Ann Arbor Renters Commission Meeting 3/16/23

001doing pretty well hey Jeff did this time I know that um we had talked a while back about the the time issue is this going to work going forward or do you think we should discuss this as a commission about like trying to find a different time that works for everyone I mean I I'm fine with this um I don't I don't have any conflicts with this time you know right now um so I'm finally staying this way if this works for everybody else I don't know when the last time like the whole group discussed it if it was it would be something that would be good to discussed again but but it found my account it's fine okay great I I seem to remember some kind of conflict on your end and I just

002wanted to make sure that we knew that if you know so we could discuss it if it were an issue yeah that was just that one concert I had rehearsals for so how'd the concert go I would very well thank you lovely Zechariah I'm not sure if you were copied or if I forwarded it to you but Gail won't be attending tonight I saw that yeah I think you must have forwarded it to me perfect thank you I'm gonna go in and out of uh view because I'm just finishing up my dinner so I hope that's okay but I'll be attentive thanks Nick I appreciate you being here nonetheless nobody wants to watch me eat okay I think we're good to get started and if we have any like comments um they can just join

003um okay so welcome everyone to the March 16th meeting of the Ann Arbor renters commission I hope everyone's doing very well um now the purpose of the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city city administrator in matters affecting renters in the city of Ann Arbor the Ann Arbor renters commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council two non-voting city council Liaisons one non-voting liaison to hhsib that seats currently empty and um two non-voting members representing different landlord perspectives as well as one non-voting representative from the University of Michigan Student Legal Services now we have a couple sections where we'll offer um public comments so uh if you'd like to speak through the webinar link or by phone um the information to

004do that is so for the phone you have to call 877-853-5247 and enter a meeting ID 935-8080-1941 to be called on to speak and give your comments callers must press star nine if they're listening by phone or just raise your hand if you're doing it through the web link and we have the the short the shortened link which is a2gov.org forward slash renters commission meeting uh where the first letter of each word is capitalized and then you will be called upon by City staff one by one using the last three digits of your phone number or by the username if you're calling in through Zoom you'll hear an automatic automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak so please state your name at the beginning of your comment uh and if you'd like

005you can also State uh your address or your ward uh City staff will indicate when callers have 30 seconds left of their three minute comment period and after three minutes uh you will be placed on mute so that we can go to the next speaker okay so moving on to roll call because it's an electronic meeting we should we have to still include the city and state we're attending from so I will go through the role uh I am here commissioner Chen yes I'm here and I'm a calling from kanjo China I'm visiting I'll be back in a few days so yeah sorry thank you I can't believe you're calling into this that shows real commitment thank you dun dun I hope you're having a great visit in China yeah thank you commissioner Peterson hi

006everyone I'm calling in from Ann Arbor and I uh welcome Lucy and I forgot to say I'm also calling in from Ann Arbor um commissioner Kelly I am here in Ann Arbor welcome commissioner Cohen Smith here calling in from Ann Arbor welcome commissioner rumel here and calling in from the bucolic Township of Ann Arbor Township lovely uh commissioner droppleman I'm here and uh calling from Ann Arbor welcome commissioner else hi guys I'm here from Ann Arbor My Children sound like animals so I have my sound filter on hopefully we don't hear it but I haven't heard anything so far that's all right uh commissioner Lowe's here I'm calling in from ward 3 of Ann Arbor excuse me Ward four commissioner Tibbetts I am here also in Ann Arbor welcome commissioner Rosen was not here our

007um liaison to SLS council member redina here and back in Ann Arbor as of a couple of hours ago ah welcome back don't know where you were but uh council member Harrison I'm here and I'm in Ann Arbor welcome uh and now we had uh one resignation since our last meeting which was commissioner Mukherjee I'm very sad to see her go she was a really hard working member of the commission um and just a really nice neighbor so anyway I hope she's able to um to stay engaged somehow going forward if possible okay now uh also our staff member sorry Kristen thank you yes and our City attorney one of us any Attorney John John folks welcome and that brings us to I think I got everyone I just want to double check before we

008move on yeah um now we can move on to item number three which is the approval of our agenda um so I have a question for Kristen before we proceed I I know I had contacted you Kristen about amending the agenda since we had a request to add a resolution um another one that I think the commission hasn't seen yet do I do we approve the agenda first and then motion to amend it I always forget um we'll move and second to approve the agenda and then we'll move in second to do an amendment and then you'll vote on the amendment and then at the end you'll vote on the amended agenda are you is there a different Amendment than you had emailed about with the carbon monoxide or is that the one that's the

009one okay perfect thank you yes so is there a motion to approve the agenda so I moved uh motion my Jeff okay uh do we have a second second by Lucy so I will motion to amend the agenda to add on a resolution that is endorsing um a version of the carbon monoxide detector requirement proposed by council member Cornell who presented at our last meeting foreign do we have a second for that motion okay I think I heard Nick first um great so all those in favor of amending the agenda to include that resolution um say I I okay all those opposed say okay with that the resolution uh is included in our in our agenda and the agenda's uh amended I will present that and we can go through the language it's uh you

010know before we start discussing it um okay so now we have to approve the amended agenda uh so all those in favor of approving the amended agenda say I I am all those opposed say nay okay with that the amended agenda is adopted Christian did I do that right um really good job um one thing I would like to clarify where on the agenda you'd like to have this item you want to have it um yes we have several business items tonight um maybe um with the other resolution so they're kind of like the two action items are together in case anyone's calling in the speak don't have to sure yeah so that would be six step we would add this on a 6-c a d excuse me D after that one and then push

011DNE to enf right yeah so added after the um sorry I'm pulling up my agenda yes right after 8C um then at the Natural Gas not eight six sorry oh I'm sorry did I mess that up so let's put it on the agenda between um the resolution and support of the ordinance to ban natural gas and the um discussion apartment wait list so it'll be um the new 6D the rest will move down yeah thank you awesome perfect okay I'll try to remember that when we get to that part agenda great all right um just go back to the agenda now so now we need to approve our previous meetings minutes so we have the minutes from our February 16th meeting 2023. is there a motion to approve the previous minutes previous meetings minutes motion

012thank you Hannah do we have a second second by Jeff all is in favor say aye aye aye [Music] what was supposed to say okay with that the previous meetings minutes are approved and then that brings us to our first general public comment um item number five Kristen would you like to lead that sure thanks public comment can be made by phone at 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 and then entering meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or I'm using the web link and that is a2gov.org renters commission meeting um anyone who has called should press star 9 to raise their hand and anyone who is attending in the zoo meeting should use the raise hand feature we'll call on folks one by one um and you'll have three minutes to speak so we have a couple of hands raised um

013if you would like to address the renters commission for up to three minutes go ahead and raise your hand if you haven't already all right we will start with uh Zoom user the Parnell McCarter you have three minutes to address the renters Commission hello my name is Parnell um I'm in Scio Township but I have and currently a tenant and I also have been a tenant in the city of Ann Arbor itself for a good number of years um I'm calling about I want to speak about the gas ban proposal um and specifically in favor of it um and yeah I want to speak from my experience as a tenant and also as someone with asthma um because of my experience with asthma I am especially passionate about air quality issues both outdoor air quality

014and indoor air quality um indoor air quality can sometimes be neglected it's not necessarily what comes to mind when we think about air pollution but it actually is very important because it's where we spend most of our time and oftentimes indoor air quality can actually be worse than outdoor air quality um one of the culprits of that is gas appliances especially gas stoves you may have heard about that in the news recently since there is a growing awareness about that um um yes and so I think it would be a very positive step for the city of Ann Arbor in new construction obviously there's old construction and plenty of it in Ann Arbor but for new construction where we have the opportunity to write a new chapter for the city it would be a very

015positive development to protect future residents of Ann Arbor and their kids um from the air emissions that come with gas stoves and other Gas Appliances um obviously there are certain benefits also in terms of the climate in terms of not being part of the issues with fracking and the health harms that that causes as well um but even locally here in Arbor there are benefits that can be found in terms of improving People's Health reducing health care costs and in some cases even reducing utility bills since things like heat pumps tend to be a lot more efficient in some cases than gas furnaces thank you all right callers can address the renter's commission about any item at this time but there will also be another opportunity to address the renters commission for up to three

016minutes about um either of the action items on the agenda the resolution to support the ban of natural gas or the resolution in support of the carbon monoxide amendments all right next we have a zoom user Hannah Marie Elliott you'll have up to three minutes to address the renters Commission hello um my name is Hannah I'm a student at the University of Michigan I currently rent an apartment in the fourth ward um and something I've been kind of interested in um would be kind of re implementing the inclusion of utility costs in lease leases to allow students to make more sustainable based decisions but then also just kind of be more aware of their like holistic renter costs um and hopefully that would also kind of encourage landlords to make more sustainable uh decisions with

017like the technology and sort of utilities they use in hopes of lowering costs um something I was also interested in uh would be like the implementation of some sort of sustainability scale for venting options on Ann Arbor um just so like students can kind of be more aware um it could totally be done like also in um like coordination with like umicious off-campus housing division um and then just in general I'd be curious to like I'd be interested in seeing more um kind of like incentives whether that be monetary or other motivations for landlords to meet kind of local and then also sustainability standards but yeah just as a student I think it's important to have like sort of affordable safe and sustainable housing um I've been really happy with what annaber is doing so

018far but would just love to see more also thank you guys thank you Kristen do you mind if I just give some information to the commission and The Spectators including our last commentator um we I was contacted by council member Cornell uh to add the the resolution to the agenda but also she mentioned that she was working on that very particular issue so to our last commenter you may want to get in touch with councilmember Cornell about that and um also you can email us if you want to work if you want to bring some Commissioners on board to working on on that issue because I think that's uh great points thanks all right we have another hand raised caller with the phone number ending in one three four have three minutes to address the

019renters Commission thank you Kristen and chair Farah I'm Ken Garber I rent at 28 Haverhill Court uh on the gas ban resolution again Ann Arbor's direct greenhouse gas emissions are rising fast due to new construction 30 separate gas burning developments now underway or in advanced planning will put almost 24 000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions into the atmosphere each year for decades to come dwarfing the benefits from the city's three ongoing and planned solar projects just last week city council approved 320 new gas burning Apartments off Pontiac Trail city planners recommend approval next week for 78 gas burning town homes on Plant Road it's constant but few are paying attention reduced commuter emissions will offset only a fraction of the damage the a20 plan counted on the state to enable cities to require most

020new buildings to be Net Zero Energy but that didn't happen so we need this gas ban Dr Missy steltz and the city's office of sustainability and Innovations writes that quote this proposed change is in full alignment with the city's a20 carbon neutrality plan end quote you already heard from Parnell McCarter about the health impacts of gas stoves utility cost concerns are overblown a high efficiency air source heat pump is four times more efficient than a modern gas furnace High electric rates and low gas prices might might make electric heat more expensive not certain because the studies out there assume low gas prices which are no longer true and there are two mitigating factors first heat pumps double as air conditioners and they're much more efficient than standard units because heat pumps run refrigerant to individual

021rooms where heat exchange takes place they don't have to push cold air through ducts which is inefficient so cheaper heat pump air conditioning offsets any increase in Winter heating bills and second the state should soon pass the 2021 iecc energy code which will make all new buildings much tighter minimatic installation of r60 up from the current R38 and for the first time an insulating shell around the building Not Just Between the studs this will hugely lower utility bills some say a gas fan will drive development out of the city and that it will raise taxes there is no evidence for this in the 50-plus cities with gas ban ordinances to date such fear tactics are the same ones The Landlord Association threw against us in 1988 when we tried to pass rent control here I

022was treasurer of that rent control campaign and the Landlord Association buried us with this kind of stuff 30 more yeah I'm getting PTSD just from hearing it again uh this was one of the most traumatic experiences of My Life um so here we are in 2023 please pass this resolution we cannot keep locking in new fossil fuel emissions for decades to come thank you right if there are any other attendees who would like to address the renters commission can go ahead and raise your hand now all right no other attendees have indicated you can close uh public comment thank you Kristen that moves us into uh business item six we can start with 6-a the presentation for mental Housing Services yeah yeah on their way in perfect great thank you foreign let's see you all

023have the ability to share your screen if needed all right so tonight from rental housing we have joining us um the community services area administrator Derek delacorte and then we also have Lisha Turner Tolbert and Alicia is the building and rental services manager and then joining us we also have Chris McFarland and Chris is a code compliance official and the manager of rental Housing Services so we'll kind of leave it to you all how you want to format this I will I will start I guess the majority of this Alicia is going to handle for us obviously being the manager of building a rental I just like to say hello um Kristen uh obviously already indicated on the community services administrator Community Services manages all the Planning and Zoning building a rental uh we Parks

