001orsky I am chair of the Ann Arbor energy Commission um it is 602 pm and I'm calling this meeting to order I am participating from my home here in Ann Arbor Michigan um welcome to the September 13th 2020 electronic meeting of the energy Commission this virtual meeting is to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we will conduct this meeting similar to in-person meetings Commissioners during the roll call please indicate your current location during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during in-person meetings also mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities one at the beginning and one at the end of the meeting please call one of the following toll-free numbers
002877-853-5247 or 888 -788-0099 and enter the meeting ID number nine five six eight seven one eight seven eight seven six on your phone this information is also available on the published agenda on the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on the CTN Channel 16 and 18t channel 99 as well as online at a2gov dot org backslash watch CTN Missy would you be able to read the land acknowledgment absolutely chair Mercy I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe and Wyandotte peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by
003the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us and our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals foreign thank you very much and would you please conduct the Roll Call absolutely just a reminder if Commissioners could follow tremorski's very excellent example which we'll do again and state where you're calling from that would be great uh chair mersky present calling from Ann Arbor Vice chair Colvin Garcia president I'm calling from um Ann Arbor oh I'm sorry a panelist in the waiting room thank you very much uh commissioner McCumber uh present and joining from my home in Ann Arbor commissioner Levin present uh for my home
004in Ann Arbor commissioner McCoy here and in Ann Arbor commissioner Kerber I'm here and in Ann Arbor commissioner Smith Leave absent commissioner overpeck commissioner Conan president and calling from Ann Arbor great commissioner zitelman present in Ann Arbor Michigan excellence greetings everyone um thanks for joining us um Kendall I think this is your first meeting correct yes yes this is I missed the first and then I think uh last month was canceled so right I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you to introduce yourself quickly to the rest of the commission um and um depending on people's appetite for doing so maybe we'll go quickly and have people introduce themselves and give a two-sentence introduction okay great um I am a junior studying at the University of Michigan um my major is pipe
005so the environment and I have a minor in public policy um in addition to school though I'm also working part-time as like an environmental consultant and I'm doing that uh virtually from my apartment which is um definitely a lot for this school year but I am excited to do so sure Mercy I apologize to go backwards I forgot our council members ah you did I did yeah I'm smiling so go ahead and yeah council member Briggs yes here in Ann Arbor council member radina so here in Ann Arbor no you definitely have a quorum excellent good catch uh so welcome Kendall great to have you on board um real quickly I'll introduce myself so you know I'm chair I'm retired after a career in Industry uh I um am real active in a number of
006different um environmental kinds of activities and advocacy I'm also on the board of uh non-profit and um have was born and raised in Ann Arbor and glad to be back I moved back in 2015. Carlene you want to introduce yourself hi Kendall welcome um my name is Carlene Colvin Darcy I'm the vice chair of the anniversary energy commission I've been on the energy commission since 2017 and um I really like to work like boots on the ground with Community organizations helping um I helped bring solar to the animal Public School District at the very beginning for school worked out a lot with a safe Transit active Transit supporting kids to be able to walk and bike to school safely and uh my my big Endeavor these days is electric vehicle charging so putting my efforts
007into helping folks get access especially those who live in like multi-unit dwellings it's one of the nuts I'm cracking right now council member Briggs yeah so um I represent the Fifth Ward of Ann Arbor which is on Ann Arbor's West Side um and have been serving since 2020 have lived in Ann Arbor for 20 years or so background professionally in transportation land use cool a lot of advocacy and transportation issues um let's go kind of and got me to council a little bit and I guess that's enough for now commissioner Macomber uh welcome Kendall um I am the finance director of a local environmental nonprofit the Ecology Center I'm been in Ann Arbor gosh Going on 30 years I think um and um I served on the Parks Commission for about six years and I've
008been on the energy commission I think for about that same amount of time um and I'll leave it there so commissioner um settlement also a new relatively new member yeah not too much to speak up on my background because I haven't been around for 20 years but I recently graduated from U of M with a bachelor's in public policy and a focus in intersectional Justice and I spend a lot of my time focusing on how we can improve Ann Arbor whether it be Transportation or housing or energy or climate change or what have you just Missy you're famous but do you want to introduce yourself real quickly hi Kendall I think we actually know each other uh but I'm Missy Schultz's sustainability and Innovations director nice to see you commissioner Kerber hi hi Kendall uh
009welcome and uh um I am a I guess I've been on the energy commission for a couple years now and I do Solar Development commercial Solar Development primarily in uh all across Washington County and Southeast Michigan commissioner lemon welcome Kendall I'm Noah I live on the west side of Ann Arbor I first came to Ann Arbor at U of M a bit ago and I'm now an attorney and I do stuff with environmental law um not as much with energy but more so uh with air quality foreign ER radina thanks hi Kendall I am Travis rodina I'm council member from Ward three um I was elected in 2020 uh live in the Bryant neighborhood which has allowed me to work a lot with Missy and her team because the Bryant Community Center has been a
010great partner to OSI um and prior to serving I also as president of the Jim toy Community Center and was doing a lot in lgbtq activism and commissioner McCoy hi Kendall I think there's a few new people since I've last been this I have not been here in like three months um my name's Ember I issue her pronouns I am a PhD candidate which is a new thing I was doing that one of the months I was gone um at the University of Michigan I'm in the school fair environment and sustainability I study energy Justice and air pollution issues um around policy failures mostly in Southwest Detroit and I've been on the commission since I think 2018. nice to meet you so Kendall there's a couple of other people that will introduce just before they
011present um that's to McDonald and Brett Leonard um as you can see Brett is with the city and Tim is a guest um speaker so I'll introduce them later um and but I think the first thing to do the next is to get approval of the agenda um can I get a motion to approve the agenda and a second moved by commissioner McCoy and second by would I see somebody waved council member Briggs um any comments or questions okay seeing none all those in favor say aye and raise your hand I any opposed unopposed the agendas is approved as published next uh is approval of the minutes of our last meeting which is the meeting in July um I can say I reviewed them and they look good to me hopefully the rest of you
012or at least some of you had a peek um can I also get a motion to approve the minutes and a second um motion by commissioner Calvin Garcia and a second I uh councilmember Regina all those any discussion of the minutes any concerns seeing none all those in favor of approving the minutes please raise your hand say um yes thank you all those opposed passes unanimously so um we are now at public input and we'll also have a second chance at the end of the meeting um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes if you are watching on CTN please call 888-788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 956-87-187876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed City staff will select callers that have
013raised their hand electronically one by one I'm using the last three digits of your phone number in order to raise your hand electronically to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet place and mute any background noise so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and your address at the beginning of your comments thank you color ending in one three four um thank you Dr Stelton chairmersky this is Ken Garber 28 Haverhill Court um just so you know the um meeting ID on the published agenda is incorrect um Zoom tells you that um that it doesn't exist um commissioner McCoy luckily passed on the correct meeting ID
014to me there so I was able to call in um anyway this meeting is Timely because the a20 climate action plan has a big problem I think strategy to action one of the plan is quote promote home and building electrification end quote and assumes the following quote all new residential and commercial buildings are designed and built to operate without the use of natural gas end quote strategy three is quote significantly improve the Energy Efficiency end quote in our buildings both strategies largely depended on the state revising its energy code to include the iecc zero code appendix so that most new projects and major Renovations can be Net Zero Energy it now looks like that's not going to happen and the next code revision won't be for at least five years meanwhile almost every month the
015City reviews and approves gas burning and energy inefficient new construction for example the Planning Commission last week voted reluctantly in favor of the village project off duvern the developer did agree to go all electric for the 164 single-family homes thanks I think to the efforts of at least one energy commissioner but not the 32 apartment buildings 10 units each still with gas heating that's 300 000 square feet total with CO2 equivalent emissions of over 4 000 metric tons every year for the next 50 years probably just from gas so if no zero code appendix then what is our plan B I have my own ideas which I don't have time to go into instead I'll pose a second question that question is our sustainability and affordability in new buildings compatible I think the dominant view
016here is that they are not but I think that's a false narrative I suspect we'll hear a different view tonight from Tim McDonald and I very much look forward to his presentation but even without passive buildings I think we can have affordable Zero Energy Net Zero Energy Construction one Revelation from the village debate was just how close utility costs are between Gas and Electric if you assume high efficiency heat pumps and if you plug current gas rates into the cost algorithm while costs of electric heating are still higher than with gas cooling costs are 140 a year lower per unit and that's at last year's gas prices assuming those low prices just adding two kilowatts of rooftop solar per unit on average would more than Wipe Out the remaining difference so we don't have to
017choose between affordable and sustainable in new construction and yet in most cases we get neither that needs to change and fast thank you for your comments that's all chair Mercy that's all okay great so uh next point on the agenda is a planning and sustainability in Ann Arbor presentation by the head of our planning department Brett Leonard Brett thank you very much for joining us tonight I'd like everybody to know that um Brett is also going to be attending a Planning Commission meeting tonight so we're really fortunate that we are having here um Brett and Shannon gibrandel chair of the Planning Commission Missy and I met on the 30th of August to talk about this meeting um and possibly a future meeting where we meet jointly to talk about these topics um we will probably
018talk again after tonight to see where we want to take um what we learned tonight and what we learn hopefully um after sleeping over it and talk about next steps but Brett um if you want to introduce yourself real quickly um and then launch into your presentation I think you have some slides that would be great and thanks again for joining us tonight um my pleasure thank you chairman thank you to the commission for having me um as um John so eligible uh introduced my name is Brett Leonard I'm the planning manager for the city and the Planning Commission is the um the commenter I think highlighted uh issues that you are grappling with that the Planning Commission is grappling with that we are grappling with as a community and so my goal here is
019to um nerd out a little bit at you with Planning and Zoning just to help set a framework about what that is um why we do it some of the barriers and challenges of it and talk to you a little bit about some of the um opportunities that could evolve in the future towards sustainability goals so um I do have to jump to a blank or some meeting at seven o'clock but I will stay here as long as I can so I don't have too many slides and I'm happy to address any questions and if we don't get to any uh all the questions or there's follow-up I'm happy to follow as well so as indicated let me hopefully pull up my slides can you see yes we do okay and I just um do
020want to brag a little bit normally in my Planning Commission who has to deal with me all the time just gets boring black and white text uh PowerPoint presentation so um you're welcome uh so planning and zoning and I I you know despite its title I do want to uh let you know that I will um definitely talk about how it relates to the city's sustainability goals but I want to make sure we're all starting from a similar understanding so this is a very chaotic kind of chart about the overall development review process and planning process and um what it means and I just want to briefly walk you through and Orient you to this is to as to why it's important so uh Planning and Zoning are partners and planning is policy and Zoning
