001e e e call please indicate your current location and during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during inperson meetings and please meet when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only tonight to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call one of the following two toll-free numbers 877 85342 sorry 5247 or 888 78899 and enter the meeting ID 5 956 that's 956 8718 7876 on your phone this information will also be available on the 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 a2gov.org watch CN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgement yep um I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the
002ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of Ana shab including Odawa OJ embod wadm and W 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 work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals great and it looks like we're ready to move into the roll call so please go ahead and take the rooll thanks bet um commissioner burwitz from an arbor council member Briggs here and N Arbor uh commissioner coven Garcia here and
003an arbor uh commissioner Hans I'm not seeing um Vice chair harp here n Arbor commissioner [Music] here um okay there you um chair McKenna here commissioner mki here in an haror commissioner overp here in an arbor and um I've heard from council member Dino said he's most likely not going to be able to make it uh commissioner Syra is up maybe he's actually heading to compete at the National Championship rowing rata so he might be able to join if internet connection allows and then commissioner Smith was unable to make it and then commissioner zittleman here in an arbor all right chair we got a quorum fantastic okay we'll move to approval of the agenda so is there a motion to approve the agenda as posted tonight Vice chair harp thanks in a second think I
004saw Garcia thank you um Commissioners please raise your hand if you want to propose any changes or discussion issu on the agenda okay uh seeing no no changes and no hands raised there all those in favor of approving the agenda as posted please raise your hand and say I okay seeing a unanimous vote um oh that great seeing unanimous vote um the agenda is approved and approval of the minutes is there motion to approve the minutes as posted thanks council member Briggs and a second I think I saw Vice Sher harp um thanks so um commissioner please raise your hand and say I if you want to propose any changes tonight okay no changes to the meeting minutes um and uh so go ahead and raise your hand and say I if you would like
005to approve the minutes as posted all great I'm seeing unanimous yes and so the meeting minutes are approved okay next we'll move to the first opportunity for public comment this is an opportunity for people who call in to speak for up to 3 minutes if you're watching on CTN I won't bungle the numbers this time please call 888 78899 or 877 853 5247 with the meeting ID number 956 7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the 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 n this is a crucial point you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you
006to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds and please set your name and address as you begin your comments Joel do we have anyone on the line we do um color ending in 134 thank you Mr Lang and chairman Kenna Ken Garber 28 H Hill Court uh to review the basics buildings are 65% of the city scope one and two emissions we'll need to retrofit our vast existing building stock for electric heat pumps so that when we have a clean grid they'll be emission free adding new gas burning buildings to that inventory is insanity each time we do this we lock in new CO2 and Upstream methane emissions for many decades that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for 300 years or more so each new gas burning
007building approval is a decision that will affect the next 20 Generations heating their Planet it's tragic because we know how to Electrify buildings efficiently and economically some developers are doing that here now but many insist on gas because they're used to it the kind of mental inertia that's wrecking the planet not just developers of course all of us I thank energy commission and especially the electrification working group for your work on this and for looking at Solutions outside of the city administrators those are mostly one-sided in their willingness to to reward Developers for doing what they should be doing anyway at the expense of the public and handing over our tax dollars are cutting us out of plan review and exempting Commercial kitchens and backup gas generators another bad idea are other cities taking this
008approach they may be but I'm not aware of it on the other hand there are dozens of cities that ban new gas connections entirely despite legal challenges with others charging fees for carbon emissions like Burlington's carbon pollution impact fee cambridge's Net Zero compliance free fee and New York City's local law 97 I don't view these as penalizing developers or even as disincentives for gas but rather proper cost allocation right now the costs of burning fossil gas are externalized with the atmosphere serving as an open sewer for emissions here we're mostly insulated from those costs they're being paid by poor people in the global South massive flooding in Pakistan and Libya drought in Sudan in Guatemala wildfires in Brazil extreme heat in the Philippines our emissions are doing this and people are suffering and dying right
009now because of us as a rich country and city that have long benefited from fossil fuels we must eliminate them as soon as possible new construction is just the start one that's been put off for way too long it's the easy part let's get it done now so we can get to the hard stuff thank you uh no further callers okay great thanks Ken a nice preamble to our discussion tonight um all right so we're going to move into our next agenda item which is discussing the um uh the memo resolution directing City administrator to identify incentives that would support voluntary efforts I guess by developers to increase uh emissions reductions and I was hoping before we kick this off I know some folks are teed up to kind of present some slides and and
010share the the material that was uh posted but I thought someone uh here might want to provide a small recap of what the context of the memo is um I know it came out in January of this year and I think all of us were on the commission at the time but um you know maybe for someone who hasn't been following as closely um I thought maybe Comm mki or maybe council member Briggs might want to share a little bit of the context Sor to C call on you and sorry I don't have it up in front of so I might need to pull it up and then all right um maybe Vice chair harp have you done a little thinking on this over the last month or so and could provide some context on
011where we start sure um yeah and and you know to probably to provide some context based on where I understand it um I think as the memo reports there was a a resolution uh in June of of uh 2023 um asking this the staff to identify incentives that would support um voluntary efforts by residents and businesses to increase emission reductions um through sustaining heating um and cleaning as well as as beneficial electrification and then also a written report around internal processes around the um those efforts um and so I think our understanding of this memo was in response to that so this may be partial you know my understanding in reading of this is that it's a a partial response to that um resolution from from City Council um and a step forward in that
012and I think what I can share is we put together a sort of working group both to respond to that um the question around um incentives around electrification um in buildings uh but also looking at disincentives and and and also requirements and I can go into that a little bit more um but we're also I think the working group was charged with um also potentially trying to sort of navigate the real and perceived trade-offs between affordability and potential electrification as well and I think that's something that the working group hasn't necessarily been able to fully get a handle on because that requires a sort of um larger set of economic potentially analyses as well and so um but I think what we tried to do was provide an additional layer of um framework to help