024and Recreation we also partner quite extensively with the Washington County Office of Economic Development and safety services and coordinated funding formerly coordinated funding we also do an extensive amount of work with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission as well as part of our service area so a lot of what we do is is Paramount to the first touch a lot of folks have with the city whether it's a park whether it's through building or an addition on their home whether it's through a new development so we spend a lot of time with folks who may be having first contact with the city and that certainly includes those who are renters in the community whether they be students or non-students um our primary focus is is and always has been the uh the inspection and registration of

025the structures and the properties um that's where the majority of the housing ordinance lies and and our process is focused on um Lisha has been involved with that for a number of years much longer than I've been here and and for the last I think almost six years now leash has been the uh the manager there of the building and rental department and overseeing it Chris recently has moved up um through the department and is has taken over the the rental responsibilities of managing the day-to-day operations of the inspectors and then what goes on in that part so I'm grateful to be here I'll be here to answer any questions we appreciate the opportunity and with that I'll turn it over to Alicia I know there was some questions and I think she's prepared to

026walk through some of that and then obviously all three of us can be here to answer any questions you may ask thank you but we did not prepare a slide or anything or a presentation um what we did do is we had a series of questions that was forwarded to us by Kristen what we would like to do is keep this meeting very fluid um and we'd like to answer any questions that you all may have of us um Chris will be very active in answering a lot of the questions he is doing the day-to-day inspection he has a team of six um inspectors currently that are doing the inspections I ran the program for a very long time upon starting with the city of Ann Arbor and I've been with the city now almost

02714 years so I've been around I know a lot of history about the program from its um from the old inspectors leaving to new inspectors coming on board about the admin staff and things like that so I can certainly answer any historic questions but um we are certainly here to answer any of the questions that was on the um sheet that we were forwarded um and like I said we just like to keep the meeting very fluid a lot of the questions that was on the um information sheet that we had was very much around inspection process um the complaint process and basically how does one get in contact with the rental housing um with rental housing office and how the complaint process is um conducted so we could start there with how do you

028get in contact with the housing office and how the complaint process starts and um how does one actually um getting get results from a complaint or we can put the document up so I don't it's just totally up to you guys how you want to do that so would you prefer to go through the document itself or would you just rather uh have questions that you guys have on top of here you want to answer at ask us I think it might be helpful to start if Chris you could walk through what a what an inspection process looks like kind of from beginning to end how often we do them on a unit um what that process looks like in a general inspection and then secondarily maybe walk them through afterwards how you receive a

029complaint how you process a complaint and then how you respond to a complaint um use maybe just a generic situation and then those two things I think after those we can open it up to questions I think from my understanding Alicia I think you're exactly right that's where the bulk of the the interest was so Chris if you're prepared to do that that would be great yeah sure um so it all starts with a registration um which I believe is section 8517 of our code and the registration doubles as an application for a certificate of compliance uh once we receive that registration we do a review and we schedule an initial inspection for that property generally that inspection is going to be sometime 21 to 35 days from when we receive that registration um so

030I'll use an example I'll use a single family home because that's so simple um inspection starts in the car as you're parking um inspectors are looking at the exterior in the home we go to the door we greet whoever's there to provide us access before the inspection there's always going to be some property review we're going to look at history of the property if it's an existing rental we'll look at the permit record see what work was done see if there's any Loose Ends um and once we're at the site go to the door greet whoever's going to provide us access um we generally start in the basement um that's where typically we find the most hazards that's where the Mechanicals are so we start down there we walk the basement um we kind of

031adopt the policy of always turning left working uh clockwise helps us with consistency so walk down the stairs turn left into every room doing a first full circle through the room going through our checklist that we have on our iPads um once we're done with the basement we're going to go up to the first first floor same thing every door we come out of we're going to turn left we're going to hit heavy room we're going to do a loop in every single one checking plugs testing smoke detectors um checking any life safety devices that are on site actually physically testing them for the most part um then we're going to go up to the second level which is typically going to be your bedrooms um so same thing we go up there we turn

032left we do our Loops we check function of Windows um again smoke detectors making sure Plumbing fixtures are operating properly um things of that nature lastly we're going to walk the exterior of the home um where we're going to look for issues such as peeling paint um weatherization things of that nature after the inspection is going to come um an inspection report which in a perfect world is going to be a past inspection um if that's not the case then we issue a notice of violation generally those go out the day of the inspection sometimes the following day notice a violation we're required to give the property owner or agent a reasonable time to make Corrections that reasonable time is not to exceed 60 days for our ordinance there is some additional language regarding extensions

033for work that requires um major alterations subject to building permits or exterior work that can be completed depending on whether then we're going to follow up with a re-inspection to verify those Corrections have been made generally that inspection is scheduled at that that deadline we've given for compliance which can range from anywhere from 15 days to 60 days sometimes we'll have something that's a media Life Safety we may try to follow up within 72 hours to verify that's corrected so we come back we do our re-inspection uh we'll assume everything's or assuming everything's okay at that point we're going to issue what's called a certificate of compliance are good for two and a half years uh with a first time pass incentive for an additional year which could result in three and a half years

034um the inspection requirement goes hand in hand with certificate of compliances and prior to the expiration of that certificate of compliance they should be reapplying for a new certificate and then we would start that process all over again um once it's in the system or even times when it's unregistered we may have a complaint come in of some condition that's on site so we have instruction on our website and staff who handles complaints we have a complaint form that we provide once that Complaint Form comes into the staff who handles those she enters them into our bath office system where they then come to me they get assigned to an inspector we're then required to perform an investigation of those conditions within 10 days um that process is handled similar to an initial inspection where

035we will do the inspection if we determine a violation is present then we'll issue a notice of violation generally complaint-based violations are handled on an expedited basis so instead of 60 days we might give them two weeks depending on the nature and what it takes to prepare any questions I want to add in on that just for contacts and I apologize if this is redundant for some of the folks on the committee I know you've been diligently working to to learn the system and what we have at least I think we have 30 000 units in the city something like that that we try to inspect we have six rental inspectors on staff right now I think that produces anywhere um you know we're lucky if we keep that fully staffed for a full 365

036days it's hard um to keep all six inspectors going um I think we average between about 5500 inspection slots a year 5500 and 6 000 somewhere like that when we're up running so when you compare that to the 30 000 units a year you see um it is it is not easy to get in all the units as often as we like um to do that one of the things we we work extraordinarily hard on is is to have a common understanding between the landlord and the inspector as to what's to be expected at the inspections if they are aware of what we're looking for and we are clear and and and and solid in our communication our hope is the more of these we can get to pass on first inspection the more units

037we see um our primary goal is the physical safety or the safety of the structure for the tenants who live in it and and that safety standard is set through code um we try to be clear about what's expected or what's required to be looked at as part of the code and then be clear in that in that information um our goal is that the landlords are understand what it is is expected and required and that it's it's ready to be inspected when we get there every time we have to go back out for a second inspection it's a missed opportunity to do a new first which is really based on those numbers you can see why would that be such a priority for us um the more we can get into that is why

038we Grant the extra year on the on the first if you pass on the first we try to make it a significant reward um so that we can get into more units which is our goal Ann Arbor is unusual in its ordinance that even in its multi-family it's it's it's multi-story multi-fit or multi-unit multi-story buildings we inspect a hundred percent of the units most cities about the most most cities do on a building like that is about 20 percent of the units when they go out and do inspections for exactly the the reasons we just talked about just the sheer numbers versus the number of inspectors that are are feasible to keep to keep moving so it's a little bit of the context it might be more than what you ask but I think it

039helps set what we're trying to do we are we are trying to get into as many of those structures they can to make sure they meet that ordinance to find safety standing um and that there is a common understanding between us and the landlord as to what's expected um so we don't have to chase them around if we're constantly showing up and requiring or asking new and and undefined things they have a tendency to run and hide from us um our goal is to create a relationship where if they know what to expect they know what's coming we give them plenty of opportunity and plenty of Education ahead of time we're hoping they want us in and we get in and out as quickly as possible all in hopes of getting into as many units

040as we can with those fifty five hundred or six thousand spots um should I see a bunch of hands up I'll shut up I don't know who calls on folks but like I said we are we are happy to answer questions it's what what we're best at so and if we if I could just before um I do want to touch on some of the questions um and give a little bit of context here also um the question some of the questions was this is this information available so first of all um the chapter that we actually inspect to is chapter 105 and that is a city of Ann Arbor Housing code so most cities inspect to a international property maintenance code we have not adopted that as of right now for us for the

041city um we have our own city code and that code was actually developed with a team of Volunteers in the building official back in the 60s and it's only been revised one time and that was back in the 80s so we are still using that code um that code is also um you can find that on in the municode system um online and um we have made some slight adjustments to it um Kristen Larkin before she left took some things out of it um and we've struck some things out but it's still pretty much intact from the original code also reports and um any kind of inspection reports any um permits that are attached to rental properties in a permitting system all of our permitting retention system is online so all of us all of

042our information is online either through our old system which was e-trackit or through our new permitting system which is stream so any information you want to find and we promote this with our um with the public to go out and look for certificates online look for certifications when you are um shopping for rentals um if you're looking for a rental house we used to have a partnership with U of M um with move before move-in we used to go out and speak to students and we used to promote to go out and make sure that your properties are certified rentals and the way to do that is to go online and put in your address and see if it has what we call a CR record and if it has a CR record look to

043see if it is current all that information is online um one of the questions was if it's not current what do you do you can contact the rental housing um office and you can ask has this property ever been registered if you don't see a CR record that's an indication and it's not registered um because if it's registered and has a CR record you can see the status be it current and it'll say certified or be it expired or it's either in process so those are the statuses that you would see online so those are some of the questions that was actually in that document um so I will just wanted to touch on that a little bit about the process um and as as far as the we also have a pre-inspection checklist that's

044online um that's part of our resource resources on our rental housing page so you can go on there and look at that pre-inspection checklist however we don't encourage people when you move in to actually go through and use that as like a move-in checklist this we want you to let us do that we are asking you to go out and make sure that you have a certificate or that the property is certified as a rental um we don't want you to put on a rental housing inspector hat uh not I just we we want you to let us do that that's our job so but the checklist is out there so that you can see what kind of and it's only it's only a a caption of what we would be looking for it's not

045Encompass is only a caption of what we're looking for you can't put an entire code into a checklist you can only put like maybe the more common violations that we find into a checklist so it's not inclusive of everything uh so those are some of the questions that was on the list so as we go we may hit a couple more of them but I just wanted to kind of put that out there so I like Derek said I don't know how we how who asked who who who selects the hand raising but we're opening now for questions I'd be happy to moderate and call on people if that makes things easier that'd be fine okay well thank you very much for the initial presentation there and walking us through what infections like that's very

046very helpful and we're extremely excited and grateful to have you here tonight all um all of you that's I I was expecting one person that's fantastic so thank you for taking the time uh so we'll go through the questions and we'll start with Nick okay thank you uh I agree thank you for an excellent presentation I learned a lot even though I have some knowledge of this area I have two questions um one I think it was Chris who raised the issue that the housing code is mostly unchanged from the 80s it's my understanding that there's a model building code or a model housing inspection code to what extent do we track that or to what extent does city council amend the code on its own or combination of both yeah so I'll start with

047the first part of that question um here in Michigan we use what's called a a model building code that model code is what we refer to as the I codes it consists of the international building code the international residential code International plumbing code so on so forth um the state of Michigan takes those books and amends them as they see fit and those get adopted Statewide um the International Code Council also publishes What's called the international property maintenance code um and as Derek um said earlier we have not adopted that code there are a lot of similarities with our housing code but there are some differences as well so that's that's not something we've adopted um locally here it's it's the housing code and if you look through our code you'll see the footnotes it

048tells you every every ordinance that resulted in a change in that code and you'll see some sections may have been modified every three years you'll find some sections haven't been touched since 1988. okay thank you that's helpful the second question I have is when you um give a violation to what extent do you work with the city attorneys who help determine how that's going to be ultimately handled um or do you when you hand it off to the city attorneys are you dropping out of the process at that point this so it really depends on the situation um our code does require for us to you know give them the opportunity to make those code requests code Corrections so um if we see something might become challenging or difficult we might get some counsel from

049legal in the meantime but a lot of the times you know they don't really get involved until we determine a ticket needs to be written to get compliance and we stay involved throughout that process uh we're in court we're in breakout rooms we're part of those negotiations okay terrific thank you so much did we try to stay out of the attorney's office as much as we can we got them out of the process altogether we would but they get very very angry with us when we show up in court without them I wish I could stay out of here I mean you want to hang out with Riser he's a lot from a standpoint I as far in addition to what we do specifically the international property maintenance code I would love for that to

