Ann Arbor Energy Commission Meeting 5/10/2022

001bring this meeting to order uh my name is john mursky as chair of the ann arbor energy commission uh i'm as i said calling this meeting to order and i am participating from my home in ann arbor welcome to the may 10th 2020 ann arbor energy commission meeting this virtual meeting is to affect social distancing and to mitigate the spread of the covid19 virus i'm looking forward to the day when i don't need to say that we will conduct this meeting similar to in-person meetings uh commissioners during roll call please indicate your current address uh or your current location i should say 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 comments will be via telephone only to speak during

002any eight of the two public comment opportunities please call one of the following toll-free numbers 877-853-5247 888-788-0099 and enter the meeting id which is eight 937-6751681 nine on your phone this information is available on the published agenda in the meeting notices of the city's website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 and 18t channel 99 as well as online at www.a2gov.org backslash watch ctn missy we're ready for the land acknowledgement i acknowledge the land the city of ann arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe and wanda peoples excuse me i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the united states on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples the taking of this land was formalized by the treaty of detroit

003in 1807. knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you very much so we're now on to the roll call but before we take the official roll call i'd like to acknowledge um this is the last meeting for several of our commissioners um cole stevenson is going to be going off commission as is robert york george i should say uh that's my german pronunciation sorry about that robert and then also chuck hookham and mark levy and i'd particularly like to call out chuck and mark chuck served for 16 years on the energy commission and when he submitted his resignation

004he noted that he thinks he was absent from two of those 16 meetings so that is quite an exemplary record and chuck has really illuminated a lot of our discussions over the years and he's going to be moving on to another opportunity to illuminate our climate action activities and that is he's going to be working part-time for osi and consulting on the sustainable energy utility so that is why chuck is stepping down mark served for nine years on the commission at least he's served consecutively for nine years he may have even served um before that and we thank all four of the commissioners uh for your service and we hope that you learn something and gain something out of your time on the commission and we appreciate what you brought to the commission in terms

005of your comments and questions as well as obviously your votes because those have helped us develop policies and help give input on programs and things like that for osi so i just wanted to acknowledge that um i we were supposed to have a new commissioner tonight and that is teresa smith i think i have do you have her cell phone number missy i do i think i could text her when i'm done i probably can after roll call yeah okay i'll do that when you're taking roll call i'll tell you that okay she is if she does join us then we'll introduce her um and then uh two two other notes um travis is in lansing for a work related event and he's traveling um that lasts till 6 30 and he'll join us at

006around a little bit shortly after that and um participate um while he's driving by phone and then uh i got a note just a few minutes ago from noah and noah is going to be commissioner levin and he's going to be joining us also a few minutes late so um i that's all the notes that i had missy i think we're ready for the roll call and while you're doing that i'll i'll um text terese i'll call you first uh chair mursky president uh taking part from my home here in antarctica excellent vice chair colvin garcia i'm here from ann arbor thank you commissioner juno here from ann arbor commissioner mccomber uh joining from arcadia michigan cheated and pre-populated and that's wrong all right commissioner kerber i think you said here from ann arbor but

007i couldn't hear you you're muted larry we still don't hear you got you there just a little way all right commissioner george uh here from eaton township and you will be missed uh commissioner peck here from ann arbor commissioner mccoy here from ann arbor excellent council member briggs you're in ann arbor your back here looks beautiful uh and then accent noted commissioner stevenson and commissioner smith and then uh late attendees commissioner levin commissioner radina thank you missy i checked i at least don't have teresa's contact information in my contacts so if you could text her that would be great just as a reminder so um first on the agenda is approval of the agenda uh we have a pretty full agenda um can i get a motion to approve the agenda and a second um

008moved by council member briggs and seconded by commissioner mccoy all those in or any discussion i should say first um no when raising their hand we'll go ahead and take a vote then all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed so the agenda is approved as posted next is approval of the minutes the minutes are posted on legistar i took a look at them can we also get a motion to approve the minutes and a second so moved by commissioner george and seconded by commissioner mccumber um all any discussion about the minutes all those in favor say aye and raise your hand everybody approved it so the minutes are also approved so next is public input this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes to the commission if

009you are watching on ctn call three 888-788-0099-4877-853 two four seven and enter meeting id nine three seven six seven five one six eight one nine this information is also displayed on the agenda and in the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand and to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated message that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any background noise so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments uh caller ending in one three four thank you dr stoltz and

010chair mursky this is ken garber 28 haverhill court i look forward to the discussion of the ipcc working group 3 report let's start by acknowledging our complete failure to bend the emissions curve over the last 30 years we've known since the first ipc assessment in 1990 what we need to do gradually eliminate fossil fuels and we've done the opposite global emissions have risen 67 since then and it's not getting better co2 emissions rose 6.2 percent last year to the highest level ever this at a time when we need double-digit annual emission decreases by rich countries to have any hope of staying within our carbon budget for 2 degrees celsius 1.5 degrees is almost baked in the world meteorological organization said yesterday that we have a 50 50 chance of hitting that by 2026. countries are

011ignoring their paris commitments top 26 in glasgow like previous cops was a failure greater tindberg aptly called it quote a global north greenwash festival a two-week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah end quote joe biden just opened up another 144 000 acres of public land for drilling his infrastructure bill does relatively little for transit and will have a huge emissions cost vehicle traffic is once again at record levels with bigger vehicles methane levels at record highs industrial emissions up commercial aviation meat consumption fertilizer concrete the list goes on why have we failed so miserably because dominant economic and political interests are invested in the status quo and work hard against change i'm not talking about the fossil fuel industry i'm talking about our economic system as a whole and it's growth imperative

012income inequality especially has been disastrous for the climate according to oxfam the richest 10 are responsible for half the world's consumption based emissions i see no will to implement most of the social and demand science solutions identified by working group 3. technological magical thinking also keeps us from taking action negative emissions technologies may never be scalable while the unit costs of wind and solar have dramatically fallen their energy density remains vastly inferior to oil and gas so the market will not drive the transition in anything near the required time frame we need alternative economic models and a willingness to imagine different futures ones that are much less materialistic but more just and more humane if there is to be any hope for us thank you for your comments that's all thank you very much okay

013so now move on to the body of the agenda and the first item is an update on energy concierge services and i see funnel is with us and let me just make fun of a ghost you're fine i'm going to give you a post you can choose should i share my screen if you want to i think that might be easier unless you want me to run your slides for you okay um okay i can hear my screen okay so uh good evening everyone oh sorry thanks for providing me the opportunity to present the i energy conservative service to as this evening the presentation contains what the energy control service is and its vision what lessons we learned from established programs the current development status and the problems we identified what our next steps to

014move the program forward lastly we also wanted to hear your feedbacks and suggestions so why do we need an energy configuration program it is a critical piece of the 820 plan as it connects the first of three strategies which are renewable energy electrification and energy efficiency improvement it helps the residents and businesses to reduce carbon emissions based on their situation and make money saving strategies to develop a work plan to implement the service a working group of energy commissioners worked with me for months to collect and screening ideas interview established energy control service programs and platform providers and they also reviewed the work plan multiple times i wanted to take the opportunity to thank them so the 8 in the 820 plan we define the energy conservative program as an easy to use service to

015help residents and businesses understand the best highest impact and most affordable methods to carry out greenhouse gas reduction activities it also requires a high level of community outreach and engagement then and we hope if if the program is successful we should be able to help at least the 2500 customers by 2025 um and how to make it happen with the help of the working group we defined the division of the energy conservative service it aims to it aims to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by helping residents and small business owners small business owners reduce energy use electrified buildings and transportation implement renewable energy improve resiliency save money and improve indoor comfort through education individualized consultations and referrals it still contains lots of information and subjects so to make it um easier to understand we call

016it a one-stop shop where residents and businesses and property owners can get money and energy-saving tips while learning strategies to electrify their buildings and transportation and the many ways to improve their homes and businesses and improve the indoor comfort because the program is still under development and not fully completed so we the success measurement is to be determined um to to develop the program we interviewed multiple well-established energy conservative program and four of them are a state of country level programs and only one of them are utility wrong program so after based we learned a lot from those well established programs and the the five key elements listed here are information we found that determines um determines the success of the energy constructor program first we need a platform to provide an easy to access

017information help that can help a web a user to find the information they need quickly secondly a virtual energy advisor is also very important for customers who are tech savvy and not have a clear goal it is provided through a website services where customers can input their information and the system could generate a roadmap to guide them to their goal the third piece is people service or we can call it one-to-one customer service uh it provides energy audit and developer customize the home improvement plan depends on their situation and the the sports element is the contractor coordination service because it helps that when you need to aim to provide up provide an energy upgrade finding a qualified contractor sometimes it's overwhelming so a program assists you to match contrast contractors with clients and perform quality