013make sense of the memo sort of broadly in terms of the different categories that it was looking at um whether that was incentives disincentives potential requirements and things and try to parse out sort of things that the city might be able to do the things that it might not be able to do and and sort of ways in which we might be able to think about some of these things um in terms of policy that might create productive uh discussions around sort of the ways either in which we frame them or how we think about amounts and quantities and and and things like that and so um I think that's the sort part of partially a preamble for this memo and our understanding the memo and I think the task of as I understand the
014task of the energy Commission Now is to sort of perhaps develop some sense of guidance or set of responses U and reactions around around the memo and perhaps a framework for adding to that as guidance for city council to help um uh to help support their decision-making moving forward around around whether you know whether it's these incentives or whether it's sort of modifications or adjustments to those incentives that's my sense of of the context of this memo and others may have some as well and I can share a little bit about what the the working group um put together along with Mike um uh commissioner burkwitz here here in a few minutes as well yeah that sounds great uh looks like commissioner mki has some thoughts yeah I wanted to just briefly put this in
015broader context and that is in the context of the a20 plan the a20 plan in strategy 3 action two um which is called update building codes has an assumption that uh after 2022 all new buildings in arber will be built um that so that they are essentially Net Zero ready um there's also an assumption in there that assumes that roughly 250 new housing units will be added per year and so um in both regards um the city has not met those Targets in the a20 plan so I think it's important first to understand why we're even talking about this is because it's in the plan and then as uh Mr Garber uh indicated we have been um building a lot of new housing including hotels in an arbor and many of those units um are
016have not been electrified they're not all electric and as he indicated they will likely then be um consuming natural gas and um emitting emissions for 20 plus years so I think I think that's important to to state um I have one other concern um as we go into this topic and that is that um we had additions into building or to the U meeting with materials um that were just sent out this afternoon um those are rather extensive documents multiple Pages um I looked at them but I did not have a chance to study them it's my understanding that there is a city requirement that um all materials at least be targeted to um for distribution at least 48 hours in advance so people can review those and study those um I don't know if
017we're going to draw any conclusions tonight um I I would feel uncomfortable doing so simply because I haven't had a chance to review those we will have a chance apparently to talk about some of them but uh I'm I'm concerned that um we're going to be making a policy recommendation where we really haven't had a chance to study this adequately so I just wanted to raise those two points uh at the beginning of this discussion thank you thanks commission mki a couple of comments um I wanted to follow up on the first point about um the the a20 plan of of having goal of having all new construction be electric ready by 2022 was that missed because the code didn't get updated as we thought it might through the state um the state code has
018not been updated um obviously there are things that the city can do um so it's not just a state matter it's something that the city can do and that's what we're I talking about tonight of what kind of incentives or what kind of regulations the city might be able to adopt um and Mr Garber also indicated and we've covered some of these in past meeting minutes with resolutions and reports from both Cambridge and Burlington um so it's not just a matter of the State Building Code it's just a matter of there's an assumption in the plan the plan assumes that there will be no new um buildings added that are that are burning natural gas and over the next several years those will be coming online and that means that in order to get to
019Net Zero um we're either going to need more offsets or we're going to need to have something that is um let's say over and above what's in the plan in order to achieve that goal sure okay and yeah your point is is well taken that U there's a lot of pretty extensive material um I agree it's it's um quite detailed and we're going to see it I think is a primer tonight that's um the plan and um by sharp is going to walk us through the documents and the goal would be not tonight but perhaps at a future meeting maybe even next uh month to develop either a comment on the memo or a resolution to provide guidance um to the council members so I think this is the first kind of in a way
020it's definitely not the first time that we viewed the memo together but um it's it's a bit of a first pass in terms of um bringing to Bear all of the additional work that has been done uh Joe yeah only thing yeah I just wanted to check in terms of the material you said you didn't get was that the um which ones were those I I shared the update agenda on Friday but if anything didn't come through um let me know and I can make sure that is fixed in the future I think there was an email that you sent out this afternoon with a report um from the subgroup that was apparently dated something like April 17th this is by memory and then there's some several slides that also went out for the first
021time as far as I know this afternoon yeah I I didn't send anything this afternoon um I I shared on Friday if I apologize if something weird happened with emails umy technology okay thanks sorry about that though either way yeah totally thanks Joe and that being said I think we we'll still look at this for the first time um there's quite a lot to get through so uh council member Briggs yeah thanks and just um thanks to commissioner harp for providing that um that background one other um piece in terms of um additional information that's going to be coming to council uh economic in addition to the memo um there's the economic development report that we've received that had recommendations and we've um Council has passed a series of resolutions one of them targeted sustainability
022um asking for additional information to come back to us as well and so that's um there will be some additional kind of you know staff um provided recommendations at a future Point as well and so you know integrating all of this together and thinking about those in relationship to what we've already asked for what we haven't asked for um you know and then uh in the future kind of what what's coming back to council viser it's a great time to be to be getting feedback from energy commission all right great so do we want to launch into a little more detail on on the materials r burwitz or ier harp sure um yeah and I can all you know I'll just say that I think part of the reason that as a working group that
023we wanted to sort of take this on is because it's um you know it's a fairly complicated um set of topics and there's a lot of um there's a lot of information and and a lot of different pieces to it so I think we wanted to try to unpack some of it and try to provide a framework for thinking about some of these things as a way of helping to helping all of us think through think through some of what these things might be and provide a little bit of a common language for doing that um and potentially because we might not have everything right and because we might also might want to pull in other sources of information as well so um uh I think we'll be relying on all of you to help
024us sort of um navigate this as well and this is just sort of a way for us to talk through so let me see what I can do to um pull up um one second sorry just share these well Vice chair harp is com up the side so I can maybe just flag process wise a little bit um so uh background and kind of how we came up with some of these things um my goal in research was essentially just like watching lots of webinars reading lots of Articles um the wolf pack provided a a whole slew of resources around potential incentives and solutions and so kind of went through all those things parsed things out um I to just collect as many ideas as we could of you know um like shart mentioned like
