till after the sort of discussion of the presentation and the ordinance and the supporting materials itself and just sort of um keeping that potentially uh somewhat separated from the sort of main main presentation and content um we aren't planning a vote or anything like that tonight but we'll have some time for discussion around that as well but we just keep that separate so um with that I want to hand hand it off to uh Joe to uh lead us in the presentation and
013and and open up the discussion yeah thank you um me share my screen here all right yeah so yeah thanks for having me here well always here but thanks for having me here to talk tonight um want to talk about renal housing which again a couple folks alluded to um I know has been a thing we've been one talking about for a while in the sense of it came up and it's it's been a minute since we've talked about it but um I know it's a thing that has interest and so I'm happy to be able to talk about it this time um for a little bit of run of show just what we're going to do I want to go through some of the background again why um I know some of the colors
014alluded to it too but just why we are um embracing this why this is an action why this is something that we are interested in going through as well as talk about some of the program development how it was developed over time just cuz again I know some folks were around the first time we talked about it others weren't and you know even for those who were um a refresher is always helpful um we'll spend some time talking about you know what the policy is what it looks like um you know a lot of it's in the packet so I'm not going to dive through like every specific detail in there but happy to talk about them and just talk about some of the main components of it to help try to clear anything up
015as we go uh as well as get a chance to talk a little bit about some of the resources that are already available as part of this um with you know more planned on the way and then plenty of time for questions and discussions if you have like you know said hold questions till the end but if you have like clarifying anything like that happy to just jump in happy to go through that at any point um as I know most of you are familiar with but just in case anyone listening is not um you know a20 core uh plan for all the work we do here at OSI which is our plan to equitably achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 is kind of what the basis for where this comes through um there's a whole
016bunch of things in there but what I want to notably talk about today are two of the strategies within which are switching our appliances and Vehicles over uh you know off of fossil fuels to Electric we can be renewably powered as well as strategy 3 which is significantly improving the Energy Efficiency of our buildings notably within that strategy three on the Energy Efficiency side we do have a specific action calling out promoting the green rental housing program which we're talking about here today uh which again is reducing the energy usage in rental properties within the city and the reason this is in the plan and why we're going down this kind of path is because if you look at our greenhouse gas emissions you know fluctuates a little bit over time but as of you
017know our most recent one we see just under 70% of our building emissions come from or our emissions come from buildings uh notably that number includes all buildings this isn't just residential buildings uh but when we do talk about residential buildings we do see that over half or 55% are rental units which is you know pretty big it's a majority of our residential units and so um with that in the fact that there is not any existing initiatives targeting these emissions we knew that there you know there has to be something that is uh looking at that and the core thing about this that also makes it tricky is this concept called the split incentive um which basically says that those who are able to make the change are not necessarily those who are able
018to get the benefit of the change in some cases the way to think about is you know in a single family home say you're the homeowner you own the home you're able to make any improvements you can you know improve your installation you can get a more efficient um you know heating unit all those kind of things and then over time you can if there's Energy savings you're the one who recoups those Energy savings so it can make sense you get a return on your investment over time through that saving um but in the case of a lot of rental units not all of them there's you know different situations and whatnot but in the majority uh of cases that doesn't necessarily happen uh you know the property owner is the one who owns the
019property as the you know the name states there so they're the one who are able to make these upgrades they are the ones who can do renewable energy electrification Energy Efficiency upgrades but often again oftentimes they are not the one who pays the utility bills so they don't necessarily see that direct benefit um from the reduction utility bills that can help pay off that kind of initial Capital Improvement um there's you know in you know there could be potentially indirect things where you know they're able to pass on savings they're able to um you know better promote their options and they have an increase in interest and who's in the properties and things like that but that direct savings on um utility bills isn't necessarily there on the other side you got the tenant who
020lives in the unit uh they're you know generally not able to make those big structural changes they might be able to do some things you know put like little bit of weather strip in or you know cover up Windows little things like that that can have an impact but they can't make those big changes that we see the biggest impact from however they are the ones who are paying the utility bill and you know they can't necessarily do anything to change that outside of you know some of those some of those smaller things um you can also think of it from the perspective because again in some cases the property owner or landlord is the one who does pay the utility bill and so you know they are more likely to see some of these
021changes they see that savings but then you can have you know situations where say you got a tenant who's in there um and because they don't pay the bill they're not thinking about um as much about how they're using their energy and that can result in kind of wasted energy use from the behavioral side um and all this again kind of coalesces in the what happens is these uh these types of units get upgrades at a slower Pace than we see in other types of um buildings again single family homes we see these kind of upgrades happen more frequently just because there is that Financial incentive to do this even though there is an upfront cost there are those savings over time so we see those changes made more frequently and so that's kind of
022what we're trying to address through kind of this policy structure um the other thing I just want to you know note is we do have existing processes for all this um you know we do have an existing uh rental housing Inspection Team they do these inspections again as a caller noted got the 30-month cycle there can be an extension for passing on the first try uh it has an existing rental inspection uh process you can see some of the stuff here in general these all relate to health safety that kind of stuff and everything that is on the list has to be met uh for the unit to be rented additionally there are some of those existing things again as callers mentioned are some of the um winterization requirements in rental housing these are all
023in place everything I say you know from here on out none of this is getting replaced none of this is getting removed moved this is all still in place all will still be part of it everything is just being added on top of that and then the last thing I just want to note for background is that again this isn't the only thing we are doing rental housing is not the only type of building that we are addressing um all the different buildings we have in our community operate kind of in different ways they have different things that work different things that don't work um when we're trying to address things from an Energy Efficiency standpoint as well as just again just reducing carbon emissions and so there's different structur in place for them again
024I know many of you are familiar but just in case folks aren't on the you know commercial building side um any building greater than 20,000 square feet needs to go through the benchmarking process where they track their energy and water data on the single family home side we have the home energy rating disclosure program where homes that are up for sale have to get a home energy score and report that out to potential home buyers and then now we're getting into greenal to housing which is kind of the third of this you know core Energy Efficiency criteria across our our buildings here lots of other work going on throughout this across a whole bunch of other different things we've talked about but these are just kind of those you know building related um policies that
025that we're talking about so in terms of how the policy was created we started with you know where most things started just looking up and seeing what is out there uh we worked with a couple of of these different uh national leaders who are doing work in all sorts of things across you know the decarbonization sector and sphere uh to really just understand what types of policies were out there already you know seeing what's worked what are some of the best practices that other communities have done um you know and for those that have seeing how they designed these programs how they've implemented them what are the results of those how they have been working uh to again just get a sense of what is out there and making sure we're not doing anything that
026um you know has already been developed we're not screening something from scratch uh we're using what has worked and also making sure we don't do anything that hasn't worked as part of that we um looked at a couple different cities there's uh more than just the ones here but you know some of them they've got uh different programs in place policy in place that have uh some over 10 years they've uh been going and again just really diving in to see you know what they have and you know importantly what's worked but just importantly what has not worked you know making sure that if they have something that's worked really well we're able to take that and repurpose it for our own needs um but again just importantly what didn't work you know we don't
027want to go down a path of doing something if it's proven to not be effective because that's not a good use of anyone's time with that um and all throughout this just really making sure that we're looking at what could work here in ant Arbor um you know I not you know we're not necessarily unique necessarily but we do have different situations different circumstances that some of these other communities might not have to deal with or just different again just different scenarios so making sure we're not just copy and pasting something from another place because we have a different set of scenarios that uh we need to consider so when thinking about those scenarios just kind of looking at the context of where we are in an arbor uh for our rental units there's about