018control is also very important lastly and also more very important the program need the dedicated funding to support the operation we also interviewed two well-known platform builder and energy consultation service providers the first one is clear results they can develop a customized website platform for you to to provide a virtual energy service and if you need they also could provide certified energy devices to provide customer service and community engagement the costs listed here are the quotes they provided to us for a two-year service contractor we also interviewed another platform operator called bright action they they provide a standardized platform service which is great for campaign and the challenge services um but it lacks customized service because it's a standard platform and also they have they control the customer's data like say they are users signing

019up the platform they have access to all the users private private information so we are we are worried about the security issues regarding private data management so therefore we after the interview interview those established programs we think we want a platform that can be modified as the conservative program expense it should also be able to provide a road map for planning for energy efficiency improvement and electrification and also we want the city have the auxiliaries they have the city have the full control of the platform finally we developed a structure of the energy control service that can utilize the city's i.t service integrates multiple programs the osi has developed and leveraged the support from a20 collaborators it starts with an energy controlled website that is under the current osi's website it includes energy consultation community

020engagement and education i will talk about the details of each component in the following slides currently the community engagement and education section includes multiple programs i guess most of you are aware of the first five programs and i would take the opportunity to update you the progress of the collaboration between osi and the michigan slaves michigan state is michigan spring bank which provides low interest loans to residents and businesses on energy upgrades and the renewable system installation so starting last year we worked with them to develop a contractor training program on electrification contractors who pass the training program gets an electrification badge they also add the electrification service as an as a service option if you want to find a qualified contractor through their contractor finder contractor find a web page and then let's talk

021about the people service uh people service include this provides a service to vulnerable customers you know such as for those customers who don't use online service who don't use smartphones and not tech savvy the goal is to help them to find information they need so they could make informed decisions regarding energy improvement investment currently we have two programs under this category the first one is aging in place efficiently and the second one is the llmi community development assistance the briand community is our pilot program and secondly programs to provide this special assistance such as solarize program heat pump education program and easy station installation support and the benchmarking program the the last two road map development and appliance replacement consultation are under development i will talk more about it later then the third component of

022the people service is contractor coordination we collaborate with michigan saves on electrification contractor training program and and we also hope the program could extend to to provide more service in the future i will talk about more about this later secondly about energy consultation there's another component is virtual energetic it is also under development it helps users to find relevant information quickly based on their input it can provide general information on money saving and energy saving tips actions to reduce carbon emission by changing your behavior strategies to electrify buildings and transportation it also consolidates local resources and assistance programs on energy efficiency improvement and electrification it can generate a roadmap to home electrification and carbon reduction based on usage input so the expected timeline i listed here so um our office has worked with the id

023office or to develop the multiple custom web pages to make it work and uh so that by the end of last next month the we hope to get the testing web pages ready for internal review and then collect feedbacks from invited users to test it out before we publish those websites to the public and you may want to know what kind of road map a virtual and energy advisor can provide to customers the the picture on the right shows an example and it after you type in your basic information regarding your energy usage and your expectation it will generate a a road map like that and it shows step by step instruction and each step provides tons of information and and the local resources that you can utilize so it's it's the target customer for

024virtual energy advisor are those customers who are tax savvy and all who have a very clear goal they know what they want to do so it took this we expected these services to be very you know convenient and i'm saving for them to find the information and assistance they want and then secondly oh sorry then there are many customers who are not tech savvy and thus they don't use online service and not even don't use smartphones especially for those senior residents and then they need people service one to one people in action to help them to make optimal decisions regarding energy upgrades and secondly some cost some customers they may want a customized road map to with more technical inputs to help them to transit to electrification and enough zero form then we researched based

025on the market research we performed we found there are many problems with the current energy conservative service programs many of them they are project based they provide assistance and the consultation service based on projects such as how the place hvac system you know how what options would they be best work best for you you know if you wanted to be electrified what option but however our home is is a whole system and it's not like a cookie cutter one one service may not work for each one and secondly um we also found there the their the service performed by different service providers are disconnected or you know for example the the energy auditors may not check your ductwork may not tell you the roof problems you know how what's your indoor air quality you know

026whether your electric system is outdated and not safe and the contractors they may not tell you how to reach like how to transit to electrification and they may not tell you that if you improve your insulation you could downsize the hvac system which may save you upfront cost and the long-term operational cost and and also like for larger retrofit projects if you hire a general contractor they may not develop a whole home retrofit project project focuses on net zero emission they may not be able to find the contractors who are qualified to do home electrification work and they may not be aware of local programs that could provide a financial support on electrification et cetera as a homeowner what what kind of service people service they want to get they want to get a customized

027roadmap to a net zero home with cost information and the steps for implementation they also want assistance to help qualified contractors that will help them to transit to electrification and they also want more information local information local resources like rebates income qualified programs and how to apply for them etc and lastly people are interested with buy and discounts so therefore for people service when when we talk about the roadmap development we wanted to define the priority priority would be carbon footprint reduction and the road map should be a whole home prescription for a home owner to electrify their buildings and transportation in a cost effective way and it should also help to identify and assist to apply for financial incentives and rebates and for people who need appliance replacement consultation and assistance the people service

028should help to elevate the home owner's burden to find a contractor capable of performing electrification projects and it should also help apply for eligible rebates and income qualified financial assistance then actually then after the market research we found there are no energy consultation companies that can provide that kind of service as we expected so currently we we have been communicating with multiple eight to zero partners collaborators such as equal works welcome miller and elevate energy and michigan saves you know to develop a pilot program that could meet our expectation and based on our interview with those established energy conservative service programs the average cost to provide a one-to-one consultation service is about 400 per household so it is very expensive and as the city budget has multiple limitations so we are looking for sources to

029start a pilot with our atrocious collaborators it may be state and federal grants and or other funding sources we haven't you know we need to apply for so the timeline will will be depend on the funding resources and the demand of the service so this concludes my presentation and now it's a time for questions and suggestions thank you thank you fun to open the floor for comments and questions so i have a few questions if i may if no one else does karlene you're talking it looks like you oh here we go sorry about that erica go ahead and then i think carlene but i'm not sure yeah go ahead eric i was gonna wait mine was it's a great presentation thanks for all that information that sounds wonderful um i didn't see any hands

030raised i was just gonna make a suggestion potentially for the website if it works out i was also um wondering i know the city's thinking of updating its website i don't know if that's happening in conjunction with this project or if um since this is like such an amazing website that's kind of built in as a sub website for the city cities i was kind of curious just a little bit more about that and then i had a potential recommendation well yeah the the program is a separate program it's not related with the city the whole city website uploaded it will still stay with the osi website except that we are the pilot uh one of the pilots in the website update that the whole city is doing so parks is one and then osi

031is one of the pilots to to make sure that these kinds of functionalities can be built into the entire overhaul the website that's great um and the recommendation if it happens to work out i know a lot of folks are if they're thinking about doing these sort of updates if they're homeowners they may be thinking about it in conjunction with sort of remodeling and so some folks come at this really interested in energy and some people come at it interested in aesthetics and just how things look and so if there's a couple of you know as as you build up a kind of portfolio it might be interesting just to have you might draw on a different clientele by just kind of showing pretty kitchens or pretty different things um not a big a huge

032recommendation but just something to ponder ripping forward thinking about how people might enter into this conversation i guess yes you're right exactly so that's that's exactly one main purpose of the website provide a place you know for people to engage on share their story and also engage the community hi uh thank you very much um commissioner mursky uh great presentation um it was a really a lot of work that you're doing on this program and um it's a it's a it's a huge project um as you see it unfold and very complicated and um i just have a couple of uh of questions the first one has to do with the scope of the of of the cost uh as you were seeing at the end of your presentation the expense of the 400 to

0331000 you know estimate per customer uh to to go through the whole process is is it's really big if you're going to be meeting the 2500 satisfied customer goal um by 2025 so um you know i'm glad that there's going to be a virtual concierge uh to help to help you know folks along the pipeline and um it it seems like there are ways to build an efficiency using using established you know programs in the country and it looks like you did some research and everything but i just you know like the more you can utilize information um i don't know if you call it off the shelf off the shelf programs or other programs that are really successful right now i would recommend you know being open to that um what are what's thea

034the support for um electric vehicle charging installations that the city plans on offering um i think we uh in our uh current sustainability and me web page you will find information regarding ev charge installation and so if you need more assistance you could contact our energy advisor semibar so he he will provide you more information and also help you to go through details okay so basically it sounds like there will be multiple uh contact points done with an e-osi for the energy concierge based on the um the the area of electrification or or or how does that work is that gonna be one contact point well that that would be ideal if we provided one point contact well however because the current currently it's still at the beginning phase and uh in our office and

