Ann Arbor Energy Commission Meeting 6/13/2023

001it is 604 pm my name is Carlene Cohen Garcia and I am the vice chair of the Ann Arbor energy Commission chair mursky will be absent for tonight's meeting and as Vice chair I am calling this meeting to order I am participating from my home in Ann Arbor welcome to the June 13 2023 electronic meeting of the energy commission this ritual meeting is to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we will conduct this meeting like in-person meetings Commissioners during roll call please indicate your current location also during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during in-person meetings finally mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call one of the

002following two toll-free numbers 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 and enter the meeting ID number nine five six eight seven one eight seven eight seven six on your phone this information is also available on the published agenda in a 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.a2gov.org forward slash watchctm land acknowledgment Joe would you please read the land acknowledgment statements yep um I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including the Odawa Ojibwe and bodewadme and wyand.peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized

003by 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 thank you very much for that Joe now for the roll call uh Joe would you please take the roll call we'll do I will note in advance um we have uh heard from Gabriel harp Noah Levin Claire McKenna John mursky and Terese Smith that they will be unable to attend um so and again as uh as you state where you are can you state where you are currently located uh Mike Berkowitz president from my home in Ann Arbor council member Briggs here in Ann Arbor uh

004Vice chair Colvin Garcia here Ann Arbor scrolling down my list uh commissioner overpeck here uh traveling in Colorado so I am calling in from Colorado uh council member Medina here in Ann Arbor and commissioner zitelman here in Ann Arbor all right chair we have a quorum very good okay now on to the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda as posted and a second so moved Okay so council member settlement uh raised his hand first so he moved and council member Berkowitz seconded thank you that's funny I just want to um really quickly just just announce our agenda tonight just so um I I kind of you'll see why I mean um tonight we will have after our our public input we're going to have a presentations and discussions but

005it's not going to be in the usual blow like we have in the past we're going to be doing we're going to have first a presentation from Carlisle woman Associates on premiums in downtown zoning evaluation after that we're going to discuss chair and vice chair elections and then we're gonna have a presentation on a20 at year three after which we'll have um other announcements so I just want to make sure that we're ready to have a conversation around and that you're prepared for the conversation around the elections kind of between the two presentations so moving on uh like to um request or is there a motion to approve the agenda or I'm sorry the uh the uh the minutes as posted in a second so moved okay council member Briggs uh moves and uh commissioner

006zillman uh seconds okay thank you very much now for uh public input this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN please call 888-788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter the meeting ID 956-8718-7876 this is your information 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 9 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 sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address

007at the beginning of your comments um I don't have any callers right now but I'm going to give it one minute to see if anyone's dealing with technical phones difficulties uh no colors at this time okay so at this time uh we will uh be welcoming um as our first presentation uh regarding premiums in downtown sewing zoning evaluation uh we have Ben Carlisle uh from Carlisle Wartman Megan Messick and Paul uh Montano uh let me I just want to verify who all is going to be participating um on the Pres in the presentation tonight we have all of us Paul okay great well I will um not uh delay this presentation any longer and I'll let you begin Paul thank you so much for being here my pleasure thank you for having me um yes

008I am going to be presenting on behalf of uh my colleagues Ben Carlisle and Megan Mason Minnick uh neither of whom could be here this evening um so I will try to walk you through uh you did give me permission to share a screen here yeah I believe I just made you co-host so you should have permissions but if not let me know okay I think so of course I'm not seeing my presentation let's launch it bear with me for one second please there we go can you all see that yep great thank you uh so as you said we are uh working on an evaluation of the downtown premiums and we have um been hired by the community services to complete the evaluation and make some recommendations to the city of uh potential uh

009Solutions to the um perceived issues that we were having currently with downtown premiums so we've done a study of evaluated the premiums by reviewing um uh existing planning documents building permit data available Market data and researching best practices from other peer communities we also conducted interviews with elected officials and staff so our point for being here in front of you tonight is to report back on some of those options that the Planning Commission is now considering uh based on the um research that we've done and then to try to gather some feedback from you all as key stakeholders in this this will be an ongoing process that we will engage with the Planning Commission so we'd really love to hear your thoughts when we get to that point of the presentation to be able to

010provide that feedback to them uh so we're just going to go over the current premiums some of the research assumptions talk about goals and then we'll jump into that discussion okay and feel free to stop me if you have questions at any point as we go through this so this is kind of a snapshot of what those premiums are available I believe you all had this in your packets but essentially section 5.18.6 of the unified development code offers these premiums and and basically uh if a developer um implements these premiums then it gives them increased floor area and the ability to provide a denser development and the D1 and D2 districts downtown in the city um this slide shows essentially Paul can I interrupt you for a second I appreciate this I um I'm sorry

011to do this but because of kind of the audience for energy commission and perhaps background to some of our energy Commissioners if you don't mind just providing a little bit more background on kind of like just what a premium is kind of you know D1 D2 just some of that background that folks who are not necessarily in the planning work might have provide more basis for them for this discussion sure I'd be happy to so essentially um the downtown zoning allows for a certain development density which includes floor area ratio and maximum height of a building uh so if you do uh elect 2 as a developer elect to engage in some of these premiums as you can see um specifically related to the energy commission you can see the Green Building uh premiums where

012you can uh get like a 50 premium if you are uh uh lead silver 150 lead gold 250 if you're lead platinum and so um if I assume you're all familiar with uh some of the uh Green Building elements that would go along with those uh certifications so that would increase your floor area by 50 with silver or 150 so you end up uh being able to add additional stories onto a building so that they can get more bang for their Buck essentially but the city is uh trying to um incentivize uh those kinds of things to achieve the goals that are part of the community's vision and values but and if I could just jump in for one second uh my name is Brett Leonard I'm the planning manager for the city um Paul

013is mentioning four area ratio um just to ground to make sure everybody understands what we're talking about in that regard we use floor area ratio as a way of measuring and at times limiting the size or mass of the building on a site so four area ratio is a ratio of the floor area of a Building compared to the lot size so sort of a quick way to think about this is a hundred percent far is going to be a single story building that covers a hundred percent of the lot likewise a building footprint that covered half of the lot or 50 a lot that was two stories high would also be a hundred percent far and so when you're thinking about that an easy way to think about it quickly is that if 400

014far building would be roughly four stories property line to property line and so forth so um just wanted to ground to make sure people understood what four area ratio meant in this context thanks Brett I appreciate that um so this next slide we are showing the um available floor area ratio um based on the existing Zoning for both D2 and D D1 um and then what it would look like if you did uh enact one of those premiums or the bonus to get to that maximum floor area ratio we also included a few other zoning districts that do not have those premium available uh to show you that in some cases uh a developer could potentially in some of these other districts uh develop more densely than they could in the downtown area without exacting

015any premiums um so again what we reviewed we looked at the city plans and policies uh projects in downtown that have taken place since the premiums have been uh in place uh some of the market data and then best practices in similar communities and again as I mentioned uh interviews with elected officials and staff so this slide shows kind of a timeline of the premiums um since they were enacted in 1966 the um the Bold uh letters or the Bold notations at the top um show kind of the the major changes or the major updates that were done and then the non-bolden text at the bottom where clarifications or changes that happen throughout time so you can see that there have been a number of changes to try to right-size these premiums or in some

016cases allow for additional goals to try to be met like you can see in 2009 there were quite a few new uh premiums that were added to the list um this is those uh that same timeline but you can see the blue line that goes across the uh chart shows the number of housing units that were developed during those times and so you can see generally uh there is an uptick so it appears that we are in fact um meeting our goals and and uh the premiums are working so you can see um the rate of change for housing and the increase in number then gave the city that confidence in 2019 uh to require affordable housing um along with the rental residential premiums um so then also in the using the 2022 data that