02831 a half thousand units across about 8,500 properties here in an arbor um in looking at you know kind of when they're built where they're at we find that the median year built is 1964 and you know some of these units date back to the 1850s obviously not the common but there are some there and why this is kind of important to note is because there were no Energy Efficiency requirements at all in Michigan building codes prior to 1977 um so even though there's been plenty of units throughout this time even before that that have been updating been doing things been having you know Energy Efficiency improvements during that time there's some that entirely possible they're just in that kind of same spot where they were before then before we had these codes that were
029designed you know to increase our you know our our standards of health safety security and Energy Efficiency to get kind of that modern levels of comfort that we're all familiar with that also again leads to those reductions in energy usage in greenhouse gases so with that kind of taking all that information uh we convened task force and we had one of the callers who called in uh who was a member of that to take all this information learn more discuss with each other and be able to tailor this policy to Ann Arbor uh there were representatives from tenant advocacy groups landlord advocacy groups lwi income housing uh as well as our building department and I within this we also had folks who were qualified Architects engineers and licensed Builders so we making sure we're getting
030that building science side of things within this um again they saw a bunch of presentations looked through a bunch of the research all these kind of things to just sort through again everything that's out there and begin defining what are those challenges what are those opportunities how do we address that split in incentive and again how do we do it in a way that works for Ann Arbor and for all the different stakeholders involved to the best you know we can we can find some sort of compromise with that during that they uh concluded by developing a set of recommendations again these you know came before folks including at the energy commission but what they were were a set of these policy elements that were targeting the appliance efficiency again looking at the individual appliances
031and how they get upgraded over time how we look at the overall efficiency of the units through a couple different pathways that again address how um you know how efficient the overall unit was some information on occupant weatherization as well as how to uh you know publicly disclose this information so taking all of that taking those policy recommendations those were shared out uh including an initial draft of the checklist which was used to um for that unit efficiency side of things and we collected a whole bunch of feedback through this process we had a public survey that had over 100 responses we had a couple different public meetings in which anyone could attend attend we had multiple stakeholder group meetings including meeting with the energy commission a couple times as well as some of the
032different um you know landlord Department groups in the uh in the community and you know all throughout we got a bunch of different feedback but um two the things I just kind of want to highlight that we got were um you know they were around one not really being enough time to beat some of the compliance things that were in place we're thinking about building cycles and upgrade Cycles in you know a rental unit having 6 months was really fast for some folk you know there might not be a resident turnover in that time period um at the time we were you know we still have in some cases contractor shortages or you know um you know Appliance shortages and things like that so it was they in some cases not necessarily feasible to do
033in that period potentially um as well as again you know feedback word again from you know energy commission included was some of the checklists felt inconsistent uh throughout kind of felt like some things were just slapped on with points um and they weren't necessarily equivalent to either the work required to make those kind of changes or the uh impact that they generate in terms of you know reducing greenhouse gas emissions so we had that a lot of other feedback a lot of different ways all was really helpful um and with that what we've done to you know to address that is one we've we've reworked the checklist uh with the goal of making it more consistent backed by data um you know having more of the points that be uh equivalent to the best of
034our ability uh also having a little bit of a phase in period just so you know we have something in place so immediately as it's you know going into effect there is the opportunity to get started start making changes uh but have a little bit more flexibility to make some of the bigger changes that might need to take place over a longer period of time um and then you know some of those other ones like the again the appliance upgrades and the weatherization Parts uh were kind of included into the checklist just that way we have one system that's going about it's all in one place it goes through one enforcement process um it just makes it a little easier to manage than trying to track down a bunch of different parts through um systems
035that aren't already in place so what this looks like um going to talk about the big thing is the again the Energy Efficiency requirements and basically what this is is setting an Energy Efficiency Target for rentals throughout one of I'll I'll talk more about and the way it's designed is to give choice and flexibility for compliance we know that you know not all rental units are the same and so there needs to be some flexibility to make sure they're doing the things that work the you know the most effectively for those units instead of doing a one-size fits-all approach that might not be effective for different units and then again all this is added to the existing pre-inspection uh checklist and the inspection process to make it all just kind of streamlined it's in one
036um you know one system that already exists people are familiar with while there's new requirements the the core process is still the same to try to eliminate confusion and make it again more streamlined as we go again this doesn't eliminate any of the things that are already in place this isn't replacing anything in the inspection process this isn't replacing any of the other requirements those are all still there this is just on top of that um and again all this is with the core goals of you know there's nothing related to efficiency currently in the checklist and we're also just trying to you know equalize the market expectations for rentals you know a lot of them are in good spots there are some that are you know uh in a pretty good spot and there
037are some that you know might be a little bit behind in terms of their level efficiency and so we're just trying to bring everyone up to kind of that um you know at least a a certain level to make sure we've got comfortable Apartments efficient apartments and reducing greenhouse gas emissions with them that the way that this works is there's two different Pathways depending on you know again what works best for the um you know for the for the property owner the first is a checklist pathway which um we'll spend a bit of time talking about what that looks like um but basically this is a checklist that was developed by us here at the office of stain Innovations uh with consultation from uh you know some experts in the field in again the goal
038there's a bunch of different points on there each item is worth a certain amount of points into um the pass you need to have a minimum amount of points on that checklist the other is the home energy rating system pathway um what for this you have to undergo a home energy rating system assessment or hers um through a home energy raater and achieve a minimum hers score with that the way these look the first one again that um for the home energy rating system pathway what the unit would need to go through is uh they get a home energy rating score very common um scoring system it's used across the country uh and what you got to do as you go through the inspector will go through look at all the different things the appliances
039uh the you know Energy Efficiency air ciling all that kind of stuff and come up with a final score of this um these can range in value uh you can see Zero is you know the lower it is the better zero is a zero energy home uh and so for this you need to get a score of at least 110 on that checkl on the on the score 110 or lower the next and I'll spend a little bit more time talking about this just because this again is developed by us rather than you know a national score there um is the checklist pathway and what this is again it's a checklist developed by office sustainabil Innovations and some of our you know our our collaborating experts and again what it is there's these different items
040they have points within them and you can pick and choose the different items to get the points to the score that works um I will talk more in detail about these different points but just noting there's a couple different sets of points they work in a couple different ways um and again at no point do you need to all of the points on here you don't need to get all of a certain number of points in one category something like that um and in fact you don't even need to know that these points exist or how they work in this way this is purely just to show people that there is a reason for these points this is how we got to those points and if people want to know that that information is out
041there but all that matters is that you know the point that's associated with the action um there so the first one is we have a set of um planning points and the reason we have this is to make sure that UPG UPG grades are being done in an efficient manner uh we don't want to have people going into a situation where they just look at a checklist they see the things that get the most points and do that um in a lot of cases that's going to work well you know but there's also other cases where that might not be the best process for that unit uh so we don't want people going out and either spending a bunch of money for something that doesn't work well or just doing upgrades for the sake of
042doing upgrades but rather we want things to be done in an efficient and a sustainable Manner and so they can go through and either do an do an energy assessment which again says where unit is at and then using that they can make a plan uh based on how they're going to make those changes over time so again it can be done in efficient and sustainable uh manner instead of again just going out there making changes for the sake of making changes and getting a certain amount of points the next um and I can go into this in more detail if we want but I you know I'm in general we have a modeled section um and basically what this is is going through and doing the best we can to find um if you
043do an action how much greenhouse gas reductions can you expect from that and give points according to it um so we worked with some again some Consulting experts to um go through restock which is a a building tool by developed by the uh National renewable energy laboratory that basically looks at all the different buildings uh across the country we narrowed it down to Michigan um and then look at at how these different actions impacted it so we went through did all these different things um and as you do them pulled out for each item roughly how much it reduces the energy consumption of a unit based on making that individual change um a little tricky because you're trying to you know a lot of these have dependencies with them so trying to break them up