021is Law and Regulation and so the comprehensive planning process is the most wide open the most uh Community engaged uh the most fully engaged in community engagement it is the the widest opportunity for us to think big to think far-reaching to think creatively progressively about the challenges that are facing us as a community informed by the past and formed by data informed by Trends and it is a very broad opportunity to identify the concerns the opportunities that we want to be as a community um at us at some point in the Horizon um we plans often pick a point for that Horizon and they go through a um a filtering process in a way of gathering wide Community engagement trying to prioritize the common most important elements that we hear from the community and memorializing
022those as Community goals with recommendations as to how we can go about achieving that all of that process is strictly policy creation it's strictly creating ideas it's strictly articulating a vision at the end of any comprehensive planning process nothing changes in our community from a regulatory perspective no matter what we say in that comprehensive plan it doesn't switch the legal expectations of how private land is developed in our community the plan does tee up ideas and recommendations to that end more specifically we plan not only to create a vision of what we want to be as a community in the future but because we're directed to do so state law directs communities to create planning commissions and to provide for City Planning our code of ordinances specifically directs the Planning Commission to prepare a plan
023for the orderly development of the city and both state law and our own local bylaws of the Planning Commission direct us to look at that on a regular basis and over time the the most recent modification and update of our comprehensive planning has been pretty significant through the adoption of new planning documents into our our planning Canon um and but again plan is visioning it is ID ideation it is what do we want to be when do we want to get there who do we want to be as a community I will do my best to always use the term comprehensive plan um I am still a long-term planner that has used the term master plan for a long time we're specifically trying to shift away from that master plan can evoke images of slavery
024or paternalism or even more of a finality and even these policy documents are not intended to be final they are like any other conversation in a community reflective of who we are at the time the trends of the time and setting a goal in the future and so that is why you'll see while you'll see some documents of the past invoke the term master plan uh the Planning Commission and staff are really shifting towards the term comprehensive plan as a more appropriate term of that endeavor the city's plan is plans it's made up of documents that were went through that ideation process and here in the city they were often very focused on a particular um in the past geography or aspect or component of planning and when those plans are crafted they also are
025adopted through a very prescribed uh manner by by state law and at the conclusion of that state law with their adoption the city council says we are hereby incorporating this document into our comprehensive plan and since 2004 the city council has done that with eight documents that you see here so together collectively this is the city's vision for its Future these are the goals and aspirations of where we want to be in the future and um just as an aside we are embarking on the process to update our comprehensive plan and when I see this slide I see a lot of opportunity to simplify Ai and consolidate our vision whether it's you as stakeholders and policy advisors decision makers such as the Planning Commission or zoning board of appeals or historic district commission or legislative
026body of the city council the notion of having not only this multiple thousand Pages at the ready to guide your policy decisions and legislative decisions in the city is intimidating and at times because the city has approached these and sort of focused ways there's even potential for conflicting ideas uh evolving out of these documents so um going forward I think there's a great opportunity for us to be more clear more concise and make a comprehensive plan that's more usable and accessible not only to stakeholders and decision makers but the public and problems alike as it relates to sustainability are our comprehensive plan is pretty sparse the 2013 sustainability framework did a lot of work to aggregate ideas and Concepts from Seven other documents and try to find common commonalities and threads um as it relates
027and I'm there are a lot there are other sustainability aspects in our natural features and just how we develop housing in the city and moving towards a multimodal Transit but specifically as it relates to uh energy Supply and Energy Efficiency of buildings somewhat teed up by chair misky and the introduction to this um these are the policies that are in those comprehensive planning documents that relate to this um improve access to and use of renewable energy by all members of our community reduce energy consumption and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and reduce buildings energy use carbon impact and construction waste so all of those documents take us to this point those documents have reflected of course a lot of community dialogue a lot of discussion a lot of time a lot of setting those visions and
028goals and have identified um goals that to implement those goals is plans set forth recommendations to make amendments that could be either to our zoning map that is more broadly what types of development should happen and what geography is in our city or text amendments that is these here these legislative decisions these are the most critical aspects of that planning process because until these are crafted considered and adopted they don't apply to the other side of this line which is when you as a um small property owner considering your dwelling or a large property owner considering a wide impactful re-envisioning of an entire area or blocks our ordinances are how we communicate minimum standards maximum standards and how we communicate if you do these things you can expect to be approved to do these things
029in our community because you are delivering us the typology and the location of the development that we want to see in our city without those text amendments again the plan can be the greatest comprehensive plan ever conceived by any community it doesn't change regulatory framework until it follows with actions and ordinances that make those requirements of development going forward and in a way I think this right here is the tension that you and the Planning Commission and to an extent I think the city council and our community are grappling with we know that we are facing some very critical challenges um huge challenges and that has largely been concluded on this side of the line and we don't yet feel like we have all the tools and amendments and codes on this side of the
030line to deliver us with the aspiration that we want so zoning as I was planning on zoning zoning is the other side of that line zoning is the actual regulation of designating and limiting the height bulk number of stories uses and size of dwellings building and structure this is what the state of Michigan says zoning is to be used for it is all done to promote the public health safety and Welfare I'm missing a quotation mark there so much for my editor uh however I want I want to be clear this is this is a phrase that can be very challenging for communities to promote the public health and safety and Welfare is not at times that I have seen it questioned or invoked as a open blank canvas opportunity to attach any requirement to
031a decision but rather it is the basis by which zoning regulations achieve something we regulate and designate where uses can be how high buildings can be the uses of those buildings by geography in order to promote the public health safety and Welfare we accomplished that by a regulatory framework we don't accomplish it by stating it or restating it and sometimes that can be a challenge of communities ideally of course our zoning reflects our vision and the proposed development that happens is delivered in such a way that it meets our community goals it reflects our values it reflects our aspirations so as I said the Planning Commission is very interested in this uh chairmersky talked about our conversation we're um I I gather part of that is because you are having these similar conversations here at
032your table and struggling with similar issues and so this is how staff and the Planning Commission are starting to think about this challenge of that switch from policy to implementation we have those same goals in our land use comprehensive plan we have the benefit of a lot of work that the community has done with Dr Stoltz and the city council identifying other Community climate the a20 plan adoption that is not you will see it's not it was not adopted with that process and add-on that says we want this to be part of our comprehensive plan and um and there's a lot of aspects of that plan that I don't think necessarily would fit in a comprehensive land use plan but there's definitely some some connections a couple of them here identified I think some of
033these were referenced earlier in the meeting promoting home and Business electrification and updating building codes these are two recommendations that are just absolutely I think to the core of how do we change our building stock to a more sustainable model and how the Planning Commission has been thinking about this is uh electrification Energy Efficiency and solar energy readiness even that work though I I just want to be very transparent and clear is very very challenging I talked to you about the zoning um what the intent of zoning is to do and here is the intention of the state construction codec which you will see and I'm sure that you've discussed this this act is the act to prescribe energy conservation standards this is where the state legislature tells us how as a state we will
034prescribe Energy Efficiency of buildings in this regard um the Graham sustainability Institute has has opined on it as well via the clean energy of Michigan series not definitively I want to be clear this is not a you know a well-respected opinion but they also recognize that it's that it's likely could be challenged likely maybe even would be challenged the best way to do this is to update the code which we've you've discussed and you heard from a commenter tonight really challenging it's really difficult and one of the opportunities to keep thinking about zoning is that that is a local ordinance whereas that construction code is not adopted by us we are directed to adapt something um on top of this um you're starting to have some State Legislative uh Rumblings I would say they I
035don't think these bills have gone very far they've gotten to committees both in the state and the house to preemptively ban communities such as Ann Arbor from enacting laws that uh would prohibit natural gas connection it does it in different ways but um no legislative historian this has happened in the past the city in the past was in considering rent control along with the city of Detroit state legislator steps in and preemptively prohibits rent control Washington County looking at banning plastic bags from a sustainability perspective the state steps in so it's just another challenge on top of an already sort of challenging legislative framework but um that's not a definitive answer the city has adopted these goals and so I think I I think the Planning Commission speaking for the Planning Commission and staff we
036certainly feel that it's part of our um Mission from that policy direction to consider the most creative ways that we can advance these goals and so there are more questions here than answers but I just want to set sort of some of my preliminary thoughts and some of the conversation that's happening at the Planning Commission as well uh there are some connections specifically in planning to infrastructure to energy again it's not definitive I think that there is a more uh a better connection of zoning and land use to infrastructure and energy use um so I think that electrification um is a really an opportunity for us to consider again it's going to go through a lot of review a lot of review by people smarter than I but I think that there is at least
037a Nexus there and the intention of that legislation and what that legislation the planning economy um Energy Efficiency I think is more challenging not to say it doesn't have a place in zoning but I think that from the construction code act I think it is probably harder um at this point for me to Envision a requirement Incorporated in zoning to a higher building Energy Efficiency standard um I think that that is going to have to happen through incentives or other mechanisms to do so um the challenge of all of those things as finding the right triggers the appropriate times that it gets invoked and I I think particularly with Energy Efficiency in my um brief experience with this from a zoning perspective even in the over the last decade the The Benchmark the standard the
038specification has evolved even in that time period of and um I would just say that gives me pause and trying to memorialize that in a zoning ordinance to specify any Energy Efficiency standard when it seems to be a pretty um recently evolving field um evolving quicker than zoning ordinances typically and then I think uh the last is the context of the City versus surrounding in a way um I think the city has set this policy and that context is not important in that regard on the other hand I think it does have implications in transportation patterns and Transit patterns and we have to think about how making progress and maybe energy connections and Energy Efficiency doesn't set us back in other regards of sustainability developed Community aspects so I'll stop there um happy to address
039any questions that we can get to this evening critiques um and again if we don't get to something I'm happy to follow as well Brett thank you very much we appreciated all the color and the graphics as well as the content so well done uh I'd like to open things up for comments and questions well that was easy I kind of let you off that easily though um I have oh there we go Alex go ahead I guess I just have one question I'm not sure if you would know the answer but are there like no municipalities in the state of Michigan that have their own construction codes and requirements and stuff I don't know that answer um if there are any um my I guess my understanding is no that some communities might modify