050be our guidebook um because it is an independent uh code um and it is updated constantly by the ICC it stays in conformance with other communities Keeps Us consistent with other communities Ann Arbor's had a history of going on its own for years um and it's funny because anytime we have brought up the IPM the international property maintenance code there's this look I have abject horror from both sides of the issue whether it's tenants and and locally and elected officials and the landlords because both of them are sure that by adopting it somehow they are going to come up on the short end of that new code um at some point we hope to and have worked in the past and continue to work towards we would love to bring that to council um as

051at least the component we utilize to do our inspections there is a lot in our housing code now as you are aware and a big part of the reason you're here that deals with non-inspection issues non-physical structure issues um that talk more about leasing and contractual issues and and things like that um where the city of Ann Arbor plays a very proactive role differently than other communities um at some point it's my hope that we will have a set of codes that deal with that specifically um and are Consolidated and talk about those and then the ipmc which is what we would use to do the inspection process physical structure process um it's not necessary um I think the process would simplify some of these things but it is also scary for a lot of

052people because they have grown so used to the the housing code and how it works and are fearful that the their knowledge and understanding of how to use it work it apply it um will be lost so it's something we hope to maybe come to talk to you guys about in the future so I didn't want to take an opportunity to or miss an opportunity to bring that up while we're here sorry I'll interject every now and then it's what I do no thank you Derek that actually addresses one of my what was going to be my question so it's good to know that I think we're probably going to start looking into um the International International Property Management code and see what this commission feels about it um and if you do do that

053that is something either Chris or someone from our staff I'm pretty sure and I'm going to speak for Alicia here we could have Chris or someone come and walk you through what that code looks like how it works compared to what we do um I think that would be a helpful conversation and I think it's one we would be I'm going to say that's one we we would love to participate in with you guys when you're ready to take a look at it I'm going to add on to that too since it's relevant to this meeting um the 2018 version of the international property maintenance code began requiring carbon monoxide alarms and existing buildings yeah that's probably where I came from and Chris I mean I would ask that maybe take a look at it

054and if we can provide copies to the commission with or they're free to the public yeah all ICC books are all free without a login account so that's one one nice thing maybe we'll follow up with that and we'll we'll trust Kristen and the chair to let us know if that's a conversation you guys want to have in the future great thank you very much um I think we would like to have that conversation uh so I have a few questions here uh first first of all um you mentioned uh Chris the complaint-based inspections and how you prioritize those and I've spoken to a number of tenants who want to make complaints but are concerned that if they make a complaint uh that the inspection will give away who made it and will negatively impact

055their ability to renew their lease or to get a good price Etc they're afraid of retaliation in other words so what is your process specifically for complaint based inspections and do you try to keep it on you know discrete until you've found that there was a violation no we're required to notify the property owner of the complaint so we do that prior to the inspection takes place um we're certainly not going to suggest to the complaint came from um a good handful of complaints do get Foliage so I assume that information is available to property owners but it's it's it's a common thing that I've heard as well about the fear of retaliation yeah we we hear that on a regular basis not just in rental but other things we do not advertise who the

056complaint came from we will share what the complaint is I believe and Chris correct me if I Wrong our staff is taught to direct them to foia that um which is then reviewed by the attorney's office if it if we're if they are legally required to disclose it as part of foia then we have to it's not something we offer up in the field or answer that question um if we did it was some if our inspectors are it would be something we'd like to know about um but generally when we show up on a complaint basis landlords jump to the Assumption even if they don't foia that it came from the tenant I can tell you that from experience based um the landlords who call us will immediately assume that it was the tenant

057and they will say well that person and then they will launch into an explanation as to why the tenant shouldn't be listening so we get that a lot um sometimes it goes smoothly but we teach our staff not to give that up or to talk about that unless it is for you it's just it works better for our inspectors it keeps them out of that Loop brings the attorney's office in if there's a problem and then we make sure that only information that's disclosable through foia is what's made available and that information is not available online so complaints are even though we you can get the Complaint Form online that information is not available online so they would have to foil you that information and we do send that information to the clerk's office they

058send it to the attorney's office and they redact information but again you know depending on how specific the complaint is and the situation um especially if there's been an already communication between the tenant and the landlord um it's very limited what we can do to keep the landlord from knowing exactly who made the complaint but they do not get it directly from us it's good to know thank you and a follow up on that do you have an estimate of how many foia requests and this is probably a question for the for John or another City attorney I'm not sure but do you know do we know how many foia requests are made for uh information regarding complaint base and I guess complaints housing complaints I I wouldn't know uh Zachariah I'd have to check

059with Matt Thomas or I'd have to check with Jackie down there just foia request with respect to landlord tenant complaints well what I can do is Lisa those would probably come to you or Chris to get that answer uh we did a bunch of them or no we have not gotten a ton of them um I would if I had the gas off the top of my head um we made it 20 25 a year um we don't get a ton of complaint-based foreign I mean how many foias do you get to to disclose the how many four years have you seen come across your desk to disclose the complainant uh out of that out of that we might get 10. um we don't get a whole lot of foyers for complaints uh typically and

060and that's the other um typically we will work with the landlords and say you know you pretty much they know if they're wrong and we'll work with them and say it if it's a if it's a complaint it's a complaint if they if they're if it's wrong and that's a violation we walk them through it and we pretty and we're we got a pretty good compliance rate with them complying with us um after they get a phone call so we don't get a whole lot of them wanting to know who turned them in they pretty much know when they get the phone call from us what's that what's going on so we don't get a whole lot of we don't get a whole lot of oh yes we do a good job Alicia and her

061staff do a good job trying to talk landlords off the lunch letting them know hey look complain or not this is something we were going to find at the next one um you know retaliation retribution against tenants and stuff like that that's only going to make things more difficult with you going forward um it doesn't mean it doesn't happen um you know like most things almost all most of the folks we deal with want to be in compliance um we tend to be and work with them better our goal is compliance not enforcement um across the board whether that's in the building or the rental field enforcement takes a ton of time and energy in comparison to the results we want people to comply um and we've tried to work with them that and let

062them know that compliance is always going to go a lot farther um it doesn't mean we don't get the complaints it doesn't mean we don't have the bad landlords it doesn't mean we don't have folks who um take issue with Lisa and her staff but they do a pretty nuanced job when we get these things of trying to make sure people understand hey we got the complaint let's just fix it and we'll be on our way and and a lot of times we'll we'll do an inspection or renew a CFC or do other things that work in the landlord's advantages while we're there to extend it to to try to get to try to make that a more palatable situation if that makes sense Alicia always jump in and correct me when I'm wrong too

063please that's great we don't get a lot all right we work very hard to just get them into compliance we don't get a whole lot of people to foia thank you that's that's helpful and one last quick question uh you mentioned a number around 6 000 inspections per year yes is that six thousand one more time so that's six thousand about slots that give or fully staffed that we can have now weather gets in the way of those um you know days off when we're short staffed that happens um so rarely do we get to that full but when at full capacity filling all of our slots we have about six thousand here right yeah right okay thank you and we'll move on to Jamie yeah thank you um so there was a mention of

064an immediate safety concern um and I'm thinking more so in like the um like the regular inspection process not um if a tenant has made a complaint um if an immediate safety concern is found and this might fall more on the landlord but I'm just wondering if there's any obligation um to notify the tenant if there's an immediate safety concern or um if you're aware of it might not fall within the scope of the housing code but um no not I mean a lot of times they're they're going to be present but if if they're not if we're coming back in three days there wouldn't tend to be but if there's an immediate there's also the dangerous building code that applies to all structures whether you rent them out or not so so things can

065be posted which puts the tenant on notice that something's a Miss yeah that's that would be an even escalated situation yeah and then I'm gonna jump in and say um safety is a difficult word in what we do because it is it is not a it's not we deal with this is it is it meet the code or does it not everything in the code there isn't a list of higher safety or lower safety things in the code that being said we have a trained staff that if there is a danger to someone in that structure we do things um it may not be as quick legally as everybody would like but they are immediately in contact with Lisha with Chris with John to do something to make sure that anybody who is unsafe and

066again I'm using it but like John said dangerous there's definitions in the building code and the rental code is to Define dangerous buildings and other things across the line but really making arbitrary decision on what's safe and what isn't is difficult it's either it either meets The Code Compliance or doesn't it I'm struggling with my words a little bit to to to to explain that but safe is a word that gets thrown around a lot um and it is one that is difficult to Define and that individuals have different opinions on what is safe and what isn't safe um so we work very hard to try to make sure that all of the situations anything that would require someone or would be that a tenant should know about that we find a way to transfer

067that information to it but there is no Christmas right there's no legal obligation we are dealing with the owner of the property they are the ones who get the certificate we are inspecting the structure they are the ones obligated to to meet the requirements of the code so it's difficult at times sorry about that uh go ahead Jordan thank you for the answers hi guys um I am one of the two landlord members here so I first wanted to start with super positive feedback we the last few inspections we've had the inspectors have been awesome I feel like we're getting to a super consistent point and we're getting things scheduled quickly so um we're just really happy about that so thanks for all of your hard work there it's it's obvious to us as landlords

068that a lot of effort has been put into that um so we're really grateful a couple of things I guess that I um I'm wondering regarding communication like I I guess I don't I don't understand looking at it from a renter's safety perspective and my role here is on the renters commission even though I'm acting as a landlord representative like why aren't is it just that we don't have enough bodies like why aren't landlords notified because I I have to track you down to schedule it and so to me if I'm a bad landlord and I'm not doing it my tenants are more at risk so like why isn't why can't we work on that part of communication like what are the barrier years so that landlords could know when they're expiring um and those

069kind of things or like if something changes if code changes like thinking about this carbon monoxide detector thing um thinking about the early leasing ordinance like what how can we help you get resources so that landlords could get notified for those kind of really um renters renters tenants rights important things so I I'll touch on the first part of that um something which is new um that we haven't had before that comes with our new software stream is reminder emails um so we have that system configured that it will allow you to renew us uh a certificate up to six months before it expires you're going to get an email letting you know that that's possible and then we send a couple follow-up emails along the way as well at uh 90 days 30 days

070and add expiration so that's that's going to be huge um because there have been a lot of honest people just didn't know um property managers that have 90 properties that it's hard to manage that's no excuse but it's out there so these automatic Communications are going to be a big impact um as far as communicating new ordinance ordinances I'm going to let Lisha take that one because that's something that she tends to handle more so um and I'm so glad you brought that up about the communication because that is something that we have been working on for years but um it is written also into our code that and it was written this way because there's more of you all than it is of us so um I would while I would love to have

071a staff of you know 50. um I we just don't have the staff to communicate to folks and have you all you know and have everybody tell everybody hey you're expiring you know you know you're expiring expiring so this new software will do that um we're also going to try and we're going to try this is um all new software but we are going to try to send out um Communications as well about ordinances changes and things like that that are coming also um the only other vehicle that we had was to update the um pre-inspection checklist and send that out and say look at the highlighted um areas and these are the things that are changing but we're moving to a paperless World Digital World um so we don't have that now so with

072the new um email Communications that are going to be coming out we're going to try to also append to that maybe some email um notices that says hey did you know that we had new ordinance or a code change and stuff like that so I have mentioned that to our I.T Department to just see if we can get some kind of emails also to send out when we have updates we've had them so few and far in between but now that we are talking about making small adjustments to our code uh maybe we'll have some other stuff that might come down the pipe so this will be our first um this will be uh a trial so I'm I'm kind of working with her to see if we can actually get some of those things

073out to you guys the other option would be to put it on our a it's a gov delivery for everybody that's on gov delivery that subscribes to any of the rental housing updates uh we put it out there when we actually released our new software and uh so we're gonna see if we can see it get it on there and it'll probably be on our rental housing page as well as update as well so those are kind of going to be some of our tools that we'll use yeah so I'm so glad to hear that that's really great I'll get on to that as well um since you asked the question about carbon monoxide um a new Warden and such as such as that something we would do if it passed would be um we

074send out an email an inspection um notice email and it includes some information on you know what's expected in next steps we would include an update in that email as well so let's know it's known up front in your initial inspection notice yeah we made the great decision to swap over our entire permitting and inspection software not just for rental but for building yeah I know for everything we do across the city this does all of our site plan review all of our Engineering in the middle of covet yeah um which turned to what should have been an 18-month process into it's going to have your process and it has really slowed our implementation um of it but it is designed to be incredibly or it is designed to be more proactive okay that's that's