044as best we can and then doing that you get that energy consumption reduction um and then looking at you know the overall uh fuel mix to see how much of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions you can expect from that so um that's how this went about again it's it's roughly a one to one say if something gets a 10% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions it gets 10 points as a result of this and then the last is this section of non-modeled points um and the reason we have those is because there are things we know that do have an impact maybe it isn't you know as big of an impact with greenhouse gas uh emissions directly but there are different things where it impacts the health the safety and sustainability overall all important things
045that are in a20 that are in our sustainability goals um but we might not necessarily just be able to model those um one to one or there's just there can be such a discrepancy between different sizes of places that again you can't assign a certain number for that so these are all consistent across they have the same amount of points um you know and some of the examples are things like using electric lawn equipment again you know we know things like you know a gas leaf blower we' already addressed that to some extent you know gas mowers things like that have an awful lot of pollution from them for the size of what they are and by switching to something like electric we know we're producing emissions we're making a more healthy um you know
046environment as well as reducing things like noise pollution again there's not a one toone thing we can do for every unit roughly to see kind of what that looks like but we do know it's important so it gets points on the checklist similarly there's tenant education in there um which is important for two reasons because like I said one um the behavior within a unit does have an impact and it's important to account for that uh and so by doing kind of education again we can behave in a more um you know more sustainable manner uh it also as we're going through the process um there is a portion of what could have been in the model checklist which is plug loads which is basically all the different devices that are plugged into Outlets that
047can vary so much between different residents and so we wanted to account for that in some way and this is kind of how we have that so that's why it has a higher number of points than some of the other things just because their behavior includes things like how long they're running their TV streaming service computer monitors all those kind of things which can vary and isn't you know again directly modeled in another way so you have the overall checklist in your packet I'm happy to go through it later if we want to you know kind of go through things from there but just in general here's kind of what it you know here's what it looks like this isn't like a final you know beautiful version necessarily uh we'll you know work on that
048as we go so of course if people have ideas for how to lay it out better that'd be great to hear um but in general you have the you know the option the different item whatever it is how many points it gets and then what you need to do to meet that um this goes across all these different categories and again just noting people do not need to score every single point and even though there's categories that's just kind of broken up for ease of you know finding things seeing what they look like um it's you don't have to get a certain number of point points in each category to achieve compliance necessarily so it's just kind of you know guidance there those are what the points are and there's a total that needs to
049be met and the way it works is kind of again like we said a two-phase process um that have different point requirements for those two phases uh the first is would go into effect six months after the legislation has passed if it is passed um and from that time period till the next phase all units would have to get a score of 30 points um there's whole bunch of different ways this can be done a lot of units will already be in a good spot some might not be but a lot are going to be pretty good um and if folks are sitting there and like not quite sure how to start the easiest way that we can see people starting is if they're doing some of that um doing an energy assessment again seeing
050where the unit is at how it's currently performing creating a plan for how to get that unit into compliance and what kind of upgrades they want to take place over time and doing that tenant education that'll be developed by the office of sustainability Innovations here those will get them good for there of course there's other ways to do it that's just one pathway among many um and again this is to give that time to get everyone set up to make sure we're getting them into the system getting them thinking about this getting them making um improvements where improvements need to be made and set them up for that Final Phase of compliance which would happen again three years after this policy goes into effect um at which point 80 points would need to be met
051um this could be done again in whole different ways depending on the situation um again some a lot of buildings are doing very well and probably will have to make no changes as a result of this um but there are some that you know might need more meaningful work and we want to make sure we have processes in place to help them with that and then regardless of which pathway um folks undertake uh that will just need to be publicly disclosed um reason being well one the inspection results that already take place are already publicly available this is just one more thing that's part of it they will also be publicly available through there um and we're going to to do as best we can as an office to make sure that these are you
052know more readily um findable by folks again just because something's already out there doesn't mean people find it uh especially you know you get people moving from out of state into an apartment you know sure they're not looking for it in a lot of cases so making sure we can do things to try to make that more publicly available and more accessible for folks who might be searching for it um all with the goal of making sure tenants are you know better able to understand what they're looking similar to again a car you want to know um you know what kind of you're getting into with the efficiency of the car before uh purchasing try to do a similar thing for apartments again regardless of the um the pathway chosen compliance will work um again
053with the existing rental inspection process uh prior to the uh the inspection itself um the uh property manager or whoever is responsible for doing all that will be submitting uh this information to the inspector uh there's a you know there's a form they will fill out they will submit they'll say here's what I've done here's how you know here's the points or the you know the her score here's how I've achieved it and here's documentation that can show um that I have achieved it to the extent they have that documentation the inspector will then come out and confirm that yes those things have taken place um in the event a unit does not achieve that uh you know the required Port point total or her score uh a fine will be issued uh and that
054fine will be a recurring fine each day until unit is brought into compliance um you know here as an office our goal is never to issue fines never to you know issue compliance anything like that we really want to make sure that people are compliant at the beginning you know our goal is reducing the greenhouse gas emissions not issuing fines uh so we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to help people be you know prepared for it we want to make sure they're reducing their emissions um in advance of this so with that in mind we do have some resources that are already available um we have two different uh resource hubs one for landlords and Property Owners one for renters uh the landlord uh property owner one has a bunch of
055things on there that are related to financial resources different grants different rebates different tax credits different um you know financing options all those things that are out there to help them make changes should they need to make these changes there's also educational resources on how to connect to contractors how to know what's the most beneficial um improvements to be made um how to go about financing if they need to do financing as well as an incentive database that can help um you know continuously find new financial resources and if folks find Financial res resources that aren't on this page they can let me know I'll add them as soon as I can um as well as some of the different local resources that are out there to help folks with this such as again the
0562030 District we've talked about uh who can help um you know people understand kind of where they're at and connect them to different resources from there and then lastly uh for renters again we have a a a renter resource Hub where we have different um Energy Efficiency strategies things you can do in your you know in your apartment to you know behave in a more Energy Efficiency way look at different uh you know different strategies things like that as well as during the apartment uh hunting process of you know what kind of questions to ask what things to look into uh so you can be thinking about how to set up uh yourself for Success um while this program doesn't touch on residents Halls uh we do have information in here on you know what
057folks can do in a resident Hall to um you know be more efficient even if you're not necessarily you know paying the utility bill there's all things we can do to do our part to improve efficiency there um as well as some other resources um I've talked a lot so that's all that I have in terms of the presentation um ready to open it up to like you know questions feedback I know I've gotten some in advance and happy to kind of go through some of those as we go um and also just you know knowing while there was like kind of like uh chair harp was saying while there was a resolution that was attached we're not planning on voting on that anything like that tonight um just noting that that was kind of
058one that had been brought up previously so just re-sharing noting that was something that was brought up I just updated is slightly for you know some of the numbers change and some of the policy things change um so just noting that is there we're not planning on voting on it at this time but um like I said I have some questions in advance I can start going through some of those but I'm just going to open it up first to um anyone here um for now think ccil member Rina has a hand raised yeah thanks um I just wanted to lead things off with a thank you I I expect that we'll have a lot of conversation tonight but I um really am just appreciative of all the work that has gone into this over