040the state construction code um but I think that I think that communities find safety in being part of a larger group rather than deviating from building codes which are often really seen as core health and safety I think for that same reason there's probably not too many communities if any they develop their own so my gut would be some communities make some modifications to it but I'm guessing probably not very significant all right thank you that'd be a better question of course for our building official I can try to follow up on that others cost amount of breaks um yeah I one piece um struck me as we have not yet adopted into the comprehensive plan our recent a to zero plan um so relying on that 2013 sustainability framework um that seems like a
041logical next step for us to do are there is there any thoughts around that yeah we're in the process of um like I said kicking off a comprehensive plan process that is one of the Central themes we are articulating in that we are we want the plan to reflect a sustainable lens to land use planning we wanted to reflect an equitable lens that not only recognizes past wrongs but seeks to repair those to the extent possible and does this all ideally without losing sight of affordability which remains an acute problem so okay thanks I'll save some other comments till later yes um you know thank you for the presentation I am one of my pet peeves is when I see large developments of condos and someone wants to put solar on it and you look
042at the roof and the roof has dormers and the Dormers are all facing south you have a whole large roof the whole length of the city block and dormers on every single part of it it is on the north side there's nothing it just seems like something that could be done with the architects of these projects just to get them some awareness that you're taking away those people's solar future by doing this yeah and I would um I appreciate the critique uh the Planning Commission has taken steps over recent history in the city council as well through adoption to try and make solar installations more flexible and more prevalent um I think the Planning Commission thinks that there's more opportunity to go further in that regard as well so that might be something that can
043be looked at um we've recently had an example two where the Planning Commission actually had to well they're playing commission proactively um uh undid a very common Housing Association Covenant that prohibited solar panels on a proposed development um you know this was um so I think that it reflects there's a lot there's still a lot of sort of uh I would just say General market based um inertia that we have to push against on a lot of fronts but that's a that's a great critique a Brett uh While others think of their questions and by the way we'll keep Brett maybe for another five minutes at maximum because Brett has to run the Planning Commission meeting that starts at seven so we need to let him go um you you showed um the interesting graphic
044at the very beginning about the comprehensive planning process um is is there the intent to uh coordinate closely um the comprehensive Plan update that the university affects me that the city is doing together with the University's update of its um campus plan as far as I know it's intended that that's going to happen at the same place and the university so so interwoven in with the city um is is that an explicit intent on both party side you know foreign I can I can just share in the past we have approached those conversations and I think I think that there is enough distinction between our goals um at times where there hasn't been a lot of momentum towards a more unified planning process um the more embraced aspects of that I think have been how
045do we collectively avoid sort of Engagement fatigue how do we make sure we're reaching our respective audiences in the greatest way possible my grizzled um somewhat sarcastic planner history would tell me that it seems unlikely to me that we would get there um so I think try to trying to find the the intersex is probably a great first start um so the um I but so I do Envision um an acknowledgment of that and sort of trying to tee up that opportunity I don't I don't have deliverables in my in my eyes yet as to what success looks like then just a brief commentary from my side I'm hoping that the values of the university and the city overlap to a greater degree than maybe what they have in the past because of the two
046carbon neutrality plans as well as the need to address affordable housing this is also an issue with the university and its contract negotiations for example because housing costs are going up at Double the rate of pay increases for University employees and so this is an issue and the university isn't as an engine of growth so hopefully those two interest uh spur greater level of collaboration than in the past I would also add that the university particularly um well I mean the two both housing and um greenhouse gas emissions also overlap in the rain area of transportation and commuting emissions and if the city does not add additional housing and I know we're doing work um with um trans excuse me transit um Corridor uh rezoning but um if if new jobs and new students have
047to live outside the city then the city is not going to meet its Transportation emission reduction targets Norwood University and so you know all these areas emissions in general transportation housing there really is an opportunity for win-win outcomes in my view um yeah apart and I would just add apart from carbon emission goals as time passes the ability of our infrastructure to accommodate the growth of the University will become challenged indeed um our roads will need to our transportation network will have to find other ways to move people around because we won't be able to build roads to accommodate the trajectory that we've been on so just a quick comment um I was with a group that met with the U of M CSO um the university has added 6 000 employees and 6 000
048students in the last seven years and the CFO said he sees nothing that is going to change that basic Trend maybe not the the slope of the line but the basic trend line is likely to um continue and that poses a big challenge for the University and and the City um I I need to respect your time and I really thank you for um joining us tonight and I look forward to um further collaboration at least within the city and between our two commissions and departments um on some of these topics so there's a couple other things that I noted down and we can take those up at a later time and I would encourage other Commissioners to do the same if you have some thoughts on these um let's save these let's gather them
049together let's talk about them and we hopefully will have some additional ideas that come out of Tim's presentation um here coming up soon so thank you so much and um I'm sorry yeah I do have to run to that other meeting but um thank you for recording this um just to follow up on Mr chair mursky's comments um part of um Our intention is recording this conversation that's going to follow to share with the planning Commissioners as well so um all the examples and and sites that we can provide is just going to help everybody so um thanks for doing that for us as well great thank you Brett take care of a good meeting so council member Briggs sorry I didn't give you an opportunity to comment no I figured I would wait until
050after Brett left because it really didn't need his it's just just comments um and didn't want to use up his precious time so um I used to serve on Planning Commission prior to coming on to council so just wanted to provide a few additional thoughts he obviously talked about the um the challenges around electrification and Energy Efficiency and that's kind of those discussions that have been coming up on our commission I think it's just important to know um how we're I think at the Planning Commission is also thinking about these issues in terms of um and this will be an integral part of the comprehensive planning process that we're launching kind of how do we want our city to grow and um you know how do we support sustainable Lifestyles and so when you think
051about you know um historically the the separation of we have moved towards separation of land uses so residential is one area commercials and another area offices in another and as we're um as as we're reflecting on those land use patterns um obviously that is something that encourages driving so um we you know there's a real emphasis on thinking about how we um around more mixed use around um 20-minute neighborhoods yeah you know developing our land use in a pattern that that enables sustainable Lifestyles um I think it's also important to note that all the in the carbon neutrality plan we say that you know 17 of our Greenhouse admissions come from Transportation um that was we did not count the um figure into that the the commuters the emissions outside of the city so we've
052got 80 000 commuters who are coming into the city every single day at least pre-covered um and those emissions are not counted in our in our figures so um the more we we're already not factoring that in um and the more that grows the more challenging it is so that's another piece in terms of providing additional housing in our community um that's an important piece and that's where the tension as we know kind of comes in in terms of you know in terms of housing growth that is not electrified versus meeting that with that real housing need that we have so I just wanted to put those in as comments um and and acknowledge you know at least say we are we're recognizing there's a lot of tension at the council table around these different
053goals that we have around affordability and sustainability and it's there's [Music] um it's it's challenging right now so thank you for those insights does anybody else have anything to share or questions um I had some thoughts but I may share though share those or hold those to the end of the meeting um anticipating comments from others and maybe even public comments so what I think we'll do is move on to the next section of our discussion about this General topic and actually I'm going to present um some um slides first and Missy um are you there that you can bring them up or do you want me to I can I think share my desktop um I I can although I think you are co-host okay yeah I've got them right here so I'll go
054ahead and do that so you go to massage so um I had mentioned earlier that uh we had met together with a Planning Commission Representatives on the 30th and um I put together this uh framing document um in an hour or so before that meeting and I thought it might be helpful um in sort of staging why we're having um this meeting tonight and the topics some that we're considering and so I wanted to cover that quickly before turning things over to Tim um so um there's a lot of construction going on in Ann Arbor a lot of it is in the housing area we know that in our relaxed housing demand has far outstrip Supply because of the growth of the U of M um as well as Tech spin-offs um and um we
055have as a result housing costs that have as I mentioned increased that road will roughly double the rate of the CPI and earning local earnings increases um as uh Ken Garber when he gave public comments mentioned that the carbon neutrality plan the a20 carbon neutrality plan makes it clear um that all new buildings in Ann Arbor need to be all electric energy efficient and powered by renewable energy and as Tim is going to point out to us that's backed up by the science that says we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions 65 and eliminate um by by um 20. 30 and eliminate emissions by 2040 to have a 66 chance of holding global warming to 1.5 percent um we have another challenge uh and that is building costs have risen substantially um since uh
056before the pandemic there's uh also I would say um this is my framing so uh some people may not share this but I believe there is a widely held Paradigm in Michigan and certainly in Southeastern Michigan that sustainable housing um not just affordable but also market rate can't be developed property um I I don't know that this is a problem statement but um I would posit that if you take a total systems thinking approach housing costs are really the sum of what an individual or family unit is paying in terms of mortgage for their rental payments it's also their utility costs it's also their transportation costs um commuting and other related daily Transit costs and then I would also add the opportunity cost of time and Transit and that is a particularly valuable resource especially
057for many lower income people who can't afford to live Ann Arbor try to reduce their mortgage costs by or their rental costs by living outside the city but as a result spend more on transportation and more time in transit and uh that is then a cost in terms of opportunity to do other things and then there's also um the belief in many views that all electric buildings substantially increase utility costs for heating um hot water and cooking compared to utilizing natural gas um as the energy source because natural gas prices have been historically low obviously that's changed um and it's hard to forecast what it's going to be look like in the future but um these are some of the situations that we're dealing with so in terms of a solution set um and what
058the benefits might be uh energy efficient buildings for those example those built to passive house standards as Tim is going to run through with high performance envelopes and balance and ventilation cut energy use by roughly 75 percent thereby offsetting the all-electric utility cost Premium versus natural gas as proven by many many projects across the United States and worldwide um if you employ best design and construction practices such as efficient mechanical electrical and plumbing design and layouts off-site modular construction and if you're using um very energy efficient or passive house premiums um they offset those premiums I should say for energy efficient or passive Health construction again proven by hundreds of projects and um it's therefore deposit and Tim is going to provide us proof of that tonight um not only with data but with his
059personal experience and anecdotes as a result energy efficient and passive house buildings that are all electric Net Zero ready can be constructed constructed and operated at Cost comparable to traditional cost or code compliant buildings moreover energy efficient or passive house all electric buildings provide significant other advantages behind um lower energy costs and greenhouse gas reductions including High resiliency to extreme weather powder outages and utility costs uncertainty and increased occupant health and comfort through the elimination of drafts radiating heat losses exposure to combustion uh gases and the health concerns associated with that and then also reduce risk of mold bacteria pests and cardiovascular vascular stress so um when the four of us met that I mentioned in back in August um we basically agreed that we would present the documented benefits of all electric energy efficient