017we had we saw that the city had achieved their goal of a thousand new units by 2004 in the downtown district however we started to look a little closer uh we found that there were spikes certainly after each policy change but also after the affordable housing requirement was put in place you can see the the blue is the uh projects that did have premiums and then the orange columns are projects that did not have premium so once that change happened you can see that many projects started to go in that were not utilizing the premiums and in fact we also recognized that those uh projects that we're using premiums tended to be uh student housing projects so um doesn't quite seem to be matching the goals that we had intended another aspect to consider is

018that there are only certain Parcels in the downtown districts that you can actually use the premiums so those are in green and then the hash mark green spots are where projects have actually been enacted I see that somebody is raising their hand please go ahead yes um I was looking at the previous slide and I have a question about that could you would you mind going back not at all do I know how to yeah so I see that above each of the bars there's a number and and and then it says it's the number of residential projects and it just it I'm just trying to understand what the numbers on the left mean is that the number of of units or because like one project um in like 2015 it says there's one project

019and then in 2019 it says there's three projects and those bars are are close to being the same height can you um like is it and does it mean that there's different number of units per project or that's what I would infer that is exactly right so yes like in 2019 there were three projects and it equaled about the same as the 2020 uh single project that was using premiums but then you can also see that there was one project that didn't utilize premiums that was close in range to the number of units that were developed okay all right so you're saying basically um a lot of projects that went in that did not utilize any of the pre premiums you you're you're maybe making reference to a number of units basically dwelling units that

020that were um like like where the people who live there don't have any of those premiums any of the any of the amenities that are you know whether it's Energy Efficiency or pedestrian access or any of the other um uh that is generally correct uh there are there may still be some amenities that uh were developed but they the developer did not uh utilize the premium um option in order to build uh more units okay all right thank you sure so again here uh is the the downtown districts um the premiums are not available though in areas that are in a historic district and if a parcel touches a flood plain the premiums are not available so there are limited areas within the downtown districts that do allow for premiums to start out with and

021then you can see the ones that have been built so there are a few left but it does not Encompass the entire downtown D1 and D2 districts so we put this slide together um to kind of show what we're dealing with in terms of policies and this goes from top to bottom earliest to latest uh showing the number of policies that were in different uh City policy documents and as you can see as you get towards the bottom they've really narrowed down to to fewer uh goals one being affordable residential housing the other being pedestrian amenities and then uh the third which I think is most keenly interesting to you all is the Energy Efficiency and sustainable buildings so with that understanding we started thinking about um what the city's really trying to exact out

022of these developments and what the most important goals are after we presented back to Planning Commission uh our findings our initial findings um there were a number of assumptions that then came out of that discussion again these were provided to you in the information in your packet um but these assumptions then led to some different thinking in what the Planning Commission wanted to try to do for premiums and goals and they really narrowed the focus down again to kind of those those core core goals that the city's focusing on at this point including increasing housing downtown increasing uh sustainability including Energy Efficiency increasing accessibility downtown increasing housing attainability um which really is looking at market rate or those folks uh including those Folks at market rate or uh in a Range round market rate that

023they would only be paying 30 percent of their uh income on housing and then uh the last one is increasing diversity of housing Industries so this led then the Planning Commission to consider a couple of different options uh one was considering increasing the base density and offering a smaller menu of premiums as well as limiting those premiums to either housing or sustainability uh the planning commissions also considering eliminating premiums and then just increasing density overall so this is where we come to you to ask questions about the smaller menu and what are your thoughts on this approach uh what it could achieve or if would it achieve the Planning Commission goals or do you think there would be any unintended consequences and Brett before we get into the discussion is there anything else that you

024wanted to add in terms of um the the process or the deliberation from the planning commissioner how they came to these conclusions uh yeah thanks Paul just uh just a couple of thoughts so um thanks for laying that out that Carlos put together a lot of data and sort of compiled that I really appreciate that one of the things though I want to I sort of want to replicate what was just given to you in a very and sort of just I guess some more summarized anecdotal manner so the city's been doing premiums for a very long time and premiums generally are a way that the city trades uh additional building potential for things that the city desires to see in projects and typically there's they are things that the city can't require for a

025variety of reasons and so that has been in place it's evolved and most recently in 2019 it evolved where in a way that was reacting to a lot of housing being built downtown but it was a very targeted housing typology mostly for student rentals and we weren't getting a lot of affordable housing downtown and at the time the Planning Commission was struggling with the notion of downtown evolving in such a way that it wasn't widely accessible for a lot of residents and so those changes in 2019 happened and we haven't seen a lot of housing activity since um so it is not giving us a lot of diverse housing right now it's not giving us a lot of sustainable buildings and so this first discussion um to sort of frame it the notion of a

026small menu is housing accessibility affordability and typology is a very important goal for the city and a lot of policy conversations likewise the sustainability and so one of the thoughts in this approach is instead of a broad a menu of options currently things like preserving historic properties pedestrian amenities at times providing public parking um this first thought is what if we just focus in on housing and sustainability as the things we as a community care supremely about um so I hope that helps frame the question that we're sort of seeking feedback from you in in that regard so the small menu again is to really narrow the choices that might result in premiums to only housing related choices or sustainability related choices thank you Brett and and I think I should reiterate that um it

027appears that it's not being effective in that people are not taking that option right now um in in one of those previous slides when I was talking about how the premiums you know it kind of listed the the menu of premiums the the calculations are are relatively complicated um both for I think staff as well as the developers and so um making a smaller menu and revising the the requirements uh might actually help in a couple of ways so that it would focus the things that we're looking for but it would also um kind of simplify that process so so I I would uh take any questions or any thoughts you have on this approach towards um a smaller menu Eric I see you've got your hand up yeah thanks um before folks provide feedback

028I wonder if you might be able to provide just a little bit more background um on a couple of other questions that are I'm thinking about um so we've recently seen that um there was population decline in the city since um 2020 um there's an MLive article that said there's yeah reported on the census that there was four thousand we had a population loss of four thousand since then so just wondering um how that if if that's being factored into these this thought process and conversations around development also has there you know there was discussion around reviewing best practices and looking at other communities in terms of comparing to similar communities um during this time frame have other communities that have experienced growth in the same there might be comparable communities um have they seen

029growth in their downtown course um or can we attribute any of this lack of growth to factors related to the pandemic or changes in financing things like that um those are a couple of preface questions so it just might be helpful to frame the conversation sure so I I believe the the underlying answer is yes other communities have been more successful in attracting the development in their downtown areas certainly we are experiencing a different time right now but um you know generally as we look back over these Trends we were recognizing the issues even before the pandemic took place did you have any other questions um and then can you uh just sign up the focus is around housing sustainability but since sustainability also in boobs involves sort of movement of folks I can't remember

030what the pedestrian amenities are that were part of the the premiums Hub you know they were they're basically like Courtyards and Gathering spaces um and and obviously the city does do a good job with you know pedestrian amenities through the the public rights of way and other um you know public gathering spaces that are available so I think the the focus on those things is kind of less important in addition I think kind of anecdotally you see that with some of the newer developments they are creating spaces for their residents um that are not necessarily engaged with with the outside uh City street but you know providing those things internally Courtyards that kind of thing but that was the focus of The Pedestrian amenities thanks uh Jonathan I see you have your hand up as

031well yeah hi hi um so I work at the University and one of the things that and I don't speak for the University but I um I note that um you know we're getting these big student Towers now and it really worries me because the university is trying um in an ever-increasing way to set the standard in carbon neutrality for major research universities public universities um and so we you know I would think and I and I'm not speaking for the University but I am in a way saying a lot of people in the University really applaud what the city is trying to do here and um you know we've got all these old houses uh when they're converted into these towers undoubtedly become well maybe not undoubtedly but I would hope they become more

032sustainable but they're still still not really focused on that so um the university is going to build more dormitories as you know and those are going to be you know very uh carbon and sustainability uh friendly uh or unfriendly in the case of carbon but what I'm wondering is uh there is a strategy uh and maybe this isn't you're not the right ones to ask but it seems like the real strategy needs to be not just these premiums and I like to answer your question I like the idea of more focused premiums that makes a lot of sense to me anyhow um and uh but at the same time I'd like to see uh there also be more sticks I guess to force these uh folks to build more sustainably and less you know more