025incentives requirements and disincentives are out there uh popular ones and things that are in testator that we see um elsewhere and mapping those out as a menu and in for cross comparison with the city administrators M um we got some feedback from working group members at an inperson hearing on a bunch of these things and so that's kind of what I think informs uh beautiful and organized slides that J is us there right now yeah so I think so we try to do is walk through the different things and we and we wanted to parse out one you know as you as many of you have heard in the past um you know some of these conversations have hinged on the question of whether it's new construction whether it's existing construction um are we talking
026about incentives are we talking about requirements or are we talking about disincentives um and to try to clarify the things that the city can do um through its activities um whether those are in in in those other buckets or or others that might need um other broad whether whether it's state or or even Federal in the case may be so um the slides have some of the reference links some of the things that have been shared with you all as well um previously but we also noticed in a number of the resolutions that were put forward um previously whether it was around uh say carbon tax or or even around the some of the city administrators language um it a lot of the work was around whether the sort of definitions or framing of of
027the incentives or the the the requirements for example a new a new project um definition for example um the sort of boundaries of where things were the different amounts percentages intensities and timings and you know we can talk this is sort of a framework for us to sort of talk through some of these things and so these might be areas for sort of flexibility or creativity in terms of thinking through um how things might be structured and we wanted to give ourselves enough of a way to think about this that that that this might become um there might be uh ways that we can think creatively about how how how this might be implemented or or how might be framed as well um so that was that was kind of how we approached it um
028and I'll just share I'll just go through these very quickly um since you have all the slides with you and then and then perhaps we can sort of talk through I think maybe the main things one by one but basically um these were the cities some of the city administrator recommended incentives such as the new project definitions or classifications and we pulled out um I pulled out the the 30% heye bonus so you know some might ask why 30% why not 20% why not 50% you know these are some of the questions that you know folks might have um where in terms of site plan approval in terms of um EX from City's citizen participation requirements um some questions might be about like well to what degree to what level of those requirements for example
029is it all the requirements is it partial part of the requirements and so I think these are some of the kinds of questions that we might be able to ask also to sort of refine our understanding of what what sort of really achieves the outcomes that we're looking looking out um one of the ones that did receive a lot of feedback and you'll see this in some of the notes from the working group as well which I won't um necessarily directly refer to is there was a lot of a lot of discussion and i' say broad level of of sort of support and comment on the value of the early project planning um and in part because this sort of helps bring together a lot of different actors and hash out these questions and and
030and and perhaps find find Solutions and so um that seemed to be something that that was was super valuable um in addition um I'll just list these were some of the ones that were not necessarily uh recommended as incentives by the city administrator but again in sort of category of incentives um and I don't believe this last one the the the sort of financing based on future increased tax revenue this is something I think that we could um provide some more uh uh references for as well but this is something that's come up in in a number of different conversations um too um again there were incentives for um per building performance so performance standards for how for uh building um building energy use um and and again this was something also that there in
031our conversations there was a a lot tied to the sort of um uh the uh dashboard and the benchmarking um ordinance and the sort of value of the implementation of that ordinance for then helping to um provide and and and actually uh perhaps Implement some of these incentives um requirements or just incentives is the case and so though so this may come up later in the discussion as well but the the the notion that these the that that benchmarking ordinance and the um and the city administrator M well seem to be sort of Fairly tied together in this conversation and and that may be something that we want to revisit further as well um other any any questions currently about that um I'll just go through um and mention that there were other things that
032perhaps had to be um pursued via the state whether they were legislative or or Regulatory and we um uh I think Claire had mentioned the updated um building code and and energy code um that the state is currently working through at the moment um but is as I understand it that does not for example include the The Net Zero appendix um as we understand it for example um so those are are things that um we might want to look at as well um setting aside funds such as refunds or other grants to offset taxes so desired but the these obviously have implications that sort of go beyond the city as well um previously there the the energy commission had visited a um had taken up a resolution looking at that had among other things a
033carbon pollution impact fee we want to include that in here as well as a good example of perhaps a disincentive um but also to to pay attention to in what in what ways is what are the sort of assumptions of that how is the fee what's the the range of the fee what in what kinds of units um these are things we might want to look at as we sort of structure and think about the disincentives as well and and try to and I would say um sort of in in my point of view try to put them in units that um will make um intuitive sense to folks as as we're sort of reading as we're sort of reading this so you know for example um you know how does that how does that
034fee sort of relate to um um energy use in practice perhaps it also related to the um the the as well but but how does it relate to what people might intuitively understand in their how they're using energy in their buildings in their in their offices in their homes um on a on a weekly or a monthly basis these are things that we might want to try to translate if we were developing I think language as well um another natural gas connection fee was also mentioned [Music] um uh something that the city might be able to do as a disincentive and there were some comments about this as well um and then also things that are sort of a combination so requirements again we mentioned the building and energy code as well um and things
035like that um and let's see I mentioned the building performance and emission standards and again this is sort of T Built on the existing benchmarking ordinance um and it's something that would probably be a combination of you not only require requirements but also incentives and disincentives as the case may be and so that might be something um that that's looked at sort of more holistically um also in terms of how that's communicated how folks are are are are are um being brought into that so as a quick highlevel overview of sort of how we tried to sort of take the city city administrators uh memo but also add to that some of the things that we've seen and we're also looking I think um nationally for other examples um uh around the around the country
036and also looking here at home for examples that that that um others might have and that might fit in this and so this might work as for us as a framework to start thinking through some of these some of these areas and start piecing together what we think might make an appropriate set of for example recommendations or directions or or or ways to think about think about that and I'll leave it there for now and um I think Mike did you want to add anything commissioner bur what did you want to add anything else to that I think we have a number of other sort of comments with you know specifically related to each of each of the different sort of incentives and things like that and we can um sort of add those as