059a period of years now um and wanted to thank staff for their work I know that this has been um through a series of of processes uh from public engagement and committee work to staff work to Legal reviews and all of those things to make sure that what you guys are presenting uh is the strongest and most legal defensible option that that we can move forward and so I just want to to give my appreciation to all of the staff that have put time and energy into this as well as the volunteers we heard from some of them uh this evening um but uh really just appreciate all of the the hard work and and energy that has gone into this so thank you for that M 11 uh yes I would also Echo uh
060What uh commissioner ardina was saying H council person Rina um thanks for the it was very informative um I have a couple just kind of basic questions to start with um you were looking at when we were looking at the phase one part um just kind of like do you have like a rough idea of like what person percentage are already at that it seems like a pretty low bar to me and I understand it's just getting people used to the program and how it works but are we thinking that's like 90% like any idea I don't have a specific number um in terms of things and that's also kind of part of why we're looking at it in this way is one we you know we just don't know what we don't know um
061you know we have a general sense of like you know some are performing very well some are not performing well and this kind of can help give us that that kind of information to be like yes this is where we're at and if it's you know severely underperforming we can kind of make um you know adjustments from there um but yeah we just don't know a lot of that information okay um and then so let's say they meet the level let's say we're in phase three already and they're they've you know they've done improvements or whatever that they're they're in compliance um is there like follow-ups in the future uh that where we'll like continue to like how would that work exactly has that contemplated working yeah from from then on out in both of
062these again the enforcement is assessed during the inspection um those inspections occur again every 30 months you can get an extension again if it passes um and so yeah once we enter phase two phase two is indefinite um it continues throughout so every time they go for their inspection that gets checked at all those periods um so it's it's always checked they always have to meet that score from from then on out but it's not just like a you know like an energy audit it's just them like you know showing what they have done in the past and yeah you know once you get to that again it's different things like is there a heat pump that gets you a bunch of points do they have that insulation it has all those different things in
063there um and so you know it it's not just doing the assessment not just that it's it can be any of those things yeah okay uh one more question in terms of the incentives sorry if I I miss this in the materials but um is there any incentives they get for uring a contract with the tenants that might create more incentives for the tenants to use less energy like the tenants responsible for 100% of the utility bill or something like that or maybe even they split the utility bill yeah there's not any like direct things like of how it you know goes into the lease or anything like that just because that was one of those things we were looking at and was a little murky in terms of you know what we can legally
064tell them to put in a in a lease um but that's kind of why we have that um that renter sustainability session and again that would would be a thing it's going to be developed by us we're already we already have a lot of the resources we're putting into place just trying to figure out how to best do that just to that way we're focusing on that behavioral change focusing on you know what folks are doing um because we know it can have an outsize impact naturally if you have a very inefficient building what you do inside of it's not going to make too big of a difference but you know if you have an efficient you know unit making sure that people are acting in an efficient manner um does have a you know
065can have a big difference and that's why we we have that in there to kind of one couple all those different things um there is also at the bottom of the checklist there's like a called like unlisted Innovation measures you know if uh you know landlord property manager comes forward and says like hey we have this really Innovative leasing structure or we have this really Innovative you know way that we're doing you know XYZ that I can't think of because I'm not someone who's a you know a property manager and says like we're doing this and it you know related to that they could potentially get points for something like that thanks Jo I'd like to jump in just with a a question sort of some background and context and and I noticed in one
066of the slides um I have a question and then I have a a comment um in one of the slides I think there was uh some uh some indication of sort of either balancing prescriptive and performance-based um measures in the checklist or or the approach to it overall and what I I think I'm trying to sort of wrap my head around is the sort of choice or sort of the thinking and the context around the choices particularly of the sort of checklist approach which I think maybe tends to be more prescriptive and you know as oppos and maybe in contrast to I would say um and I'm I'm sort of making this up but like an approach where you would look at the actual energy use and fuel mix that the unit is using as
067a sort of outcome for um whether it's use intensity or efficiency or whatever that might be and I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about that sort of that sort of overall General approach in the program design and sort of how maybe the checklist approach sort of helps that or or is a choice that's distinct or different from that um because one might imagine you know both approaches but obviously there that that's a a pretty significant design choice I think um for my for my reading sure yeah and there's definitely um you know I think we with both of them right like I said right now there's those two different ones you got the you know the the hers rating essentially or the checklist and you know um there's the ability
068to choose which one makes the most sense you know uh we've seen in some of the one of the ones we looked at Boulder they had a similar thing and what they found is less than 2% of the people who went through it used the um like the hers rating almost everyone was using the checklist um you know like I said very few used it even those who did kind of switched over to using the checklist kind of after um part of it and why we're kind of going down this is one it's just easier to see if I do make this change I will receive this number of points and so that's kind of helpful rather than you know while I think in the you know the perfect scenario the scientific scenario is to
069be able to yeah exactly show like this is how much energy youve reduced this is how much XYZ has happened um that can be harder to do from like again the individual property manager perspective of being able to show that change happening um and in some cases can feel like a bit of a risk on their sense too where they're like okay I'm going to go improve the I'm G to add insulation and the attic into the walls things like that I'm gonna spend however much without really knowing how much it's going to change um and so there's like a level of risk associate with that they're a fear of that and that can prevent people from kind of going forward and doing that without knowing how that's going to impact them as opposed to
070again saying here's a checklist if you do this you get this many points you get this much closer to compliance um and that's kind of the reason that we saw in those other those other cities of why they were going down um the checklist pathway because it was it was helpful to see from that perspective um so that that's kind of why we settled on that and and just as a followup is then is there a mechanism at all you know at all for then understanding the sort of impact to sort of energy use intensity or fuel you know fuel use intensity or Energy Efficiency um beyond the checklist itself like in terms of the actual performance of the of the rental units themselves um either in this program either in this program or other
071programs some of it yeah and especially um you know if it's one of the you know larger multif family units again if it's greater than 20,000 square feet it goes through benchmarking you can potentially see some of those changes through that as they as they go through that um otherwise you know again the majority of the points are you know close to majority of the points are coming from a modeled thing so we can roughly say that yes they're reducing it by you know by this much going through those measures um again I would love to have you know however much budget to be able to go through and or just you know require people to go through and their data from all the things and all the changes they're making uh just kind of
072yeah some of the stuff that you know as we were going through um the reality of what we were able to do and what was able to be gleaned from kind of or you know what data was able to be provided um this kind of is the the route that you know was the most um effective from you know being able to make those changes and see as best we can thanks and I I'll just add a brief comment um which is I think you know as I was reading as I was reading the guidelines um I think it's in the guidelines that the disclosure is posted on the building inspection permits site and what I was was starting to think about was a sort of analogy that I see in a lot of you
073know hotels motels airbnbs even even some homes um that that are rented out and and I think this was something that um steuart the author and journalist Stuart brand um sort of wrote about which is this idea of a home book or some or a book or a binder or something that sits with the house or the building or the structure and sort of maintains the memory of things that have changed and uses and and sort of um retrofits and and all kinds of things and I think um maybe it's a good analogy to consider in terms of that some of the educational aspects of the checklist in particular is the availability of that kind of um information in the place where it's sort of used and makes it more sort of mutually available between
074the renters the landlord um the inspectors as they come and visit the house and sort sort of how how that information might be updated I'll I'll put some more description of that and and feedback that I'll send over email but I just I just wanted to draw attention to that because I think it's a you know it's potentially an important opportunity also um for empowering I think not only the renters but the landlords as well with the sort of types of information that they can both sort of use to sort of nudge each other in the right direction yeah definitely and I appreciate that too and I know this was um said John I know we got questions I haven't answered of yours yet but um one of the one of the ones that was