075great to hear I will say that it's been really hard for me to search is that going to improve like I'm I'm having a really hard time finding certificates of occupancy and um so I guess for me user wise like it's really challenging to find um and to direct parents and students that I work with to find the certificates of occupancy and Stream So I guess I'm wondering if there's um maybe like a search video you know if there could be like a two minute here's how you search for these kind of things like something that we could get out to our renters to our student networks um those kind of things might be able so just kind of a tidbit on that that it's seeming a lot less user-friendly um for searching so I

076don't know if it's just no that makes that makes perfect sense one of the big things one of the huge decisions we had to make was whether to to take all the I'm sure everybody anybody who's dealt with the software the biggest decision are you going to take all the old data yeah and and our old data was so a lot yeah no no I get it difficult it wasn't just a tough volume of it it was very difficult so it's not so we do need to make sure that we are working on making sure there's separates our attention yeah I think I'm still feedback still having trouble with the new stuff though um so I don't know maybe a little search video on like specifically because this is the issue and this is what

077you guys are recommending which attendance is to like look up the certificate of occupancy so if there's a little primer we could get it out to our networks and kind of have it as available on you know the U of M side on our renters commission site to that would be super awesome uh we'll follow up and make sure that you guys get that because I think we have that in our in our library oh great um so I will make sure that I forward that to um Kristen and make sure that you guys get that that would be great thank you so much and then just two other small things um uh actually only one other small thing this is like so minor tidbit but um caulking the toilets to the floor we just

078had a friend that had a major Water emergency because of that because they didn't know it was actually leaking and it ended up causing like twenty thousand dollars damage to her house and so I'm wondering if anybody can explain like why we've decided that is a better thing than not and so for you guys I'm sorry my wild animals are very wild out there but hopefully you guys aren't hearing them too much the um the toilet uh per the code have to be cocked around the bottom of the toilet which means that if a toilet would just naturally kind of like have some leakage onto the floor which is gross but you would see it and you would probably say to your landlord versus now if it's caulk the water can kind of seat down

079under so I'm wondering that's a very Niche thing but just wondering if I can get some insight on that um specific piece of code so that that is a Michigan plumbing code requirement that fixtures are caulked to the floor um and it's a sanitation requirement because that water that overflows or maybe that liquid that was misdirected will seep underneath that toilet and it can never be cleaned isn't that the water that's then coming through the ceiling in the bedroom underneath like I guess that isn't that the same dirty water that then would be coming through the ceiling if it and it has nowhere else to go other than through the ceiling well I can I can tell you as a licensed Master Plumber that a properly installed toilet will not leak okay all right thank

080you and I think I think at the core of that answer is if it is in the plumbing code AS we've talked about before we don't have a lot of local control over code you know it's it's we would love to um well to Catch-22 if every Community has a different code and a different set of requirements it's very hard for it to own properties to be a landlord a renter or a building inspector or a plumber in any other city but it doesn't allow us to make many individual adjustments there's I can tell you there's a lot in the code I disagree with um but since we adopted or the state adoption Forest we have very little flexibility in it I think um I think that's the probably the more straightforward answer to that

081question great thanks and thanks for being here tonight yep yeah thank you and I just quickly did you mention Derek that you were did the rental Housing Services did have uh the plans to transfer data from each racket to stream or is that not going to happen it won't be transferred into it but everything we have we're working with our RIT department so that they're separate search portals for it it's being taken packaged up and then there'll be separate search engines to get at it um and that's similar rental uh building all of our different functions it proved to be much more easier and accurate to do it that way than to try to input it into the news right we will so e-track it will be around for a while to the public and

082then um we have a separate Stream So if we have an opportunity um we can I can maybe show you guys how to do a search on stream but um we will we will keep that separate because like Derek said we didn't want to run the risk of taking a contaminated system where we have a lot of duplicate records and stuff like that we didn't want to take those things over to a new system so we will keep the e-trackit system online for the public for as long as we possibly can and keep that infrastructure in place however our stream system a lot of um new people a lot of the new records for uh for Parental housing we started in stream so you'll see 22 documents in stream because we called a lot of

083people and said hey register now and stream and so they register for their new renewals in stream gotcha thank you very much and let me add to that we've got a lot of property owners and managing agents that have chosen to apply for certified properties on stream because they prefer it they want to take advantage of the auto Communications they want to keep everything in one spot so we are encouraging that um but we prioritize uh working on the properties that need inspection so sometimes they sit on the back burner and then we can replicate that issuance that it had in traffic so that's been super nice to see as well thank you yeah that doesn't look a game changer uh so we'll move on to Nick thanks I'll try to be quick but I

084was curious when we were talking about enforcement one of the issues that I remember dealing with was um too many people in a house beyond the um occupancy limit of six and landlords allegedly would tell the tenants um eight of you can live here only six can sign the lease and if the inspectors ever come hide the mattresses in the Attic and that's one of those issues that kind of both parties were incentivized to keep them quiet right because the tenants wanted cheaper rent and they didn't mind you know um a little extra crowding to get cheap per rent or to live with their friends and the landlords of course um could maybe get away with a little charging a little extra for age rather than six what have you and so what's the status

085of that is that still an issue is that something you look for is that something you only look for if somebody notifies you or is that a debt issue now uh Chris and I were talking about one of those today well I'm not going to answer Chris I know I know our inspectors look for it um but I think it's it's it's exactly as you described the difficult part we have with a lot of things is we we Chris and his staff all this we know a lot um we know a lot of what goes on um proving it is different and is more difficult we have a we have a lot of things that go on that we're quite confident we know are happening and John John will go to Great Lengths to make

086sure that myself or me um our staff I remember that to go to court or to write a ticket we have to prove it we can't just know it um and that is that Nick that it falls specifically into one of those categories I I'm sure it goes on all over the place but our inspector in that brief window has to not only see it but be able to prove it or someone has to be able to prove it and provide us proof and often it's not it it can't be enough that the neighbor says well we know this person lives there we know so-and-so's girlfriend is there sixth night of the week um we don't know if they pay rent or not but we know they're there six nights in a week um you

087heard us talk about the number of units we have in the amount of inspections sitting and investigating a unit is very difficult in comparison to getting into more units and making sure they're safe we deal with that all the time I'm not doing a great job answering your question where rare it happens it is an issue there's a lot of them out there that we're aware of um that people aren't being necessarily 100 truthful with us um taking the time to prove it is difficult at times Eric you guys do I mean so for you guys like at an inspection if they have a suspicion we have a couple of units that are like two units in the same house or something like that so it'd be kind of confusing and we are frequently Asked

088can we can we see the lease and we only have six in our units so we don't ever get in trouble but um yeah it it is something that they do ask to see the actual written lease and we'll match that up with the beds and the appearances yeah I mean if it's apparent If a landlord is is silly enough to give us a lease with the wrong number of tenants on it compared to bedrooms and sleeping space that would be great you know I mean if they if they are if they are able or turn that over without knowledge that they're you know violating the ordinance rarely do we get that kind of um compliance or do we get a genuine if they're willing to put more people in there and take the rent

089knowingly rarely are they going to give us a genuine lease either so I will say I will say that when I first started in 2009 we had a lot more than that we had a lot more of that um between 2009 and I'll say between 2000 and maybe 13. um than we do now and I'm gonna say it would be it's because of the increasing build and number of units available in the city um the new shiny apartments that are coming online um and just a sheer amount of space that people have to choose from now and so um we had some Notorious landlords that were good at chopping up houses and literally putting kids in rooms that were the size of closets um and now they don't have an opportunity to do that anymore

090so I think through education I think through people having a opportunity or a variety of places to choose from now um you have the parents now that are saying no my child is not staying here um and so we don't have as much of that anymore you still have some folks that are doing that but we don't have as much of it so we have a select group of people that still are trying to to do that but you don't have the buy-in anymore that you used to have um so we don't have to chase people down anymore um and we don't have to we don't we don't have the phone calls it's complaint based now when we when we have these um situations it's now strictly complaint based when someone thinks that something's up

091and this just doesn't look right or somebody sees an ad and sends it to us and says hey they're advertising for seven bedrooms and they're only supposed to have six so that's now what we're how we how we get the information it's no longer just on inspections where we're seeing that or we're getting it now a complaint based yeah let me also say um that six occupants is a zoning requirement for multi-family zoning districts we also have restrictions within the housing code that require certain amount of space per occupant so whatever is more restrictive will apply and we're making a point to list that number on certificates of compliance as well so it's it's open and available information thank you um now I have like two more questions and if you know any other Commissioners

092want to ask questions I think we're probably getting to the end of this session but um my first question is uh regarding one of the one of the submitted questions about the rights and duties booklet um so it says here and we've discussed before that uh if a tenant does not receive the rights and duties booklet that's required to be given to tenants uh it can be reported through the complaint process um that I uh it was asked here I'm reading were there any issue fines issued in the past year and the response was no there have never been any tickets issued the courts are responsible for issuing a fine so what what is the process like um for you know did you notify the court uh the courts that there is a violation so

093that they can issue the fine or um I'm just curious so it's a it's a violation and we write the ticket and then we get in and then we submit the ticket and actually John will go in to um to conduct the ticket um and then the courts was is actually the ones that would determine the level of the fine um and I think John can speak better to that as far as how they determine um but it's up to five hundred dollars if I'm not mistaken um so they did they actually determine uh rental housing does not get the proceeds from that so we don't that that doesn't come to us at all um but we just issue the the ticket because it's a violation is part of our code um but then the

094courts just determined the the actual fine so let me say things a little bit about enforcement and the first thing about enforcement is education getting the word out there that this exists and then educating people if they haven't done something that's in the code why haven't they done it um nowadays landlords and tenants get uh the information concerning tenants right that booklet they kind of get it emailed to them under eight five twenty five and we all know that our Charter uh written back when that Matrix printers existed requires that they be printed in certain color paper be used for sections and it's um you know it's in the charter and I know you folks have talked about that but if we got a complaint that we didn't get the booklet because that's on that

095Complaint Form I think you know that Zach is like hey landlord did you know I had a conversation this week with a landlord that said did you and I asked them if they provided it they say no we didn't do that I said well you know you have to you have to give them a a copy as well so I I don't know if most tenants want that electronically or if they want it in paper they're supposed to get it in paper and I can see that but with respect to the enforcement of that step one would be hey I know you emailed it to them but you're also supposed to give them a paper copy did you know that and if it's like oh we didn't know that we'll send it we'll start doing

096that we'll change our way because all you got to do is come down to the second floor and we'll give you the damp the books whoops we'll give you we'll give you the books to give you your tenants so so we it's it's our it's our printing it's our paper here they are send them out so if they say oh we're not going to do that then then enforcement takes a different angle well here's your ticket we'll talk about this in court in front of with a judge so education is step one um and then you kind of go from there yeah I do I do appreciate the education has to be step one and if there's repeated violations then you escalate there but um I'm wondering repeat it or they say yeah we don't

097do that we're not going to do that yes recalcitrants would be a factor too okay gotcha uh so uh since and Define has never been issued or at least not in recent memory um it sounds like well I'm not aware that an infraction has ever been written for the failure to provide a booklet or that there's been a complaint I'm not saying that I don't know that we've ever gotten a complaint about not getting a paper booklet do you know Chris or Alicia we've gotten a complaint but we've never issued a we've never issued a ticket at all um what are the the landlord atone for it and provide it yes um they came down got a ton of books from the clerk's office um and I for my from what I can remember um

098Washington Apartment Association even came down and got a ton of books and rectified that whole situation so we've never had to issue an infraction at all um we did get a complaint though okay that's good to know and so if uh there were a situation where you told the landlord they said yes I'll do it and then you get another complaint the next year and in that instance would you think you would consider issuing a fine or would you issue a ticket that would gravitate toward it unless like oh or different it you know the landlord or the office staff they didn't know now they just systemically don't do it because they don't want to spend the postage then they're that's more likely to Warrant an infraction and when uh someone was saying the infraction

099we would write a that could be a ticket for that in the finesing cost would be uh meted out by the court and that's they would determine that that would be a sibling fraction okay thank you uh and my last question at the moment um uh is regarding uh compliance sorry uh combustible Appliance Zone testing Kaz testing um and landlord reached out to me wondering about this uh so they were wondering if they were you know what kind of tests are required uh in around areas with with uh combustion appliances you know natural gas water heaters and and heaters Etc so uh is there currently a part of the inspection that deals with uh testing or I guess determining um the safety of combustion appliances we we require a furnace clean and check document to

100be completed by a licensed mechanical contractor for uh both forced air furnaces and boilers okay so if there were an area that was not properly ventilated uh even if the furnace was clean and they could prove that uh could that do you think that could pose like a a health hazard I think that's a yeah but um you'd have to Define not properly ventilated yeah they they Chris why don't you why don't you talk about the difference between a boiler and who can check that in a furnace who can check that and what do they checked for it and what do they certify in that document because that might shed some light on this question yeah so um our furnace clean and check document one of the most important factor is that we have a