035different people have have have you know his or her own expertise so that's why we we will point people to depends on the subject like solarwise and the renewable energy will point point to the customer to to truly lost yeah so it depends okay all right and i think well when if the program grows you know we if we have lots of you know incoming inquiries every day then then we probably need to set up a point of contact and uh and a dedicated like a multiple dedicated personnel to to handle provide customer service but currently i think we the workload is okay for us to handle internally this is yours yeah yeah and then just one last last um suggestion a request actually uh maybe i'm i'm just inviting myself but i would like

036to be and it might be a great idea to invite the entire energy commission to be on the test in the test group for the new website thank you that's that's a very nice offering for us thank you yeah we could we could really work it you know and give you some good feedback between all of us we have our different areas of you know of you know we could create little scenarios for ourselves and then tested very very well for you thank you very much other comments or questions so i have just a couple um first of all the road map that you showed um seems to start with a home energy audit or at least um and is is is that indeed the attention that basically anyone that approaches osi or at least

037a significant portion of the people would start with a home energy audit and is that one of the reasons why the cost is 400 to a thousand dollars per person i'm trying to understand why you think it's going to be 400 to 1000 and if a home energy audit is a part of that that would make sense to me but is otherwise i i have questions like carlene did where that number comes from and what just what what makes that up thank you for pointing that out um i should clarify the cost of estimation per household is for one to one people service that's also a lesson we learned from interview or other energy conservative programs for example the boulder counties and energy smart program that they that's they they also think it's the one-to-one

038people service is too expensive and that's why they wanted to more people to use virtual energy advisor because it really depends some people they are tax savvy and they know what they wanted to do and all they have a very generic question so if they go to the website and the website can navigate them to find the information they want then they don't need to make the phone call or email you know email uh customer service representative to ask the question it will greatly save the cost and i didn't put that cost in into consideration right now and then for one to one people service because even if it's i know if provided by internal staff or or hire a third-party energy advisor you know that the time we have the ceremony the times you

039know build up quickly as also depends on the project if it's like a big project it may involve more time more hours and if it's like an old home very complex retrofit project it also may involve more hours so so but basically that's their estimated average cost if you provide one-to-one people service okay thank you another question that i had was with regards to confidentiality um so you mentioned that was one concern with the bright action platform and i'm wondering um if that's a concern uh how is confidentiality protected um with the ann arbor um developed platform so presumably in order for someone to provide a good consultation services they would have to have basic profile information um about the user and if a home energy audit was done that would have to be shared

040so there's there's certain information how many people potentially are in the household what's the household look like how many rooms um is that a gas furnace is it a whatever it is what are the starting conditions um how is that information going to be inputted into the ann arbor platform and if so how was the confidentiality then going to be handled so um this question i think thank you and i think i should check with it office you know how they handle the you know the accomplished confusion conflict confidentiality and because now um this is it is not my area so i really don't know you know what what answered you know the b and and then i think for for people to people service and because it's very likely we may outsource it to

041a third party to do it if given we have you know we have security funding support and customer demand so that would be another sort of um agreement to legal agreement between the city and the service provider okay okay um does anybody else have any comments or questions so i i i would just like to close by saying um my my frank opinion is is that i think there's some fundamental misunderstandings about the bright action platform and i'd like the opportunity to potentially um talk with um you and missy about what you're doing and the bright action platform and whether or not there is indeed an opportunity to merge the efforts and some of the some of the concerns that you expressed on your cover page um or when your early early page um indicates

042to me that there's some misunderstanding i spent some time um in in recent weeks looking into their site more closely and so um i will circle back um with the two of you after the meeting happy to have that that call although we've had a demo and i i know you did i'm i'm not i'm not super excited about it but happy to have that follow-up conversation i i realized that and and as you know um i was not able to participate in that demo um so i'd like to have an opportunity to to at least share um what what my understanding is and what the basis that understanding is with you commissioner kerber yes uh fung um one of the i don't want to get too much into the weeds but one of the

043concerns that i would have is when you are providing connections to various services and providers of various capabilities how are you going to go about doing the vetting of those first of all and then how are you going to capture the actual experience of the participants through the whole process so at the end of the day when new people come into the system they'll be able to see what the scorecard has been in terms of different providers in providing quality service in terms of how they view the knowledge of the project rider the the cost of the provider and other issues that relate to the quality of the solution thank you that's that's great that's that's a very great question actually it's we are considering that part that's why we we are developing a program

044with michigan saves you know as you know michigan state has a very good good relationship with contractors and they certify contractors who perform you know energy saving projects and the renewable projects and so now we have developed developed the energy residential electrification training program like people who complete the training program while get the badge electrification badge to different differentiate the contractor from the raster contractors so this is the first step actually we are we are uh developing and what what's the next step would be you know say if a customer you know through our conservative service wanted to do energy uh retrofit projects then we can refer them to michigan saves then michigan saves could you know it depends it really depends we i'm just we're i'm just talking about some possible possible ways to

045work it out like the michigan state could coordinate the con matching the contractors with with customers and then they could also that now control the quality and collect the feedback from the contract from the customer and as michigan said they they are also providing the financing service so they know the cost of those those bids and so they could have served as a data collection point for us then we could work together to call you know the service provided by different contractors and there's a cost average cost per project no etc so that's all on the development thank you okay any anyone else okay thank you fun for your presentation and um we will now move on to the next agenda item and let's see where's my here we are the next is an update

046on the green rental housing program from zach all right good evening commissioners thanks for having me back good to see you all um i'm i've got some choppy internet and a whiny cat so give me a holler if you can't see anything or if i drop off but otherwise i'm gonna assume you can see um uh so i gave a presentation recently about what uh the proposed policy was for the green rental housing program and i just want to give you an update on what uh where things stand on that and the progress that has been made um and what has yet to be done um so quick review of the policy elements that i presented to you last time uh where these four items the first is that there is a requirement um that

047would be in place that as old appliances wear out and need to be replaced that they are replaced with energy efficient appliances that's the metric is energy star uh rated um the second is that the unit as a whole needs to meet a certain efficiency minimum so either through a prescriptive pathway or a performance pathway and there is an efficiency disclosure this isn't anything new or groundbreaking but it would just says that the um the results of the efficiency pathway element will be made public just as the certificate of compliance already is and then finally there is the um there's a component that allows tenants to do some basic weatherization in their own units so um since the last time i presented to you we launched a public comment period that included a survey that

048was both in we used both microsoft forms and a to open city hall and it was open for a month and we collected responses from that we also during that time gave two public presentations that one was recorded you can find a recording of that on the city website uh the url is at the bottom of the screen and we have had a few one-on-one meetings with landlords to discuss ideas and get some direct feedback about the policy as a whole digging in here to some of the responses um that we got um the overall this is kind of how the respondents broke down so about 60 of them were landlords of some sort either they owned a building or they managed a building um and then the other uh and then a quarter of

049them were tenants and then there was a handful of folks that either declined to respond or they were not one of those two um categories so for the tenants we had very few that were on campus tenants most of them were off campus so what did they have to say well um we asked questions about each of the different policy components and this here i am not intended intending for you to be able to read the fine print there but this is a response of the performance pathway and what i want to illustrate here are sort of um the range of the responses that we got this is a likert scale on the left is strongly disagree all the way on the right is strongly agree and so these each one of these bars you

050see is a response to a question specifically about the performance pathway these are the responses that we got from landlords and a couple of things that i want to point out are that first of all we every response is represented here um so they they were across the board in their responses but the other thing i want to point out is that the the heavier things are either strongly disagree on the far left or disagree which is that orange um there were a few uh i mean there's a notable amount of neutrals or i don't knows and that's the gray in the middle um that tells us that there's some clarity to be improved upon um but in looking at the disagreement with um uh some of these responses and just for example they some

051of these things here are saying this policy is applicable to all types of rentals in ann arbor this is an appropriate measurement of energy efficiency it's clear what action is required to comply with this policy um and so across the board landlords were gave every response um and and disagreed a little bit now contrasting to that are the responses that we got from tenants to the same question and if you look at that there are no strongly disagrees very few disagrees and a lot of agreement this suggests that the tenants see value in this it doesn't mean that it is the best value but it also you know there is that split incentive tenants have a different investment in their units that they live in than the owner of the property for for very clear

052reasons but um these are kind of this was a theme that we noticed across all responses and so i'll show you a couple of more examples here um here are the responses side by side these are both for the prescriptive checklist so this is the other efficiency component the bar chart on the left is the landlord's you can see a lot of that dark blue on the far left this again this is a likert scale so strongly disagree on the left and then towards the middle of the screen here is the strongly agree and you can see that property owners and managers don't want this or they have comments for improvement on this um and it's about the opposite for tenants we they um most of the tenants agreed that this is a policy that