075brought up was you know what is being done to you know incentivize people going even higher than what's on the checklist and that is a thing we've we've started having some discussions with some both internal external Partners uh talking to our Buildings Department to see you know well just in general Again One how can we make these things more available like I said it's great having it online on a permitting website but how easy is that to find for people or even to know what to look for um so seeing what potential different ways we could do whether that being you know creating some sort of you know um you know tiered system saying oh you get bronze silver gold once you reach different tiers of saying you're doing this well things like that and
076then you know having whether it be you know plaque stickers you know something more uh sustainable than printing something out um you know and being able to use that in marketing materials being show like Hey we're a you know this rated property we're this efficient we can you know do things like that uh We've also started to um talk with some of our some of the folks at University of Michigan they have a lot of um different resources that are out there to help students find off campus housing uh and so working with them to you know be able to use their systems to kind of integrate this score into that system um again with some you know sort of explanation in there again of what that score means and you know what what things
077are to kind of help with you know students who are looking for um you know rentals as well to be able to find you know housing that is more efficient if that's you know a priority of theirs so looking through all those different ways and yeah folks have different ideas for how to you know better promote that how to better show that how to you know enhance that interaction um would definitely be open to hearing things like that so I appreciate that Comm mki thank you uh first of all I'll start out with uh the fact as mentioned earlier that uh I provided input um that hopefully all of you have seen in your in baskets um if you haven't had a chance to provu that um I encourage you to do so um I
078don't plan on regurgitating all that but I'd like to um make some broad comments about um the rental housing program um and some of the concerns that I laid out in uh this document um first of all I want to make it clear to everyone and that I'm totally supportive of the green rental housing program this is absolutely needed um I think all of you if you uh recall I've been asking for a review of the green h orental housing program by the uh the environment or excuse me the energy commission every two or three months for the last two years or so so this is this absolutely is necessary um I think it's important to consider context uh first of all the a20 plan has the following targets um in strategy 2 action one
079a 20 uh 25% of rental properties have fully electrified also in the same same um strategy and action electricity powering these units is 100% renewable energy by the way these are all Targets for 2030 strategy three action one 80% of tenet occupied homes have achieved a 20% reduction electricity usage and a 15% reduction in natural gas usage and then the strategy uh three number action number number eight which is the green rental housing program itself this was covered on a slide that Joe showed earlier is 10% reduction in energy usage attributable just to this program so there are very very high targets they're necessary targets um a couple of other things reling to context I think we all know that we have a housing affordability issue so this is one thing that we have to
080keep in mind when we design this program and make recommendations to city council I think we also have to recall that we're not meeting our greenhouse gas reduction targets um we had a 1% reduction from uh 2022 to 2023 if you look back to 2015 um we've averaged about 1.5% a year if you at the old simple greenhouse gas inventory that 1% per year roughly since that time frame this this is a huge lever it's um by the way oops do are you hearing me I my internet you went away for a second but you're back you're back now okay good yep okay um this is a huge lever Joe covered that in his slides um it really emphasized how important this is it's one of the few really major levels that we have to
081drive um action um in the building sector remaining so it's really important that we that we uh focus on this and we do a really good job um with the program that's proposed uh I want to also state that there are really excellent elements of the program as is um indeed it's significantly better than the uh program that was presented to the energy Commission in March of 2022 so that's two and a half years ago so work has done but we've also lost uh two and a half years this this program in the a20 plan was supposed to have been approved in 2021 and was supposed to have taken effect in 2022 or starting in 22 so we we're obviously way behind that and if you look at the three-year timetable for achieving the 20
082points it's likely that we're not going to see any measurable impact or at least significant impact until maybe what 2028 or something like that um another thing that's really good is the fact that we have two Pathways that was in the original plan um the checklist pathway Point uh allocation is really much improved it really is based on uh as Joe showed um some science behind it and that's really good the fact that um a plan um is is not required but receives a lot of points makes a lot of sense and the Tenant education also makes sense um I have a number of other concerns though that I want to point out and I'm not going to repeat like I said what's in uh the the email and in the attachments but in my
083view the thresholds are low um the hers threshold is 110 it's uh appropriate that everybody know that that's based on a score of a 100 that's tied to the 2006 International Energy code so that's already an 18yearold code um it's not um there no stepwise targets other than that there's no targets past three years from now um there's no differentiation by age of the unit I know that adds complexity so in in stating that I I recognize that that cuts two different ways um and but the biggest concern is as outlined in the attachment that I sent is that I'm very concerned as others are that this will not drive the necessary um energy conservation measures renewable energy adoption or electrification because landlords can cherry-pick measures and that's not going to lead to the kinds
084of reductions that we really need given the context that we're in in my view we need a program that's going to really Drive action that's going to lead to significant tangible greenhouse gas reductions recognizing the context of a split incentive system um in my view um the the EC should not endorse the program as it is there is really a lot of good material there but there's um a lot of in my view tweaks that can be done before we uh approve a resolution um recommending that city council adopt uh the program as as it currently stands um if you dig into the the documents that I provided there's a lot of little things that need to be addressed there's small Corrections um um in sort of a licensed uh uh energy accessors they should
085be certified um you know little things like that those kinds of things need to be done there's also some other things this would cover sori and fraternities it's uh there's some uh uh group housing in those situations is not really clear how those would be done so there's really a a number of of different things from sort of high level issues that need to be addressed to lower level issues um that's all I'll have to say for the evening um unless really I think feel moved to to comment on somebody else's comment but I wanted to share all of that with you thanks for the opportunity to do so yeah definitely definitely want to say yeah thank you for that I know um yeah I was looking through it and you know a lot of
086those you know especially you're saying some of the things like yes will be updated because that makes a ton of sense um and clarify um yeah some of the the group housing ones like had some stuff in there especially around like the dryers and stuff like that and wanted to try to make things clear but I know it might not be for all of them so might yeah go back and make some of those changes um I do want to say one thing before jumping to commissioner koven uh covin Garcia um just again noting in terms of framing context and all that kind of stuff on the program especially around you know the point totals and how you know we got to them um and again noting as you know we've all said we've all
087noted throughout even you know how people are it's like the the core goal of this is to improve you know the Energy Efficiency resulting in the greenhouse gas emissions uctions from that um but I also do want to recognize the context that we are in I know we've talked about this in a couple different meetings a couple different programs on what we are able to do as a you know a city city government how you know how far we can go especially as it relates to you know some of the different Michigan building codes and what we're able to go up against with that um and that's frankly a large reason why this has taken so long is you know naturally when we were yes adjusting the checklist but two we were trying to find
088every you know p pathway we could to make this into a program that is able to have the impact that we want it to have while also doing it in a way that is legally compliant making sure it can be a program that can exist um and doing that in a way that is able to then have as much impact as we can under that setting um and I do also want to note that again you know as you know talked about a couple different ones again this isn't the only thing we are doing while this is you know a thing that can be put in place a thing that we can do um and a thing that you know can have some sort of compliance with it uh we are you know seeing improvements
089in some of the other areas uh just you know to talk about a couple things that I know these aren't necessarily you know for every single housing uh unit every rental housing unit uh but talking about the home Energy rebates we've seen a couple of landlords who are already taking advantage of those for their you know their the houses that they rent out and we're seeing them install heat pumps we're seeing them install um you know new levels of insulation updating things like that um so you know we're seeing some of that Improvement already we've also been talking to some of the larger building owners and developers across the different you know sizes of rental properties connecting them to different financial and Technical Resources to make improvements uh We've submitted a couple different grants where
090we're looking at trying to again find funding opportunities to help people um you know make improvements where where they might need to be made so a lot of work is being done and even if you know the kind of the numbers they feel um you know a little you know low potentially again some of that's from the context we're in uh but what is in there is you know something that we feel we are able to make a viable policy again given that landscape uh but also just as importantly have a framework and a connection point out there that can kind of bring people to this change you know in some cases um you know landlords aren't thinking about Energy Efficiency improvements or anything like that but having a policy in place can connect them