101spot for them to tell us what the carbon monoxide test results um and what a typical contractor does is they open up the access door um to the actual plenum and they put a CO detector right in there one that actually has a numeric reading which is typical um and they will actually see what levels of Co are coming through um we expect to see Zero and that's going to be an indication of if there's a cracked heat exchanger or not um we also look at uh the gas valve they look at the gas control valves the the gas shutoffs the the venting itself making sure that it's entirely intact um that pretty much covers your typical furnace so boilers can be a little different your average single family boiler that clean and check can

102be done by a licensed mechanical contractor but in an apartment building anything over six units with what's actually defined as a boiler over 200 000 BTUs those actually require estate certification in periodic inspections at the state level those are commonly referred to as csd1 tests and depending on the size of the boiler and the occupancy those CSV ones are sometimes yearly sometimes every three years it's a three-year license in the state so that's one of the things we do with State boilers is we make sure that it's got current state certification as well which is of most importance thank you Chris I appreciate that I I'll have to do more research myself on on the uh current test for furnaces Etc and touch base with the landlord to see exactly what the what answers they're

103looking for does anyone else have any questions but uh and at the end here as long as there's no question but one if there's more questions on gas-fired appliances in the inspection process again I'm I don't think I'm speaking out a turn here Chris can make himself available or one of our staff who specializes in this directly to that landlord if they'd like to have that conversation or to you um it doesn't have to be a back and forth uh conversation we'd be glad to participate it in directly whether it's on Zoom or make ourselves unavailable in the field to do so um it's something we'd be we'd be grateful to participate in that conversation um second from an overall standpoint a lot of what I heard today and I think it it rings true

104with what we're trying to do you know five or six years ago Alicia took over the the whole entirety of the building and Rental program with one goal in mind and that was in part to revamp the rental system and how we operate to be more Forward Thinking to be more proactive to partner more with the rental Community to be uh more consistent and and to be um predictable in our process and wrote and how we do things so and in our hope that it makes things boring um but it also helps us gain that compliance is what we want um covet came and threw us all sideways especially the rental program um Alicia and her staff deserve a ton of credit for even keeping it up and running when a lot of cities just

105shut down through that period and figuring out a way to get into properties but it sent us sideways and set us back a number of years um and when you throw the the change in the software our goal and this communication and we are appreciative to be here is to find ways to to do more education to be more proactive to simplify the process and focus on the things that are important both from a safety issue and other issues um we do struggle with getting involved as a from a rental standpoint in the landlord tenant issues um because our system our entire process is so heavily set up to inspect the structures to focus on the safety of the structures the places where the tenants live and the residents of the city live and to

106make sure those are safe the landlord-tenant relationship issues are something that's we're all kind of new into getting into and we understand those are important as well but we're we're doing our best to work with John but really what we want to do and what we hope in this partnership going forward from our staff standpoint is to find ways to do better education to be more proactive and to work out a process that is is beneficial to everybody especially when it comes to the safety of those structures so I think we're back on track now with that um I think we're doing a better job hopefully I can't tell you I've lost the landlord that was on the picture here but uh I can't tell you how much appreciative I am for those comments that

107means a lot to us we don't hear that often and it's what we are striving to do and to improve that relationship and our predictability so we appreciate the time here and if there's anything else we can do we'll be glad to come back and answer questions or have more as you can tell we love to have detailed discussions on this we love this stuff so if there's anything we can do it'll probably be Alicia and Chris in the future they're better at this and and know a lot more about it than I I do but we appreciate the opportunity to be here and thank you and I did while we were chatting um I did kind of go online and just look to to see on stream um so I don't want to take

108up too much more time here but if you there is a help guide so if you're having problems with the stream um search engine there is a help guide and it is a PDF and if you go in there and just type in search it will give you um Step by steps there's pictorials on there to show you how to do a search but it is pretty it it's it's not too bad um but you do have to make sure that you have just under the search engine or under the search address or bar um you have to click exact phrase and then that will give you like if you if you type in the address it'll give you everything that is attached to that address and like I said for rental housing stuff look

109for CR and then it'll highlight like CR and then those are certified rental records um so you just kind of have to know what the um prefixes are so for us for short-term rental is Str for uh rental and CR for building permit is BLD g c r or whatever so um there is a help guide on there for you and if you have any issues please contact us we're our rental housing department our building department be more than happy to help you thank you I appreciate you looking at it and that that search bar too also uses predictive tests uh predictive text and all of our addresses are stored in there so you you get a couple in and it's going to start to ask do you mean this property this property and um

110certified rentals are in what we call the license module so that screen will default to permits you'll have to go to the left side and click licenses yeah thank you for having us thank you very much and before you leave I just wanted to say uh thank you again and one question we didn't get to but and I don't expect an answer now but um one thing that we will do eventually want to hear from you probably over email or if you come back is how can the renders commission help advocate for you for rental Housing Services to make sure that you all have the resources and the rules that you all need to make sure that you're functioning as best as you can but thank you again yeah thank you for that that's that's

111very kind we appreciate it yes very much thank you thank you thanks for coming thank you all right now um thanks everyone for the awesome questions I really appreciate all that um I'm wondering if we could take a 10 minute break perhaps um and come back at 9 17. if you uh that's only if you all want though do you think uh is anyone interested in that yeah show of hands thumbs up if you want thumbs down if you just want to keep going I just want to fly I have to hop off at 10 so I'm fine with a break but just fogging that in case we need Quorum for something I also have to leave at 10. okay okay um in that case I actually think that we should keep going and as

112this goes on we can always choose to take a break later if um uh if we still have Quorum okay but if you if you need to stand up and go to the bathroom or get a glass of water feel free to just turn your camera off and we'll assume that you're uh if you don't respond that you're doing something important and you know you can just come back after okay so let's see that was 6-a now we can go to uh six dash B which is a discussion of the memorandum regarding enforcement processes and challenges for right to renew and early leasing ordinances there's an attachment here I can pull this up um here we go um so was everyone able to take a look at this memorandum it was it's been out since

113February 15th uh we didn't really have a whole lot of time we didn't have any time last uh the last meeting to discuss it but was everyone able to read it and you know what are your initial thoughts do you have any questions concerns about it Hannah yeah um I read it I had I just one question because I know this has come up um multiple times and maybe it's already been clarified but this um this memo I believe is where it made clear that like Lisa's before the right to renew ordinance will not like Lisa's that weren't um adjusted or changed before that ordinance it will not apply to and I remember that being a question at a few meetings like whether existing leases whether right to renew would apply to them so is

114this like taking for the word that leases entered into before the ordinance date right to renew does not apply to I'm looking through here I can't remember if that was included here I know that that is to the best my knowledge that's the position of the city um but I'm not sure if anyone remembers if that was expressly stated in the it's in there like right when the when the section titled right to renew ordinance it's the first line of that section right here okay yeah yeah the ordinance applies to leases entered into renewed or renegotiated after that date so yes uh thank you Hannah for pointing that out that um that is part of the memorandum okay thank you anything else either con uh comments or concerns Lucy yeah I wanted to talk about

115the bullet point on page two where it's talking where it identifies the reasons why some ELO complaints aren't founded so there's three reasons identified there that um the landlord contacted them about renewing and that was also they felt pressure and they might have renewed but it doesn't actually violate the language itself the second thing that they were placed on a waiting list and the third thing that the the tenant found new housing so I think this is a part this section to me is the most interesting that we need to discuss because it reveals the ways in which the ordinance itself is not addressing the problem that it's intended to address and I'm wondering um I guess if people have thoughts about what we should do there I mean maybe that's amending the language to

116address multiple situations I mean the the waitlist situation I guess we're dealing with independently though we haven't come up with the remedies for that the third one I think um that that one was a little bit puzzling to me because the you could still go through a complaint even if you found new housing right it would still have been violated so I was wondering if um those tenants were being encouraged to drop the complaint or if they had just chosen to do that um yeah just you know there's a lot of interesting interesting stuff here yeah wondering if people had any thoughts about how we could make the ordinance stronger if um maybe attorney Riser if that's what you think is needed here is an amendment to the language or how you think you could

117best get to a point where we're addressing the problem that the ordinance was set out to address number three wouldn't bullet point three wouldn't necessarily be that it's unfounded but it's just that it's closed out it's like you kind of need a complainant to proceed you need someone to call to the stand and say what happened and when did this community that communication and some tenants just say you know what I don't like this landlord I just want to move on I want to be done with it so that's closed out would be a more appropriate way to describe uh bullet point three really you know we're not going to force somebody who doesn't want to deal with a landlord anymore to come to court and talk about a relationship they just want away from

118so some have moved on and just to clarify it's a direct response there um this is not saying that tenants who do move on cannot pursue a complaint of course not no but some just say the hell with it I just want to get this new place I've got a better place I've got you know better space and they just don't want to they you know that's kind of what that's for okay thanks John uh the move on to Nick you're uh muted sorry I'm gonna pass for now and lower my hand gotcha thanks Tony but uh I might have a comment later okay Hannah yeah just a quick note since um let's see I'm glad you said that just like pointing out the section I I feel like um in the waitlist discussion this

119is just helpful if this commission brings forth something in terms of regulating fees this is I think this resource is great to have to point to that bullet point about waiting list in particular to show that it's unfounded here because it was actually a waitlist ask therefore it doesn't violate the thing I just think it's good that now we have the language to point to that as evidence for any future thing so um it's not fun to look at but at least we have it instead of just saying that's what we've heard yeah definitely and to know that tenants see the waitlist fees and are confused and they think this is the same as renewing or they think that uh it's affected by early leasing ordinance which is my understanding here um that's interesting um

120it's good to know Jamie um just wondering if this is information that we could um if we would continue to have access to as complaints come in um just thinking in terms of like changing language um it might be helpful to have a little more information um as things kind of progress so I I suppose that would be a question for either Kristen or John I know that we've had access to some previous ELO complaints uh will we continue to have access and if so how will that be achieved we can request them from rental housing and then they would go through the same reduction process as foia to uh before we could provide them to you do you think you want those um maybe quarterly or how I missed the beginning of the question

121um you want me to do like a quarterly request was rental housing or um well and I wasn't even thinking exactly like I don't feel like we would at least from my perspective I wasn't thinking like drilling into the details um just like that little um summary of like this was unfounded and this was why like and and maybe just seeing how many complaints are coming in quarterly would probably be appropriate that would be my opinion but yeah I can follow up about it um I'd ask them often I did it before this meeting if there's anything relevant going on that they'd like to share and they don't oh they they haven't shared um so far but if we ask specifically they would likely be able to give it to us in advance of a

122meeting so I'll ask them let you know I do want to say I um I'm very happy to have Clarity on how these complaints are supposed to be dealt with I know it's been said verbally a couple times but having it in writing is great and I think that um informing tenants that this is the process that you access the complaint online on the website then you email it to Janet Farrell that's good to know so we can pass that on to tenants and if there's an issue with that process as we go along and we realize that this is not working at least we we know what the process is so we can propose changes so this is a great so I know that I think Travis and Cynthia you both met with the

123administrator on this so thank you for doing that um Lucy yeah I wanted to bring up one more issue from the memo which is the last portion about um the difficulties on the staff side in terms of managing the camp complaints and investigating them so one issue that's named in the memo is that Janet Farrell who had been Fielding the complaints uh her her salary is from the housing budget not not the budget that should be used so she can't keep Fielding these complaints so the city staff is looking for other avenues for processing these complaints that's that's a really interesting part of the memo to me because on the attendance organizing side one of the things that we have and we did a huge push back when um yellow was first pushed is we

124try to get people to systematically file complaints see like here the city is set up we just pass this ordinance the city set up to do this and you know we fly around a lot we have conversations with people and we say you can file this complaint so now with this background information being like okay that might actually not be the most effective way of filing complaints there's a little bit of um the the tenants movement in the city are a bit out of sync so I just want to flag this as a as a problem that I think is really important and worth continuing to think about maybe in staff in the renter's commission together I I don't know a lot about where a budget would come for this but it seems worth spending

125some money on to me yeah I mean and also with what the staff was saying about how their um their focus is more on the structural inspection than it is with the contractual and relational stuff it seems like we maybe need to think about um creating a new department for something like that and allocating some funds for that yeah thank you Lucy I appreciate that and yeah I I realized I I don't think I really recognize how much work um members of Geo had done trying to get people to file complaints in the first place I totally forgot about that so thank you for your work and the work of others on that um when some of the council members uh would either of you like to uh respond about what you think might help