060and passive house construction and that's why we have Tim here tonight and that the other element of this is that we hopefully can work together the energy commission the Planning Commission city council pulling input in from others to devise and Implement strategies that either require or incentify the construction of the kinds of buildings that I've mentioned and um so that's what we plan on doing going forward so I am going to turn things over to Tim and I am going to take a second to introduce him so he doesn't have to brag and I can brag for him um Tim is the president and CEO of onion flats that is a Philadelphia uh headquartered uh firm that was founded in 1997. The Firm provides architectural development General Contracting and green roof and solar system installation
061services Tim's an art a licensed architect in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in addition he has been an Adjunct professor at four different universities and like all of us here tonight he has been active in his community for example by serving on a zoning committee uh serving on the Philadelphia sustainability Advisory Board and as founder and president of f-aarm or Farm a non-profit organization dedicated to the exhibit exhibition of art and architecture in Philadelphia finally Tim is certified lead accredited professional and a passive house certified consultant and Tradesman Tim knows all aspects of the real estate business from first-hand experience we are lucky to have him join us this evening before turning things over to Tim I have one request or ground rule um Tim's presentation is going to be rapid fire and so we are
062planning on having q a at the end so please note your questions and a slide number if relevant and then we'll take those at the end Tim take it away John I don't know if I'm going to live up to that intro but uh thanks for having me let me share my screen um what a great group of people um I actually didn't know that I was going to be after all that and so I learned a lot about you guys and um uh and it's great to to see where what perspective you're all coming from um as John mentioned I'm an architect and a developer and a builder and we started we just had our 25th anniversary this summer of our company um in 1997 really just to be able to control the process
063the design process I'm an architect first and so I really just wanted to be able to design and build the kinds of projects that we wanted to design a build and in the process along the way we developed some companies uh to support that develop the development of those projects a green roof and solar company called grass So currently we're not doing a lot of development but we are ramping up our Architecture Firm and we're starting to work across the country as well as our green roof and Solar Company and I think the thing that um pretty much has driven us for the past 15 years at least has been knowing that that buildings are responsible for almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions and you know as an architect knowing that um I I
064can't ignore it and then if you connect that with the fact that Urban environments with transportation and Industry and everything else um are responsible for three quarters of all greenhouse gas emissions so if we think we have a chance in hell of solving this climate crisis um we've got to do it with buildings and cities there's no possible way to do it and if we don't so for me it's what I refer to as the new Gravity of our time in the sense that just like gravity um is literally foundational we you we can't go halfway with gravity um it's fundamental to who we are um this is now two uh and you know we can we can address it this way as we have been for the past couple of decades I love this
065this art piece in Germany called politicians discussing global warming um or we can handle it like we started to in 2015 at the at the cop 21 conference first time in human history that almost every country on this planet agreed that uh and that carbon and climate change is the greatest existential threat to humanity and so we've got to do something about it and essentially what came out of that for for Architects and developers is that carbon neutral Net Zero Energy buildings need to be standard practice by 2050. so now we're at cop 27 in and we'll see just um how that goes but uh uh we've got a lot of work to do and I don't know if you know this website I I find it refreshing every once in a while the chest
066check how much carbon do we have left to emit into the environment well here it is this is the 1.5 degree Centigrade scenario this is the two of course we we didn't we don't want to go for that two degree scenario we want to go for the 1.5 so notice that number 289 gigatons of CO2 left to emit okay so I'm going to put that in a little bit of context um in 2020 if if it looked as if we may be peaking emissions and let's just assume for a second that we did which we didn't and you drew a line directly from 2020 Peak emissions down to 2050 as the um you know cop 21 uh prescribed uh 2050 right the area underneath that line is equivalent to 600 gigatons of CO2 so in
0672020 we had 340 gigatons of CO2 left to emit so so if this is this was like best case scenario straight line to 2050. and we're emitting almost twice as much carbon as we have left to emit in fact it's more like this this is what we need to do 20 50 is too late because we've squandered all these years we've got to reduce by 20 30 65 percent of our emissions in order to think that we're going to hit that uh 300 gigaton of CO2 Mark it's really just about carbon so you know I love the discussion earlier with Brett about how challenging it is to to put these policies into practice right but I think we don't remind ourselves enough of what we're trying to solve here and how important it is and
068how significant it is if we don't so you know so for me 18 years from now carbon neutral buildings Net Zero Energy buildings need to be standard practice wow yeah pretty much across the world let's just try to you know see if we can do it in the United States but um but this is across the world so what does that mean for me what it means as an architect and developer and Builder it's that because I'm not a fan of carbon offsets buying you know the math there just doesn't work for me how about we all just design buildings that can generate enough energy on their own footprint let's just try to do that right let's see if we can do that within Urban environments it's challenging no question about it um so is
069that possible this is a typical row home up and down the East Coast this one in Philadelphia this is about how much energy that that home needs to survive um could this become a Net Zero Energy building it could but it would need a roof that's five times as big as what it has right so if that's all it's got then the consumption of energy inside the building needs to be equally reduced by 80 percent okay so how do you do that what's the how do you make that happen Well turns out we all know that heating and cooling of that building is more than half the issue so what's the best heating and cooling system out there to me it's a coat if you have a really well insulated coat that's airtight um you
070don't need anything inside other than other than your body heat that's the essence of passive house passive house is a fabric first approach to thinking about designing buildings to meet this challenge if you think about the fabric the envelope of the building first it's actually the cheapest place to guarantee Energy Efficiency over time um you can reduce your energy consumption by up to 80 percent within a building we we know how to do this you know that if you poured soup hot soup into that plastic cup versus this thermos how long it would take for that plastic cup for the for the soup to get cold right we know how to wrap uh a thermos in an envelope that's airtight and really well insulated so that that hot liquid can stay hot for days days
071without any energy um that's what pass passive house is all about it's thinking about the building as this as this really tight well-insulated coat and that you warm the space up as much as you possibly can with the free energy of the sun that's how you heat it well what about cooling it well Yeti Coolers you can put ice in a Yeti cooler without any heat pump and that ice will stay there for days Days right we know how to do this and uh I don't know if you have heard about the icebox challenge it's been this thing that's taken off around the the world um uh passive house aficionados have said let's demonstrate the whole The Wonder of a passive house envelope what if we take a ton of ice put it on a
072platform and then put a little a little uh code built building over top of that ton of ice and then do the same thing right next to it and wrap that in a passive house envelope and then set it out in the sun for 18 days and see what happens and so this is in I think this is in Canada uh there's that ton of ice and then the passive house envelope is coming down being put over it this is a this is one that was done in Philadelphia on the left is the code built building and on the right is the passive house building and those are the blocks of ice and they put them on 18 days later guess what happened the code building the ice is gone the passive house building more
073than half of it is there so neat it's a Yeti cooler it's pretty easy to visualize but this is what we really need to understand this is a passive house Brownstone uh retrofit that was done in the middle of this row of buildings this is what our cities are really about we're just heating our streets right so and this isn't about just passive houses this is about uh any building type it doesn't matter the size the scale the typology the same basic five principles are what matter super airtight really well insulated building good thermal envelope with without any Bridges between the outside and the inside of course high performance windows and doors and then when you make it that well insulated and airtight you've got to give it a lung to breathe so the other
074wonderful thing about passive house is that it's Superior indoor air quality so it's the healthiest indoor air environment possible and we this is all we do and we do it around the country where I could give a whole presentation on our retrofit we're into we're trying to tackle the really difficult nut of retrofits uh across this country with several projects in the Boston area we're doing large-scale small scale this is a we've got a mass Timber Tower uh 16 Story Tower passive house Net Zero tower that we're doing in Philadelphia some projects that are under construction um big and small um uh all around the country and all passive house all going for uh Net Zero Energy it it that's all we do and so I thought I might show you a couple of projects
075that we've actually done this was in 2015 uh 26 townhome development uh when we can Orient our buildings to the South we do depends on the size and orientation of the site in this case we did we created these um three blocks of buildings that face South that we could really control the sun in the summer and winter and then created these Muses in between but I also like to say that it's not enough to know how to design uh differently designing uh Net Zero buildings as standard we've got to totally rethink how we build them too because we've been building buildings one stick at a time in the rain sleet and snow on site um for a hundred years more than 100 years and uh I think the construction industry I saw a graph
076recently the construction industry um uh was looked at in terms of how efficiency and productivity uh over the past hundred years the construction industry is the only one that's gone down compared to any other industry and so for me what that means is prefabrication we've got to start thinking about how we build much better quality more efficient faster uh buildings and factories or panels and factories you'll see and in this case we modularize three of these town homes and this isn't being installed and this is with the plumbing and the electrical a lot of the finishes in place um that's what it looks like uh so the first three were built in our modular Factory we had multiple partners on this project and they had they had relationships with other builders and so they wanted
077to use those Builders but um all the all the buildings were still built to the same specification pacifist specification and I I also like to push this narrative about um my dad used to say that any good idea has to have at least three functions so I I this is a perfect example if a roof just sheds water it's not a good idea a roof especially in an urban environment needs to do so much more work it needs to manage storm water it needs to generate power for your building it needs to give you outdoor space and Views it needs to reduce the cooling um uh from your the heat in the summertime so I I'm a big fan of integrating systems um because it becomes more efficient more cost effective um people don't let
078anybody tell you that you can't put a green roof below solar panels you absolutely can it's just about how you do it um and when you make these buildings really tight you've gotta you've got to give it balanced ventilation so we're constantly exchanging air and filtering it inside these buildings and this is one of our first times uh testing how airtight it needs to be and passive house is 0.6 ach-50 and we hit the blower door test here and at 150 dollars a square foot at the time that was the same cost as code Built construction um and uh in terms of uh getting to Net Zero we demonstrated that there's they still can put another 4kw uh on this on each one of these routes and that would get them to zero we've calculated
079but currently this is this is 12 months worth of data 2500 square foot townhome you know all electric uh all utilities ninety dollars a month um and another 4kw and that would be zero right around the corner in the same neighborhood this is actually a three four sites um uh this was the phase one uh that we did in 1999 phase two which was a lead Platinum uh set of duplexes and then we came back eight years not later nine years later and built phase three which is our passive house project we call the battery um it's a 25 unit apartment building um I won't go into detail about the the systems I'm just going to kind of refer to them I'll talk about systems a little bit later in another project but these are