033carbon negative uh in mind and so um I'm wondering are we thinking maybe some of the council members could weigh in on this too are we thinking of an array of things besides just these premiums that will get help maybe get more progress in this area because we certainly as a university you know these darn Towers you know they're going to be there for a long time and we want to make them as a low carbon and sustainable as possible I would think thank you very much I appreciate your presentation sure thank you for the comment in the question um I think with regard to uh the the sticks if you will um we are bound in some ways by what we can and cannot require uh based on you know state law uh building

034code Etc um so in some ways providing premiums or providing incentives are really the best way to [Music] um achieve those goals uh of sustainable buildings um and we can certainly look at you know best practices and things that are allowed you know to be put in the code if you will to just require them um but for the time being it's my understanding that really legally the the best way for us to do this is is through uh incentives Brett did you have anything you want to add to that yeah I would just I appreciate the comment and I think you're a hearing that attention that the premiums have specifically struggled with through a lot of iterations and Evolutions over time that is how how do these separate goals at times uh uh or

035together and create barriers so for example um while not maybe the sticks way that you're consent you you might ideally Envision it one of the things that we have have actually instituted and have thought about in the past is making one goal a gateway to another goal through the incentive process as an example of that we require um to access any premiums right now you have to achieve a handful of points through the lead uh environment and I forget the new category it's um Lee's gone through a couple of Evolutions since the language was incorporated but it was an attempt to say that in in achieving any of these goals you first have to make a stride forward in regards to sustainability so it's not a requirement that you build to lead but it is

036a requirement that if you want to even sort of unlock these opportunities you have to come forward across a couple of points of lead and in the past we've really thought about what is the balance of that do we want to set a higher access point of sustainability to even access the housing opportunities or the other way around do we care more about housing people and you have to provide some level of affordable housing and even even to start getting into the conversation about an increased density or elevated Energy Efficiency requirements and so I think part of honestly the tension that's going to lay out before us is how much do we want to provide overlapping requirements or how much do we want to provide perhaps parallel ways that you can achieve increased output by

037maybe maybe you're accomplishing one but not the other so sticks are hard across the board but it's not to say that there aren't policy levers through even within the realm of incentives that we can make them look a little bit like sticks excitedly speak again you know I like this conversation and I like what you're saying there um you know it's what really is appealing to me is that we have a comprehensive strategy um not just you know thinking that there's one way to do it and you're clearly headed in that direction and I just would love to see us also take do whatever we can working with some other communities that are like-minded in Michigan and others to start changing some state laws and of course there's a lot of effort going on right

038now before the next election uh next year uh when we kind of have to shut down and focus on all that crap um to really try and make some progress in the State House um and you know we were meeting ago really talking about gas bans and you know that's like a brick wall when you you know because of the state um being able to uh supersede what we want to do um and we need to change the state laws if we want to and there might be other ways and I just want to make sure that this because the situation in in Lansing probably is as good as it's going to get um and we should take full advantage of that to see if we can incentivize this whole move uh to a more

039Sustainable Building in Ann Arbor and other communities in Michigan if uh if you policy makers can go out and get us the the tools on a legislative level that will allow us to do do that kind of work I'd love it um yeah um thank you for the presentation um for the smaller menu when it says housing or sustainability does housing refer to like affordability or quantity or what does that mean it's it's mostly about affordability so that's one of the premiums to allow then for additional quantity so you know the the developers once they start working as Brett kind of described how the floor area ratio Works once they have a site secure um you know there's uh economies of scale for them going higher so that that allows them to realize more benefit

040out of their development so if we're allowing them to realize more benefit out of the development we want to get those uh goals that we have as a city met um so it would be focused on on affordability well let me sort of follow up on that though Alex part of this is your feedback what's what are your thoughts do you think it should be focused on affordable should it just be focused strictly on Supply do you have any thoughts in that regard oh I definitely think we should be looking at affordability and honestly you're asking my opinion I think we should focus a lot more on student housing too so I think there are a lot of areas in like the development side of things where we just don't touch student housing and we

041just kind of let it flounder but I I do have a couple more questions um this one just what public or pedestrian amenities would qualify for premiums currently and then also the separate but how do we measure the success of these premiums because it sounds like the impact of the premiums hasn't been as fruitful as intended but I'd be curious to know like what metrics or threshold would need to be met to demonstrate that this is successful uh so I go to the last question first um we're looking at the rate of of growth in the downtown area and it does not appear that they have been utilizing the premiums to increase the density in the downtown area as as we intended and so then we did do that kind of study of other uh

042peer communities and recognized that there were others that were actually having more success success in getting that density so I think that that is a a piece of frustration that folks in the city have seen over the last number of years especially after the premiums were changed and folks started kind of doing developments without uh utilizing them to their fullest extent [Music] um first question I guess can I defer to you on that Brett in terms of The Pedestrian amenities I don't know that we've seen any anyone who's utilized that premium yeah so um so before we jump off of uh measure success I I just reiterate I think one of the one of the measures metrics that resulted in the change in 2019 was that we were getting student housing and we were getting

043very high-end Condominiums and sort of nothing in between and so uh I think that was sort of an intention to say can we recalibrate that will the development and market demand in the city coalesce to actually start providing something in between those two those two typologies and it didn't um and so um so I think a big piece of what a success looks like is how much housing are we getting inclusive of student housing inclusive of high-end housing but are we also starting to cultivate maybe something in the middle which we're just not doing right now um and then as regards to The Pedestrian premiums yeah these have been used uh sparingly they tend to be things like uh I'm not saying this was used but think about things like Nichols arcade it's sort of

044like taking private property and opening it up to public amenity or public space um it could be as simple as a sidewalk that connects through a site I think the Kingsley Condominiums um uh near the railroad tracks between Kingsley and Welch I'm getting my geography right those actually have a public accessible sidewalk that traverses that so that was a pedestrian amenity that that could have qualified it for some additional premium but uh they were used sparingly and unlike some of the other premiums they didn't provide much bonus either so I'm actually going to jump to our next slide here because I think it's in line with the question that you asked Alex um another maybe I can change the next slide the white background here doesn't really allow me to see my controls well the

045next slide oh here we go sorry there they are so the another option that was uh put forth is to get rid of the premiums all together and just increase the floor area ratio and the D1 and D2 District um so this would allow for an increase in uh in units um without having to um kind of jump through the premiums Hoops if you will um I know that this probably doesn't get at the the stick approach in terms of uh requiring some of the sustainability pieces but it would speak to the housing goals so I'd appreciate any thoughts that you might have on on this approach and certainly we can talk about the other at the same time too if there are other members here who have comments when you say the housing goals

046are you talking about the affordable housing goals well um it would increase density and it would increase the uh taxable footprint and as you were probably aware you know there's been a um the millage that's gone through for affordable housing so just the increase in density would uh pad pad those coffers go ahead Erica I'm just jumping in but I'm happy to defer to anybody who's a commissioner so please raise your hand um so from from my perspective I think it would be a mistake to just remove premiums from the downtown I think we didn't do that with tc1 adding premiums there because um it's a bit it's a pretty significant change to go from having a zoning category that allowed single you know story buildings to trying to promote increased density along our Transit

047corridors and so it's unclear exactly how that's going to play out however and we didn't want to disincentivize development in those Spaces by adding premiums and I think we if I recall correctly we had conversations around you know if this turns out to be wildly um successful maybe we would need to go back and and take a look at that but um in terms of the downtown we know that there is going to be interest I believe in developing in our downtown um and so it seems like um at least on the sustainability front we want to make sure my my personal opinion is that um including premiums for sustainability is important I think that with the millage in place for affordability um The increased development on its in itself will allow us to help