053that should be implemented i'll just show you a couple others here this is one more this is for the appliance efficiency component that requires energy star rated appliances um this one is interesting um because again like all of them uh the landlords represented every response um type the tenants not so much um this is another example of the tenants not there was no tenant that responded strongly disagree on this one and that we saw that in a lot of different responses um landlords are across the board um so what does what does that mean well the primary things that we can pull from this is that that split incentive is very clear and that is going to require us to continue to do as much outreach as possible with landlords and tenants to really understand

054their standpoints because it's not saying that one is right and the other's wrong it's just saying that there are different interests at play here overall we saw that tenants are in favor of a green rental housing policy and landlords gave every response they were across the board but generally that's where we saw the most opposition to this was among the landlords there were those gray areas and i think that the gray areas and i do also believe that some of the opposition can be resolved through increased clarity and education outreach and making sure that everybody who is impacted by this policy has is very clear on what's expected of them and um what the reasoning for this policy is um overall i do uh conclude that there is a need for this green rental housing

055policy because the landlords were all over um again some some agreed and because the tenants do feel um in general generally in favor of it um i i think that there still is a need for the green rental housing program so um what has happened now um is we're continuing to digest some of the comments there were a lot of open fields for uh free text in the survey and so we are pulling themes from those responses there are suggestions in those comments there are some constructive criticisms in those comments and so we're we're piecing those together to identify commonalities among them and address those through any potential revisions that come forth and we will do that in conjunction with the comments that we get back from the city's legal department who currently has this

056policy in front of them and are reviewing it so once we get those those back we'll make any policy provisions uh needed there are also um some property managers and property owners right now who are doing a dry run of this policy so they are putting their units through the paces to give us direct feedback in terms of how well their units performed and you give us a metric by which to gauge if this policy is attainable um for landlords and so uh we're using as as much information from that as we can it's just that we're not going to record any of these results this is just for informational purposes for for the city so that we can make this policy better so all of those things together will make any revisions that we

057need we will represent that to the task force to get any final feedback from them before moving it along through this body uh in the form of a resolution and then on to counsel for their vote um we will uh i mentioned that we will reconvene the task force for that presentation and we are also going to uh address both that education and clarity um but also get more feedback through um further engagement with one-on-one uh partners so the washnut area apartment association we want to get in front of them and hear their direct feedback in case any of them were unable to take the survey we're going to get in front of the ann arbor tenants union there are a number of university partners the inter-cooperative council a lot of these bodies were represented

058in the task force and we just want to leverage those uh networks that were that were represented at the task force but that we may not have heard from directly and so we want to give them opportunities uh to give us as much feedback as possible so um so that's that's where things stand right now for the green rental housing um just a quick update but i am happy to answer any questions that you may have thanks zach um i think this was helpful um i don't think it's surprising that landlord some of the landlords might be against something that's going to cost them money to benefit tenants um i'm curious if you asked um the question in the survey if the person like if they were owning properties if they owned like a large

059number of properties or a small number of properties because based on some other housing work i've done in the city it seemed like there were differences between the response of small-scale landlords and large-scale landlords and a lot of that was driven by like their ability to to do things um so i'm curious if that was a question you asked or you know if not i think that's something i would consider when doing additional outreach to landlords yeah commissioner mccoy that's a good question and one that also came up during our analysis process which is still underway we did not ask that intentionally at the get-go because we didn't want landlords to feel like they would be outing themselves by providing that information um i if i were to do this again i think i would

060have asked that question and made it optional because i agree that that information could have been useful um but it was not gathered during this also breaks thanks um i was wondering i i don't think you said how many respondents there were for the surveys of the percentage but i was curious what the total response rate was yeah um between the two it was um just shy of a hundred thanks um yes i don't want to jump too far into to the implementation once again but one of the things that i always think when i come into the problem from the landlord's point of view this just has this feeling like there's there's always a carrot and a stick and this kind of feels to me like a stick i mean is there a perception

061of how this program might make this something that is more of a carrot for the people who are participating the people that are landlords that are that are trying to do the right thing and see the benefit from a business point of view of doing the right thing as opposed to just more costs or more inconvenience or more regulation or whatever it might be yeah uh fantastic um there are a couple of ways that we are exploring both options so there are some incentives that currently exist in in the current rental housing inspection process to incentivize early compliance among landlords and we are looking to pursue those similar avenues for the green rental housing program uh more specifically those entail uh it if a landlord is fully compliant upon their first recertification inspection then the

062uh the expiration date of their certificate is extended by 12 months so they get three and a half years instead of the two and a half years that means fewer inspections fewer interruptions and less expense on their behalf there is uh one of the engagements that i mentioned are the community i'm sorry the university partners and there are already ways that some off-campus landlords are highlighted through that and we are exploring ways to highlight those who are compliant with the green rental housing program we have met um part of that in pursuit of that we have met with a third party software um provider who would highlight those for us um it's part of a broader project that could if we do end up pursuing it could um offer a very easy user interface for

063tenants one of the things that we without getting too into the weeds on it one of the things that existed with the current program which we are transitioning away from is that it's difficult to find inspection history information and certification information and so this would create a much easier user interface so that prospective tenants could find information on their um on the units that they're looking at and that included in that with this third party we would highlight certain things like the green rental housing program so so we're try we are uh trying to find as many ways as possible to provide as carrots and um that's also part of the reason we want to meet more with the washington area apartment association and other landlords is to continue to hear as much feedback as

064possible from them yeah thanks i just wanted to pull up the um the percentage rates before i asked this follow-up question i was since there were i wonder if you've considered going back and just getting um pushing for a little bit more feedback um especially if there was since there was pretty low response rate from folks who are student renters um and overall considering the majority of folks who live in ann arbor are renters relatively low response rate from from tenants overall um i think they're supportive of this policy but i think there's a lot of conclusions being drawn out of this data that it would just be nice to see a few more tenants in there to make sure that that holds up as more kind of feedback is is secured if i don't

065i don't know this may be a hard one to you know i don't know how robust the outreach was if it was really robust and this is what you got that's great you know if it was um you know so i guess question if you're thinking about trying to secure any more feedback from folks absolutely um you're spot on that the tenant interaction is a tough nut to crack so to speak um um we are looking to do more engagement certainly before proceeding once we get some of these revisions dialed in as necessary we i think are leaning right now towards more quality over quantity and so that might involve more um in the likes of focus groups or um interviews um to understand truly how this is going to impact people's lives and and

066what it their motivations are um so i'm not saying that an abroad survey is off the table and in fact that might accompany a lot of the continued outreach that we are are going to do but i think right now we we want to understand a little bit more um so that we can make sure that this is as dialed as possible other questions or comments zach i have a few um the program is still envisioned as an effective mandatory program right you have to get certified in order to get your certificate of um whatever the right term is not occupancy but that that's it's not this is not voluntary correct that as proposed correct so it would be mandatory yes okay and then um in the last meeting we spent quite a bit of

067time looking at the prescriptive path and um the evaluation and the points and things like that um you know there was a group of us that had a side meeting with you is is that prescriptive path um being dramatically changed at all or being reviewed including like the threshold i think it was 65 points what's what's the status on on the prescriptive pathway or is that also sort of um in under reevaluation um it's under reevaluation i don't want to say too much too soon um we're still digesting some of this information um it's looking as though it will see some revisions um we some of those gray areas that we got back on those responses are reason to continue fine-tuning this tool i would rather see either strong opposition or strong support for this

068the the fact that there were was any gray area at all says that we need to do some more work on that so i think that there will be ultimately some changes made to that um that is also an opportunity where um where we can work more with the landlords perhaps uh one idea that we got from the feedback was to phase in uh the requirements that gives the landlords a little more flexibility in terms of the timelines by which they need to comply um so we'll we'll see how that pans out certainly any changes will be publicized and that they will be reviewed and that's what will be presented to the task force and beyond um but yeah at this time uh no changes have have been solidified but there probably will be some

069yes okay anyone else so i have a question about next steps for isu and missy we have on the agenda tonight um actually it's not the next point but i would make sense i think that we consider it now which is the second meeting of the green house rental housing resolution and i'm wondering with so many questions does osi plan on coming back and say after these additional rounds with legal with um different groups um this is now the final or the near final plan or do you want us to take a vote on the resolution with a lot of open questions in the air what's the intent with the agenda and with the resolution specifically yeah um sure i um i i guess i would have looked to you uh chairman mursky for for

070your advice um considering that there could be some changes um i would say that there likely will be some changes um i just don't know what to to what extent so they could be very minor um i i think i would look to your advice on um what should proceed i would love to see a resolution go through um but i i also would like like i said i would like strong support or opposition you know from this body as well and i think i would be more inclined to hold especially because we haven't seen legal final guidance on this and so while it may just modestly be tweaked based on public input and what we're hearing we all can do fundamental shifts when they look at something so it's probably if you love it