091to that they see it they see what's happening and can then think about changes that could go again even above and beyond what is required in the checklist so just wanted to note that these are all things we've been considering and we you know appreciate hearing the feedback on um and this is kind of the result that we've gotten to kind of based on all those different considerations so but thank you for bringing that up and I know you and others have brought it up as well so we do hear you and we do we do feel that commissioner colen Garcia thank you very much and thanks so much for the work that uh you're doing uh moving this forward and um um albe it it's it is definitely much later than what many of
092us have been requesting um I am curious more at this point you know after the comments that have already been submitted and thanks to your work uh commissioner riski um and sharing this with with the rest of the commission um what is the uh the plan moving forward with uh for for um finalizing and and taking it to the next stage for rolling this out yeah the goal is to move as you know as quick as we can where we can um you know as of right now this is my I've talked to some folks in you know in smaller settings but this is kind of the you know the first one coming back to the energy commission to talk about it um I'm planning on also talking to the renters commission about it as
093well we get feedback from from their side of things as they you know when it first came up wasn't um you know present uh the the commission um also planning on trying to get a couple different meetings with you know some of the bigger stakeholders trying to get some stuff you know was Apartment Association and some of the other um groups that kind of helped early on uh but the goal is to move as you know as quick as we can make sure we get that information be able to update things that are you know crucial to be updated and able to be updated um with the goal of you know moving forward as quick as we can based on you know some of the other legislative items and such uh from there so as
094I I I apologize I left this out that so moving forward um is there is there any input at this time that that OSI will consider as far as making modifications to the to the uh program yeah I mean where where possible I mean some of the you know the big overarching structures some of the stuff that's in place is in place because of that's what we are able to do legally and we might not be able to change much outside of that um but for you know especially a lot of the different you know some of the different things in the point structures you know some of the stuff again that um the materials that pass along with some of the comments were like hey you said this thing that's not actually the thing
095you're trying to say this is what you'd say um you know things like that those absolutely can be updated um so yeah some of the bigger structural things might be kind of difficult at this time just because you know we got that feedback we've Incorporated that feedback and then we've updated it to the the best we can again based on legal guidance uh but yeah some of that other stuff can definitely be tweaked if it's if it's if it U needs to be tweaked okay that's that's really important um I think that that still be an um a an opening for this because it's there are some important changes that do need to be made and um you know we have to definitely balance the um the legality of it the defensibility of it and
096then the the impact of of what we're we're working to to accomplish here um I I do need to leave the meeting early today I'm really sorry that I can't be here for the entire meeting but thank you so much for um for allowing um to have input on this thank you and I know you're jumping in others um please send me emails anything like that if you have um input I'm happy to take those thank you and if I could just follow up briefly too on on on the the question as well Joe would you be able to just comment briefly on with particular respect to the guidelines of how those might be updated in the future um or what the process might be for that whether it's based on other other programs that
097have run like this in the past or or what the plan is currently for this program because it seems like a little bit of that is is baked into some of the guidelines which which I could imagine being a source of of learning as well yeah absolutely I think you know so basically there's in the in the packet you got there's some of the those different materials the one that uh forgot what I call I think ordinance pack part or whatever it is um the ones that are in there um to an extent so anything like the ordinance itself um and what is in there those would all if that were to be something that needs to be updated those are things that would have to go through Council um so some of the you
098know the big things in there like again the point totals that are required if that needed to be changed down the line that's something that would have to go through the council process to be changed um the things that are in the um uh what is it called the regulations so green or housing regulations those are things that could change through the um you know through the regulation process from um the office of stand to Innovation so again if there's like things in there um you know where it's like hey this is how you reach compliance with this thing and if we're kind of going through and finding that like hey that doesn't work that can kind of be updated from that those are how those are designed to be to be fixed through kind
099of simple things where again like if there's something in there and we're going through and everyone's like you can't meet compliance because of the way you describe that we can fix that to make sure people can uh but yeah some of those like larger systematic changes were those to be changed down the line that's something that would have to go uh back through Council to to change thank you for that clarification other comments or questions from members or council members Min [Music] mki I'm breaking my promise but I think maybe it's important um two two Qui questions uh in the materials provided I didn't see any hint that the thresholds might change in the future is that something that has been discussed within OSI um and has it been has the topic been Broach at
100all with Council and then I have a second question yeah kind um it's it's been discussed and again right now where we have the point total set is where we feel the most comfortable with in terms of all that other context were things to change that would be a thing that we could potentially revisit but again that would have to go through the you know the public input going through uh Council and all that kind of stuff to change so as of right now that's where we're planning on being at and sticking at if things were to you know change that could be potentially brought up and readdressed then the the other point that I have is I I really appreciate hearing staff's uh reaction or comment on this uh I've point out to others
101that the uh Pathways to 100% Renewable Energy report um makes reference several times to the costs that are going to be incurred by the city and it in turn refers to the fact that those will ultimately have to be passed on to taxpayers meaning we're all going to have to pay um what are called nonrecoverable costs for buying essentially wrecks or offsets um for not being able to be in a situation where we have 100% renewable energy uh those costs vary by scenario um they're summarized on page something like 14 or 16 of the report they amount to somewhere in the range of5 to10 million between uh 2024 and 2029 and then are in the range of $10 million plus in 2030 and then presumably those would drop every year as we make progress on
102getting U cleaner electricity that's just for the electricity side of our greenhouse gas targets doesn't address any of the targets or the any of the Recs I should say your offsets that we may need because of not making progress in reducing um fossil fuel consumption for transportation for heating Etc um so if indeed we're going to be spending roughly $10 million a year the question is we're we're gonna pay for this one way or the other so shouldn't we be paying for this by making sure instead of buying recks or offsets that we actually make the kinds of improvements to housing and transportation Etc that really have a Tang impact on on our emissions as opposed to doing it um by saying we need to meet our Target we're going to meet our Target that's
103something that has been uh repeatedly stated I think that's a great position to take and if indeed that's the case but it's going to take wrecks or offsets at that cost should we be considering that when we consider the costs of a program like this to landlords that are eventually going to be passed on to tenants um so it's going to be coming out of people's pockets one way or the other is is that a reasonable line of thinking um I will defer that to others I don't necessarily comment on my end from that perspective but I I see what you're saying I know it's things that are being discussed is being considered um I just do not have a perspective for my end maybe we can save that as a topic for another meeting
104but I think it's something that we need to always be considering in in again in this context I see Missy has come on line so go ahead Miss I'm lurking John lurking in the background uh yeah I I think it's a really interesting question and there is unequivocally truth in it and then there is some Simplicity in it that uh which you know I I know you know this because you think about this a lot uh that a20 is directional it's not verbatim right that a lot of things have changed in the ecosystem uh some really good and some really challenging and so we don't have the state uh policies that Governor Whitmer signed last year in here in a20 as it is but that is part of the ecosystem that we're operating with we
105also haven't identified those wrecks and the market looks different today for renewable energy than it did developing in Michigan even sighting right the sighting policy and the sighting law is fundamentally different than what it was so this isn't always a tradeoff that we think about is where does the LI The Limited capital go to make the biggest impact and some of the things we probably don't talk a lot about with you all are the soft things like the regulatory interventions before the Public Service Commission because if we get a win there that win Cascades and is so much more effective than a dollar like Roi per dollar invested I I don't even know how we calculate it right the the attorney fees maybe is how we would do that so that's a convoluted way of
106saying I think it is always right to keep what you're saying front of mind but I think we have to do it dynamically given the context we're in in the moment as opposed to where we were for years ago when we adopted the plan does that make sense I think what I'd like to do is is sort of steer discussion now and and I I'm possibly looking at Joe for a slight clarification on this with respect to the resolution that was also included as part of the pack um I'd like to open for any comments particularly on the text of the resolution but I think the plan was not necessarily to um I don't my sense is that there's not a lot to that that we necessarily need to adjust in part because I think