126the situation if um Janet's uh a bit constrained here and we it sound sounds like for mental Housing Services that there might be a need for people to work on enforcement for the contractual uh or the regulation of contracts and how those are observed do you have any ideas for how to make the situation better um we would love to hear yeah so we are um heading into a budget process here a budget cycle here um and so I know that we have been in conversations with the city administrator about um whether or not we need to allocate for an additional staff member um what what that looks like what those needs are obviously um Staffing the the day-to-day Staffing decisions are administrators purview the budgeting portion is our purview and so we're basically asking

127him um what support is needed in order to make sure that this enforcement um process can continue um and and frankly to probably be improved because as as Lucy noted um this is is not really what Janet was initially intended to be doing um and so um so we're looking at that I know budgets are very tight this year but this is something that that we have consistently been asking for and so we're continuing to work with with the administrator as we go into this this next cycle so hopefully we'll have have some clarity here soon [Music] gotcha thank you let us know how we can be helpful in that process foreign okay any other comments on this memorandum I know that there will I can't remember who I was going to be at this

128meeting but there's going to be a meeting is it later this month regarding this memorandum among a few Commissioners to discuss it more so in in depth I know Nick I think Nick and Lucy and I don't remember who else are intending to be there okay well if anyone else is interested in getting into the uh the details of this memorandum and trying to understand exactly what the uh was meant um in here and you know what what how we all feel about it just send an email I suppose to Kristen sorry Kristen said everything your way but uh I'm I think Kristen can help uh connect you with this small group that's meeting about the memorandum yes and Thursday next week at 5 30. thank you Kristen very impressive that you know that on

129hand okay anything else to be said about this memorandum before I move on it's really useful to have it so thanks to whoever wrote it foreign yes Mr riser I wrote some of it I didn't know it it's got Milton's name on it and Milton wrote it as far as everybody knows great uh we are appreciative so we can move on to the next item which is 6-c uh resolution in support of an ordinance two band natural gas connections that's uh new construction um I can pull that up here now I apologize for for having this put on the agenda sort of late um but I wasn't intending to introduce this until you know not not too long before this meeting can everyone see the resolution great now I do have a couple amendments that

130I'm going to propose to it um but the basic outline is that there's um I think a zoning change that's uh was proposed in the Planning Commission I think there's members of the Planning Commission who are very frustrated that lots of new developments are being proposed that contain natural gas instead of all electric uh we had some call-ins earlier about the benefits of having all electric and you know that isn't that is part of the eight to zero plan to make sure that buildings I think it's starting in 2022 were going to be built without natural gas so that's that was the Assumption in our carbon neutrality plan um so and that hasn't happened yet we still have quite a few buildings I think 30 buildings was mentioned by one of the um the the

131callers um that are either being constructed or in the advanced stages of planning um that will have natural gas in them so I think one of the major issues obviously you have the the climate aspect where where we're investing as a community and more fossil fuel infrastructure which is very problematic as we know we're supposed to be leaving that uh you know departing from that uh there's also the public health aspect which was mentioned by by some of the commenters uh I did not realize fully how serious that was um until I started reading some of these research papers I read that up to um up to 14 there's an estimate of of what percent of asthma cases in children um are the result of uh of natural gas Appliance Natural Gas Appliances in their

132homes and that was about 14 percent I mean that's staggering um absolutely staggering on top of that we have a lot of carcinate known carcinogenic chemicals that are coming from uh just leaking natural gas that hasn't been combusted or what's especially dangerous is the results of combustion or incomplete combustion um there's a if you go down the list and you start reading about it it's very shocking um that we've allowed this poor level of air quality in our homes so for those reasons for the climate reason for public health and uh yeah I think that we should seriously consider this I think we should take a vote on it if we can reach consensus tonight um and also that there is I know there were concerns about the economics of it we don't want to

133be sticking renters with a higher utility bill however um I'll point out that this is only for new constructions and I know it's mentioned that for major Renovations and I did look into what was meant by that in the Planning Commission and I believe if I understand it correctly it's for uh natural gas would not be allowed in renovations that cost more than 50 of the assessed value of the property so that's a huge renovation that's like rebuilding a significant section of of the building so that's going to be pretty rare it's going to be mostly in new constructions and uh I know that there's a particular concern about sticking lower income tenants with maybe an increased electric bill um and just to respond to that um you know I don't think that lower income

134tenants will be the ones who are living in some of these new constructions they're generally not aimed towards lower income tenants so I I don't think it's as big of a concern as um as some as I'm I personally thought it might be uh that being said you know I hope you can read through it if you have any questions about it um I guess I'll open up for questions first and then we can talk about the pre-minor amendments oh wow okay Nick before before you get into questions Zachariah is are you planning to take a vote on this and if so do you want to move and second it before opening discussion sorry yeah I I would like to take a vote on it tonight and I would like to to move uh to

135introduce it or I guess to start a discussion rather right um so I I'll make the motion do we have a second to just to open up discussion on this resolution seconded by Lucy I think okay all those in favor say aye you don't want to vote on it yet you need to move it second it and then you can open discussion and when and then you can take a vote Oh I thought that we had to vote to open discussion just moving in and seconding it opens that up excuse me okay thank you um so discussion is open thank you Lucy and thank you Travis so now we'll go through the list um Nick I'm ready uh so I just want to clarify and first of all thank you this was a meticulously researched

136and drafted resolution um Kudos uh to the drafter it's um really well done my question though is kind of like a process when you go down to the end it's a resolution to urge the Planning Commission to urge counsel to pass an ordinance and the Planning Commission already seems like they're just they're predisposed to do that so we're just kind of lending our voice through this proposal it doesn't sort of carry it's symbolic right yeah it's mostly symbolic but its effects don't necessarily need to be symbolic I think that showing that there's um uh large public support from different angles from environmental angle from you know thinking in the best and interest of tenants I think it might have an effect on getting this through our city government more quickly and my second question is

137maybe kind of Off the Wall maybe for the landlords here is there any kind of are you perceiving that tenants care one way or the other about the choice of natural gas as opposed to Electric in other words so they look at an apartment and say great Electric or blue gas or something like that do you see anything like that that's a good question so I frankly I think most tenants haven't thought about it very thoroughly but what I do know is that a lot of tenants are concerned about the climate crisis and when they find out about the public health implications of natural gas they're also concerned about that um so I think that once it's explained to them I think that they're generally supportive I know we had a caller who is um

138who is a tenant who is supportive of trying to do anything we can to make rental units more environmentally friendly more efficient and I think this is this is part of it that's why electrification was included in the 8-0 plan um I think that there are a couple issues I know I spoke with Jordan about this um like electric dryers aren't that great that might frustrate some people um I know I I don't even use a dryer personally I just hang my clothes even in the winter but on the inside of my apartment um so I think there might be some behavioral changes that would be necessary but in all in terms of heating I think there wouldn't be a significant difference in the lives of tenants um uh in terms of cooking so long

139as the appliances that are installed are good ones and that's a that is an if um uh there wouldn't be a major difference induction cooking is very efficient I have never used induction like I've never had in my home I've used it before but it's been pretty fantastic it's actually better in my opinion than gas so in all I don't think a lot of times have really thoroughly considered this but when it's laid out for tenants especially younger ones I think that they can see that major action and climate change is required so I think they are supportive does that answer your question Nick great okay Jordan yeah I guess I mean I think there are some things that I I question uh from a renter's perspective okay so we the costs of operation can

140be up to 30 percent higher um and I think most of the people in the city and on Planning Commission will admit that and I'm worried that that ends up becoming a poor tax right so I as the landlord will likely get some sort of tax incentive from the city from the state from DTE to purchase this electric thing um but I'm worried that then for my tenants that pay utilities they're going to be paying higher so I think that's a valid concern and I I don't feel comfortable endorsing something like this without more substantial information on what the city plans to do to mitigate those costs for the most vulnerable tenants um so that's my biggest thing but a couple of other things are I mean like you mentioned the dryers you know we

141have houses that have you know lots of people that live in them and use dryers um and so having to like increase our number of dryers for if if we do do a large remodel which we do I mean a lot of landlords got houses and do big remodels um for an example today we actually just found out one of our large steam boilers died it is probably going to be about 25 000 to replace for gas uh and they told us well over a hundred thousand for electric so I I I hear that it's new construction um I do think that if we are pushing so I guess for me I think most of us folks are the same people pushing for affordable housing if we're pushing for affordable housing and we're building it

142that tax can be on these tenants over the next 10 years so that's the part I'm a little bit um most concerned about I'm a little unconvinced about the the actual will health risk I guess as a clinician who's looked through the research as a mom of two asthmatic kids I'm still doing more research there but but most stuff says we really need to be if we're concerned about lungs to be focusing on cars and other other sources of pollution um so I guess I I understand that we can put barriers up but it just feels like in a city where we just went multiple days without power and people literally survived in their homes because of gas appliances and this is a hard sell for me because we were you know without power um

143I told Zachariah that all home generators that are like the Generac generators that cut on when your power goes out which we have a fair amount of people that do have those are all natural gas so um I guess for me two things would make me feel better about this a having a plan knowing what the city is going to do to help our our most vulnerable renters because that I think is our job and what we've um committed to by being on the commission and the second piece being I wonder if there's a way to kind of piecemeal this together in the beginning because you know it sounds like stoves and furnaces are the big concerns but water heaters and dryers have the most potential to affect renters so the other thing is the

144recovery time so the time for a water heater to heat up is almost double so if I have a house that has six girls in it right now I have a gas water heater they can shower um they can all get ready before they go out if we switch to Electric I either need to add a second one or there's some trouble getting the water heated and so I I haven't resolved those issues I'm open to it um you know we I think are the first landlords in town with an e-bike to carry all of our Tools around so this is is a an important thing to our family but I am worried about renters for those those reasons and I'm open to learning more but just wanted to make sure that we're thinking about

145our most vulnerable renters absolutely and just to respond to a couple of those concerns which some of which I I have shared in a few I I still do share um I think that you know this is not going to affect the majority it's only the fact a sliver of the rental units for a while you know that's liver will grow as more units are constructed um so I think that this really will not have a huge impact for a while but I don't think it makes sense as a city to allow major investments in fossil fuel infrastructure that we know we're not going to keep because eventually I I really strongly believe that natural gas is going to be phased out um and when that happens we will be switching over to Electric so

146you will have invested in um in natural gas connections and also Natural Gas Appliances that we don't even know how long we're going to be able to continue to use those that doesn't make a lot of sense to me um and of course the emissions that are associated with are very high um uh the there are technical details I'm not positive about about the recovery time you know I've heard that you can have larger water tanks to allow a larger amount of water to be warmed uh which would you know although the recovery time would continue to stay long it would still have more water warm water on hand I will point out that um that most gas appliances don't function during an outage um and that those with gas generators would be able to

147continue to have those gas generation use them just in newer houses um you wouldn't be able to obviously have the the hook up there you would have to rely either on a gasoline generator I'm not sure what the alternatives are I mean I maybe once you have an seu perhaps we could hook up to that um and the last thing is that I think that there are things that the city could do I'll let you know eventually obviously Travis you want to ask some questions about this but uh I know that there are some uh climate like resiliency centers that are being opened by uh the by OSI and by the city so that there are other alternatives to keep people safe even when our power fails and that's important not only for people with

148totally 100 electric but for everybody because a lot of natural gas appliances don't work during um uh power outages yeah I'll pass it over to Lucy thanks yeah I I don't understand the technicalities of all this of course and it's not really my place to comment on that is the renters commission but I do think that this is a really great uh resolution I think that we should vote for it insofar as it would have a negative impact on renters I want to comment on that point specifically because I think things like this come up a lot when we're trying to pass Progressive legislation around climate change or anything else that uh there's kind of like a boogeyman that it's gonna hurt people who are marginalized these kinds of things help people that are marginalized

149marginalized people are the people who are um most severely impacted by the climate crisis and with respect to um housing affordability the best thing that we can do for housing affordability is to pass proactive legislation that protects renters not by not passing um climate climate based um policies so I wouldn't put those two things together I don't think that's fair and I don't think that that's effective um this this is something that would help renters as would things like rent control much more affordable housing um and and as Zachariah was saying this is going to be a lot of development so it's important that we make sure that it's done sustainably in terms of the power outage stuff what we need is is better infrastructure and and probably um Municipal Power on on that level

150if we want to get through our power outages not not passing um [Music] encouraging more natural gas and gas-based power that's just my perspective on it I think this is great in spirit again I can't comment on the details but I wouldn't say like renters and um High rents is the thing that should get away in the way of this we already have incredibly High rents they're already not any protections for us my rent I just found out a couple days ago my rent is going up 200 a month and though we need to tackle that directly not indirectly by this so I would say this is a great resolution I think it's yeah really well written really exciting and important thank you Lucy um I will point out that I I didn't do 100