071and you're like just do whatever you can legally do and run we would gladly take a resolution of support but at the same time i think zach and i talked about it earlier and we plan to bring back whatever we get from legal in its final form so you can actually see the language of the ordinance so we can we can formally introduce the resolution with emotion again in a second or i don't how do people feel i have some thoughts but i'm wondering if others have strong opinions one way or the other go ahead commissioner i think i personally would have would prefer to wait to see like what the feedback is you know even if it ends up being minor just in the event that it is major or that legal has some

072you know serious concerns i think it would be proven for us to wait if there isn't a reason that we need to you know vote today anyone else so that that's my uh leaning as well um my sense is and maybe we can take sort of just a show of hands um about commissioners i mean does everybody on the commission still strongly support the idea of a green rental housing program with certain requirements in order that uh landlords get a certificate to be able to rent their properties i is is that have very very strong support among commissioners i mean i i very much support that does anybody have strong reservations so i think missy and zach you have uh full support from the commission to go full speed ahead um and um but we'd

073like i think this catch ball process i think is is appropriate you threw the ball out in the last meeting um there was some comments um you've been playing catch ball with landlords and tenants since that meeting and i'm going to be doing that with legal obviously um i think one more round of of catch ball so to speak um before we then issue um our support i think that's also more effective frankly um when it goes then to council um if other council members um find out that we voted on uh the resolution here in early may and there it goes up to a vote i'm just going to make up a date in august or september people will wonder well what changed in between and you know how did that potentially affect how

074energy commission um saw that so i think it's also going to better equip osi and our liaisons to to defend um the the uh approach when it comes up to a vote for for all accounts and i can imagine there will be some of those people that are in the strongly disagree camp that will probably be voicing concerns um through the process as it moves forward and so the the stronger position that we have and that's based on a good understanding of what the final or near final proposal is going to be is going to be more effective for for all of you anybody have see it differently i don't see anybody so um let's leave it that way and we we wish you all um godspeed put it that way okay so um the

075next on the agenda is a presentation on the intergovernmental panel on climate change and um edie and peck are going to lead us through that do you want to run slides or do you want to run them for you i don't mind that i think it'll be okay okay can everyone see that yes well thanks everyone um we had thought that it might be worth touching on this new report since this is the um updated ar6 that we'll be seeing later this year and it's been several years since the ipcc did such a full and comprehensive report so um since this is relevant to a lot of our those topics we talk about here i thought we would take a little bit of time to walk through this and i guess i'll actually turn it

076right over to peck to kind of give us a little bit of background on ipcc if he is feeling so inclined um so sure the ipcc has been around for quite a while since the 80s and it is a group of about 195 countries as it says here and that's the intergovernmental panel on climate change it's a bunch of policymakers and they actually asked scientists to periodically provide updates on the state of the science and that's what everyone usually calls the ipcc even though it's not technically the ipcc and so we write uh the scientists write these reports and they come out every six or seven years as i said and now they come out with four assessment reports each cycle the first one being the physical basis of climate change what's happening in the

077climate system thanks um the second one being what's going on with impacts vulnerability and adaptation science and the third focused on mitigation or stopping it um and then that's the third one and the fourth one is a synthesis of all of those and we've now seen for the sixth assessment we've seen uh three of those reports and the synthesis doc is going to come out later in the summer so we have a lot of new science and what's really remarkable in these um is the fact that well actually i'll take a step back um hundreds of authors uh scientists to work on climate science uh and reviewers uh most working um in a volunteer basis to produce these and they are heavily peer reviewed by other scientists as well as uh the governments of the

078policy makers and basically anyone who wants to you don't really need to have any credentials to peer review but the system tends to keep those folks out of the picture because it's very technical stuff and each of these reports has a summary for policy makers which tends to be the most accessible parts and then literally hundreds of pages of quite technical uh synthesis of what's come out in the last you know four or five years and climate science has really exploded so there's a lot of information um this time around actually i'll just be quiet because i think that's what you're after right idiots just sort of that background yeah that'd be great um and and then you know if you want to run through those first two you can grab groups we have a

079few of the headlines there as well yeah well with um working group one which is the physical basis um you know it's been back in the fourth assessment this is the sixth assessment in the fourth assessment um which i helped uh produce uh we were the first ones to say it was unequivocal um that humans have worn the planet um and with each successive report it's more unequivocal which is kind of uh crazy uh and uh it's also more unequivocal the range of impacts that we now can attribute to humans so we have as it says here just widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere the ocean the cryosphere it's all the ice and the biosphere so we really see climate change everywhere around the planet now very clearly it's also uh in terms of

080what's affecting people it's mostly these extreme climate events whether they're heat waves uh droughts um more extreme precipitation stronger storms and things like that uh very clear that climate change is now affecting all of those the only thing that is still kind of open to some debate that people talk about a lot actually i was just tweeting on it today are tornadoes it's still unclear some of the connections between climate change and tornadoes although i think last december we saw one effect that everyone agrees is happening which is we're getting more cold season um thunderstorms and tornadoes and at higher latitudes so you know iowa and minnesota getting tornadoes in december never happened before and that's thanks to climate change warming the planet um then if we think about a working group too um you

081know there's just so much more information about impacts and the reason for that is the impacts are really piling up and they're piling up faster this is to me is the biggest story in the new ipcc you know from comparing it to the previous cycle is that the impacts are piling up and coming faster at lower temperature than scientists thought they would uh you know the community uh thought they would uh this means the implication of that is we really do uh want to cap the total amount of global warming and all the change that comes with that at a lower temperature if all possible and in paris uh a few years ago nations agreed we would try and cap it at 1.5 degrees c and slowly um everybody has come around to let's see

082if we can do 2 degrees c 1.5 is is kind of impossible at this point it's not impossible but it's knowing humans it's impossible and so uh if we were all to meet our paris agreements now all the countries of the world meet our commitments we would warn the planet to 1.9 but most countries of the world including the united states are not meeting our commitments and for those of you who keep track what we really needed uh wyden blind was proposing the right thing that would have gotten us on the right track to meet those commitments but he needed to build back better bill to get past uh and that failed and so we are not going to meet our commitments unless that happens in you know the democrats get an increased majority or

083at least maintain a majority um [Music] in november in congress um one more sentence senator i guess um and then uh it is summarized some other really important things but i wanted to highlight that what we see in these reports now is a lot more confidence estimates that are in the very high to extremely high category that's really different from previous reports so it's really clear now that even 1.5 is going to cause serious threats is going to cause irreversible change in the in the planetary system uh you if you really the poster child for that is what's happening coral reefs right now yeah we are wiping out the coral reefs of the planet not all of them but you know it's just a matter of time they're going pretty fast uh and it's just

084because the oceans are absorbing most of the heat and therefore um really baking the corals uh so everything else you can kind of read here uh these positive feedback loops um are the reason i think things are changing faster than the scientists thought they would in other words the positive feedbacks the amplifying feedbacks are are more strong than we thought they would be um and the dampening feedbacks or negative feedbacks are harder to come by in the climate system so we don't see a lot of the negative feedbacks we see a lot of positive feedbacks the positive feedbacks are are amplifying things more than we thought they would how's that yeah thank you um so i guess just to give a little bit more background context too as peck mentioned um lots of people do

085contribute as peer reviewers and i was able to contribute as a peer reviewer on this draft and on this working group report in 2021 and this year um so that does not make me an expert on it it is a 3 000 page document spanning all of climate science but i you know have been uh hanging out with this document for a little while now so i wanted to give that background and i guess the other caveat i'd say today too is there's gonna be a lot of text on these slides i tried to just copy and paste directly from the report to avoid you know uh spinning what they're saying or what the findings are saying i'm also trying to summarize and apologies if you don't feel like you have adequate time to read

086all the texts you'll have access to the slides of course and it's all in the report itself so thank you um okay so some of the broad trends from this mitigation report that we are seeing emissions are continuing to rise and that has occurred in the last decade although it has been at a slightly slower rate than the decade before it and of course we also know that contributions have varied regionally um countries of different economic levels countries of different regions are not contributing at the same rate and obviously some of the highest emitting um emitting regions just it's a really disproportionate value that they're emitting emissions are also increasing across all sectors and we're seeing that in urban regions um they are increasingly responsible for these emissions and this kind of gives a picture

087of what the first relative contributions are so energy supply electricity and heat is the leader and then we have industry the agriculture forest and land use sector transport and lastly buildings is kind of the main contributors here um obviously as as we all know energy transition is going to be a huge in mitigation and we simply will not be able to limit to two degrees celsius above historical temperatures without rapid reductions in the energy system luckily we're seeing deployment that exceeded expectations and we're seeing costs of these technologies continuing to plummet and especially in the last decade some really substantial figures there of 85 for solar and 55 for wind but still this is only 10 of our combined market share at this time and the expectation by 2050 would be that low carbon electricity