107Joe probably updated that from the time that it was initially introduced and and and um and we can also gather any comments or or updates to that text uh via comments from Commissioners separately but if we were to um reintroduce the resolution on the agenda perhaps for a vote um at the next meeting for example um I just wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to discuss anything that was important at this meeting um before doing that yeah I think that that's fine if folks have comments on it again we're not voting on it tonight um but you know if you have any comments you see anything wrong with it or anything like that um yeah you can either let us know now or you know if you have more chance to read
108it and send in a comment um we can we can do that later so but it is there if folks have comments happy to hear them yeah and so just to give an indication like you know given the feedback and and given the sort of tener of discussion um I think everyone please share uh comments and and feedback with the OSI team um and Joe uh um and I think that there will probably be some updates and and perhaps we can do that through some of that through communication with the Commissioners um between now and the next meeting and what I'd like to do is reintroduce the the resolution at the in the uh what month is it um October um energy commission meeting um POS you know for potentially for a vote um on
109that resolution as well so just to give a sense of of where this might be going um thanks everyone and I just want to thank Joe in particular because I know he's shouldered quite a bit of the last two Commission meetings um I think both in terms of presenting and Fielding uh questions and and really being able to respond and and um carry a lot of these things forward so um thank you Joe for all of that and um with that maybe we can move on to the staff report yeah that is also me um find the right thing okay apologies I have a few because there's so many things going on um and I'm probably not catching them all I didn't even know we were in a meeting earlier today and Missy said there
110was only I think three days this month that we don't have an OSI so lots going on um yeah I did just want to run through um so one green fair is coming up I know a lot of you are familiar with it and have been out to it um but noting greenf Fair our annual event featuring over 80 exhibitors advancing sustainable living with information about renewable energy energy waste reduction circular economy local food system all things a20 that I could keep listing for a while here um but just noting that that takes place on Friday September 20th 5: to 8:00 p.m. on Main Street in downtown an arbor uh all the details including some of the special activities and a full list of the exhibitors is available at a2gov.org greenfair um sticking on greenf
111Fair um the green energy neighbors who are a group that came out of the A2 Z ambassadors program uh they will be tabling there at uh greenf fair and what they do is they'll they'll be sharing their personal experiences with res residential decarbonization they are also looking for interested residents who have done some form of efficiency electrification or renewable energy adoption to join their efforts in Sharing experience with with their Community uh so folks can just have a broader resource to be able to to reach out to and talk to about some of these things um and if folks are interested they can uh reach out to me and I get you in contact with them um with the goal of increasing the availab availability of publicly accessible EV Chargers uh our commercial EV charger
112program now provides an opportunity for commercial multif family property owners in Ann Arbor to receive up to four Free level two EV Chargers uh folks can learn more about this program and uh View and submit an application at OSI a2gov.org charger program um couple quick just kind of updates on some of programs that we've talked about previously for the home energy advisor uh we had a really great uh swell of interest at the beginning we were on a wait list for a little bit uh but just noting that they fully worked through the wait list the portal is now open to sign up and folk can receive their free custom home decarbonization plan uh which folks can do through the a20 ea.org uh additionally with the home Energy rebates uh we have now put up
113a real-time dashboard that residents can quickly see the status of the different local an arbor rebates uh that are available uh they can see which are available which are exhausted and can help give folks a better sense of uh you know what rebates are still there and feel comfortable with initiating their sustainability focused projects uh there are a lot of rebates that are still available particularly the ones that aren't the um Reserve rebate they're just the ones that are on the first come first serve uh so there are a lot of those re still available which you can see on that again at OSI a2gov.org rebates um additionally we are awarded $2.8 million to expand Equitable access to public EV charging uh through a grant uh which again uh you can learn more about at
114a2gov.org EVS um another fun event coming up we had um our our one of our sister cities tuban Germany is going to be here uh next week uh you can one of the events that's taking place uh with them you can hear from uh their lord mayor Palmer of dub Germany as he shares what uh they're up to to equitably address the climate crisis um in in their community and how it can help shape an Arbor's a20 initiative uh it'll be an inter active session that provides a unique opportunity to hear directly from representatives from one of our sister cities about their work to make tubin one of the more sustainable cities in the world this will be taking place Wednesday September 18th 600 to 7:30 pm at The anara District Libraries downtown branch um
115also noting the city has released a request for proposal for the phase two municipalization study with responses due by October 11th 2024 uh and we've also released a request for information on sustainable energy utility support service Services which can be found on the city's procurement website with all responses due by September 20th 2024 at 4 P.M lastly um and then I will be done our um we'll have a sustainable Lawn Care Learning session uh which is for uh homeowners lawn care service providers or property managers interested in learning more about electric lawn care or um or sustainability in general uh this will be on October 21st at Cobblestone farm from 4 P p.m. to 6 p.m. where folks can see electric lawn care equipment in a action hear from lawn care service providers and experts
116about their experiences with electric equipment and pollinator aware practices get questions answered view live electric lawn care equipment demonstrations and for anyone who's interested can um RSVP uh there's an online one but you can send me an email and I will get you connected with that and before I turn it over Missy has something as well yeah awesome and I'm sorry y I know this is a lot Joe did mention we have a lot of events this month there were a few that didn't get grabbed I want to let you know about we also have the local uh food festival that is on the 26th so I think that's right uh yep that's on the 26th we our free tree giveaway I think we might have a few trees still left uh that will also
117be coming up so the free tree giveaway itself will be on the 21st but you register now for those actual saplings uh they go hot and fast and then uh two last things I wanted to share with you all our americore members are getting ready to hit pavement so they're going to knock on every door in the city of an arbor to make sure people know about a20 and the programs we're talking about hopefully we'll be doing this twice a year going forward to have more interactions with people on the doorstep but if you uh if you do hear this your neighbors talking about it is true uh we will be out in the field and then lastly hot off the press this isn't finalized yet we're waiting on the administrative law judge and the
118npsc to make their ruling but we have intervened for the first time ever in a series of gas cases and the gas depreciation case a very captivating case I might say uh is it's pretty tedious but we argued that we needed to have a future of gas proceeding similar to what you've seen in New York Massachusetts Minnesota where we really are pushing the gas utility to to understand what comes next and that way we can protect rate payers and make sure we're not sinking investments in an asset that is just not going to be around and uh the judge agreed so if the npsa takes it we will have been the only intervenor and in fact the other interveners didn't understand what we were doing and fought us and so we would we would have
119won a future of gas uh for the entire territory so fingers crossed we'll let you know when that's that's real but hot off the press you're some of the first to know what do you mean about the entire territory uh DT and consumers would likely have to do for their entire system what what comes after gas bless you thanks p thank you for all those updates um and congratulations on the awards and for and thanks again for all the hard work that the OSI team's been doing it's it's it's great to hear um let's move on to a report from let's how about council member council members city council thanks um I will be relatively brief uh considering that they just covered a ton um but one of the pieces I wanted to highlight um
120were a few of the things that Council has worked on the last uh couple of meetings um that might be of interest um the you may remember the leaf blower ban that was put into effect a couple of probably months ago at this point um we did have to make some adjustments to that um I know that it's relatively small in the term in terms of the amount of carbon output but um one of the things that we ultimately found through City Testing was that unfortunately the um commercial leaf blowers that are Avail Electric commercial leaf blowers that are available right now are not meeting our needs for being able to do controlled Burns in the city um and so we had to make an exception for around controlled Burns specifically um obviously for safety
121reasons there um but also to make sure that the controlled burn program can continue to to happen um we would actually like to be able to do a lot more uh control burns throughout throughout the year um but if we pursued without uh without doing the exception we either would have probably had to stop the program or we would have actually Fallen even further behind where we would like to be so that was an amendment that we had to make um another thing that that is um not like immediately impactful but could potentially be helpful into the future as we look towards reducing vehicle miles traveled and trying to create um do more kind of placemaking within neighborhoods and things like that is that um we passed a resolution at the last council meeting to
122explore uh increased flexibility around accessory commercial units um so you'll remember that the city did accessory dwelling units uh a while back um one of the things that we're looking at is more about how you can um support your your startup business or your um your idea in your community or in your neighborhood and so um that's something that we're looking at we know that as we're looking to um try to create more walkable neighborhoods where folks may be able to uh choose other options than driving all over the city um that this is a potential tool that we want to explore a little bit more and so that's something that we're looking at as well um that was just a resolution at this point asking staff to explore it further as we continue planning