037well based on sort of talking through them as a working group but I'm sure all of you do as as well so I don't want to take up too much time yeah that was really it I was just thinking once we get to kind of each individual uh item that we were talking through there I'd be happy to help give an overview of some of the comments or feedback we got from working group members also can you all hear me clearly I switched over to my headphon since I first okay great thank you all right um does anyone have questions or comments that have Arisen yes commiss col Garcia just a really small question about um the uh the heating the building Heating and um I noticed that the heating of water was not included
038in your in your suggestions that was all my only question why not I I don't know that it was uh purposely excluded I want to say that it's kind of wrapped into the broader just nomenclature of electrification but um yeah I do think that that is included as a component just kind of any appliances or um heating um I'm not sure it was correct me if I'm wrong I guess it I didn't think it was just heating but kind of all gas use in buildings essentially or if that's not what the city administrator or you know um other proposals were focused on that's at least I think what we had in mind and you know what we know to be the mission of of or the goal of I think uh this movement yeah I'm
039reading the memo that um basically minimization of the natural gas connection itself I'm so trying to completely eliminate a gas meter and um any infrastructure that might be tied in from the gas distribution system I think that that's the the goal you know and um it wasn't in the city administrator's M most specifically but some of the things that we talked about kind of building off the benchmarking ordinance um in program uh the benchmarking I believe is for energy and for water as well so um there's some aspects there that that might make sense uh that's around I think uh water usage uh not uh water heating or anything of that nature but um so just flagging uh they're interconnected great any other comments sound like you guys wanted to maybe commercial Bri did you
040want to share a little bit more I have some comments um I don't know what would be best to kick off discussion um yeah if if you or others maybe have comments uh I'd say go for it and then I can kind of fill in if people aren't saying some of the things that you know folks on the work group said cool yeah um so let's see how to formulate um as I read through the recommendations in the memo and those that were just laid out for us um seems like one of the biggest benefits we have is the um the benchmarking ordinance and um for me this transition is going to take building up transitional infrastructure definitely based in data um and kind of what I see is like a maybe like a progressive
041plan towards something that maybe looks like local law 97 in New York where um just to kind of reiterate what what's been said already um you know to actually charge a fee for um additional emissions that have not been mitigated through retrofits um that's you know for New York really targeted at um building efficiency maybe more so than actual um you know natural gas elimination or um you know electrification transition so but I think that's also um an important goal for us and I don't want to lose sight of um building efficiency at the same time although what we're talking about here does seem to be focused on new construction devel it so I want to make sure that we kind of parse those um so I guess yeah I wanted to share that um
042I hear The Benchmark and ordinance come up again and again I do think it's a really important kind of like Keystone of the um an arbor program and um towards decarbonization and I think that the next step should be um should hinge off of that that progress uh if possible and I'm really in support of the early planning um the support myself I know it was recommended in the memo but you know having worked in um new construction development and having been on the engineering side of the the kinds of um requests like you know can these buildings be all electric and um you know how do we push the envelope on on on Energy Efficiency and decarbonization that kind of support um from the city is really important I know that I've heard from
043developers in our city that um some of the biggest gaps to actually achieving all electric buildings even if they do developers do have the gumption or the the drive to to make that happen um is that let's say the utility um uh the the electrical capacity isn't there or the the fees are extremely large and I'm hearing complaints about GTE kind of pushing back on on the capacity that can be added for a fully electric building especially for for residential that that tends to be a problem um and so I see that the major challenges are not just sort of like us against them in terms of developers um but more so uh just the status quo of this construction development prog process itself and trying to kind of break down where the barriers really
044are U rather than thinking that we could just incentivize it and then it would happen I think that that's it's not going to be as simple as that maybe we already know that um based on what we've done so far um yeah so those are that's kind of the summary of my comments and so I just wanted to make those known um Mike was there anything else that you had one I'd say if um I think all those are really on point and we saw uh those things reflected in um both the feedback from uh folks uh the working group and just the research we did behind the scenes um you mentioned the the benchmarking um and building off of that and kind of the New York policy um as I was doing the research
045I saw um kind of emissions based standards or like greenhouse gas standards for buildings um that are kind of uh uh either built off those benchmarking or sand Alone um either way they're kind of the most popular and um well tested uh models for cities across the country trying to decarbonize um whether it's electrification or uh just greenhouse gas reduction in general um uh including the efficiency and other things you talked about um it you know is uh legally uh an option in Michigan it's it it avoids the um full band like preemption issue that was seen in Berkeley um and uh there are there are many cities either doing it already or in the process of adopting it I know the city of Chicago is uh reviewing uh weighing a proposal on on this
046right now to adopt an emissions based standard for I think it's medium and large buildings um uh the city of Detroit just adopted a benchmarking ordinance last fall so they're going to start actually measuring it they're a few years behind where Ann Arbor is but in the future they could do something there um but New York um other many other cities are are doing um emissions based standards for medium and large buildings so I do think uh that's separate from what the city administrator um reviewed and suggested but I I do think that's like the thing that popped up most that the leading experts recommend as probably the best way to do this again that it's for existing and potentially new buildings um and it mostly be medium and large buildings though I don't think
047we're talking residential for that um and then you mentioned the early planning with the utility um work group members seem to very much support that as well um thought um it just makes a lot of sense it can mitigate some of the issues that you had flagged um I believe there's a development you know uh going through right now that wants to be all electric and DTE said maybe the you know the Grid or the infrastructure locally can't handle it but some free planning might be able to massage that over and find Solutions ahead of time so um your your thoughts chair M I think were very well reflected in both the research and the work group support for those things thanks um yeah I wanted to just add one more item on there so
048hearing about um your comments on how more advanced cities um in this realm are yeah taking advantage of the benchmarking ordinances and and some data databases that they may be building um I just want to make sure that to highlight the split incentive that we may create so if we have um we're concerned with new development and we work with a benchmarking ordinance to kind of you know rat it down emissions by let's say increasing a cost per emission um over time that we there might be a gap where um new buildings could get in let's say gas or you know kind of energy high energy users and then kind of pass along those costs to Future owners or um you know depending on the on the type of development um so that would be