048Advance our affordability goals affordable housing goals but there's no way to it's very expensive and sometimes impossible to retroactively go back and change those buildings out to become sustainable buildings so I think we want to make sure that they get built right the first time if we have or at least incentivize them being billed right the first time so I would strongly encourage us to to maintain at least the sustainability premium there I am I will be interested to see at some point more on the sort of the information from comparable communities in terms of the development that those communities have gotten in their downtowns um if there are similar University type communities are they seeing um more dense density and more diverse typology of development in their downtowns um without premiums I would think

049that there is often times in successful downtowns especially in University that it would be um a there would be more likelihood that we would see student development and high-end housing um and so you know if there are other downtowns that are getting a diverse array of of of types of housing in their downtowns then I do think that is we should be studying why that's the case but my understanding is that the financing right now really pushes um the development of of student housing and obviously the the fact that the university hasn't built enough housing for for a long time also contributes to this issue so um I'll stop okay thank you Mike go ahead please well first of all thank you for this presentation um this is my first time uh hearing about the

050premiums and I'm I'm learning a lot um it's this is very interesting um I agree with uh council member Briggs I think it would be a mistake to remove the premiums altogether um a couple thoughts there um I do like the smaller menu uh Suite of options um I think affordable housing and sustainable housing um are priorities I know that The Pedestrian friendly feature premiums have not been utilized as much but I also think it would be a mistake to lose those um you mentioned Nicholas arcade um you know that I think is so attractive it was it's ubiquitous it's a staple um and um you know people come from all over to utilized and experience you know that and other features similar so those are some overarching thoughts um another thought I had is

051that um you had mentioned that you were noticing these trends that the premiums weren't being utilized um even before the pandemic onset I also wonder if you know the last couple years of um you know increased inflation uh prices uh supply chain issues Workforce Development and just Force availability issues um are kind of um a part of why maybe we haven't seen as much utilization of these things um I also agree with uh commissioner overpack I would love to see more sticks more enforcement um you know requirements or mandates if we are precluded by state laws um I'm wondering if there are maybe other incentives we could package repair with premiums um to make them more attractive someone had mentioned the uh millages that have been passed around housing we also recently passed a climate

052millage so there's you know new funding pots available um that maybe could be paired with premium so it's not just incentivizing you know an increased floor area um Ratio or you know being able to build taller but just straight up getting incentivized financially um you know to do things the right way there's also you know new pockets of money available from the inflation reduction act and other uh Federal funding sources so I'm actually just brainstorming out loud or wondering out loud if maybe you know direct Financial incentives could be um an option paired with premiums in light of our limitations around sticks enforcements you know our City's ability or political will to pass a ordinance Banning you know gas in buildings things like that um see I had another thought but I just lost it

053so I'm going to step back and let Alex step up or folks reflect on that thank you thanks again I didn't thank you guys for answering my last questions but yeah thank you um also Wanna Give My support to not getting rid of the sustainability premiums so it sounds like that's our main carrot and we don't really have sticks right now so not be too keen on just getting rid of that but it's kind of separately I think just out of my background as like a recent student and still being highly involved in student housing stuff I think it could be a good idea to consider maybe extending the premiums to student neighborhoods um for affordability at least um because as it is I don't think student developers student housing developers can get access to

054affordable housing millage funds um that gets directed to non-students generally but as we said like a lot of this development that's happening is happening at high-end housing and like student housing and my personal experience I think this student housing that's happening is high-end student housing that's not accessible to most people so I think it would be really important for our affordability goals if we tried to somehow assist with the development of affordable student housing where maybe in student neighborhoods we collect fees in lieu of affordable housing units that can be directed towards affordable student housing developers or something I know that's kind of separate from the energy commission but that is the thoughts so thank you again okay thank you uh Carolina see you've got a hand up the um so I'm assuming all this

055is based on new construction am I correct is this all based on new construction that is correct okay not like retro if it's not remodels okay all right is there a trend is there a trend um like in in um occupancy right now is it did you get any of that data as far as like the existing housing right now downtown uh like whether or not all the units are filled yes um I do not have that data right here Brett may know that answer but I do not know and I can check on that for you yeah basically because they're a big Demand right now for for housing or I mean is it being scooped up by some people and it's not you know like ownership and not and and it's vacant or or

056you know what is what's happening you know yeah I don't I don't have the I don't have the data at the ready but we can share um one of the inputs that went into this is the Downtown Development Authority actually recently conducted a market analysis of the downtown and so I think they do have some of that data in there so after this um I can get this to Joe and he can share it with with the group after this meeting if you have any questions but I can say just generally the Ann Arbor is um that report talks about the need to bring more residents downtown to support downtown um post covid Ann Arbor is not unique in that our office market and the downtown is really really changing in a big way we

057have um we already have some Office Buildings now that are likely in the I think they're actually in the process of converting to residential uses one is the Ashley Muse or the the former DTE site just south of the gas station on Main Street um the office Market is uh if I had to guess it's never going to come back the way it was and so one of the ways that we are going to have to find a new balance for our downtown is have enough residents in proximate to the restaurants and services downtown to help overcome some of that loss in daytime and other hours office track traffic so generally speaking there's a speaking from a sort of policy perspective we have a demand for housing in our downtown in order to help our

058downtown evolve um but I think your question was sort of more of like a snapshot of the market there are other trends that are happening things like short-term rentals and the like are starting to have impacts on our housing market as well so I can get that report to you that has a little bit of higher grain detail on some of that those points because I think those are some of the things that might be taken into consideration uh for for the either the premiums or for um the sustainability so for example sustainability and pedestrianism encouraging small grocery stores so people can obtain food easily within within the region is something that might incentivize some people who who are the kind of people who don't want to own vehicles and they're not necessarily interested in

059having a home with a yard and they like the downtown life and so it helps it attracts those kinds of people if they know that there are gonna you know there's gonna be a grocery store within you know three or four blocks or right so those are some of the things that I think would make it more appealing as far as features and so in terms of my feedback with regards to the small event options a you know the two options a small menu and then no premiums I also agree that premiums should be maintained and you know the trick is to figure out which ones are the most appealing um yeah so if it's just all about new development you know and you're saying that there are conversions from Office Space to dwelling space

060it seems to me that the office space would be there would be more dwellings that fit in a and and like one individual office area could have multiple dwelling units in it that's my assumption in terms of like the design of of an office space that would be converted so how do you how do you build in Energy Efficiency for that conversion how do you incentivize Energy Efficiency for that conversion well then and again to go back conversion is really is really not new construction conversion is coming in with a building permit so you don't in that case you're not you're not asking for a trade-off of Florida area so that's really more into um what I love the optimism of is the state law Frameworks being adopted in such a way that gives us

061some more tools yeah yeah okay thank you for that and I see Mike you thought of what you were uh thinking about before probably here yes so I wanted to ask about um bicyclists um I know uh specifically pedestrians were one of the premiums um our bicycle features part of that are they built into like lead certification within buildings and so they're already covered or is that not part of the premium suite of options at this point it's actually not part of our premium options we require uh bicycle parking so we we have a pretty extensive bicycle parking requirement just like we used to have automobile parking requirements um they're broken into different categories um Class A B and C that ranges from uh interior protected secured which is type A B is covered but

062outside and then C is uh you know think a hoop on the sidewalk um the most exposed um I can tell you A lot of times and one way I do see bicycle infrastructure morphing is our Planning Commission uh has become much more attuned to the realization of those that is if you're providing 50 interior type A spaces in a bike bike room and your development but it's a grade down the parking ramp from the sidewalk um our Planning Commission is getting a lot more attuned to no for the to really be successful it's got to be accessible it's got to be accurate it's got to have ideally almost an exterior entrance instead of some Maze of hallways that you have to navigate in order to get your bike to so um right now no