151of this resolution there were I got a lot of information from different sources including from the draft draft letter from OSI it was very helpful um and some community members also pitched in and I also got some feedback from um some energy commission members which was really great I know that I didn't mention this but the energy commission is considering a very similar resolution as in support and I'm not sure if the environmental commission is officially going to be considering this and during this month's meeting but I heard from a commissioner that they're interested in doing that um yeah I think that the the cost of inaction are quite large and uh in terms of the cost of electric appliances I know that there's there's the inflation reduction act which I know uh is going

152to offer rebates for heat pumps I think both for air and water heater heat pumps which is really exciting and I'm expecting more of that kind of legislation on the federal level probably the state level maybe even the city level which would be fantastic uh but I'll move it over to Travis thank you um I am uh not gonna weigh in too much because I I don't want to to skew conversational and I actually was just gonna love the commission for taking this up because this is a pretty Hot Topic in the city right now and I think it's really important to add a rental voice to that conversation and so um because it is being discussed in an energy commission where where I am and uh I will certainly have the ability to weigh

153in at the council table on the content itself um I want you guys to be able to kind of work out what what makes the most sense for for your perspective um the one request that I will make is um in the final resolved clause and and Nick kind of alluded to this already um from kind of more of a process standpoint I would request that that you guys consider making a modification to to urge and direct or to urge and and advise counsel rather than the Planning Commission just because um that That Should Be Your Role is really to to make your recommendations and your advice to council and similarly I would not ask I would ask other commissions not to to tell you guys what you guys should be working on and doing

154and so um so I think potentially if you want to make sure that there's Planning Commission visibility on it I think you could make that change where you're actually asking Council to take action um and then potentially an additional resolved Clause asking for the resolution to be distributed to members of Planning Commission as well um but that way your official request is to counsel it makes perfect sense I'd support changing it in that way and the only reason you know I was talking to energy commission members just to make sure that all the details were correct and I know there's discussion at the last commission meeting I don't want to imply that they were saying you should do this you should do that and I think they were making the same change or at least

155that was requested of them as well okay yeah I'll um propose an amendment in that way thanks Robert yeah so um I just wanted to say uh I do support this and um even though we have two existing old houses we're still making plans to partially Electrify them uh I want to point out a couple of things um I've done a lot of research heat pumps uh and uh heat pump uh water heaters are very slow to react so certain use cases fail pretty badly uh in in these situations um so I wanted to point that out the other thing is I'd like everybody to go into this Eyes Wide Open that it is highly likely in my opinion to raise uh raise rates here's why we're going to get new buildings with that are

156all electric and they're going to be the shiny new green thing and they're going to have higher rents because they are a preferred commodity to be honest the rest of us are going to be dragged Kicking and Screaming whether we want to or not into the prevailing rent situation that that that happens if your rent is real low then nobody wants you know everybody kind of looks at it says God what is this a dump or something so you're kind of dragged along so just be aware that while I think this is a very good thing it it has a it it will it will create conditions where I think uh rents are going to go up and and I just have to point that out um uh like I said I support it but

157let's go in without too many Rosy assumptions thanks Robert I uh certainly would not like that outcome I'm not convinced that that is exactly what will happen given what's uh what's occurred in some other cities but I I could see I can imagine what you're putting forward I certainly hope that doesn't happen and I uh to respond to something that Jordan mentioned I I wonder if it would be possible to I wonder if you know we should include something about calling on city council or um I guess since yeah we have to give directly to city council to explore the idea of rebates and that sort of thing to see if I think that I mean that what he's my like I'm I'm generally in with these principles I do worry about the small things

158with the the practicality for large large units but you're right I mean the a large remodel like that is probably relatively few and far between but I think just making sure that we are that we are not and largely that comes from like an you know I know Cynthia also works with you know like black and brown communities I just worry that we we also passed this legislation without directly addressing those things and in the communities that I work with I don't want it to be another thing that we are doing in Ann Arbor that doesn't explicitly speak to the potential um that potential harm I guess and so that would make me feel better if we if we put something in there like that yeah most definitely I I think that that will you

159know some of these climate adaptation measures um and mitigation measures I think it's like it's very important to to make it easiest for the people who need it the most uh to make those adaptations to make to change over to being more sustainable because I I mean throughout on so many issues it is clear that we can't allow the bill to be footed by the people who are going to be most impacted by by climate change it doesn't make any sense so I I would support including um some kind of resolve Clause suggesting to city council that they investigate rebates on electric appliances for rental units okay to be clear I don't think that we should put the rebate on the unit because then I'm gonna get the rebate as a landlord which I think

160we're already going to get anyways but I think that we need to specifically investigate rebates for increased utility costs I see the renters who pay utilities does that make sense it does make sense um yeah we need to have a whole discussion on that I I like that a lot more actually uh but the details there's a lot of ways I could go so I yeah I would love to talk to you about that more uh Jamie thank you yeah um kind of building off the discussion of the rebates um that was kind of my first thought was that um this is awesome and this is great and everyone deserves to live in a clean environment with clean air um but I agree with Bob that I could see this I could see landlords using

161this as a justification to raise rents just across the board um because I'm assuming kind of as Jordan mentioned the cost for this is about stoves specifically um like the or are we talking furnaces foreign I'm sure the cost is a lot more um you know so therefore that's going to translate into increased rent cost um which is going to drive up the average rent price um I think for everyone um so I would just be interested to kind of look more into the unintended consequences um just in terms of like how much is this going to increase costs for landlords in which is therefore going to be translated down to writers um I'm also wondering about availability of some of these and again I don't know enough about like this technology um technology appliances

162whatever we're talking about um to speak to like the supply side but I would wonder if they're I would hate to have something like this slow production of new units where I think that is what's most important in Ann Arbor that's my personal opinion but I think we just need more units um so I I would just be curious as to the unintended consequences of um something like this investigating that a little bit more yeah thanks Jamie um to my knowledge there isn't a shortage of uh electric heat pumps either for air or water and I think that the Market's only going to grow as the technology is becoming a lot more popular and there's going to be more and more requirements that I think there are already I can't remember how many cities that

163that do require this I think there are some counties as well most of them are in the west coast I think uh but to also just to respond to the cost element there was a report that I linked here from the Rocky Mountain Institute and they claimed that they ran the numbers and it was actually cheaper in terms of upfront costs and over 15 years to build a new construction this is I think so specifically for houses so that is a little bit different but for a house um in seven different Municipal like municipalities in around the country it was cheaper both in terms of upfront costs and over 15 years to build all electric rather than natural gas and on top of that there's also the externalities the other costs that we don't account

164for including the the health cost and the environmental cost Etc that we would hopefully be that we would be removing by no longer having Natural Gas but I appreciate your comments yeah thank you Jeff sorry my mute button was hidden there um I I do kind of want to would like to do a little bit more research um you know as you know I'm a chemist um I like this is a big thing I agree with this 100 I wish we were already all electric but the the concerns I have are you know shorter term if the electricity is coming from fossil fuels how much will it offset and at least in the short term right um but in addition to that I do have concerns about you know uh the bill that is going

165to be coming in I know that a lot of our electric companies have um uh programs to help those that are lower income I do think that being for newer newer construction that wouldn't be as big of an issue I do agree with that um because the the nice shiny new apartments are not things that you know the average um person just in general I think can afford um you know so I I I question the the impact at least you know globally at least in the short term um so I'm really kind of torn on that um and of course just market value of rents you know um I live in um Pheasant Run which was that that complex that made the the daily the Michigan Daily a couple I don't know a couple

166months ago about them raising the rents by 30 percent right okay that's me um and and I went through that right and um you know do they find that you know their their claim was that this was about you know the the rent increases were about the market value meeting the market value um and do they find that market values in general increase as these kinds of places which are going to be more expensive anyway um come online yeah thanks Jeff um I've never read anything that indicates that that would increase rents for an area um I can I can look more into that and do some more reading on that but again I think if if there's a decent chance that that units are or buildings are going to have to switch over to

167all electric in the next decade or decade and a half I think that there's a pretty good chance that we're gonna at least phase that phase natural gas out you know there is going to be a cost in switching over I just think it's either now or later and I prefer that we do it now so we don't have to make investments in infrastructure we're not going to need for much longer um but yeah I I totally understand your concerns there and in terms of the utility help I've heard some pretty negative things about the uh the low income help at least from DTE um so I not I don't have a lot of confidence in that that is a serious problem Lucy yeah I wanted to follow up on this is like a spin

168on what Jeff was saying I think but one reason that the rents go up is precisely because the new building projects are catered towards a wealthier audience so they're building more expensive Apartments the rents are higher then they're paying more in all of our rents are going it doesn't have anything to do with utilities so yeah this is the same point I made before but what we need in the city are protections around affordable housing the city does not have any ordinances that say you have to build this much affordable this many affordable units we don't have rent control here obviously so those are the things that we need to be doing to counteract all rent increases uh not not these workarounds that have to do with other other people's policies I did also want

169to mention that I spoke to a couple of people on the renters commission about the gas and electricity and all of them could not give me a straight answer on if they thought if if it was clear that electricity was more expensive so I don't know if there's a some research or a report or some kind of resource that kind of explains the the cost differences in these kinds of energy but I would like to know a little bit more about that if it's available yeah and I will also mention that you know our Energy Mix right now is Pretty Dirty in this area of Michigan it's notoriously bad actually but I don't think it's going to stay that way you know and I know that it's going to con you know energy from our

170buildings is going to continue to be dirty if we invest in natural gas but if we if we switch to Electric there's at least the possibility to make things better um on top of that natural gas cost could fluctuate quite a bit going forward I don't know Jeff I'm sorry I forgot to put my hands on the after I was done no worries done done yes I uh um first off I think Jordan's ideas were really good to get the rebate for the tenant but I don't think it will have any conflicts if we could do try to have the rebate if it is really a good high cost for both the the landlord and the tenant but next the question is that um because we were all talking about the the cost of the

171um the the electronic electrics cities so is it possible I'm just thinking for the long runs like you mentioned maybe it's even cheaper uh it might be even cheap like we really don't know I think it's possible so maybe for the long run it might be even cheaper or whatever we really don't have any really solid status will show that it's not going to be even price wise will be a lot better so maybe we need more informations like that to learn a little bit the things about the price and the cost of the things from the in a Futures perspective thank you thanks London Robert and do you prefer Bob I'm sorry normally I go by Bob it either way is just fine um just wanted to make a really quick comment since I

172I do have anecdotal uh information that uh heat pumps that work well in this cold climate are only recently available and they may change this answer but the geothermal systems that were installed prior to that also require electric resistance Heating in the coldest days and so January and December uh heat bills tend to be very high uh for a pure Electric System so again I think ultimately we'll get there but short to medium term I do not think that that the Assumption should be the cost will go down thanks Bob Nick thanks um so I am not an energy or a climate expert uh many people here know more about that than I do and I know that you are very involved as Zachariah with um citizens Ann Arbor citizens for Public Power I don't

173trust DTE as far as I can throw them you know I think that we are heading and and I am troubled by promoting Electric power when we're not even talking about solar or other uh Alternative forms of energy and I would I and while I like many things about what we're doing here I would probably normally say this is something I don't want to have brought on you know a day before and vote on it's something normally that I would want to really think about how we can have an impact not just and I think Lucy was kind of making this point not just an isolation of a good climate policy and how it ties in with affordable affordability and what we're really trying to do here on the runners Commission and um you know

174and I'm also Jordan raised some really excellent points as well I mean I just we were without power five days in August and we are on a well um so we had no water during that so we just got a Generac whole house system installed and you're not going to run that on gasoline you know you got you need a gas line to run for a whole house and I want to be prepared or a world that is we're already living in where we cannot rely on DTE to serve our energy now those are my those are my points and what I think you know when we just say gas or electric I guess they control both rights because there's a monopoly now so I I just I don't know it's it's to me it's

175a much broader issue there's a lot of things at play here I really appreciate the discussion so many people are so well informed and so thoughtful about this and I really appreciate you bringing this to the table so thank you for that course um I have a quick question for Travis or Cynthia do you do you know when Council might consider this issue I I do not have a date at the top of my mind okay but you know first you see this coming up on an agenda before I mean it usually goes through two reads right so if we were to postpone this P this piece of business uh to continue this discussion in our next meeting that probably I I just don't want this to hold up any decisions from city council expecting