049something that would concern me where the um kind of economic um pressure isn't really on the after at the beginning so we may need some kind of other leverage or other mechanism that that kind of is an add-on um so I don't know Comm work with did you see anything that um kind of reflected this new construction concern in the cities that are that are advanced in their benchmarking not not a ton but I do think that's very valid concern and legitimate um so you know duly noted but I I didn't see a lot of folks running into that just yet um I think most folks are essentially once they get the buildings willing to measure their you know energy and water usage then just having some sort of requirements there um was just the
050next step um I'm uh and others might know of cities that are further along but I can't speak to any that I ran into where they were directly experiencing what you said but I do think like projecting that that could happen it's something that could be taken advantage of um there would need to be some you know preclusion or smart language set up around that or maybe phasing or something um so yes yeah yeah council member BRS yeah thanks um yeah as as we're wrestling with this I think it's um important to know that I mean it's it's probably obvious the things that we're wrestling with it's certainly around affordability certain around um creating policies that don't um that um also continue to support housing growth um because that is another you know really significant
051challenge that we're having in our community um is to make sure we are you know we don't put policies in place that sort of stagnate that growth um so I thought I thought it might be useful for me to share also just so everybody here can see it the latest direction that we've provided to requesting information back from planning staff and consultants and um City Administration as well just uh um around definition construction and also we're trying to take this sort of dual strategy of you know creating um trying to find ways to essentially reduce the cost of developing the you for new development reducing the costs of developing the way that we want to um and you know streamlining the processes uh just pulling up out any of the costs that we possibly can
052potentially so that um folks you know we can we can encourage folks to build the right way um properly um even for projects that um because as we know we cannot require this for most of our development so um let me make see if I can properly share this screen um okay is everybody seeing my screen looks good great thank you so sorry I searched for economic development so or development or something so that's why everything's highlighted that's that's that but um so basically this is in um early April that we we passed this resolution kind of based on the economic development report and then incentives memo um asking for um yeah basically creating and defining um creating these definitions um what does fully electrified development actually mean in the UDC we also had what
053does an energy efficient development look like in EDC um creating a FastTrack approval process um let's see mending code to designate basically allowing for stuff this is something that's actually done pretty typically in um across the state that things can be approved by planning staff as opposed to going through Planning Commission once we can pull out um steps in the process for by approval that um you know allowing that sort of fast tracking for um sustainable developments um that meet this meet these definitions um trying to you know considering what you know modifying the site plan review or related fees would look like if we waved it for these types of developments um and then you know pushing forward our our City's legislative policy agenda um we're asking for this to be that these changes
054come back to us um you know it's a year and a half from now um obviously we we'd love to see it coming sooner um and that so these are you know some of the pieces that we already have in process that obviously has been um nothing has been approved or anything like that and so as as energy is kind of thinking about these pieces and also but also thinking about what really that type of def definition should you know what do you want to see come back to us around that definition of fully electrified or energy efficient because the you know the devil's really in the details there um so let's see okay I just wanted to make sure everybody got a chance to and I can you know share that out with others
055later so everybody has has access to that language but um I'd love to certainly hear some feedback around that as well or you know what elements we have were not exploring yeah go ahead by sh um partially is I think a way of bridging that that question of the definitions like fully of fully electrified for example one of the things that I think was present in looking at some of the incentives and disincentives and whatnot was this question of all or less right and and so I'm curious from the perspective of the other commission members of sort of how you sort of Might tackle that and I'll try to give some examples I think in the in the in the city administrator's memo there was a mention of an exception for cooking gas right for
056for restaurants and things like that um it's easy enough to imagine I think situations even in restaurants where not everything needs to be heated with natural gas right or needs to be cooked with natural gas like there are certainly like lots of boiling water is a great thing not to do with natural gas um for example because there's you know other efficient ways of doing that um and I think the same thing is true probably for a lot of other situations and you know I know that you know for example like some some heat pumps when combined with um natural gas existing furnaces um can be more efficient than they would otherwise be um because they're they're using the existing heat so you know I I think there's lots of different cases where we can
057sort of Imagine situations of moving um and I think this comes up for natural gas connections also so the you know the question is there's lots of exemptions for sort of emergency heat and and and things like that so I you know I'm I'm wondering sort of about that that question of more or less in in in a lot of these and sort of how other Commissioners are thinking about that and one way this plays out I in one conversation someone had mentioned me the question of of natural gas connections versus combustion of natural gas um on on sites and the dis the difference being sort of um if you reduce or eliminate combustion of natural gas for say cooking or heating or things like that it opens up you know there may be opportunities
058whether it's for fuel cells or other kinds of other kind uh other kinds of activities so you know I don't I know there's lots of exceptions and I'm trying to sort of think through some of the cases in which we might um want to sort of um uh think carefully about that sort of more or less question I guess so I'll put that up out there to all all of you is a ongoing way of framing this all right any more thoughts and comments anybody see anything missing or yeah commissioner rki um I have just a number of questions and comments first of all um who is members of the subgroup was it um Gabe and Mike or were there any other members of the subgroup and who were they yeah it was me and
059Gabe um and then for our working group session we opened it up to the public and took feedback but Gabe and I were the ones right okay um another question that I have is um council member Briggs already mentioned a resolution that was passed by Council um earlier this year um and I'm wondering um it's the name of the res resolution is resolution to direct the city administrator to implement new processes and programs to support sustainability in the built environment um I I see that council member Briggs was one of the sponsors I'm wondering what elements of the city administrator's recommendations are already covered by that resolution that was passed if any yeah a fair amount of them are included within that but um certainly in terms of how that plays out we we are
060lack part of what this resolution is is requesting is more detailed information on on these sets of Rec recommendations that we're out within the incentives memo kind of um for example the you know waving of certain types of fees what does that look like how far you know it's these um we need more information before we could really Implement that type of change um what I'm getting at if I may is yeah the the commission is being asked to comment on this set of recommendations from the city administrator if Council has already acted on some of them is it a mute point for the energy commission at least in some regards to those specific recommendations that have already been addressed by city council I don't think it's I mean I think it's just a continuing