063premium specific to that we do have bike parking requirements but it's definitely something that could be considered if we wanted to expand the menu of options or goals oh thank you I wasn't aware but that makes sense and you know a mandate or requirement is stronger than an incentive so um that makes sense in his music to my ears um the other thought I had is around the existing buildings conversation um are there limitations on premiums like extending to retrofits of buildings adding features like this is that something that we could consider it it can happen now like if you want to modify a building to add floor area um that's how we're going to evaluate it so say that office conversion I mentioned and they wanted to add add floor area to it um

064we would go through a similar exercise to say okay what's what's permissible what can you achieve with premiums what premiums have you previously provided and what are you going to provide I can tell you in buildings of the scale though it's really rare to add a story to a eight-story building um it tends to be conversion of those uses we do get some of those on the smaller scale you've seen some of that particularly downtown in our historic district where you might be purchasing a loft or something on top of a two or three story historic building but by and large we don't get much in additions to larger scale buildings they tend to be new construction or more modest that makes sense and um you know I'm thinking just out loud maybe that's another

065place where the incentives uh Financial incentives directly versus a premium for you know floor space would be more appropriate yeah definitely taking notes of uh incentives I think there's a lot of good discussion one thing I just want to throw out there is that it's not unprecedented um we have one of the ways that the city has used that model is we've used Brownfield Redevelopment Financial incentives to basically buy some of the things that we're interested in um we can't use those dollars under state law to um uh Buy electrification of a building but we can pay for public infrastructure that might be supporting the project at an equivalent cost to what the Delta is for that developer to say I'm willing to go to a fully electric development in this scenario to take advantage

066of long-term grid Improvement and so we have done that with both affordable housing and sustainability sustainability so I think your idea is about looking for other incentives to bring to those kind of conversations of really logical thing to evaluate perfect thanks Brett I really appreciate that and I'm learning quite a lot in this conversation so I did go ahead and switch to our last slide here which we've already kind of dived into some discussion of other other incentives or other ideas um so I've gotten a lot of good feedback from you all tonight I appreciate this discussion very much I think this helps us as we're thinking about it it will help us as we go back to the Planning Commission uh to further this discussion but is there anything else that anybody wants to

067share other incentive ideas other questions that you have before we wrap this up remembering one of the slides that you showed was the map of the downtown area and it had some green Parcels that if I remember correctly those are the as yet to be developed Parcels am I correct correct okay all right so I just one of my questions has to do with um what what is there is there like any any um you know proposed activity for those Parcels at this time that that is they're being you know like in in interest you know in the city is like hearing from those Property Owners or or could those those areas possibly be an area for incentivizing development in some way utilizing the input from like a conversation like we're having tonight um or

068other further explorations so yeah I'm going to defer to Brett for the interest question go ahead sure yeah so part of that map is that map I think was frankly eye-opening to me I knew the regulatory framework that premiums don't apply to sites that touch a floodplain or sites that are in the historic district and so when you look at that app and Paul I don't know if it's possible to just go back to that yeah I sure can um it's a pretty you know it's a pretty modest subset of the overall downtown districts right so all of that forgive my colorblindness uh brownish reddish peaches uh area those are not eligible because they are um they meet one of those criteria right and so you're already starting with the green and then as Paul

069indicated those hashed areas are projects that have been developed in the last 15 years that's kind of an arbitrary number to say that it's unlikely that those are probably going to undertake any significant Redevelopment in the near term so one of the things that could happen as part of this is um that map could change there's nothing to say that we couldn't open up premiums to properties that are in the historic district two properties that touch a floodplain that doesn't negate those regulations you still need to have your project approved by the historic district commission to make sure it meets those standards it still has to comply with building code and floodplain requirements to make sure that we're not adversely impacting float storage but that is one question as far as interest um we do

070have a lot of product we do have a handful of projects right now that are exploring different aspects of it um uh some I think frankly are very intentionally kind of slow rolling to see where this premium conversation lands because keep in mind that whatever project we approve has to meet the requirements on the books at that time so if you are in your concept phasing right now of some project and we change those regulations mid-stream that's a pretty significant change to your project and so um that's why we're trying to move you know to get feedback but also move expeditiously to make some conclusions about this so some projects are in that mode other projects I think are moving forward they tend to be um smaller scale or hotels that often don't need that

071much premium uh to achieve what they're looking for so um so it's a little bit of everything I think the market in some ways is I think somebody mentioned it um maybe it was you Mike there's a lot of factors that make it hard to develop right now um interest rates construction costs um coming out of the pandemic I I would say that I was cautious about this endeavor because of a lot of those reasons but we are starting to see development happen elsewhere in the city other communities are experiencing development and so um as much as I was involved in those 2019 premiums and I wish we had nailed it I don't think we did um I think that as time elapses and we evolve out of the pandemic we're still our regulatory framework

072is not quite right we're not getting the product and the quantity of product that I think that we desire um and you know I think just a good way to think about that we had some conversations about pedestrian amenities and I think those are really unique spaces when they're successful and at the same time every time we can get a hundred more units downtown compared to 100 units somewhere that is incredibly good for multimodal transportation um even if there are nothing there are no pedestrian amenities on that site just by the sheer um fact that it's happening within in this map opens up so many opportunities for the tenants residents workers at that location so um so sorry long-winded planners we tend to do it but there are interest and Parcels I think some are

073going to move forward regardless because they're not really going to be relying on particularly the residential premiums um and then some I think are in a bit of a holding pattern and frankly a lot of what's Happening Now is we're getting a lot of projects happening outside of this boundary um because of opportunities because Real Estate Value um and they're probably some property owners are frankly just not waiting for the city to complete its comprehensive planning process and its reconciliation of some of these regulations thanks Brett uh council member Briggs I see you've got your hand up again yeah just going to your um last this question around other incentives besides density um for the um councilmember dish and I've been having conversations with planning but I just wanted to make sure that I shared

074that kind of some of the feedback with this group as well obviously energy commission environmental commission has encouraged Council to pass an incentives resolution which we did I think at our last council meeting so this is something that um that is being considered by the city um and by planning staff in terms of you know what other incentives um could we be using but in the conversations that we've been having with um developers that are doing Green Building one of the things that's come risen to the surface of being the biggest incentive that we could look at is our impact fees in terms of having to upgrade infrastructure off-site so for buildings that are doing um that are really embracing sustainability and doing passive building and are actually using less water um you know our

075requirements to upgrade the um the size of the um the water main and the water main within the right-of-way as well is of course a really large cost that's a really large cost for all developments and that might be a way to incentivize development developments that are you know not even thinking about Green Building to consider um that up front as well so I think that's something that we need to seriously consider um as we go through this process obviously the longer it takes to go through the development process the more expensive it is and for developers that are trying to do sustainability work those costs are they're already potentially taking on additional costs um to do that work so I think it's obviously beneficial for us to to make sure that we're we're doing

076everything we can to streamline the processes um that is something we're hearing from from green builders as well um and it certainly helps us achieve our sustainability goals um the ability to to use Office of sustainability in the kind of concierge service Concepts to be able to provide more technical guidance both for the financial incentives um that I think Mike was mentioning earlier as well as um just um you know any other sort of guidance that can be provided I think may help um may be useful as well for folks that are for developers that are considering this I think that's a minor incentive but it's it's certainly better to have help than not have help um and then I'm trying to think of what the other big one that came up um surprisingly even

077though I think we don't think of our fee structure as necessarily being um something that's going to help you know um you know some of the fees are relatively small I mean there's collectively that we have it's quite expensive to develop in the city but some of those initial fees for development um if we find ways to waive them what I'm hearing from at least the smaller developers is that those um it would be very very helpful um so we may be wanting to take a look at our our millage dollars there um or you know and see what we might be able to do because I'm hearing that even a couple thousand dollars here and there would actually make a big big impact um early on in project development and then just consistency in