088would be 100 of our markets um this image kind of shows in blue we have the fifth and 95th percent percentiles of um cost for these different uh energy generation types photovoltaic solar enter wind offshore wind and batteries and um those are in twenty twenty dollars per megawatt hour or kilowatt hour of battery storage capacity and the gray bar across the bottom is the cost of gas and um coal so you can see that as we're approaching 2020 these costs are comparable if not lower than the fossil fuel costs so good news there but if and you can see a corresponding increase of course in deployment and then an adoption we're seeing as those prices plummet adoption is really increasing so also pretty straightforward there um another finding from the report is that we will

089need to remove emissions um to compensate for those residual or hard to emit hard to abate emissions um from sectors where it's just going to be really really hard to decarbonize and this can be done in several ways there's biological sequestration of carbon through plants and soil organisms there's geochemical and chemical processes available so some of this is tech some of this is natural uh carbon removal but obviously the maturity levels and the impacts and the co-benefits that each of these present and just as ken alluded to at his public comment earlier the technical feasibility of these is all you know different depending on the type so lots to see how this unfolds here um forests and farms and all of our natural ecosystems blue carbon as well definitely can play a significant role but

090the report really emphasizes that this cannot make up for delays in other sectors so it's just not going to be an option to just plant a lot more trees and call it a day as we probably all suspected already more good news um we already have seen reductions in emissions that would have otherwise occurred because of the policies that have already been enacted but as peck alluded as well our current pledges are falling short so the national commitments that countries are making are not going to be enough to keep us to 1.5 c and even to get to the two that's going to require some some heavy lifting and then also as alluded the policies themselves that are enacted right now are not even living up to the standards of the commitment so we're falling

091short in two different ways here so it's really meaning to pick up on our mitigation another um kind of highlight finding was that there is no more room for unabated fossil fuel generation in other words if you don't have carbon capture on your fossil fuel we're going to overshoot um there is no more room in the carbon budget for increasing um in investment in this type of infrastructure because of the way it will lock us into higher emissions for decades to come and of course since this report has been released we have already seen um new fossil fuel tech uh applications and and things getting started so this is not necessarily being heard globally um in connection to ann arbor and the opportunities we have here i'd like to highlight that urban areas do have

092really unique opportunities um to address climate mitigation and the main three ways that the report highlights is through reducing or changing the ways we consume materials and energy through electrification and through enhancing the carbon uptake and storage in the city itself um but this is not limited to our direct emissions and and it's really necessary to think outside of our boundaries so uh you know we also have to consider our indirect emissions across the supply chain and the cascading effects that that would have if we were able to reduce some of our urban consumption or energy demand as well um another kind of new thing in this report and i think it's exciting in some ways as well is a focus on or an emphasis on demand focused intervention so this is not something that

093had been discussed in such depth before but this is really you know just thinking about the ways that um we can reduce some of the energy or material demand in the first place um some of the ways in urban areas this could be accomplished is you know changing our density or our land use mix or increasing inter and interest city public transit options and making a more supportive environment for active transport and it's definitely not only a big opportunity in terms of how much um how many admissions or how much we could avoid emitting but also how it can enhance quality of life for urban dwellers um especially in in regions um where there may be more um unplanned settlements and all sorts of things and just the way that urban development and energy emissions

094reduction can be synergistic the other big high level finding is that current funding really is falling short um we really need funding to increase by three to six times overall um and currently the focus is overwhelmingly on mitigation not adaptation and yet we know we're already seeing the effects of climate change especially in cities and i mean all over the world um specifically you know energy efficiency investments need to increase by two to seven times transport by a factor of seven to eight electricity by a factor of two to five and land sector and natural climate solutions actually need to increase the most by 10 to 29 so those are really underinvested in um as well at this time so just wanted to really briefly as well do a couple deep dives into three little

095topics so one is the social or demand side measures um you know again and for the first time this report really emphasized that individual choices can add up so you know we have the example of individual mobility as one as one option that could be changed um changing to walking cycling or using electric vehicles could save two tons of co2 equivalent per person per year um for a u.s resident that's about one eighth of our um total emissions and for the rest of the world for the average that's about half of their total emissions annually so a big deal there but you know of course the the really important caveat there is that the larger social political and cultural context is what sets the stage for that right this is not something that can just

096be on the individual to do on their own cities provide a lot of opportunities to to create this enabling environment and we know that you need both the motivation and the capacity to undertake these changes um another cool finding is that or i mean it's kind of obvious but that you know a lot of these things start off with pilot experiments or just kind of you know spread socially and naturally like wildfire um social equity reinforces our capacity and motivation to be able to undertake a lot of these changes right so equitable societies are going to be able to do more um and yeah just just really emphasizing that the structural environment that you're in and the ways that um that has an important effect on whether or not people are able to undertake some

097of those individual choices or to reduce their emissions um the second little deep dive we can do real quick is into energy systems more broadly so we know that there are a lot of different supply options available to reduce emissions um just like with our demand side measures we need that enabling environment and we need better integration into the grid to actually deploy these there's going to create opportunities of course there will be winners and losers like in everything but it's also clear that the economic outcomes of these transitions could actually be superior to if not at least on par with those of the traditional fossil fuel infrastructure uh you know another kind of important question is will these new energy systems be vulnerable themselves to climate change and we the report finds that climate

098change will indeed affect our local low carbon energy systems but in kind of uncertain ways and also you know kind of depending on the sector or the type of energy so there's more likely to be disruptions in perhaps hydropower or bio energy and it seems that wind and solar resources will really not be compromised in most instances as well so um important to think about but we also know as we saw last winter in texas that you know fossil fuel grids are also vulnerable to the effects of climate change um okay the last kind of deep dive is into just our urban areas of themselves so urban areas are rapidly expanding as global population grows um people are just increasingly moving to urban areas and we know that as we continue to build this infrastructure

099out it can also lock us into high emitting systems for decades to come or it could kind of do the opposite but another thing that's really clear in this report is because of the you know intensity and frequency of these climate events that we're seeing we really urgently need to integrate both mitigation to avoid and adaptation to adjust to climate change and withstand its effects and again this is just another place where there can be synergies between you know emissions reductions and and human well-being and even economic benefits so a lot of opportunities there but it is also a really big challenge um another comment on the urban piece um compact and resource efficient urban growth and kind of co-location of jobs and and houses um mixed land use creating again an environment that supports

100active transit um all of these things could reduce um ghg emissions in cities by a considerable amount compared to business as usual and just like in ar 5 the previous report there's evidence that suggests that population density helps to reduce emissions especially when it comes to commuting but again there's context there's you know broader social trends what are your your social economic status and what are your lifestyle preferences and all of this is going to play a role as well in determining the extent to which that's true for people and i guess i'll just kind of end on on a happy and ann arbor centric note which is that green spaces can also play a role in urban energy mitigation so um we know that they can have cooling effects that reduce the direct energy

101demand and they can help to you know mitigate water use or reduce storm water runoff and and help with water treatment costs so lots of ways that having these kind of uh integrated green blue and gray infrastructures in cities can can reduce our costs make our cities more resilient um and also have those other numerous health and co-benefits so um you can talk or or go through any of that and i'll stop sharing my screen and there's links to the report all the reports will be referenced at the end as well so thanks everyone thank you very much um i i especially want to recognize edie i know she put a lot of effort into um everything that she's done leading up to this presentation not just the presentation itself but all the work that

102she's done um with regards to the ipcc report so um do people have comments or questions concerns uh hope despair whatever feelings they want to share it's really remarkable go ahead go ahead go ahead i just want to say it's it's really remarkable that we have the solutions in hand to solve the problem and the costs are not you know they're less than the costs of letting climate change go unchecked this is really a problem with the fossil fuel industry and their power i think but it's really great that in michigan we have numerous uh communities and we have the state really moving forward on climate change and i think that'll make a big difference if we can show in a heartland uh purple state that we can do this it maybe will convince a

103lot of others that we can do this commissioner colin garcia thank you um thanks for presenting this uh commissioner juno and commissioner peck um it's super informative um and i appreciate the hope that you're presenting here um my just i just have a comment and it has to do with the um the willingness of utilities to really um you know they there's so much that rides on you know the the velocity of their responses to you know transition to electrification um you know not just at a single property level but just you know at it within a small region or a distribution area um and i'm just hoping that that we can we can create something for impacting this sooner rather than later member breaks thanks um i appreciate the sort of summary of this

104it's good to good to hear it's concise um and i guess it's reassuring to know that in some ways in a policy level that a lot of our policies in the city of ann arbor are pointing us in the right direction i mean we have a lot of issues with funding and different things like that i guess something that just dawned on me that just is relevant for this group um you may or may not know um i think we are likely to be updating our comprehensive land use plan um starting this coming year and certainly the um the elements in it all um currently direct us towards um uh mixed use we are pointing in the direction mixed-use development mini and increased density in some areas but um there's also some some conflict between