061conversation I just want to make sure that it's clear where we're at in the process we've asked for additional feedback you know if if something that Council has asked for um energy commission really thinks is the wrong direction it'd be nice to know that um so you know I think there's none of this has been these are none of these are implemented changes yet however I think you can probably see in terms of what we've asked for um and the research that's being done um okay you know great this has already been asked for in terms of um uh certain elements but I think the conversation you know around what should that fully electrified definition look like having had that doing some of that work right now um and passing that we can that can
062inform the process and the definition that is being created right so that's that's helpful to have had that conversation and that input um directing into this process and it's more timely even because we've already said do this you know and it's it's helpful to know where where our commission um energy commission is landing on this and also you can start seeing okay what was what was in within the framework of of the incentives memo and the economic development report and what we've asked for and um what haven't we asked for yet what aren't we exploring what should we be exploring um where are those gaps where do we have some opportunity because obviously this um you know we're we're so I don't think it's a mve point okay and I have just um two more
063questions um first is I submitted to Joe a list of 11 questions um those were forwarded to the commission um I sent him those um sometime around I don't know the 20th or something like that of of of last month and I saw that those were forwarded to the commission um sometime in the middle of last week I'm wondering if the subgroup um had a chance to review those and if those were taken into consideration in the slides that they developed um and um I guess related to that I I would still like to know the answers to most if not all of those questions including just a few things like um what other cities might address this but um the report that or the recommendations that the city administrator passed on what other cities
064were benchmarked um there's no background memo to this it just is a list of recommendations so what you know this is these are questions that every city worldwide is dealing with how do we get to full electric buildings and how do we eliminate emissions so this is not something that the an AR the city of an arbor should be creating its own wheel we should be benchmarking all the other wheels that are out there um that's one question that um for me is unanswered um another question just simply looking at uh a point in time where hopefully this isn't necessary anymore we don't need to provide any incentives and so the question is how would these incentives be um essentially um rolled back or or eliminated one by one I I don't I don't see
065um in fact you might remember most Commissioners were on the commission back in 2022 when Tim McDonald um from onion Flats presented a presentation on all electric passive house um buildings and last year in communication with me he wrote me that all of the developers that he knows in the East Co post are building all electric simply because it's it's less expensive and there's obviously a different Paradigm here in the Midwest but if that indeed that's true in the Northeast what is informing those developers um I'm sure Tim doesn't know every developer and he's just like all of us he has his own people that he Associates with but if indeed that's true are are these incentives even necessary or is there simply just a requirement that we do some better education or I don't
066know what it might be so there's a whole like I said there's 11 questions that I POS and I'm I'm really interested in in knowing the answers to those questions and then one last uh question that I have um just a week or two ago the city uh approved a new 17 story uh Housing Development on Church Street and at least the coverage in M live didn't indicate whether that was going to be an electric building or not and I'm just wondering if if indeed we continue to approve very very large natural gas connected buildings I was wondering if anybody could um shed shed light on that because I think that just illustrates the problem in the sense that we're dealing with these issues and as we just saw in the document uh from council
067member Briggs some of these things won't be addressed until the end of 2025 and so you know month by month potentially we're Contin in to approve new projects that are natural gas connected so um I'll I'll I'll leave it at that and uh hope for a few uh responses to those comments yeah commissioner burtz sure um thanks commissioner mki uh for your questions um I took a look at them via email and um a handful of them I know were reflected in the comments that like we group members and members of the public shared with us so um I don't think all them are perfectly addressed um but um there are a handful of them then in there um and I think I'd be happy to kind of review those maybe out loud for folks
068in more detail here but some of the things you shared very much were reflected in in the feedback we got um I just went back and pulled up my notes um from research so just looking at other states and kind of what they're doing um states that have either building performance standards or building emission standards which is the top recommendation um and again is a requirement um not an incentive or disincentive but uh kind of the best um pointed to one um so uh Boston they have a building performance standard Seattle has a building performance standard uh Ithaca in New York has a building uh performance standard and is regarded as the gold standard it's the best one all the research um and the speakers I listened to on webinars kept referring back to Ithaca
069um as being kind of one of the models um Washington DC uh has a building energy performance standard um St Louis Missouri has one um and I think was highly thought of as well um Washington state was exploring one more broadly so my question is not so much what did you review but the question is what did staff review and what informed the city administrator recommendations that's what I would like to understand and if there were sure all of this whole set of different kinds of actions that are being taken by different cities what was the funnel process if you will that looked at what are all these other cities doing um what are in those cities being done that simply can't be done in Michigan because state law is different and what what comes
070out you know the funnel at at at the bottom in terms of what an arbor could or could not do or is will not willing willing to do because for example um it's not an incentive but it's a regulation or a disincentive whereas the memo or the resolution that was passed asking for the the city for the city administrator's recommendations only mentions incentives it doesn't mentioned anything about about disincentives or um penalties if you will no sticks if you will yeah I think uh you you hit it right on the head I'll just say the places I was naming those were all building performance standards or building emission standards those are requirements those are not what the city administrator I think was asked to look into but which is what the research said is the
071best you know mechanism for actually getting results on this so um I can't speak to the city administrators thinking or what you know they did or did not consult in their research process and whatnot um apologies there but yeah someone else maybe can fill in some more yeah council member gra yeah so I'm and I I think it's a good question in terms of what sources were um were consulted I'm not sure what the full list is I'm sure we could we probably get some more information on that um it is Guided by um what is legal in the state of Michigan versus um you know what tool what tools do we have and that's why we were focusing in on on incentives that is that is the challenge of existing in Michigan right now