176you know so the there is not a an introduced ordinance on our upcoming meeting um on Monday and and yes any ordinance requires at least two remix great yes okay thank you um any other questions about this thank you Zechariah is there a chance that we can get like there's I I talked to Donnell earlier and I forgot the guy's name like somebody came if somebody said the name I would recognize it but there's like a guy that does all the math and explains his work um and I'm wondering like maybe we could get that guy um who gave commentary yeah the guy who called in oh okay okay I mean maybe yeah something like that can help those of us who are a little skeptical I mean we're research nerds in this town right

177so um maybe that would be a helpful Connection in the short term yeah I I think so um I think we can maybe text about how to get that done but I I will just say uh I had um I was in a a pharmacology uh class at U of M and the teacher made us read an article by Ken Garber he's very meticulous he does science research um I I very much value his opinion so yeah I I think um I guess we'll talk about what the best way would be to do that um okay any other questions Jeff just inhering what some of the other the folks have talked about um you know some of the solutions to these problems would be things like Public Utilities you know uh Jordan you you're you

178know you would mention the power outage right I mean that was huge for so many people um would it be appropriate to include uh uh endorsement of something along those lines into something like this to alleviate some of those concerns well I know that um you know I I'm personally open to it I'm open to uh talking about I think later on the agenda we'll be talking about some Statewide bills they're introduced to try to increase reliability of DTE I think introduction of a public power utility on any level is going to take a lot of time so I'm I'm totally open to the discussion of that solution or you know talking about maybe in publicly supporting sustainable energy utility Etc and some of these bills that are in this on the state level also

179there's some county-wide statements and actions but in all I think supporting measures that will increase reliability would increase and sustainability of our fuel mix would definitely make this a more convincing proposal overall so I think that's something we could maybe discuss at the next meeting um okay anything else I'm just fogging that I have to jump off to meet a deadline but I like this discussion too I'd love to hear more thanks Hannah good luck yeah all right um in which case you know I I do have some proposed amendments um and I've written them out including the ones suggested by you Travis I'm wondering oh yeah go ahead I was just gonna say I I guess I am hearing from a couple of folks that maybe they would like some additional time with this

180and if that is the case you may not actually have to go through the process of making formal amendments you could come with a proposed substitute at the next meeting as well if you wanted to do that if if you wanted to entertain a motion to postpone to the next meeting yeah that works and that's exactly what I was going to uh to propose so perfect okay um do we need to take a vote on postponing this okay so I I suppose I I can motion to postpone it to our next meeting uh do we have a second second Ed by Jamie uh all those in favor say aye all right all those opposed to the um postponement say nay no nay no so excuse me it's been a long night I I every time

181we go through eyes or yays or no's or Nays I think my mind just kind of checks out for a second so excuse me uh with that it will be postponed to the next meeting in April okay thank you everyone for the discussion oh go ahead and I was just gonna say uh this has been a great discussion but I think I'm gonna have to drop off as well um but looking forward to continuing the discussion uh next month thank you Patrick and were you cc'd on that email about the meeting tomorrow morning yes yes I'll be there at 10 A.M okay and no pressure If you that's not um convenient but we'd love to have you yeah see you Patrick take care okay um all right uh so with that we can uh Lucy

182go ahead yeah I have to hop off I wanted to make a suggestion about the agenda uh which would be to table the discussion of the remedies for apartment waitlist until next week because Gail isn't here and then I also have to leave and I like I put some things together so if people don't mind waiting until next month I do have some I do have some substance to provide on that and I'm sure Gail does too yeah uh yes I I would definitely support that and Kristen I'll let you speak before we take any action quarrel yes so I believe that we um current so Quorum is half of the current members we have three vacancies so I believe that quorum is um five members um present voting members present um then we are

183at one two three four five is Lucy were you um Nick counts in the count though right yeah so you still have Quorum okay um yes um and then to vote on items after that we would need majority of that Quorum so we would need three yeses um yeah okay all right action great uh now before uh would it be possible before we uh I I think we're gonna have to uh uh and end the meeting pretty soon here then but I would I would like to vote on or at least discuss that quickly the resolution endorsing the carbon monoxide uh requirement since that was asked of us by councilmember Cornell and if possible before we lose quorum do you think that that would be possible for all of you who have to leave I

184can stay until we do that yeah okay thank you very much all right so um I think that we should discuss that and have an early um I guess just end a bit early after that business item considering that it seems like everyone is good going uh so thumbs up on that plan thumbs down if you think that's a bad plan it's good okay great yeah Kristen um please follow public comment for this item since it's um an action item so we'll just um in a moment briefly read it in case anyone is watching the YouTube stream or on their TV at home who would like to call in of course sorry I forgot to do that with the last item um I just didn't see anyone in The Spectators list so I just neglected

185it okay so we can move on to six dash D which is uh discussion of or excuse me an action item which is a resolution let me pull it up excuse me it's very short here it is resolution in support of carbon monoxide ordinance revisions to housing code 105 which is um the ordinance amendment that was brought forth by council member Cornell has been slightly amended um since the last time we saw it but nothing really significant I think I think that she changed she that she did uh respond to some of the concerns um that she heard about specifically placement I believe um Jeff just as a as a point of curiosity uh specific especially because it came up today um you know this is referencing the the 105 housing code and the you

186know we had the the people earlier had mentioned talking about moving over to the international code is this similar to what is in that code I believe so yeah that's my understanding that might be a question best for Chris McFarland um so if could I just have the 30 seconds of course so so uh the changes um were in large part because of the feedback that you folks provided us so thanks like the landlords and some of the the tenant reps wanted clarity as to where they should go and we initially had a version that incorporated by reference various sections of either the fire code or the building code but here we just went to those and directly embedded into the ordinance where they go we tell you where they go so there's more clarity

187now rather than the reference also there was discussion about the batteries and who should Supply the batteries and the conditions so um that's why these changes came about to give it some clarity yeah thank you John and I will um I have to quickly find I I can show you all the amended version I think this is it which is this is the amended version of the ordinance Amendment it's the most updated ordinance Amendment for this uh so it does talk about the batteries um there's just really some slight changes I think to increase clarity and this is introduced it's on the agenda for the city council meeting uh for first reading later this month on the 20th is that right upcoming Monday and 1B is the big change yeah I'd also be happy to

188share the old version if you all would like that just to see what changed but I don't think that's necessary okay so um I will make a motion to open up discussion on this do we have a second second thank you downtown okay so would anyone like to make any comments questions about the resolution I'll I'll show it once again okay very short just mentions part of our our mission as a commission uh talks about how council member Cornell came to present there are some minor changes um it's on this you know next meetings agenda for City Council this is a really serious Public Health concern which is why we're talking about it since public health is in our mission and we think it's a good idea that to make this requirement any questions concerns

189comments [Music] all right well thank you I apologize for introducing two pieces of business at the last minute I wasn't expecting to introduce this uh until I heard from councilman Cornell last night but without further Ado I'd like to move to to move to vote on this um yeah do we need a second to move into voting at Kristen so has someone moved that you passed the res a move that we adopt the resolution put forward and second it has that occurred yes that that happened yeah you you and Dan did that yeah so okay so motioning to introduce the is it to introduce it it's already it's already been moved and supported if discussion is done you can take a vote let's um quickly hold public hearing since we said or public comment since

190we said we would um just be really quick excuse me if there is anyone watching who would like to call in you can call 877-853-5247 -488-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or you can go to the zoom link a2gov.org renters commission meeting and then we'll give that just um like 30 seconds just in case anyone's calling in um you can discuss during this time if you need to one thing I just want to point out about this is that the old version did reference the international fire code I know there were some concerns about that the new version does not um yeah with respect to carbon monoxide we still do for smoke detectors thank you gotcha met the recommendation of the fire marshal that's right yeah I'll start with public comment no uh no attendees

191have indicated thank you okay thank you so we'll move into voting uh all those in favor of adopting this resolution and recommending to city council that they they pass this ordinance Amendment say I I all those opposed to adoption of the resolution say no okay with that this resolution is adopted and we will make the recommendation to city council thank you everyone um I can feel that people are so sorry tired yeah bye Lucy um okay let me just look back [Music] excuse me notes Here well I can feel that we're all getting kind of tired so I'm wondering if we should just move it into adjournment um I guess do we have to vote first on post uh tablings are our items or postponing them to the next meeting Kristen we did just have

192a caller join um she doesn't answer your question but if you would like to uh they likely called in because they were listening or watching um if you'd like to open public comment briefly for three minutes for this caller um before we do that um I think that you would need to move to postpone the items to a future meeting but I would ask Riser or a councilmember Medina if you don't think that's true I think we can just go ahead and do that quickly and then adjourn just to cover our bases sound good okay um one three four um you can address the renters commission for up to three minutes um yes thank you this is Ken Garber again um I wanted to make General Public comment at the end of the meeting I

193don't know if this is the correct time I think that's fine yeah it's fine to go now um otherwise it would be in about one minute so you can go ahead and um use this time that's okay I can't wait okay all right thank you so excuse me I'll motion to postpone the remainder of our business to our next meeting uh so that we can adjourn early it's not early but we can adjourn and then read you know discuss these other points of business I know we all have things to do and that's removed yes thank you Jeff second thank you Jamie second by Jamie uh all those in favor of postponing the remainder of our business say aye all those opposed say no okay with that we postpone the remainder of our business and

194we can open up public comment all right so um anyone watching can call 877-853-5247-488-788-0099 and enter the meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or you can join the zoom link and that is a2gov.org renters commission meeting anyone who would like to address the reference commission can press star 9 to raise the hand of your calling or you can use the raise hand feature from the zoom meeting um so if there is anyone watching or listening you can raise your hand now you can undress the renter's commission for up to three minutes all are ending in one three four you will have three minutes to address the rent restriction um thank you Kristen this is Ken Garber again um yeah I actually want to point out that I am not an expert on any of this stuff um I'm

195just a person who respects data over opinion um and I think that's probably what commissioner Planet commissioner Donnell weish was communicating to the one Planning Commission who mentioned that um so I'm flattered but um really I'm just a layperson who's um somewhat um anal about this material anyway um a few comments great discussion tonight commissioner Elsa's statement and everyone knows that utility costs for electric are 30 higher than for gas needs data verification and I believe it is incorrect at least at current gas prices uh Robertson Brothers the developers are doing the big Pontiac Trail project made that exact 30 claim uh but their consultant used dte's October 21 gas rate is 67 cents per therm rather than the current rate of 90 cents per therm which is 33 percent higher take that into consideration

196and the lower expense of heat pump air conditioning I mentioned earlier plus the very tight building envelopes required by the coming State energy code and we're talking a negligible difference if any um I'm not opposed to tenant utility rebates from the city but the whole premise is wrong um regarding upfront costs remember that heat pumps double as air conditioners so again essentially negligible upfront difference in cost especially in the context of overall new construction regarding the concern about coping with power outages without gas um yeah uh it's a legitimate given recent circumstances but remember that these new buildings will hold their heat much better than most current buildings uh local Builder Doug Selby has spoken at Planning Commission about several of his high efficiency homes that he's built and as I remember that during he

197said that during our previous multi-day winter outage they never went below 61 degrees and new projects like the proposed 79 apartment building on North Maple are including battery storage and 90 kilowatts of solar panels you don't need much battery storage to run space heaters for long enough to get you through even an extended outage um regarding commissioner droppleman's comments they had heat pumps even geothermal require electric resistance backup for very cold periods so that's only true if you have a ducted system which is typically a retrofit not if you have a non-ducted system such as a mini split or vrf system the current airsource heat pump systems do not need electric resistance backup at all finally the notion that all electric is more expensive than will raise rents just by themselves um requires evidence um

198I find that impossible the Maple Road development I just mentioned will include 15 of all units they had 60 Ami um so it's including affordable housing as I mentioned they have substantial rooftop solar battery storage all electrics um and um and they're including affordable housing I mean this developer obviously crunched the numbers and they they came out fine um so all these concerns are legitimate I don't want to um poo-poo them but um you know I do think we have to be guided by data rather than unfounded assumptions and I'm happy to help in that regard to the extent I can so thank you commission for discussing this and taking it into consideration have a great night thank you for the comment um so I think we're gonna have to do some work before the

199next meeting I'm more than happy to do some of the research and if anyone's interested in doing some fact finding um let's send me an email and we'll work on it together I'd love that I really appreciate the discussion on that on that issue though uh okay so that moves us to adjournment so I I this is is there a motion to adjourn from anybody okay I saw Nick for a second Ed seconded by Jeff thank you very much all those in favor of adjourning say I all right that's it interesting way to yeah thank you Jordan um although as opposed say no okay great thank you everyone um sorry that this meeting went on kind of long uh there was a lot of good discussion though I was very happy with um everything I

200learned and all of your points I thought a lot of really solid concerns and questions were brought up see you next month thank you thanks everybody not everyone thanks good night thank you so much Kristen thank you John that's him right