078terms of feedback that we provide throughout the throughout the process to developers so that [Music] um what they hear at each stage of the game that that doesn't change um because especially when you're doing sustainability work that can be that can be really impactful okay thank you that was all very good input I appreciate that well um yep uh Mike I see you got your hand up all right one more thought and I'm just playing Devil's Advocate because you know I don't think anybody has spoken up in support of removing the premiums altogether one of the two options presented tonight um would there be benefits to that are there things we should be thinking about in that regard that we're not like I'm guessing it would save you know City staffers time and it you

079know simplifies complexity around calculating premiums and stuff like that but um are there benefits other than that that we should be considering around that option so the main benefit there would be that um the floor area ratio would just be automatically increased um so they would not have to um uh you know the complexity issue is certainly part of that but it just removes the barriers to building more density in the area so that's kind of the key in that in that aspect got it thank you hmm well um as we complete this discussion I would like uh you to please be in communication with us um Brett um through Joe um or whatever um communication uh in terms of if there's other specific input you would like from us things you'd like to us

080to look into that we would be more than happy to contribute um this has been a really fascinating conversation and um yeah as far as like as council member Briggs was saying I think really looking at the you know the infrastructural costs you know that are required in order for um you know the sustainability element to the design process is really you know so they can do utilities the the electric utilities the the water utilities Wastewater utilities and how we can if there's a way to possibly offset some of the those costs with um with these developments that's that could really um help move the needle is there anything else you'd like to share with us well I just thank you thank you um thanks to Paul for uh running through this and thank you

081for your time just uh to your we will happy to keep you posted I wanted to give you just a quick next steps uh in addition to talking to the energy commissioner we're also talking to the renters commission we're also talking to the Downtown Development Authority um we're also talking to the development Community we're talking to the affordable housing uh uh development community and Advocates um we're going to be aggregating all that information and then ultimately um Carlo Workman is going to be helping us craft some sort of directions or options to pursue as modifications then those will go through um a very typical um public discourse both at the Planning Commission and ultimately to the city council uh the city council being the body that can uh the only ones that have the ability

082to make any changes so um but uh to your point hat we will definitely keep you and all those words prized with it and if you think of any other feedback feel free to send them on um joke and get them to me or you can send them directly to me or when in doubt uh planning at a2gov.org is a great place to just always download any thoughts you have letting land use and thank you so much you didn't quite keep me long enough to get me out of my Planning Commission meeting but you got me late to it so thank you well and thank you all for having us uh and letting me present and Brett thanks for uh jumping in and helping out with the presentation there and uh we'll look forward to

083providing additional feedback and hearing more feedback from you mom so thank you good luck with your election of officers thank you thank you well that segues us into our next item on the agenda tonight and I'm going to ask Joe to take it from here sure um so one just wanted to offer a couple sets of options um as you can undoubtedly tell we are down a few members tonight um of the members we are down I'll note that two of them specifically have reached out to me about their interest in running for chair um I do have prepared remarks for them so I can read those off um also one of the other members who's not here today is expressed interest in the vice chair position um however it was a late conflict that

084came up so I don't necessarily have prepared remarks for them but I can again mention who that is um so um I will leave the options too of one we can either just you know go through those remarks in addition to anyone else who is present who would be interested in running um in you know run the election as is we do have a quorum we are able to do that and vote on it um if that is of Interest the other option would be um postponing one more month until we actually have all the people here who are interested in running um um either option is acceptable based on what you are all interested in um so wanted to leave that to you I I would like to um entertain this as um continue

085with this as a as a motion we can vote on whether to vote tonight or or to vote at the next meeting I have to hold the election the officer election at the next meeting and um would anyone like to present this as a motion whether to have the officer elections during tonight's meeting versus um next meeting you're on mute still commissioner Peck I bet you knew what I said uh I just didn't say very very articulately uh or loudly but I'd like to move that we have the election at our next meeting assuming we hope there'll be a bigger uh turnout of members any seconds sure I'll second that all right so we have a second is there any discussion here that we'd like to have before we have a vote council member redina

086I will just acknowledge that I believe I will be absent from our next meeting so um I just want to throw that out there that I I don't believe that I will be here okay thank you for letting us know anybody else the only thing only suggestion I would have is since there's not that many folks who are it might be useful just to hear the statements if if there was if it seemed logical there might be some benefit in just it if it didn't feel like there was going to be um much um disagreement it might be beneficial to vote in vote tonight so that those members could start as chair and vice chair next meeting so I'm not quite sure what the statements are I know I've kind of emailed with you Joe

087about this and it sounded like there might have been kind of a a logical way this might fall out and so I just thought that we might want to entertain that as an option I'm okay with that so could we yes my motion until after we've heard the uh statements so as part of the discussion we can we can entertain the the statements sure I can share those off here uh songs that actually pull things up um so yeah just just to note before I read the statements themselves of who's expressed interest so far to me um and then you know at this point obviously if anyone else here has interest um feel free to speak up and you know share what you would like to share as well um I've heard from both uh

088Claire McKenna and Gabriel harp have expressed interest in running for chair and um also as Rob and last meeting Smith is interested in Vice chair um so just and also like in terms of order if for those seeking appointment to chair if they were not elected chair would also be interested in Vice chair at that point in time um so just to first read off um Gabriel's statement um Gabriel noted um having considered the need for someone to step into the chair role I would be happy to take it on if elected I'd be Keen to work um with Joe other OSI staff city council members and the vice chair or chair to organize the agendas conduct the meetings help prioritize and clarify issues and work together with all of the Commissioners I'm encouraged by

089the range and relevance of issues that the energy commission is taking on to help advise City Council Members I'd enthusiastically work to make our meetings as valuable as possible for Ann Arbor residents City Council Members OSI staff and fellow commissioners um for Claire's portion um Claire stated I am seeking election as the chair of energy Commission because I enjoy the engagement with Civic process and I have a vision for how our group can be best or best be of service to the Ann Arbor city council and the citizens as a PhD student studying residential energy affordability and the clean heating transition in Washtenaw County with a background in professional engineering I can share my expertise in local network and energy and Equity fields to create impactful agendas and guide meaningful conversation I believe thoughtful deliberation

090on the energy related issues facing Ann Arbor can support city council while both educating ourselves and engaging the public as the commission chair I would like to expand our work in a way that can incorporate more voices representative of a diversity of positions across energy affordability utility response to extreme weather home and business technology transition to emissions free Fuel and more um and then as noted um commissioner Smith uh had a late conflict come up so I don't have any prepared remarks for that uh interest in the vice chair position but um commissioner Smith spoke last meeting about that as well so that is all that I have at this moment and we'll turn it back over for discussion on how you all feel about those remarks and how that impacts the consideration of voting

091in guys um customary at all to sort of to see resumes CVS in this process we haven't in the past okay council member Briggs I was when I originally there had only been kind of uh before sharesha had said she was interested in Vice chair I the last email I had seen was that you know Claire was they're both interested and you know gave its other you know I'm fine with being Vice chair and so to me at that point it made sense to be like you know um it would kind of play out naturally um in that respect um so um Travis I don't know if you were about to chime in yeah I mean that that was that was kind of where my head was at too I know that with the the

092addition of a person um it potentially puts charisha at a disadvantage in a in a vice chair uh election not having a statement read um I will personally say I mean that this is not a a common intent game at all I think actually all three of them are quite wonderful um Claire is one of the people that that I thought would make a great chair for this group and so that that was kind of where my headspace was at as well when I heard that he would be interested in the vice chair position um but you know I don't know how folks feel I I would actually be comfortable you know nominating Claire tonight and and potentially having a chair position and then a conversation about Vice chair at the next meeting and that

093at least allows you know that person if if that's the direction of the body um to to begin working on the next agenda with Joe and all those things and kind of hit the ground running um and even be able to to have that Converse leave that conversation at the next meeting um but that was just kind of my thought as well as I was thinking about it when just the two of them were interested commissioner Berkowitz I council member radino said it better than I ever could have I'm in complete agreement um I would feel comfortable um voting on a chair tonight and tabling the vice chair vote until our next meeting um I'm convinced by um the content of uh commissioner McKenna's prepared statements and I think would be a natural fit for