072um specifically to the Church Street project uh so please remember that is a PL unit development PUD project and so we have the opportunity um to do this this is um this is why this is included um it is a um basically they Define it as primarily electric um in that as um the building will be automatic there's an exception for a backup generator um to create redundant soon um and it but otherwise it's otherwise it's electric there is integrated solar power passive house house technology um it's going to be built to lead gold standards um and it has 20% um electric vehicle charging on site so those are that's kind of a a summary of the the key components that are within the within that related to sustainability that's great all right I believe
073it is time to bring this discussion to a close um I think that we had a nice exploration are there any final comments here before we take a quick break and move into uh commission business for tonight um anyone anything anyone want to share about maybe next steps um I know this will be on on the agenda next month to kind of wrap it up and actually provide some some of those um comments or guidance to council members but any other comments here I'll just flag um uh for folks who haven't had a chance to thoroughly read through them yet um just maybe before the next time we uh review this check out the document um that's it's five pages long but feedback that we got from work group members on the various different components
074see if any of that stuff resonates with you I think a lot of it was said tonight there were some things that didn't and um so um City ccil member Briggs in particular as you guys are looking at that resolution um see if there's anything in there that might be helpful I think folks ask questions about a lot of the stuff that was already brought up but just might be helpful in the thinking there as well right okay we'll take a five minute break and we'll come back at 7-Eleven e e e right come on back come on back all right so we are going to transition to tonight's commission business which I know it's the highly anticipated officer elections um so Joe I will ask that you just kindly explain the process so that
075folks kind of know what to expect um and then I can move us through it yeah um so kind of similar to all other processes we're just going to do the general you know have a someone nominate someone second for each position the anyone you can self nominate you can if you are nominated you can self second if that's a term but th those are all possible so you know um we'll go through we'll do chair first then Vice a second um in the event if only one person is nominated and accepts we will vote on that person to be elected simple majority um if multiple people are nominated and accepted we'll vote one at a time and whoever has the you know whoever has more votes will move forward um and we will we
076will work from there okay so take a motion to open the nominations or just ask for for nominations and seconds we can just start with nominations and seconds great nominations for chair does anyone have any self- nominations are fine self nominations highly anticipated Vice chair harp are you self- nominating I think commissioner colen Garcia had her hand up first oh no commissioner koven Garcia are you self- nominating I am I would like to nominate um commissioner park for uh the role as chair for the energy commission all right we have any seconds council member breaks all right any other nominations commiss koven Garcia I'm surprised no one else is raising their hand um and I would like to nominate commissioner burkowitz as uh Vice chair all right commissioner beroit I would like to second that
077nomination is that allowed all right for vice chair okay okay well currently we have one nomination for chair and one for vice chair are there any additional nominations for either position and just to make sure you both of you accept those nominations to just so we're aware if we need to keep going yes I accept the nomination thank you can I and uh Plus One support uh T your heart become a chair um but um I think I would like to decline and see if anybody else is willing to be Vice chair that's why we don't ask if they accept Joe it's only fair we could force but you know not Joe's watch bits once you were kind of out there dangling on the branch it's too tasty of a fruit um I mean we
078have a pretty small team tonight too so um the only thing I'll I'll note is we have not heard from anyone else or there's been no other interest from those who are not here in being Vice chair so there's no lingering someone out there interested who is okay not here all right well why don't we vote on chair give commissioner bergwitz a little more time to contemplate his life um all right so um do I have a motion to open the vote tonight uh for chair so moved a second okay commissioner burwitz and I'll second that and all right so uh voting for current Vice chair harp um as chair of the Ann Arbor energy commission all those in favor raise your hand and say I I I I all right that's a unanimous vote
079in the affirmative so Vice chair harp will become the chair thank you so much for your service Vice chair har yes Council M I was wondering if former Vice chair harp um might be willing to talk up the the excitement of chair and maybe uh was it um the the level of responsibility associated with it in terms of time commitment and things like that that might be of that might sway others around the the screen yeah I'll I'll share for every I mean it's been um it's been a great last year um I would say it's been um relatively straightforward um working with um uh Joe and and um chair McKenna um basically meeting uh once a month for about I don't know what it was about a half hour and working on sort of
080formulating the agenda um and I think what was great about it was also being able to think about how we sort of um think proactively um across the year about the kinds of issues that we would raise and um it was uh being Vice chair is sort of Fairly straightforward being just being able to sort of chip in and and and help help um help think about what other things um collectively we might want to take on in terms of the agenda so um it was it was really useful I think also just to sort of see uh sort of the background of how things came together um oftentimes and that I think Insight helped sort of understand what was happening in commission meetings but also perhaps a little bit more about what was happening
081um uh with council members and also with staff in terms of the work that they were doing and so I I would encourage anybody who who's who's interested to take on the role of Vice chair um and I'm really you know I'm looking forward also I think to the earhead because I think we have a lot of issues um that we're trying to work through and we're trying to sus through and I think helping to put together I think some ways for us to help proactively think about those issues is something that I'm really um excited about but also how we communicate and um frame that in ways that are helpful for our for city council members and also uh members of the public um and ways to help them sort of ask better questions
082and and and work through this um so those are the kinds of things that I'm really excited about that I think we're going to work through and try to try to get some of these um questions that we thought through back in December also um we've been sort of working through these on the agenda and I think we'll probably want to revisit sort of where we're at with some of those and also try to you know maintain the really high priority things that we want to move through and support because I think there's you know a big couple years ahead with all that's sort of happening and converging yeah and I'll just add on and say that um I think monthly developing the agenda in a 30 minute meeting is actually quite straightforward and maybe
083more so than one would think because we have quite a backlog of of discussion topics and um you know uh dense and and um timely discussion topics and then also always take um this will be our invite share Harp's responsibility going forward but um you know um suggestions for the next agenda and I think there's kind of always this um feed stock as it were of of great topics um and then with Joe's help you know Joe formulates the agenda for the official document and um I don't know I think I've really enjoyed being a part of the process and um I think it will be an appropriate size lift so I hope that helps thanks commissioner brtz did that perhaps sway you from that uh decline to excitement gosh I I wish I I