080all centralized systems um and and we're focusing a lot these days on which makes the most sense centralized decentralized systems like HVAC and Hot Water Systems so we spend a lot of our time uh testing different approaches to find just the right strategy in this case uh centralized I wouldn't do that again it's one of the things we learned from this anyway ground floor um we had a had 13 parking spaces required a small Lobby and a couple of units really simple double loaded card or mostly one bedroom units couple of two beds and in this case again interested in pre-fabrication but not modular this time the most difficult thing about a passive house is the envelope um you know we didn't want to train an entire uh group of you know contractors on site
081so we thought let's have the envelope delivered so this is this is a panelized strategy that came uh to site in those pallets we unpacked them these walls uh which have the two by six structure the air barrier built in the rigid insulation continuous rigid insulation weather resistant barrier and the triple pane doors and windows already installed um it actually cost me less to to build this high performance building than it would have cost me if I did it site built because they built this in half the time that they would typically do it the other thing we tested here was the does it make sense to take up the room and the cost of creating individual meters for every single apartment especially if it's a passive house and you know one bedroom apartment might
082cost twenty dollars a month and why not why not try to why not just simplify that reduce The Upfront costs for the electrical system and have one meter we give tenants a 50 we include a fifty dollar a month utility uh kind of bank account in their rent and we monitor how much they how much energy they use and if they use you know wildly uh more than than they're supposed to then we'll just raise their rent the following year and it's been working really well I mean fifty dollars a month is half what they would be paying in any other apartment building so tenants love it um and it was less uh costly to build and really efficient blower door test day on construction sites it's when the it's when the beer bottles come
083out and people are excited and this was a fun day because we hit the blower Dart test here's the building uh I I'll I'll just say this one thing the the panels these white panels that you see they have LED lights above them and those LED lights are tied into the energy monitoring system of the building and each one of those lights has an AP IP address connected to each apartment but nobody knows which light is connected to which apartment and so if you're using the allotted amount of energy that you're supposed to your light will go green um but you may be blowing your energy budget your light will glow red or you might be uh kind of in between in this cautionary yellow so this kind of tongue-in-cheek thing that gets built into
084the architecture that just helps start a conversation about energy and um how we're doing certified fast Fest project uh our largest to date and just under 170 dollars a square foot it was in line with everyday code built build buildings around us um here's here's the east side of the parking underneath uh here's the West facade with those uh shading devices as well as the LED lights and panels and this is a different way of integrating solar into the into a project especially it makes a lot of sense in an urban environment because then you can grow your food these panels are translucent they're bi-facial solar panels and so they're just two pieces of glass there's no opaque backing to it so they let a lot of light in um and they they shade it
085really wonderfully in the summertime so it's a really great place to hang out um I think this is what a lot of buildings should look like in urban environments um really simple but um intentionally we try to make spaces that feel larger than they are the translucent glass helps um even borrowing light and bringing it into the into a bathroom above a closet uh so you don't turn lights on um motivates us as well we're we're monitoring even though we're not metering um individual consumption and the building uh has an eui um I don't know if you know what eui it's essentially uh miles per gallon uh four buildings um and and a typical eui for this kind of a project would be 59.60 and the eui for this is 10. so 83 better than
086the typical building um project up this in the next neighborhood to the north uh 28 unit apartment building plus our offices actually called front Flats totally decentralized strategies for mechanical systems and I will talk a little bit about that but of course the obvious thing here is this large solar wrap um that uh that I'll I'll certainly jump into right away and at 180 a square foot again at the time this is pre-covered this was everyday code Built construction stuff um around us now we could find hot people building for less than that or we and we could also find code built build builders that were building more than that so and it's this it's shrouded in fact in in solar panels um actually but it's done in a very particular way and this is
087a different way of integrating solar into your buildings uh we started to think about it just as much as a material uh or having multiple functions more than just uh generating power and so we we're floating these panels about 24 inches off the facade you can see the translucent they're somewhat translucent that light carries through but the reason why it's doing that is because it's it's got a triple function it's it's obviously generating power both from the front and the back um but the this all important issue in passive house buildings you've got to keep the Sun out in the summer time you've got to keep direct radiant heat from coming in in the summer time so you've got to shave that um those windows but in the winter time as the sun is lower
088in the sun it lets it lets in that free heat and then the third thing on this tight Urban site it allows you to not have blinds in your in your apartment because it blocks people from seeing into your apartment again a roof that can be many things uh Urban Garden hangout space um our these were the numbers from our energy model we were expecting to produce 20 percent more than what the residential portion of the building needed which is what we were really going for the net zero for the residential portion and that's pretty much what happened um we generated 26 000 more KW than the residential needed which got us almost to Net Zero for the entire building we weren't trying to generate uh and we weren't trying this was not within the
089kind of Net Zero envelope but we got really close to being net zero for the entire building but the most interesting thing about this portion of it for me is that for the first time I'm beginning to see utilities as a potential Revenue stream you know it's not it's not a cost because after tenants pay a forty dollar a month um fixed utility rate in this project um not 50 like the last one 40 um and we're generating all the energy for free this actually is the first time we're seeing that uh we're generating sixteen thousand dollars more per year now that's not a lot but it's something then then um than we need so is it possible you can just imagine as as solar panels become more efficient themselves um the the metrics of
090of uh utilities being something that we pay for is going to start to go away something that generates money anyway the same um prefabricated envelope system again built in half the time same idea one meter in one meter out um 40 a month uh fixed utility fees in this case um I I make this point because in a passive house building unlike the typical code built building ventilation is a really important piece of it it's essential um you've got to have balance ventilation and heating and cooling so very often that means two distinct mechanical systems and so what's beginning to happen is manufacturers are starting to merge those two systems and Erv energy recovery ventilator and a heat pump and in this particular case this is what's called a package T pump which means that
091a condenser which is typically that thing that sits on your roof or on the ground and it blows hot air that's actually built into this unit and so you don't run the line you don't run line says to your roof you don't have your roof filled with these condensers that opens it up for solar and so forth so we we use this system here uh uh this totally decentralized one unit per apartment and it does heating cooling and dehumidification and it fits nicely into the kind of the Cabinetry of the kitchen as you can see uh with some storage below and then I just wanted to mention I don't want your eyes to glaze over here but I I did want to say something about the kind of attention we give these systems so hot
092water um is one of the is after Heating and Cooling and when you solve Heating and Cooling with the envelope right you're essentially solving the issue of heating and cooling with the envelope hot water is the next biggest energy hog especially in multi-family buildings because of this particular this very specific issue very often hot water is a centralized system meaning it's in one spot whether in this case it's on the third floor very often it's in a basement and um it's a gas boiler and then they send this this Loop of hot water around the building and into every single unit and then back but of course somebody up here or somebody down here if they open their faucet it would take you know five minutes for the water to get hot unless you did
093what's called a recirc loop so this blue line is water that's constantly being pumped around the building so that the hot water stays really close to the fixture right that's a ton of energy that's being used it's a second uh set of piping it's a second layer of insulation and heat lost and and the pump and all of that and we thought wait a second we can rethink this what if we start thinking about the hot water the way Plumbing drainage system is thought about and the essence of drainage and and venting of sewage pipes is that you have this stack and then these very short horizontal runs to fixtures right well the exact same thing could happen with hot water the exact same principle if we decentralized it into these cores ran one pipe
094up just you know that's that's a fraction of the length of piping that one would use in a central system and then very short horizontal runs to the to the fixtures um that's the same Principle as the venting okay and then the recirc loop instead of typically a whole nother pipe would then come out be insulated and and go down and connect back into the hot water heater what if you put the the recirculation line inside the supply line now I get all freaked out by this because I think it's brilliant that somebody thought about this and what this means ultimately is that the energy that is being lost in this system which is an off-the-shelf system is half that of what a typical system would and it cost half to to install because it's
095off the shelf you pump water heaters so these are the kinds of kind of innovations that get me really excited because this is how when people say how can you possibly build a passive house at code built numbers this is the all little ideas like this is add up a lot all right so here it is I'm going to get moving because I think I'm rambling a bit and here's how it fits perfectly into its neoclassical neighborhood all right and then the last one I'll show you is this is the one of the first passive house projects we've built uh it's affordable first affordable housing project it was for formerly homeless families um large families five bedrooms uh handicap accessible ground floor um first certified passive house project in Pennsylvania and um it's really where
096we cut our teeth on all these issues that I've talked about this is the first time that we did a modular project uh built to the passive house standard um it's where we developed the building system rather than a building typology to be reproduced so our idea was that once once we developed this building system it can be replicated into various building types and sizes it was our first shot at a passive house and we hit the blower door test um beautifully and this is what it means to hit the blower door test in a passive house building standing next to your neighbors you could actually just warm up on the if you could put your hands up against these buildings and kind of warm up um but you know lots of natural light simple
097materials um really terrific triple pane windows and doors we can only get in Europe at the time now you can get these uh they're multiple manufacturers in the United States and Canada um and with 5 KW it was designed to generate all the building needed and that below 130 dollars a square foot um again this is our this is affordable housing so we just started to ask the question why aren't why isn't affordable housing being built this if we could do this other people can do this and so we went to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency we didn't know much about how how this stuff got funded and we said how about you just make all affordable housing capable of getting to Net Zero by 2030 essentially saying use passive house as the tool to
098to to get there and they said yes and so long story I won't go into it but um and then I said how and they said through the LIE Tech program not nine percent low income housing tax credit program I'm not going to go into this other than to say it's the it's an extremely competitive program and that's very important um it's a point-based system and the more points you get the better chance you have of getting funded typically you don't get funded for like three years so really really important that if you were to add an extra couple of 10 points optional points here for Passive house Maybe developers might be interested just by the fact that you know the uh 10 points wow if I don't take those points somebody else might and
099that's exactly what happened in the first year this is 2015 85 projects uh came in 38 of those projects came in as past spouse projects and this is from developers and Architects that didn't know anything about pass Pals they did it purely for the points okay so they funded they they uh in the end they only funded seven but originally eight of those projects were passive house projects and here are the costs of all of the projects from that year the white lines are the code built kind of everyday projects and the yellow and orange are the passive house projects and if you compare the passive house projects the costs of the passivas projects to the code built projects the passive house projects which use 75 to 80 percent less energy than code build building