123um but just wanted to to put that on your radar as something else that we're working on thank you are there any updates from the environmental Commission did you say environmental commission yes commissioner yeah yeah my internet was a little bit unstable yes um first of all uh the environmental commission uh had two presentations focusing on um natural features issues first was uh conserving native Forest fragments in the city um a gentleman from the University of Michigan um affiliated with matthi and Nichols arber presented um on on that um and that's important because Force fragments are one of an Arbor's uh few and significant natural cars um so there was a presentation on that and then there was a presentation on deer impacts in Ann Arbor um as everyone probably remembers anab used to have
124a deer Call funding for that was cut and uh the environmental commission will be cons considering whether or not to recommend that that be funds for that be reinstated um the only other thing I wanted to say is uh uh Echo uh commissioner OSI on weighing in on on the with the mpsc on natural gas um that that's that's fantastic there's a really well-known um business uh consultant philosopher uh um probably one of the best known of the 20th century um Deming and he said uh that leaders should be F be working on the system to improve it continuously and not working in where osis that's fantastic news and it's really working on the system and it potentially has congratulatory comments from commissioner peek thanks very much thank you okay um I think I don't
125believe we have any other updates um seeing No Hands raised um we'll move to the last moment for uh public input and this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN please call 888 78899 or 877 853 5247 and enter meeting ID 956 8718 7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raise their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star n on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we
126may hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments um caller ending in [Music] 411 hello um I'm assuming I'm being heard uh this is win we Garten uh 1411 Granger I am a property manager in town um I've uh I'm I support um just you know John mery's comments um he puts a lot of thought into what he said also I am another landlord who cares and wants to do the right thing um so uh we need to be careful when we talk about landlords cherry picking to pad let's assume that all people are trying to do the right thing uh and want to do the right thing um and that's why it is important to me uh there were questions asked about uh can the program
127be uh how can it be changed if you realize uh uh there's a need and it's a little the answer was a little distressing I have to say um because it seemed I what I heard was well you know a lot of it's been vetted through legal and that's what I've been told the last two and a half years when I've asked to be involved is that well it's going through legal though I'm getting a feeling that a policy gets approved it's going to be hard to change anything likewise uh which is why it makes it difficult to listen to uh um some of the answers that I've heard um you know they said well we've conduct we've consulted experts and we've consulted with landlords well uh you know what uh I'd feel a lot
128more comfortable if you'd actually list them and put references down on those slides um so um you need to add references because you haven't proven to me that any of the uh how the items on the checklist are actually going to uh make a difference in and I'm a quantifiable person you should know I am uh a member of uh the uh uh 2030 districts uh and one of the things that makes us different than for example regular lead is we ask for numbers and proof uh not just uh not just lip service so um I think you need to do that other thing as a landlord the city needs to move needs to make sure that uh it updates its policies with time for example there are documents that we are required to apply
129to tenants all tenants everyone should have access to the internet these days and I should be able to give them a lead pamphlet online um I should be able to do the likewise I should be able to do a training uh uh online tenant training uh and that should be uh acceptable so three minutes thank you uh no further callers um I will note if folks refer to in the um in the attachments there is a um file called the green rental checklist methodology it does have a lot of the information on how those numbers were determined um I I didn't attach to here but I I can provide as well the um the overall work that went into creating that as well if that would be helpful that might be very useful for folks
130if you're able to mail that mail that out um that might be useful for folks and I want to thank all the callers um who who called made comments today as well um the last item aside from adjournment is any items for the next agenda um commissioner Mery uh I mentioned in the last meeting I mentioned again this time I'd like to see a presentation of uh the annual greenhouse gas inventory uh as well as osi's performance measures dashboard uh in the past we've always reviewed that in August the earliest we would do it now is in October so hopefully we can do that soon um the other thing that I would uh ask be uh considered maybe not um near term but um uh this whole topic was related basically to um efficiency disclosures
131and driving ecm's um energy conservation measures and renewable energy um one component of that as Joe showed is the commercial benchmarking uh that ordinance was passed with a clause that says that there's supposed to be an annual report issued on that uh we should have had two reports uh I'm not aware of those being posted anywhere but if we're passing these kinds of ordinances and we're saying we're writing reports I think it's really important that we uh do a check function um where we go back and look at takeaways and Lessons Learned and hopefully those reports are doing that and would allow us to um evaluate progress that's being made in the commercial area as well as the ordinance and any tweaks that might be made to that so those are uh my requests for
132future agenda items I can sorry Peck I see you if I can respond real quick I just wanted to note a couple things um one if I I think I've mentioned this before if I haven't my apologies um again noting that the the person who had previously been doing our greenhouse gas inventory and did the city's performance uh or OSI performance metrics dashboard did um leave the team earlier this year uh we've just hired someone in to kind of fill that role um but as that person did one not do the greenhouse gas inventory um nor did they do that original process of it they don't have that context at this time so we are not planning on doing a presentation on that I can direct people to the materials I can walk through the
133materials but you know like I said we don't for this year have someone who's able to do that but we can get you to those things and we'll definitely be doing that in future Years also noting with the benchmarking like that don't have those reports from my understanding there was um issues they were working through on getting right now were very very heavily investing in getting everything updated on benchmarking um our you know staff person who's been working on that they're currently in the like the final phases of compliance for this year there were some extensions that needed to be done um and his time is incredibly over spent on benchmarking right now from where it should be trying to get all these buildings into compliance and that's kind of the first Focus once he
134has gotten the buildings into compliance once we are there that's when we'll be looking to do the report hopefully um again want show over PE yes uh thank you uh Joe for all the uh work going into this meeting um I'd also be very interested in in it's unless someone else sees a reason not to do this I would love to hear have a list presented of the challenges uh that OSI sees in meeting the goals of um Net Zero in ranked order and then uh have us discuss use that as a discussion vehicle to get a sense of of uh and you could and maybe what we need is a ranking of you know you know annotate it a little so we have an idea of what the challenge is how serious is it
135um and um you know then we can go through them and really help you brainstorm or find others that can help us brainstorm each of those challenges you you know so it's taking a just a big you know it's essentially an assessment of where we stand and where we're going I think everyone on the call here today probably feels like no fault of yours or osis we're going too slow you know the whole planet is going too slow but I think Ann Arbor provides a real opportunity to show the world how you do it and to do it at in a real world uh context and it would be good for us to really uh make sure we're doing all we can and I think this is a way you know with University of Michigan's
136commitment to doing a lot more in the climate space Maybe to help you know at least one benefit might be to help get um the University of Michigan to help with some of these in a more serious way but I also think they're going to be other folks other entities that can help us in a serious way um just an idea thanks that's a great that's a great um suggestion to help us help us I think throughout this as we're sort of navigating how to how to shape the agendas moving forward too and and support of um Council and and OSI and and all the work um any anything else from commission members council members uh once again please feel oh yep sorry yep one more it's been a long time since I've done a
137meeting like this where every single face is a male you know we really do need to diversify this committee um but anyhow um I understand that's a hard thing to do sometimes we still here tonight right that John you broke up when you were you were talking I said we still have two openings that would have not been filled let's make a priority maybe to think of who we can get it doesn't look like us council member Rina yeah uh and I just want on that front I spoke with mayor Taylor at the end of our last council meeting about some of the vacancies and I know that um we're having some discussions about um getting uh the commissions filled and what the what that looks like going forward um with respect to this I
138think we also had a new vacancy that occurred this morning um so we have another person that has left the commission and so we want to make sure that um we're looking because we're also getting close to potential Quorum issues if we start missing people and so we need to start looking at um what we do so I will um um continue talking to him but to the extent that anyone knows of folks that should apply um one of the things that we are often lacking is diverse applicants when trying to fill positions on commissions so um please encourage people to apply if you know folks and that goes for all commissions not necessarily just this one okay um thank you everyone for your time uh and preparing for the meeting and and and for
139the time you're going to put put towards uh preparation also over the next month um and I know there's a number of follow-ups uh with with uh a few of you as well in terms of uh different different comments and things like that um so I just want to say thank you and um looking forward it's 7 48 and so as chair I declare this meeting adjourned thank you everyone have a good week