084wish I could I really would like to but I candidly just have some lots of professional and personal obligations that are making it tough for me to find the time that I want to contribute as is so um not the right time for me if if absolutely nobody else is willing I would consider it but I I really would prefer not to I apologize but I enjoy the role I'm in and helping with the work group and behind the scenes stuff and just being an active contributor no need at all to apologize I totally understand and you know we can move forward and um you folks can can uh vote on Vice share um next month when when you have more um more attendees okay so that concludes that piece yes commissioner KY had some
085thoughts I I would like to thank you for your service over this year as chair thanks you were uh it was a really very good year um and um the you know your experience and your leadership was um very valuable and I want to thank you so much because it takes a lot yeah thank you I really appreciate that y Comm mki yes I'd like to second that um your professional and academic background has really served us well um one one other comment about uh officer elections um it's not officially an office it's not listed in the bylaws but we do have the aison position to the environmental commission and I serve in that role um I've done so I don't know maybe five out of the last six years um and uh I think
086either in this meeting or the next meeting we should put that on the agenda um to see uh if there's anyone else that's interested in serving in that role I already informed Joe that I'm willing to continue in that role um and then we should make a decision on that and have uh a vote and and then clarify that even if it's not really an officer position great all right any additional comments here before we close out okay so we're going to move to reports from staff so look to Joe to share any OSI reports yeah gotta couple things going on in upcoming um first because this will happen before our next uh for our next meeting just want to note that um a20 week is right around the corner this is our annual event
087we have to uh celebrate the um when the a20 plan was adopted and everything that's happened in the past year and everything that's coming up going forward um there's activities going on throughout the week this is June 9th through June 15th there's I think at least like three or four events every single day um in some way connected to it um so you can find out all the information on this at a2gov.org a20 zeros spelled out Z week um updates will be posted regularly also if you are interested there's also plenty of volunteer events um so that should all be on the website uh but if not feel free to contact me at any time um also want to mention that uh our the an arbor office of sustainability Innovations is working with an arbor
088spark um to uh and are happy to announce a new Ann Arbor Green business challenge uh that's designed to bring to other local businesses and stakeholders um all around advancing the sustainability of businesses here in an arbor uh and this challenge uh kicked off earlier this month uh additionally this is um something else that's kind of come up uh semi-frequently here on the commission but is now formal uh the Ann Arbor home energy advisor officially went live last week um this uh is a free service it's available to help residents obtain free home energy assessments plan out their decarbonization projects uh connected contractors and debates and get a customized path to zero decarbonization plan for their home uh the service is open to all homeowners and renters in in an arbor and you can learn
089more at a20 ea.org um and last thing I'll share uh because particular interest for uh you know this commission the people who uh follow this commission but uh the um kind of in relation to that this month's sustainability series uh will be hosted on May 29th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. uh either at the downtown in Arbor District Library branch or virtually uh it'll be covering the home energy advisor and some information on the upcoming rebates that will be um discussed uh very shortly so and also lastly outside of um just those specific updates just want to again thank uh chair McKenna um commissioner zlan and commissioner sendra uh all for um their service on this commission uh really appreciate having all of you your insights um and even though we're you know sad to
090see you go we're really looking forward to everything that you've got uh coming up for you and all your incredibly bright careers going forward thanks Joel all right we're going to move to our other reports so I'll take the working group if there are any more comments and then um hear from commissioner Mary about the environmental commission and then lastly we'll go to council member Brigg so first up U any additional updates from the working group I know we talked a lot today no great um commissioner moski uh comments from the environmental Commission environmental commission's last meeting was dedicated to water contamination issues um in particular uh discussions of the Gman site um in the Diane pollution that's there um in particular um the epa's proposal to um add that site to its what is
091it called Superfund um National priorities list and um I as far as I know um it that is I don't council member rigs is that actually happened yet or is is it uh is that still pending some approvals I believe it's still pending an approval yeah that's what I understand too um so um Roger um uh rail who's the chairman of carb um he um addressed the commission and gave an update on on all that so if anybody's interested in details on that they can uh go to the presentations that are on leg start thank you so much and we'll go to council member bricks for an update on the council yeah thanks um so you heard the update around the Church Street um project that was approved at the last meeting the the big
092piece that um council is is currently working on is just the city's budget which will be adopted at the next council meeting um so um any potential amendments to the um Council bud are due by Wednesday by council members must be submitted um and then we'll be I think posted by Friday if I if I remember the timeline correctly and then we have our our next meeting next next Monday so um it's a banial budget um so it's not quite the um not as big shifts on on this second year in of a budget however um the creation of an economic development office um is is is something the Ci's considering and I spoke to to some of the pieces around um how sustainability is kind of interfacing this conversation around Economic Development as well
093so that's all I can think of for the moment thanks okay we're gonna move now to our last opportunity for public comment so as at the beginning of the meeting this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to 3 minutes if you're watching on CTN please call 8788 0099 or 877 853 5247 and enter the meeting ID 956 8718 7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the 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 you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute
094any background sounds and again please say your name and address at the beginning of your comments Joe do we have anyone on the line uh no callers at this time all right great all right um items for the next agenda thoughts on the June meeting sounds like we should continue discussing the administrator's memo um and perhaps develop some guidelines the council um any other thoughts yes commissioner mki uh as far as agenda items we have a long list that we generated um hopefully we'll refer back to that and maybe it would be appropriate to spend a few minutes to relook at that list and decide what uh priorities might be especially with a new chair too that might be an appropriate time to do so nice go ahead commissioner I just want to let folks
095know I already informed Joe but I have to miss our our June meeting for a obligation that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about incentives then please do so I think you've got most the res resources you need for me and um all that jazz but just flagging I can't join youall next month so I'll see you in July so we're going to elect you in your absence oh my God I wouldn't be able to say no if I'm not present I guess yes we only vote by consent here all right addition thoughts for agenda definitely revisit the list I know we've we've already had quite a few all right so we're gonna move to adjournment um it's currently 7:32 pm and as chair I CL I declare this meeting I am Claire and I also
096declare this meeting thanks everyone I really appreciated your support of me I see you all around good night thanks thanks again thanks everyone bye