100were built for uh we're we're 2.5 percent more than the code built buildings the phfa said 2.5 percent you've got five percent contingencies in your budgets you can do this within your contingencies and they said go and so that's what they did they funded these projects they all got built uh and then the question was well that was that application did they get built for what they said they were going to build them for and the answer is yes they built them within the contingencies that they had these are the code built buildings and that application were 171 dollars a square foot use three percent of their contingency to complete them same thing passive house uh four percent but you know essentially they got built for what they said they were going to be built
101for by developers Builders and Architects that had never done passive house buildings before okay and that's important to remember so you know maybe that was a fluke so the next year 10 projects were awarded funding that were passive house projects and something happened when you average the passive house projects compared to the code built buildings it flipped the passive house projects were coming in on average two percent less than the code built buildings for me it doesn't matter the two percent more or less it's not the point the takeaway here is how is it possible that all of these developers and Builders are doing this and they're building them within the within the realm of what code buildings are being built for how is that possible here they all are they're all built um the
102next year same thing eight projects same exact same happen two percent less Okay so this is the last thing I'm going to show you but I just want I just think it's another helpful way to rethink the metrics of development and utilities and what matters so this is one of the first one of the first seven projects that were built that's for veteran housing this building on the right was a historic building that was kept and they wrapped this 49 unit building around it built the passive out standard um designed it as a prefabricated Foundation system this is a structural insulation that is also the form work for the building and then on top of that prefabricated Foundation system is a prefabricated envelope system the same exact thing that I showed you in the other
103projects built in half the time contractor that had never done a passive house building never hit a blower door test that was anywhere close to passive house and he hit the bloat this is a pre-drywall blower door test this is without even drywall any any hit the passive s standard and then this is after drywall was done uh hit the standard um but this is the most interesting piece of it for me because in affordable housing tenants pay 30 percent of their income and that goes towards rent and utilities well what happens when the utilities goes down does the rent go up in fact it does so the developer the owner said listen if you're you allow a hundred and three dollars a month for a one bedroom for utilities what if I deliver it
104a a unit that uses uh forty two dollars a month can can we use that that extra sixty dollars a month to go towards Revenue and turns out yes you can and so why why would you do that well one developer might put it in their pocket but this non-profit developer he doesn't do that he says that three hundred thousand dollars uh in in well the that extra Revenue can afford another three hundred thousand dollars in debt so I'm gonna do that in order to build more housing so what I love about him is Passat house lets you borrow leverage more money to build more housing because of the utility mortgage relationship right and there it is um and there it is on opening day and the last thing I want to tell you is
105this was a paragraph people we just asked the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency to put this paragraph into their qap for 10 extra points so why not ask other states so to date we've asked 40 States and 18 states not you guys 18 states have uh put passive house into their qap for in one way or another and projects are happening in those States but even in the states where the qap does not have passive house in it it's still happening why because it makes sense to build affordable housing to the passive house standard and here are some of those examples too and just so you know we have a conference every single year that is called the new Gravity housing conference which is all about Lessons Learned on building affordable housing to the best Bell
106standard thank you I don't know if I went on too long probably no you're right about on time three quarters of an hour is what we said oh great uh I'd like to open things up for comments and questions foreign I just wanted to reinforce uh what Brett mentioned and what Missy and I discussed with Brett and Shannon and that is that uh the intention is to or the expectation will be that planning Commissioners watch uh Brett's presentation um and I have been accumulating a list of people that I'm going to send the recording of this presentation to um who are interested in these topics so that hopefully it uh is widely viewed and we dispel some of these paradigms that I mentioned uh when I framed this conversation so uh commissioner Kerber fire away
107yeah great great presentation and really exciting the um my question is the inflation reduction act hits and this is gonna really really change renewable energy it's going to change Transportation it's going to help low-income people with their energy Equity it's so valuable and everybody really needs to appreciate it and learn about it and you in what you do I was really curious as to what you are thinking is going to impact what you do uh with the inflation reduction act yeah I mean it's a it's a great question other people have asked me that and um I'm I I haven't dug into what it will actually mean for for the work that I do and I I think it's curious that I don't know because we have never had subsidies to do what we do
108we've always had to find ways of of doing what we do with the money that we had so so I think it's fantastic that um that we have needed that kind of investment um in certainly solar but also Energy Efficiency and lots of other things uh associated with that for for Generations we've needed that but I haven't had it so I've had to just kind of figure it out without the subsidies and so Larry I don't know um it's kind of like icing for me you know it'll it'll make things easier life's not been easy but maybe it'll make things easier maybe what it'll do I think what I'm most excited about is um it's it's about the it's about clients it's about people saying okay we're gonna do that this is what I needed
109uh developer or architect talking to me this is what I need I needed this in order to get us over the edge so okay we'll do a passive house project now you know I guess what I was hoping um to hear is that this is going to make those who follow on doing projects similar to yours all across the country all across the world Maybe two yeah of course I hope to do it more cost effectively I hope that I hope that I hope that I think I think what it'll do more than anything is um set the tone for see I think it needs to happen on on the um not so much like on the individual level yes but it's got to happen on a systemic level so I hope what it does
110is that it gets invested into policies uh within um municipalities that push the very things that you guys were talking about earlier uh with Brett's presentation that that becomes a way of subsidizing some of that work that needs to be done that's what I hope it does I mean I think it's going to get developers interested in building because there are subsidies for it but uh to build to the passive out standard But ultimately I think what it what I hope it does is it creates a systemic change it's not going to last unless it does that okay thank you alsoever breaks yeah thanks um great presentation I learned a lot and I can't wait to go back and look at it again because there's just a lot to absorb there um but I'm curious
111I mean you obviously talked you're demonstrating it can be done you're demonstrating you know the cost-effectiveness of it you're showing how it's been incentivized um affordable housing are there um that's not happened yet in Michigan um but in terms of have you seen any other examples at the local level of ways to incentivize um this Beyond yeah I mean there's a there's a really great way to incentivize it from a zoning perspective um for example in Philadelphia um on the one project that I showed you with the the first project the battery project with the green roof and the solar 10 feet above um we put a green roof on them we were going to put a green roof on anyway but at the time Philadelphia changed their incentives their sustainability incentives and they gave
112us a density bonus if we put a green roof on the on the building and I think that kind of strategy makes a ton of sense for Energy Efficiency too what's it what's the difference build a passive house building that is a certified passive house that hits the blower door test and um and you'll get a whatever 10 density bonus that's one one example thanks commissioner Calvin Garcia all right so terrific presentation I'm just so excited to see this um and really really motivated um I my question has to do with your slides uh 76 and 77 I believe when you're talking about the distributed water heating systems yeah and um I'm just really really curious to learn more about those and I'm wondering if you have any resources that you can share with us
113about that and um and you're also talking about companies local companies that you know that that can Source within the United States that are providing this technology I'd love to see uh you know who those manufacturers are that you're working with and that you've had really good success with and you don't have to you know go into into too much detail during this meeting here I understand but it'd be really really great well I'll tell you what you can just email me I think that's maybe the better way I can give you a couple of Manufacturers and and um the most important person you need to know is guy by the name of Gary Klein he he is known as the hot water Guru of North America he knows everything there is to know about
114hot water and he is who I'd been working with on on these systems but um um yeah so so just take my email down and I'll send you the name of the manufacturers that we've been working with I'll send that to everybody um Gary has his own website and Tim you didn't mention that you have a YouTube video that basically goes into detail on this subject so we can we can send that around I guess another quick question do you have um do you integrate electric vehicle charging into your developments oh that's such a great question um so we I I I I was debating putting this in the presentation that I didn't have time but um uh in the the battery project it's called the battery because uh those 13 uh station those 13
115parking spaces have charging stations but what we're really excited about is uh when bi-directional Chargers um start making sense or start making sense they make sense they just don't exist um uh commercially yet but when they do um and I know people who know uh electric cars you know they just pooh-pooh this idea because of degrading the batteries and so forth but put that out of your head for a second why not again with this idea of a good idea has to have at least two functions if a car is going to take you around that's one function well why can't the car be the battery for the building um that does if nothing else um knocks your demand charge uh down to zero because your demand charge is half your bill and it's all
116based on pulling uh electricity off the grid at Peak demand well if instead of pulling it Off the Grid you pull it from your car for a couple of hours why can't we do that so we haven't done it yet Arlene uh wait did you ask me that yes yes yes we haven't done it yet but we have prepared ourselves for it and um and I think the first bi-directional charger is coming out with the Ford um lightning truck if I'm not mistaken that's correct yeah and that's not out yet vehicle to grid it's coming for sure yeah so the battery had enough had enough um production to also uh accommodate the EV charging well theoretically and if you um if you've got 13 cars parked we did the math where if you've got 13
117cars parked remember these have pretty large batteries in them and I just I just got my first electric vehicle it's got a 130 KW battery in it uh others are like 60 right so you you gang four or five of them up so that that was the math the math was at any given time there's going to be four or five cars in the parking lot um and so if you if if uh provided you design the software to pull from those Vehicles whenever needed but not pull too much to degrade the battery and so forth but yes there is a there this is a technology that can make a lot of sense but I think the integration of um building information and software to help run that whole interface smoothly isn't there yet okay
118well thanks uh very much this is great I look forward to interacting with you thanks others I have a question Tim uh the city of Ann Arbor is looking at a lot of construction housing construction um of the type that you showed um two to maybe six stories um but also there's been quite a bit of construction and more is likely in the downtown area where we're talking about 12 stories 17 stories um past you know in some cases up to um 20 stories um I think you showed a picture of a tall past house construction I know that there are passive houses um that are you know in the 20 plus story range can you talk a little bit about that um either from personal experience or what you've learned from interfacing with other
119um of your peers yeah sure I mean so many different ways to talk about it but I'm going to talk about it from uh from maybe a question to ask is do you think there's anything that you talked about tonight that um were the conclusions that you've led us to would potentially be different conclusions for tall buildings No in fact what I was going to say was they'd only be better for tall buildings because the fundamental premise think of it this way you build a little house tiny little house and you put it in the woods you've got six sides to your tiny little house right the the envelope for your for that tiny little house would have to be really thick in order to keep the heat because you've got all these surfaces compared