094the chair would allow us to hit the ground running I also just realized I will not be present at our next commission meeting uh so I'm uh council member Idina thank you for mentioning that so I checked my own calendar as well so following Roberts is there are there any other comments okay having none um following Robert's Rules of Order we need to complete this motion which is to hold elections and we did not specify the assumption is for both positions so we need to complete this one and then if we want to present another motion to vote for one of the positions and not the other position then we will do that does everyone understand what I'm proposing okay yeah and all right so council member Briggs I would just like to propose an

095amendment that motion that's on the floor to specify that um we're postponing we're having the election for the next uh meeting would be for vice chair only um so I would propose to amend this to um postponing to the next meeting to vote for vice chair is there I'll second it okay all right so all in favor of uh electing the position of chair tonight and postponing the election for the vice chair to our July meeting say um I I opposed not opposed motion passes Okay so Let's uh begin the election so um all in favor of uh electing yes go ahead councilmember Regina I was just gonna say I I would move to nominate commissioner McKenna for chair hi second okay uh so all in favor of um Claire McKenna being chair energy commission

096Chair say aye all right hi all opposed okay motion passes and commissioner Claire mccanna is now the chair for the Ann Arbor energy commission congratulations Claire next month we will have the election for the vice chair and we'll be able to listen uh more to Gabriel and Charisse and tell us about um their interest and how they will bring value to the role all right Joe yeah just to establish like I'll I'll reach out to Claire and make sure we got all that um and then just a point of you know open meetings act stuff uh please do not discuss um your potent you know with others potentially Who You'd Be voting for for the vice chair um position um you know if you potentially have interest in yourself running feel free to you know

097still consider that and nominate at the uh next meeting but again please uh outside of the meeting do not discuss with others in the commission uh who you might be interested in voting for who they might be interested in voting for and all of those things just to make sure we're okay on that end yeah and I will I will communicate with Claire and get things um all set up on that end so thank you everyone I think that was a really great discussion we did very very well um I am thrilled for our next season our next term moving on to our next topic a20 year three are you ready Joe I suppose let me actually pull it up um and I will try to not make this very long and as not boring

098as possible um so I will share uh a screen okay um so I am just sharing the report in general of a20 at year three um I'm not gonna extensively go through this I'm not going to read every single line I'm mainly just going to focus on a couple of some of the um energy related things is this is the energy commission so just sharing broadly the things that are applicable to us some of the things we've discussed some of the things we might not have discussed but have been happening um and just kind of going through that so again I won't I won't necessarily go through everything in here um so I encourage you if you know there's plenty of great things that are not energy related that are helping us Advance um our

099our carbon neutrality goals so I encourage you to check out the rest um at your at your convenience if interested um so again just going through the generally the order of um of the plan itself so starting with strategy one which is moving towards um 100 renewable energy um in the past year and again this is um you know it's based roughly fiscal year so July to June um so we have officially installed over four megawatts of rooftop solar through our solarize program um this represents uh a total of 540 residential installations and um just a reminder that not everyone who necessarily participates it's in a in the initial program uh install solar so it also results in a number of thousands of residents educated and engaged around um you know energy production electrification and

100energy waste reduction um during this year we also launched a new commercial solar program in partnership with the 2030 District to incentivize commercial solar in Washington County so this is a similar model to uh solarize and on the residential scale but this is focusing specifically on commercial buildings um as many of you are here for uh we have commissioned the energy options analysis determining the financial viability of the Bose sustainable energy utility traditional municipalization and other options for meeting our community-wide renewable energy goals uh with the report coming back later this year which we will talk about uh once that is ready um as well as we've also also secured 2.5 million in federal support to advance solar and battery storage installations on critical City facilities and we've also released a request for proposals to

101have a firm design and install these systems um moving a little bit to City facilities uh We've executed a contract for nearly one megawatt of solar at various Parks facilities across town and those installations are currently underway and should be completed soon um we've selected vendors for the installation of an additional three megawatts of solar on various Municipal sites uh which include the uh wheeler service center waste water and wastewater treatment plant and the municipal airport with construction set to begin later this year um relatedly we also released a request for proposals in tandem with the University of Michigan which would add an additional one megawatt of solar to City facilities in upwards of 20 megawatts at University sites further demonstrating collaboration with the university on some of our shared carbon neutrality goals and we

102also support it and continue to support geothermal studies and Analysis at two future Ann Arbor Housing Commission sites um moving into strategy two which is our electrification goal switching from fossil fuels to Electric which can then you know be powered by the renewable energy in strategy one um we have designed and are currently in the pilot phase of a home energy advisor service um somebody if this was originally called the energy concierge slightly transitioning the name um to the energy advisor we're currently piloting that with our partners Elevate and Eco works and this will help assist residents home electrification including just go you know how to go through the process determining what you need technical advice working with contractors getting incentives rebates things like that um and that'll be I think we've mentioned before we'll

103have a report due at the end of this month time to digest and then we'll be uh we'll we'll be talking about that at some point soon um in August we held the first annual electrification Expo which was um you can see in one of these pictures here um was a uh brought in a bunch of contractors who do electrification work and connected them with residents who are interested in electronic their homes uh we had around 25 we had 25 vendors and around 450 attendees to learn there um and we'll be having another one of these um upcoming or this upcoming August um continued on with contractor um we continued our education and engagement with contractors and uh collaboration with Michigan saves the state's Green Bank we now have 22 contractors who have achieved their

104electrification badge which demonstrates that they have knowledge of electrification Technologies and working in homes with them uh to help give people a better sense of you know contractors who are going to be doing this kind of work and are familiar with it um we also as we I think we discussed our last meeting or the meeting before we won a planning Grant from the U.S department of energy to design a district geothermal Loop in the Bryant neighborhood um relevant to our discussion a bit on on planning we had we've also created a A200 sustainability review for new buildings which is part of the city's uh planning process so every new uh plan review go undergoes that sustainability review as part of it um we received a grant to install the city's first curbside EV Chargers

105uh which we're working to install by fall of this year um and then on fleet side we've installed or we introduced the first heavy electric truck into the city fleet this is a fully electric bucket truck and it is currently being used by signs and signals um for the light Fleet we've reached 20 electric um and this includes having our first electric pickups and vans that are part of the fleet um we've also been working with our local Electrical Workers unions on electrification Readiness um including they have a campaign called the Futures electric where they have a series of uh informational videos that kind of help people know what's involved in upgrading homes for electrification um and things on different appliances and vehicles um so if you're interested in that encourage you to check those

106out um and we also just recently had a convening with a bunch of contractors across multiple disciplines uh to kind of talk about you know what they're what they're seeing in the field discussing misconceptions around electrification promoting um our city electrician programs and resources and uh collecting feedback on some of our uh upcoming rebate programs to better figure out how we can get best practices for increasing electrification through our collaboration with contractors moving into strategy three which is a Energy Efficiency of our buildings um this work continues to be both incredibly important but also one of the less glamorous ones of you know you see solar panels heat pumps that's always fun but then talking about insulation um things like that can be hard to generate excitement sometimes even though they uh see great benefits

107um some of the things here uh we did a we did a project where we provided 300 000 in Grants to some local affordable housing providers to implement Energy Efficiency improvements in the homes and dwellings of individuals with lower incomes um we completed our Aging in place efficiency pilot uh which was where we completed Energy Efficiency and aging in place retrofits in the homes of 17 older um older income qualified adults which helped stabilize housing offset cost of Falls and displacement reduced energy burdens and we saw a total of 45 around forty five thousand dollars in utility cost saves plus a reduction of 113 metric tons of carbon emissions that was the completion of the pilot we're currently seeking funding to continue that program um we began decarbonization audits with a local engineering team at