105different elements of our of our land use plans and a need for an update so just wanted to give a heads up to folks here and also folks who are listening to kind of the focus that that's coming um down the pipeline and there's going to be a need to be really thinking about um ensuring that our next plan is aligned land use plan is really aligned with our our climate action goals and so maybe thinking about how osi will help to promote that as well other comments and questions there's little doubt in michigan the bad actor is dt um you know you can talk about line five and enbridge and stuff but it's really dte and i and i think you hit the nail on the head there about the utilities um they're parked

106they're a big part of the problem and it would be wonderful to think of a way to get them to relent and be an agent of change but the problem with tt as far as i can tell is they're really uh plugged in you know they get a lot of money out of gas natural gas and they want to perpetuate that as long as they possibly can it would also be you know if you look at the governor's uh healthy uh climate plan she wants to get coal phased out faster than bt is presently doing it i think um and god we gotta get out of those cold points it's faster than dta wants to i don't know what we can do about that a quick comment to that uh i don't know if how

107many of you saw this um a group in detroit it actually is a group that is established to promote um women in management ranks in uh businesses in michigan in southeastern michigan um hosted co-hosted an event um with catherine hey ho and with the chairman and president of dte hailing him as a person who's making pushing dte to make great progress on climate action i actually wrote the president of nature conservancy here in michigan and she called me and we talked for about a half an hour but it's um as as we all know vested interests whether it's fossil fuel or whatever is really problematic in making this transition i had two quick questions i'm wondering if you would be able to comment on what i'm hearing reading seeing is that the likely path that

108we're on is gonna have us land somewhere between around 2.2 and 2.9 c does that sound right it's hard to say um but yeah i mean if uh things persist somewhere you know up to three degrees i would say yeah it's quite reasonable i mean if you think about what what the political situation is in the united states and the likelihood of getting some kind of climate policy in place that was included in buildback better and what might happen in 2022 and 2024 i mean that's that's really pretty gloomy for me um yeah and i think that's why we really have to focus more i mean i you know i share your gloom uh your your uh despair there but i also think if we could really focus on state-level action in our state and

109i think we have more to offer than any other state outside maybe of california in terms of showing the path forward california can do it because they have such a a great political majority and they are got a such a good head start and they're so big but we really need to demonstrate that states like ours these really you know essentially purple states um can do the job as well and get a better economy out of it and michigan has a really good advantage in the sense that mobility is our primary industry and that you know it could really could take off like a whole bunch of teslas if it's done right um in the sense that these cars will be marketable uh will be well sold all around the world and what worries me

110the most is that we'll go so slow that china you know who's making a lot of electric vehicles now will capture those markets you know anyone who's traveled in africa for example knows it's it's japanese cars you know and we need to get our electrified mobility into the marketplace and at an affordable price point so everybody can start to electrify really quickly and that will you know that's a big win for us and they're obviously we have to have renewable energy powering them uh so that's the second thing we have to do and those are both pretty easy to do now at a really affordable cost relative to fossil fuels um so you know there's a real chance for us um to make that move and let's see if we can do it and i

111think that's so we just need to mobilize somehow in michigan you know if we try and think about the national problem too much you know we end up sort of staring at headlamps and our headlights not getting enough done the states that are in the climate alliance u.s climate alliance have more than half the population of the country and more than half the gdp so you know we can we can we got to really figure out how to keep those projects going when you end up with a non-uh democratic governor say you know so that's a to me that's the number one thing to figure out and if we figure out in michigan again it's not just that we set an example we also maybe could figure out you know the secret sauce that gets

112introduces bipartisanship and climate action you know people start saying jesus that's the only way to really have a strong economy in the future and the only way to attract talent for industry you know um [Music] and we don't want the old-fashioned industry we want the new industry the things that you know want amazon you know we want those kinds of places in michigan and this could be a way to get that because their employees will want to be here where the cost of living is affordable unlike the east and west coast where um beautiful recreations nearby lots of water and what we have to solve are things like dte thanks and i think as everybody points out every tenth of a degree makes a difference so we shouldn't be giving up commissioner george thank you

113mr chairman um and thank you uh jonathan and edie for the presentation very informative um yeah i want to make a couple of quick points here um on my last meeting uh here and i appreciate my time here on the energy commission uh but uh you know firstly i agree you know we need to be looking at what are ways we can incentivize a quicker transition around energy i do hope those companies have greater social responsibility to their workers and to their local communities than some companies mention there um given their poor track record with workers uh both amazon and tesla there and it just as a reminder for folks that a lot of those jobs uh in the incumbent industries do pay their workers at a much higher rate than similar work in renewables

114too so it is important that a just transition does occur and that we do not have a repeat of the de-industrialization that largely happened in this country uh and that hollowed out the middle class um so just as a reminder on that as that conversation moves forward as i depart the commission but i would say of equal value i think it's very important and i've sensed this thread throughout this whole meeting of this climate defeatism uh that i think is very important that we avoid falling into i think you know mr chairman you mentioned just a second ago that every single tenth of a degree does matter i remember uh several years ago now uh four or five years ago uh doing my uh senior uh project on climate change and the projections and i

115remember the high end of the ipcc's projections uh being you know four and a half degrees so five degrees uh and now we're talking three degrees you know as uh you know three and a half is more of a possible higher end and i think that it is important that we remember that the progress that has been made there has been substantial and yes we have a lot of work left to do but it is important to recognize the progress that has been made so that we can continue to have hope and have the intent and the energy to continue to do the good work because that as it will get harder and the work will be more trying and so forth but it is important that we remain hopeful and optimistic and realize that

116every 10th degree as you just said does matter and that's uh the the worst case scenarios that were discussed 10 or 20 years ago largely seem hopefully off the table uh the way that things are moving so just i wanted to end on a hopeful note thanks we're going to have you come back and offer a public comment every so often and give us a good pep talk any other comments okay good so uh next point on the agenda is officer elections and liaison to the environmental commission so we have two officers one is chair and the other is vice chair and we also have to collect a liaison to the environmental commission those all take effect um essentially after this meeting but effectively you know next month's meeting so um first of all uh

117i'd like to open it up for nominations for chair of the commission commissioner garcia as i nominate john mursky you for chair the energy commission are there is there a second and then we'll ask for other nominations second from commissioner cumber and commissioner peck uh any other nominations my folks i make this a good good competition here we like you yeah okay you know you're you put a lot of time into it i do indeed that's really invaluable and you know what you're doing okay um so all those in favor of john bursky me being a chair for another one-year term uh please say i and raise your hand hi okay that looks unanimous other than me and i'll abstain so uh but i accept that outcome and i i appreciate the vote of confidence

118um so moving on to vice chair can i get a nomination for a vice chair i nominate commissioner calvin garcia as vice chair and i'll second that do we have any other nominations seeing none um all those in favor of commissioner calvin garcia as vice chair please raise your hand and say aye aye looks also unanimous carlene congratulations i look forward to being my partner going forward thanks and then uh liaison to the environmental commission um it's my understanding that you're gonna step down from that and don't want to serve again or are you open to being nominated again i'm open to being nominated again but i'm also interested to see if anybody else is interested so do we have anybody else that's interested in serving on the environmental commission or do we put this

119way do i have a nomination for the environmental commission liaison i nominate commissioner juno to continue to serve as the environmental liaison and now second seconds so um commissioner mccomber seconded by commissioner peck and commissioner george all those in favor say hi i again you have unanimous vote so it looks like you have the same slate of people representing you going forward in the next year thanks very much the dream team yeah good thing we're not playing basketball at least i'll speak for myself okay so um we might actually beat 8 30 here uh report from osi and news from commissioners yeah i'll share uh i could circulate after this we just sent out a newsletter yesterday so that's the easiest way to get the update for all the things that are happening so i'll

120make sure everyone has access to that and if you haven't received it it's because you are not subscribed to this sustainability list server at the city of ann arbor and we should probably fix that but i will make sure you will have it a few kind of just housekeeping things i wanted to share our zoom accounts are all being updated for security purposes today uh so you will have a new zoom link that comes forward after this meeting i wanted to get through this meeting and not confuse anyone just to let you know so i'm going to delete the calendar invitations and resend them nothing tragic is happening it's just with the zoo at new zoom link and then uh lastly i wanted to share as we're closing out the fiscal year which feels impossible

121that july 1 is right around the corner but it is uh we have some funding we have a little bit of funding left in the sustaining ann arbor together grant program and so we're encouraging people if you know of a project that wants to move forward it takes about six weeks to get through all of the paperwork and the review process but the application is really really simple and so it should just take an hour or so for someone to apply for the funding then we just have to go through our internal uh processes to make sure we do diligence on the grant so please let any organizations that you know that might be interested know that we have some funding available it's up to ten thousand dollars to do something in the public space