120to the tiny volume um leaking out heat all the time right now The Other Extreme is you've got a tower and so the volume the relative volume to surface area ratio is a totally different thing and so guess what happens the bigger the building the center of the wall gets right and what does that mean that means the more cost effective it becomes so so uh that's really what I would say now what it what it also does is it introduces another series of challenges because all the projects that I showed you are Wood Construction okay you get above six stories and you have to build with non-combustible construction but I will just tell you that New York City is the center of passive house building right now and there are large and small buildings
121every single day going up Jonathan Rose is completing a 600 unit passive house project I think it's in the Bronx uh right now the tallest uh passed us building in the world is on Governor's Island in New York city so anybody who wants to know how to build tall buildings to the basketball standard look to New York City right um you're I'm going to mention something that some people here may not um be familiar with you talked about um the the envelope being sealed and you gave these ach50 figures there's probably some people that aren't familiar with that terminology so correct me if I'm wrong but ACH means error changes per hour and that is the 50 refers to a pressure differential that is set up so that you get consistent readings from case to
122Case and it happens to be 50 pascals and as Tim showed multiple times with these passive house projects they're getting um figures in the range of around 0.5 or so the passive house standard is 0.6 I'm pretty sure in Michigan code is an ACH 50 of four so that means and Tim showed this many times with some of these thermal images um and and that's really almost showing more the the insulation but what you don't necessarily see is the leakage as as much a passive house building is leaking less than one-sixth the amount of heated air that a code-built building is so that's just one more reason why these buildings make so much more sense if you think of all of you know it's one thing to have an all-electric building but if it's leaky
123as hell then your your heating air or your cooling air and it's leaking out at six and a half times the rate at a code built building that it is for a passive house building so think about that when you think about waste in in wasting energy that is a huge waste and I think about wasting money and I do want to say this one thing I forgot to say and that is that I'm a fan of what um some of us have kind of dubbed stealth passive house now why because if I were to go to if I were to go to my subcontractors let's say my framer and I were to say okay I want you to price my really unique and amazing and experimental project Iles a passive house project I want
124you to give me a price on this it's going to be complicated there's air sealing details and what do you think that guy's gonna do he's gonna put a padding on every line item on that budget instead I say to my framer here are the drawings give me a price to frame it and the framer gives me a price and I said okay you got the you got the air barrier you got the insulation you got the um WRB on the outside and you got the windows you got your triple payment yeah yeah got it all I was like okay great now what if the so I have his number and I said okay so what if that envelope showed up on site you didn't have to put all those pieces together it was like
125really oh I could do it in half the time and I said okay so he knocked his number down so it's you don't go into discussions with people about how wonderful unique and experimental this is you go in saying how simple it is it's actually really straightforward and simple um because that is what changes the budget conversation and my experience more than anything else I have seen teams uh just fall into the Trap of talking too much about why this is so unique and all of a sudden their numbers are they they can't cover their they can't get there in their budgets so that's a just a cautionary Tale another question from anyone so I'm going to take a stab at at somewhat of a summary and then um turn it over to Tim and
126see if he has a summary and then we'll move on with the rest of the meeting which is basically just closing things out so this is the energy commission and we've been sort of focused on energy and greenhouse gas reductions and affordability has also been a dominant theme of what we've talked about but I want to mention again other benefits of this type of construction because I think this is important for a lot of different stakeholders and constituencies in Ann Arbor so again highly energy efficient lower greenhouse gases reduce utility costs but passive houses also have the following benefits they are healthier because of the absence of natural gas combustion and better moisture protection and enhanced ventilation they are more comfortable because there are less drafts and less radiant heat losses and gains they are
127much quieter because the envelope is better sealed and it's better insulated and we are doing a lot of construction in Ann Arbor um the downtown areas and on Transit corridors so if we want people to move to these places um having a quiet environment and not hearing all the the the city noise and things like that um that is really really important and then finally these are more resilient buildings because in the case of a loss of power think of the block of ice that Larry showed us um in the summertime or think through the reverse of that in the winter time you lose power these houses are a lot more resilient to being able to stay in your home and not have to go to a shelter or something like that um granted there's
128there's other considerations to doing that but still um these these houses are you know have us these types of construction have real advantages and I want to sort of end my comments with um talking about the village of Ann Arbor so this decision is in front of council and um I I have worked in business I've worked in Industry I realize the train is some might say because Leicester Station or is about to leave the station but I wanna I want to emphasize that we have heard that the 320 Garden apartments that are a part of this cannot be all electric because utility costs will be dramatically higher and they cannot rent these apartments with these high utility costs well guess what we just heard from Tim with many examples not just his own but
129Illustrated with with his own examples and with data that you can build these types of apartments at the same or maybe even lower cost you and you can dramatically improve the Energy Efficiency and even reduce the utility costs and these are the kinds of messages that we need to get across to developers to Architects to these teams that this is what we need in Ann Arbor this is what we need across the country and across the globe and we the paradigm that we keep on getting repeated time and time again that this can't be done sustainably and affordably regardless of whether this is affordable housing Workforce housing or market rate housing simply needs to be challenged and I believe it can be busted based on the kinds of stories and data that Tim has shared
130with us tonight so Tim how would you like to wrap things up well I'm just thinking you know about this group of people and the kind of scale of what you can affect um and it reminds me of of what I've been really focused on for a number of years and and that is what I call looking for leverage points um and for me that's what this uh li-tech program was all about and what do I mean by that I mean I was getting a little exhausted you know building one building at a time and then saying to the world look you can do it too one building I thought that one building could make a difference and then I realized I I I'm gonna die and this planet's not nothing's going to change on
131this planet I've got to think at a different scale here and that's that's when I started thinking about affordable housing and when this when the competitive nature of the qap finally sunk in and I realized my God that is so it's like the secret sauce it's the it's it's a leverage point that when I say leverage I mean that one move could shift the industry right that one that one point of it's an opportunity you're not even forcing people to do it you're just leveraging the competitive nature of those tax credits to ask them to push just a little bit and I guess what I would leave you with is to search for those places of Leverage and Leverage is all about the least amount of effort with the largest impact right that's why that's
132why they're important one person building one building isn't going to change the world but one person affecting scale change at scale that's what I'm searching for and for instance if all you did at the at the municipal level was to slip in to the I don't know building code or an incentive for a developer to build a building that is that hits a blower door test of 0.6 ACH 50. well you don't say how much insulation you need to have you don't say what the windows should be you don't say it's got to be passive house if all you did was say hit a blower door test that's going to resonate with a developer because a developer is going to go I don't like leaky buildings I'll make my building tight well guess what that
133developer is going to realize very quickly your crappy double pane windows are actually leaky so they might actually look to a better quality window and so forth and so on it it will affect how and it will not cost them a lot but it will dramatically affect how they look at designing buildings and um you know the quality they will see it immediately they will see me immediately so anyway look for leverage points is what I would say great guidance um and by the way as far as paradigms you know I admit I have my own paradigms and by paradigms so um it is not to blame anybody this is just to Tim's point we need to find these leverage points to pry open these paradigms that we all that we all lives with or
134live um and affected by and just I would like to wrap up um Ken Garber has shared some of this with us before he called in earlier since the E20 plan was approved if we include the 320 Garden Apartments at the village 849 additional residential units are going in burning natural gas um so this is not just about passive houses it's just you know the all-electric portion of that um but you know sometimes people are using well we have to burn natural gas in order to make this affordable and we've sort of blown that out of the water so 849 new residential units four hundred and fifteen thousand additional square feet of Hotel space and an additional 130 000 square feet of industrial space all is burning natural gas and that combined is going to
135basically offset all of the solar in the solarized program that today all of the solar that's going to go on City buildings and half of the solar that is going to go on the city's landfill landfill project so that's that's the consequence so we're doing OSI is doing great things but we're we need to find these leverage points to not permit that kind of development going forward we really have to if we're going to meet our Net Zero Target in 2030 which is tough enough as it is so well but thank you thank you very very much we have an agenda item on here which is something maybe we don't have to talk a whole lot about because I think Tim gave us a lot of guidance and we have some thinking to do based
136on what Brett presented to us but we have an agenda item on here and so I'll open it up for discussion um and that is on potential resolution from the energy commissions and our recommendations regarding sustainable buildings so what we want to do is plant a seed that the energy Commission potentially on its own potentially in collaboration with the Planning Commission possibly with the endorsement of the environmental commission think about these lessons learned from Tim about other lessons learned that we can lean elsewhere and put these into a resolution and serve our function as a commission which is to advise City Council on policy that is our role and I think um a resolution that takes some of these points is something that would do uh a lot of good and being effective means of
137changing the conversation um across the city but particularly with decision makers in both the Planning Commission because they make they are they are afforded decision-making Authority in many cases and then finally with city council so I'd like to open that up Missy I don't know if you want to comment anymore on that because this was sort of your idea of wrapping this up with this discussion and then I'll open it up to everybody else and Tim and everybody else please feel free to chime in yeah thanks thanks so much Tim and thanks chair mersky right so you may remember at a previous commission meeting we took a stance as a body on a particular development and that is generally frowned upon uh in the process we gave the petitioner no time to respond or take
138our feedback and so instead of going on one-off uh you know recommendations on what we like and what we don't like we've been asked if if the commission has a stance as a whole that we should present that stance through a resolution for Council for the Planning Commission and for others to be able to point to and have consistency across all developments so this was something we talked about post that particular discussion and as an opportunity we certainly don't have to take but it seems like we have interest uh as at least some individuals to have that discussion and this is just the beginning of a potential resolution would either of our council member liaisans liked away in on this go ahead council member Briggs I mean I I think this is really important I
139think that especially um working in collaboration with um Planning Commission on this issue um it's having this uh a clear guidance to council about um would be would be very helpful and I think it's much more useful than going project by project comments from anyone else um council member Adina I I don't have much more to add to that other than what councilman Briggs said but just to concur um I think it I think it's obviously helpful I think it's the role of this body to provide that that policy guidance um and I certainly agree to the extent that it helps kind of weighing in an individual product projects and rather provides kind of a base level of of guidance I think that's all [Music] right other comments words wisdom questions councilmember Briggs again just