108four municipal buildings with the goal of fully decarbonizing those buildings using the results of those audits by 2025. um we implemented the first uh Commercial Energy and water benchmarking ordinance in the state of Michigan um currently underway and it's currently um in the data collection phase right now with um with uh some of those buildings um in collaboration with our partners Community Action Network um they they won 500 000 to advance neighborhood decarbonization in the Bryant neighborhood uh to and it's we're currently um helping 19 households in the neighborhood make health safety and quality of life improvements um and we also want a grant to replace all of the city's street lights with uh LEDs uh network will start in 2024. and then uh we also launched and concluded the city's first resident race to

109zero energy initiative uh which had over 100 participants working to um you know see see how far they could get their homes uh to um zero energy and also collaborated with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to secure three million in federal aid to advance Net Zero Energy affordable housing in the city um the next couple strategies are going to be a little quick because they're lighter on energy but again feel free to check these out to see all the other great things that are happening um for strategy four which is reducing the miles we travel in our vehicles by um we supported an Ann Arbor Area Transit Authority propulsion study that was looking at different solutions for achieving carbon free busing um we talked about the EV charging earlier and a different strategy um but

110for strategy five which is our circular economy or changing the way we use reuse and dispose of materials we worked with a group of University of Michigan policy students to develop an initial framework for reducing embodied carbon in our buildings which goes hand in hand with some of the other work we've been talking about with new buildings and energy usage um and then strategy six uh which is enhancing the resilience of our people and our place um a lot of the work at least energy wise is around um resilience hubs um so just this past week um we uh officially completed the second resilience Hub in Ann Arbor uh which is located at the Bryant neighborhood community center uh now has solar and storage on it so it can continue to operate in times of

111emergency as well as providing um you know financial and other resilience benefits in normal operating times um this goes hand in hand with um uh our our first resilience Hub which is at the North Side Community Center also operated by Community Action Network um which was established and we also operated and staffed it during the ice storms um it was open for five days and provide had power the entire time offered people a warm place to stay if they needed uh cook a warm meal charge up their devices and some folks uh were able to stay overnight um I also wanted to mention broadly our a20 ambassador program grew to 85 members who've gone through that training um particular one to mention this because our applications are now open so if you know anyone who

112is interested in that program or if you yourself are interested I encourage you to apply um going into our broad strategy seven which is stuff that kind of overlaps every strategy or you know it just goes across multiple strategies um we worked with uh Ann Arbor Public Schools in Washington County to complete their greenhouse gas emissions inventories um and for the second year in a row Ann Arbor was recognized on the cdp's A-list as one of uh 122 cities and counties across the globe that are taking uh bold action on leaders or bold leadership on environmental action and transparency um as we've covered extensively but it did just happen this past year uh we voted to become the eighth community in America to tax ourselves and fund local climate action uh through the 20-year climate

113action millage um and then just to run through a couple grants that were successful related to energy I've touched on them a little bit here but just to go into a little bit more detail and cover a few others um we have the Energy Efficiency and conservation block grant uh it's 180 000 which will be used to make the Bryant Community Center a carbon negative building as well as a living demonstration site of what is uh what is possible in the community um the uh through mishta their My Hope program was five hundred thousand dollars which is that worked to decarbonize uh the homes in the Bryant neighborhood um the U.S department of energy had a we were awarded a community geothermal planning grant for 580 000 to start designing a district geothermal system in

114the Bryant neighborhood including the houses the school uh Community or uh County mental health facility and the city service center uh we were awarded technical assistance through the clean energy to communities program to identify data needs and draft a request for proposal for additional District geothermal uh in the city um through the state of Michigan twenty five thousand dollars to support LED lighting conversion at the wheeler service center uh the semcog carbon Reduction Program was nine hundred eighty thousand dollars for that led street light conversion across the city um in the state of Michigan award is 54 000 to install the state's first utility pole EV charging program which is currently underway and then just to conclude I just wanted to share some of the priorities we have for the upcoming year many of these

115are things we have we've talked about previously but also wanted to put on here as we start um you know continuing to think about um you know our different agendas going forward and also things you can you can expect to be seeing coming uh down the pipeline here um we look to formally launch the a20 assessment path to zero for all residents uh which will be part of that energy advisor program which again helps people identify what they can do to get their home uh to zero uh we'll be launching a series of residential rebates and incentive programs through the community climate action millage uh working to install an additional megawatt of solar to get to five megawatts of rooftop solar through solarize um continuing our work to break ground on the wheeler Center solar

116park on the city's Camp landfill uh collaborating with Washington County and other Regional stakeholders to expand all the work we're doing here across the county um continue growing the momentum and support in the Bryant neighborhood to fully decarbonize 20 homes in the neighborhood um continuing to investigate Pathways to achieve our 100 renewable energy goal uh with um with a strategy brought to council for formal consideration by the end of the year um we want to be deepening and sustaining Community engagement particularly focusing on engagement underrepresented communities which can definitely be an area where energy commission can can help with that goal um deploying 50 or more EV Chargers completing an additional two rounds of A200 ambassadors which again uh currently open for applications um as we've discussed a few times uh finalizing and formerly formally

117launching um the green rental Housing Initiative and the home energy rating disclosure initiative um making uh as I mentioned making the Bryant Community Center a carbon negative building and using it as a demonstration site for the city to be a living learning laboratory for climate action um continuing and creating our third and fourth resilience hubs in the city installing four megawatts of solar at City facilities including multiple energy storage systems and finally fully launching the a20 home energy advisor program which again uh formerly known as the energy concierge so that was a lot of things and I went through very quickly um totally fine if that bored you to death and you forgot everything um like I said there's many more things in there that are not energy related that but are just as important

118um for reaching our goal of a20 uh so encourage you to read that if that is of interest um if anyone has any questions or clarifications or anything like that happy to answer uh what I can I have a quick question um the oh sorry go ahead measurement what I'm going to say is nice job go for it totally agree great job great job and it's pretty exciting to see how things are starting to stack on each other and uh like the beginnings of like the momentum snowballing uh we're starting to see um so my question is like when will the SCU report be published do you know um the from my understanding some of the details have you know been slowly shifting it seems like late summer early fall is the latest is what

119I've heard um but like I said some of those details have been slightly changing and I'm not necessarily in those uh discussions but that's roughly the timeline I've I've heard all right and then I have um another they kind of like two-part question and they put basically two questions having to do with EV charging um the um curbside installation is that the one that's over there uh the the Kingsley in um an English Street Corner up there um that I'm not 100 sure I can check with Simi and get back to you on that um sounds right but and then also the utility pull EV uh Chargers again is that where it's going to be it was in the same space or is it a different part of the city I'm just curious yeah I'd

120have to check on that as well go sorry go ahead that's fine that's it that was it okay yeah I know they were looking at um different areas that would you know be be connected be closer to like um multi you know developments places like that that would be harder to you know be have a EV charger at home kind of a thing um so those were the sites they were prioritizing there okay very good thanks that's it for me anybody else okay so moving on to the next item on our agenda we have the energy report which I would say that this was pretty much our Energy report yeah I don't know unless there's anything you want to add okay outside of again just throwing out the push there for uh um our ambassadors

121cohort is open um so if again if you know anyone or if anyone listening is interested in uh both learning more about 820 getting involved and um at the end of it you do a sustainable sustainability project with the city um so if that's of any interest or you know anyone with interest um highly recommend they apply okay great and uh report from the environmental commission we don't have our representative here this evening unless you have any notes on that Joe or does anybody else have any notes on that okay all right public input let me get my notes here so I can make sure I give the correct guidance here so this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN please call 788-0099 or 877-853-5247

122and entering meeting ID 956-8718-7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers who 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 9 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 sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments um I do not have anyone in queue right now but I'll give it just a couple seconds just in case all right no callers at this time okay well uh this being it's still

123we have a few minutes before eight o'clock thanks so much to everyone for participating in this very important meeting tonight it's been really great working with you it's been a privilege serving in this role for these last three years and uh at this time it being 7 58 p.m as Vice chair I declare this meeting adjourned thanks everyone see you next month thank you so much