122so it can't be on private property um if that property is not open to everyone but it can be anything in the sustainability landscape so pretty creative opportunity uh lots of really good things there but help us we really appreciate if you could help us get the word out and i think i think for just sake of time i'll end by saying we're getting close to 2 000 comments on the seu so please do continue to let your networks know that we're seeking as much feedback as possible and that closes june 30th and then the last thing is save save the date y'all june uh 5th through 11th is 820 week and it is shaping up to be glorious i am really excited about all of the things that are coming from a dance party

123for the earth that we're happening on that's happening on main street we're working with earth and ales and traverse city and they're doing a climate brew which tastes like crap they tasted it yesterday they said it tastes like funk uh and that's intentional so that it mirrors what climate change is going to do to beer in the in our region we have a local farm to table dinner that's taking place on tuesday night there's all kinds of really fun and interactive ways to engage so i hope we see you and your neighbors out around town june 5th or 11th thanks john thank you i know a lot of people don't like the taste of any beer so hopefully this the taste of this beer is the same as the pure that doesn't appeal to other

124people but appeals to the rest of us that would not work if you're like this tastes great very good uh updates from commissioners oh i do have one question missy if you may what's um the status of uh all the different acronyms um h-e-s-t-o-m-h-e head head um what the time of market where where where does that stand yeah is it just had or were there others that you wanted to know about too just just just yeah yeah okay home energy disc uh home energy audit disclosure nope head heard home energy rating disclosure that's what it is now it has changed hence the acronym soup of this uh we are uh we're making really good progress on that we've got fabulous feedback from legal on uh the kind of tweaks that we need to go through

125zach's been working with some realtors to really test that process make sure that we we kind of have the support and i imagine you'll see it soon we we were focusing our outreach at the time on green rental housing just because of kind of uh saturation if you will from the public but we're we're really close that's kind of on its heels great question yeah you'll see it i would imagine sometime in the next few months okay two months uh updates from commissioners just news in general newsworthy items you know you have anything to share and then also work group updates um any update i guess um carlene that would be you if anyone i do have a very quick update uh of happenings with the transportation electrification committee uh the still the ongoing update

126to the electric vehicle readiness ordinance um the amendments are uh still in being made and and reviewed and modified this is actually all being done inside of amendments to the city's overall parking standards which are going to be significant and i'm not going to go into them at this time um i am it's fairly complicated and i'm probably not the best person to speak to it but inside of that are our changes to the ev readiness organism basically uh requirements for properties to have uh the necessary electrical infrastructure to support eb charging um so the next the current admiration is going to be being presented to the planning commission um later this month the other update is about uh the current project that we're the the transportation electrification committee is working on um and that's

127basically we are creating the electric vehicle charging chapter for the city standard specifications and our work is still in progress any comments from anyone else okay good we are back to public input so again this is an opportunity for members of the public 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 [Music] 937 six seven five one six eight one nine this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hands one by one using the last three digits of your phone number and in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone and you will hear an automated announcement

128that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area mute any background noises and finally state your name address at the beginning of your comments all our ending in five three four good evening this is tom stallberg calling from 1202 traverse street in lowertown in ann arbor uh i am a landlord and participated in the green rental housing task force uh so i want to throw a couple thoughts out there there were some good comments made about that i really look forward to the results of the dry run to see you know anything you put down on paper you got to test it out and see how it's working and there's always going to be some things that shake out after that so i'm looking forward to the results

129of that um in terms of the comments about uh this being mandatory and the ability for maybe carrot or versus sticks uh it is really interesting this this is gonna be mandatory we we do not have a right to rent our our property out so we have to meet the housing code uh and every two and a half years we have to get a new certificate of compliance uh otherwise we cannot rent that property out um so there's that's good in terms of uh we're gonna have to perform we're gonna it's definitely gonna make us work uh i do wanna throw on a couple things just for thought uh right now there are labor issues and this works on both sides the city is behind uninspecting property because again labor shortage uh and for us

130i'm a relatively small landlord my company manages less than 20 buildings and some duplexes so total units is maybe a couple dozen and there's just two of us we're a small company so we have to hire the labor so i know right now it's hard for us to get labor when we want to do something and and nobody's going to be surprised to hear that uh i don't want sympathy i'm not whining i'm running a business it's my job to figure it out it's my job to comply with the rules that's business but just from a practical standpoint we are looking at an interesting labor market let's say that so i hope that that's uh factored in when people figure out uh you know what the final rules are going to be that it is

131going to be mandatory uh just to throw something out there as an example we want to upgrade a gas dryer to an electric dryer well we gotta hire an electrician to do the electrical work um if we're upgrading say to uh from gas water gears to electric water heaters we might need to update the panel or at least put in a new sub-panel uh so just the backlog and getting the electrician to do that uh so i'm not against complaining just putting some practicalities out there i think it should be mandatory i think we need that push to make sure we get there but i hope that there's some leniency if it's not looking like uh that we're everybody's able to make it it's one thing to say that we should should do it and

132it's mandatory to do it but uh the penalty for us of not making that score is we don't get to rent our house out at all so it's an all or nothing a little tough on the penalty side so maybe that could be looked at thank you for your attention thank you for your insights caller ending in 134 ken garber come on in thank you dr staltz and chair mursky ken garber again i'm calling with a local building electrification update last thursday city council unanimously approved a 12-year tax abatement for the proposed sartorius research industrial building off ellsworth road this is a good project in many ways but it's going to burn gas for heat sartorius modeled its building energy use intensity at 250 kilobtus per square foot per year from that one can calculate

133greenhouse gas emissions which i calculate come to 4160 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions annually from burning natural gas for perspective the city's 3.2 megawatt solar city facilities initiative which will cost the city 6.6 million dollars will save seven hundred five metric tons from being emitted and the two plus megawatts installed so far through solarize will save another 1900 metric tons that's 4 600 tons annual emission savings total so at 4 160 tons the sartorius emissions this one building will almost completely wipe out the emissions gains from solar city facilities and solarize combined so faster than we're putting up solar panels we're destroying our gains by approving gas burning buildings sartorius says it had to go with gas because of the building type um and it is harder to do but i believe in the end

134it was a choice the planning commission just approved two more projects with gas the maple cove two apartments at miller and maple and condos at 212 miller the process has become ritualized a commissioner asks the developer to go all electric or at least install induction cooktops the developer says maybe they'll think about it staff states that the project complies with all laws and ordinances and it's then approved this is not planning commission's fault we have no policy that addresses gas in new construction the iecc zero code appendix even if it passes in michigan won't go into effect for at least two years doesn't exclude gas and doesn't apply to low-rise residential we badly need more housing in ann arbor but it has to be all-electric otherwise we're locking in greenhouse gas emissions for the rest

135of the century these buildings make initiatives like ev charging green rental housing energy concierge the seu solarize etc feel like exercises in futility next up is the village 564 homes town homes and apartments on 59 acres off duverin road if the village goes with gas i calculate it will generate 7 300 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions a year i don't think it's overstating things to say this would be fatal to our 820 goals the city should hold the line and insist the village put in heat bumps not furnaces this project needs rezoning which is discretionary that means the city has leverage will it use that leverage tune in when this project hits planning commission and then city council thanks thank you for your comments and i encourage you to keep on providing them and holding

136us holding our feet to the fire i might also just mention if i may um we're building a lot of tall buildings and building in in ann arbor there's all you need to do is go down around campus and go downtown and all those buildings that we're building including cannibal housing commission buildings are using concrete and structural steel and those have very high embodied energy and so each and every one of these decisions are decisions that are locking us in to emissions for many many years and even if the building is all electric uh and is powered by renewable energy the emissions in these tall buildings are going to the embodied emissions in these buildings is going to be greater than the operational emissions over the next 20 years so these are the the critical

13720 years that we keep on talking about and one by one we are stuck into making decisions that are really making it more and more difficult for us to meet our a20 targets so thanks hello thank you for allowing me that editorial comment um also a public comment i guess you could say that takes us to the last point on our agenda which is items for the next agenda and our next meeting is on june 14th i believe it is and um missy and carlene i don't think we have a particularly packed agenda in fact i'm not even sure if we have anything other than maybe some updates on some of the things that we've been talking about possibly um so we are wide open uh we will certainly missy carlene and i will look

138at the list of topics that we established in january and uh see if we can arrange for some of those to be presented or discussed um but we are certainly appreciative of any ideas or suggestions any of you have so please raise them now um or if not then get with missy carlene and me after the meeting anytime and presumably preferably i should say sooner rather than later um so that we can get people on board and get their presentation ready and be ready and willing to go a month from now any anybody have any particular guidance for us or any suggestions on agenda items i'm going to assign you all homework then to scratch your heads and see if you can come up with something and um let us know okay so that is

139it um it is 8 19 p.m and um as chair i declare this meeting adjourned thank you for your time this evening and thank you for your service again um robert in particular i guess you're the only one that's present tonight we thank you very much again and best of luck you