140one final thought um it's great for the commission to be developing it I assume that it would be most productive to be done in consultation very close consultation with staff in terms of um Implement you know recommendations that are easily implemented agreed completely and that staff includes not only OSI but includes the Planning Commission or planning department of course um Missy go ahead yeah I appreciate that last comment from customer brigson was thinking that the discussion would continue over potentially multiple meetings but getting a sense for the kinds of things you would want to see like encouraging self-facing Roots uh is one thing that christer cover brought up you know so I think we're in the very beginning of generating those kinds of ideas so thematically we can start putting them you know pen to
141paper and see what that actually looks like in practice so I would say um where I sort of saw the discussion tonight being was nothing that we have to stick to just be getting like what I heard this seems interesting and putting ideas forward in terms of process I recognize um we're going on two and a half hours here um so what I ask everybody do is um sleep over or before you go to sleep tonight um either way um jot down your ideas jot down some tonight jot down some tomorrow um share those with Missy and me or me you can actually share them with the whole Commission because that may um you know we have a group email address um so that oh we can't do that yup because good thank you thank
142you share them with me and Missy um and um um then we'll start to maybe um put some talking points together that we can then use to approach Planning Commission and staff and Leadership to start maybe thinking about whether or not um we can put a skeleton around a a resolution and then develop that over the coming weeks and possibly a couple of meetings how does that sound thank you for the shaking of heads council member Briggs and Missy Tim thank you very much we really really appreciate it um soon so um any presented once before so he's been a great resource for us here in Ann Arbor and we've learned a lot from him good luck with all of this we want to see an onion Flats building in Ann Arbor one of these
143oh that'd be great all right see y'all thanks okay so let's um ran down the meeting here we have reports first of all from OSI and then from Commissioners and council members uh yeah never never dull moment uh here at OSI I would be honest I didn't start with we're in the middle of the plant forward challenge so it's not too late to jump in uh there is an event if you just are Zoom hungry after this you can jump over and join a discussion but we're running a week-long challenge a few hundred Ann arborites that spans all kinds of things about plant-based diets who's providing them how you cook them and we even have a little cheeky idea of working with some of our residents to create an a20 recipe book that highlights some
144of the great things that people can make so uh please feel free to join in on that we are also actively planning green fair for the fall second annual or second time we're doing that and we have a lot of really fun ideas to engage the community pretty actively in that space so if you know of any organizations that want to come out it's really focused on acting and what you can do and getting residents Avenues to to take action in their lives or in their Community broadly around sustainability want to share that at last council meeting council did approve a contract with five lakes energy and their sub New Gen strategies and solutions to work on the energy options analysis which uh is many things uh there's a narrative right now that it's one
145thing it's many things uh looking at kind of all of the different Pathways that we could pursue to achieve our goal which is the council directive of 100 renewable energy power in our community so we're really excited to see how that analysis uh moves forward and we're interested in internal Contracting so that work will start shortly we are actively fundraising for Bryant we just submitted a grant yesterday another Grant goes in tomorrow and then working on a large geothermal Grant that's going in shortly still really focused on making that the first fully decarbonized neighborhood in America and we just continue to get so much interest in that project uh we need we need to land the dollars of the transition from planning which is where we've been and been successful in fundraising into actual implementation
146to see the full departmentalization happen in practice um there's a whole bunch of other things that I think lastly I'll just leave you with a reality that our office is down a third of our staff or will be shortly we had a retirement in the office and two team members have been poached by Private Industry dang it uh which is going to continue to happen as the team is successful uh people are going to get offers all the time and we've been very lucky in holding on to folks but I share that broadly to say please send folks that you know to the city's website we will have two openings uh available shortly we're one is already closed and also thank you for your patience uh right now our objective is not to let the
147glass fall drop but all the others are gonna have to bounce for a little while while we work on capacity thanks Missy uh council members yeah I can uh that really big one is that the last council meeting uh Council approved the uh disability study for the uh Municipal energy utility and sustainable energy utility um side by side um and so we are moving forward with that thanks to Missy and her team for all of the work that went into to to that process um uh because my mind has been wrapped up in renters commission recently our new renters commission has has uh taken off and gotten to work they I believe have had two spec or two regular meetings but actually have met uh four or five times already because of special sessions to
148get themselves up and running um I bring this up because they have a long list of items that are priorities for them but as as this body continues to think about ways to collaborate with other commissions and Boards if there are things in particular that you think uh rise to the level of interest for the renters commission um I am sure they would be happy to talk to you and add those things to their list of priorities ongoing priorities um and then this is also just kind of tangentially related but I I think I saw it today that the city is also looking for folks who use the city website for information on uh trash Recycling and compost to participate in an interview I don't have much more details other than that but I believe
149I saw it posted on the city's social media so if that if you fall into that category and would be willing to get some time um I think they are looking for folks uh commissioners any news or updates to share um I'll just say briefly as liaison to the environmental commission um the last meeting was dedicated to water quality issues particularly related to the Gelman one for dioxin plume and then most recently the release of hexavalent Chrome from tri-bar Industries Up in Wixom in previous releases that they have had of um pfas and pfos chemicals so not really directly related to anything that we're doing but it was an interesting meeting with some really good background information so you might want to listen to that if you're interested or take a look at the slides
150um anything else any work group updates cells that takes us back then to our last group of public comments and public input so this is an opportunity again for members of the public to provide up to three minutes of comments if you are watching on CTN please call 888-788 -0099 [Music] or 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 956-87-187876 this information is also on the agenda and video feed City staff we'll select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and Mutiny television or background
151noise and then finally state your name and your address at the beginning of your comments just about 30 seconds next point on the agenda is items for a next agenda so start thinking about that we're going to wait Alex just a few more seconds see if we got calls coming in and then you'll be first up so there we go I see one hand raised yeah um caller ending in zero one zero thanks hi this is Wayne Appleyard former uh 26 year member of the Ann Arbor energy commission um I was involved with the 2012 climate action plan which was 10 years ago and uh have been following everything uh ever since I want to First congratulate Uh Kevin Garber on continuing to try and push things forward and uh Illuminating how poorly we actually
152are doing with getting off of uh fossil fuels and I'd also like to thank the McDonald's for all of his work and uh his excellent presentation he's doing wonderful things and we should be copying those there um somehow I don't think people are getting we have a climate emergency and in an emergency you have to do things that you wouldn't ordinarily do um Bob berkebile just got the he's an architect well-known who's involved with some of a lot of the early work with getting the AIA and energy work and he recently received their Kemper award which is the highest award you can receive the AIA and when he was interviewed he basically talked about how if you look at the ice sheets in Greenland and uh Antarctica we're not talking about 10 years ago 10
153years to fix things we're not talking about a couple of years and so we really need to assume that this is an emergency and I'm going to suggest something really radical that um the city proposed no new gas hookups basically say we have to Electrify all new buildings and uh yeah it's going to mean that some developers go away it's going to mean that some developers may try and sue you but um you know health safety and Welfare is what the city is supposed to be all about and what's worse than climate change as far as that's concerned so uh realistically it would probably take them a couple of years to go through the courts to combat this in the meantime you've done something otherwise it's just going to continue as usual you know yeah
154you know Brett talked about it it being a challenge it's not a challenge it's an emergency so we really have to um think out of the box and say no to combustion and um look holistically at to do some not only the carbon footprint of new buildings as far as what they're going to consume after they're built but also um what they what they consume or what they produce in an embodied energy during their constructions that we should be looking pardon 30 seconds that's enough yeah thanks thanks thank you thank you for your comments explain okay very good so um moving on to agenda items for the next meeting Alex I think you raised your hand yeah thank you I'd like the topic of hydropower restoration at Gettys and Argo dams to be included in
155the next agenda it's like this kind of project could provide reliable and renewable energy for the proposed seu and recently the inflation reduction act also extended the renewable energy tax credits available for new and expanded Hydro power generation on existing dams for projects that began before 2025 and I know that in 2008 there was a study in the hydropower restoration and I think we could maybe use a new one to evaluate the current level of feasibility great suggestion I don't know if we'll do it in the next meeting but certainly it's important that we take it up and as you point out it would be a great base load for um the city of Ann Arbor so that's that's something anybody else have any other ideas that you'd like us to consider for future um
156agenda items sure can I ask a clarification um is it what we already have for hydro are you proposing we look at expanding that Hydro well we have go ahead Alex you want to comment or yeah Argos and Gettys dams don't have hydropower right now they used to and I'd like us to look into reintroducing major power and the feasibility so we have four games two of them have power and two don't There's an opportunity to upgrade um the capacity or the efficiency of the um generation that we currently have so um any any other ideas yes go ahead commissioner Macomber um did we queue up next steps for talking about um uh how we could do something like the passive house um planning uh that the presentation was about so that idea is um
157something that Missy and I are going to talk with Shannon and Brett about to see how we collaborate when we collaborate do we have a joint meeting um do we as I mentioned before work a little bit on the resolution and put together a skeleton of that where ideas from all of you would be appreciated or anybody else that's been listening in um so um yeah that will be definitely something that we will either addressing the next meeting or in a coming meeting as appropriate um based on what we um ascertain here and do in the next couple of weeks council member Briggs just uh knowing how difficult it is to join commissions for joint meetings and talk about kind of this and maybe obviously we've this is a recording I think hopefully um Brett
158can share that with all the planning Commissioners and encourage folks to watch that presentation and then maybe they can have it as a discussion item on their agenda um as something to you know how they would like to work with energy Commission on an idea like this I mean I think that might be if there's a and need to come to a joint commission meeting that's great but there may be opportunities to to move it forward more quickly if we just if we don't wait on that right anything else so um just before we adjourn I want to um recognize two things um I want to remind everyone that the climate millage is going to be on the ballot on November 8th and I would encourage all of us to do what we can to
159Advocate and support that there's a website um I don't have it off the top of my head missing maybe I mean we had a presentation I think um from Jason frensel if I'm not mistaken um but um I I want to encourage you to to get the word out and to encourage others to uh to hopefully vote for and support um the the millage so that we have the resources to be able to enact a plan a plan without resources is we know is really not going to be successful so it's really important and the other thing I want to do is acknowledge um Missy tonight and um she's we know she's great and she always multitasks but she's also a single parent tonight she's taken care of her child she's taking care of dinner
160she's um administering this meeting so thanks Missy for doing a great job again in so many different ways that we don't see it so with all that said um thanks for everybody's participation tonight it is 8 42 and um this meeting is now adjourned have a great rest of your evening thanks