Energy Commission 11-12-19

001staying on schedule since we won't need to vote immediately let's um go ahead and we'll call the meeting to order and hopefully we'll get another remember too soon um so councilmember Eaton commissioner McCoy Commissioner Hatcher Schreiber here thank you okay so we have the agenda in front of us I don't believe we can officially improve it but are there any requests for changes quick comment off roll call Commissioner clay V is excused so to speak tonight he had surgery and can't make it he's supposed to be watching on closed-circuit TV tonight so mark we wish you the best and quick recovery and looking forward to having you back yeah thanks we did have several other folks who let us know that they wouldn't be able to make it due to the weather conditions school cancellations

002and all the loops that that throw it in people's plans I think Commissioner Holcomb I exchanged emails with him earlier today and I think he's planning on being yeah great okay um so nothing for the agenda the minutes those were sent out are there any changes or feedback on the minutes okay good well at this time we open it up for public input and ice we do have a member of the public here with us today if you'd like to provide input to us you're welcome to speak for a few minutes on an energy topic and just please come to the microphone if so um I don't really have an official input I would just like to introduce myself I am the deputy government relations coordinator with central student government and arresting Michigan and so

003I'm going to start coming to a lot of like City local county meetings and I have business cards if you like them but I'm excited to hear you all speak today um and thank you thank you what's your name Oh Kyla McCallum there yeah great thanks so much for coming glad to see you here okay moving on then to the Energy Report news from the Energy Office and from commissioners Josh did you want to talk about sure yeah start off with a fire station install I wanted to thank everyone who came out as a commissioner mirskiy Marc Lieb you who isn't here right now and the special thanks to Chuck hook'em Arlene Colvin Garcia we had a great turnout we had about 50 volunteers ended up coming out for the install so yeah I'm happy

004to say that it's now all up there on the fire station and we're looking for our next project outside of that we also have some rather large news as far as a carbon-neutral Town Hall that's coming up tomorrow and so that's something where we're going to be bringing together some experts community experts in different areas some community members organizations kind of partner organizations to talk a little bit about and kind of introduce the idea of carbon neutrality after the resolution passed so that is that's all the news I got thank you bit more about the son of the format and goal goals event sure yeah of course so I think for the carbon neutral Town Hall it's really an introduction to this idea of again Ann Arbor going carbon neutral I think we're trying to

005make sure that we're bringing together as many community assets as we can as kind of think partners I think tomorrow is really the the first push for that I was talking to chair Alinsky a little bit earlier as far as the process I do think that they'll definitely be a point in which you know we're currently I think forming ideas and kind of figuring out what's out there as far as what's possible but there will definitely be a point in which we'll be coming back to the Commission's as well as City Council or kind of a review and input on those decisions yeah thank you and I think I know several of us on the Commission as it gets stood up and gets more formalized would like to just understand how how we will be

006interacting with the advisory groups right the technical advisory groups you know just to make sure that where possible we are leveraging each other rather than stepping on toes and certainly at a minimum make sure we're not marching in opposite directions without at least having a conversation and making sure that that's really what we want to be doing so I think you know my personal perspective is the more the merrier we certainly could use all the help that we can on this extremely ambitious goal so we just want to make sure that it's kind of as seamless as possible yeah and I should also stress that it's really the first of many meetings I think it's just kind of the introduction but we'll make sure to keep the energy commission the rest of everything is going

007to thank you I have a question whether we do it now or later but just with the passing of their climate emergency by the council and their carbon neutrality target kind of how that you know how we want to work that into what we're doing with I think the climate neutrality summit was set up before that I mean not necessarily directly related but obviously now more related figure out how we get all those things to work together and I think we'll get more clarity I think it should be maybe recorded in the minutes that we request the Energy Commission requests in the next meeting some type of formal clarification of what is the structure how the Energy Commission is or is not going to be involved or is going maybe that's not the way proper

008way of saying it but how are we going to combine forces or how are we going to divide responsibilities so that we work efficiently and effectively I guess agree getting sort of a briefing and strategy session with with it's with you or endure Missy for next time would be great enough next time to work session that we're yeah so if it's a work session I think that's even time to do it okay other news I can share one thing there was a question from at least one Commissioner a number of months back about what DTE is doing around natural gas sustainability and so I just wanted to share a very brief update on that DTE has joined it's a voluntary group it's called the natural gas supply collaborative and you can google them and they

009have a pretty thorough webpage that explains who their membership is and what they're attempting to do and how right now there's 13 participating utilities it's a lot of large utilities names you would have heard of Con Ed PG&E natural National Grid Xcel Northwest natural some of those players on DTE and it is focused on supply chain sustainability in the natural gas industry so they are they are a voluntary group and their approach is working with the producers and transporters of natural gas on voluntary initiatives what they're starting with is a request for voluntary reporting they have a scorecard essentially of 14 indicators around social and environmental performance in the areas of emissions water chemical usage and kind of community and workforce impacts and that is the that is kind of the first push I think

010there's a lot more that will be coming from this group and and I will certainly share if there are updates and maybe you know in the future we can bring someone in to speak about it when there's been a few more months of progress here could you repeat the name of the group again the natural gas supply collaborative Thanks you're welcome okay anything else Sun energy news all right I suggest the revision to the agenda yes we expect at least one or two more people to come then we would have a quorum then we can actually do something on it so what if we want to jump to committee updates and did that and then move back to the two other issues that both require a quorum for action does that make sense to everything

011so it's the proper way to do that is the table those two items okay you action items until perfect do we need to vote to table we can't vote to table that we just say we're gonna table it I think you probably should move to table okay well then I will move to table the two items and move to second all in favor okay all opposed just have to ask okay so we will move on to the committee updates and let's go to the lighting ordinance one so this continuing to drag on but also move on planning department headed by Bret Leonard has assigned Joel Thayer to work with the lighting ordinance working group we met with her approximately a week ago reviewed the ordinance and a lot of questions that she had she also

012was interested in other communities and what their experience was with their ordinances what the content was and also what their experience was in introducing them so we provided her contacts around the country Pennsylvania Minnesota and Arizona and so she's going to be working on that in the past we've been sort of just interfacing on sort of a ad-hoc basis with the Planning Commission and planning we'd met with Brett before and also with the Planning Commission but now we have someone assigned I think I'd mentioned that at least from our perspective the ordinance draft is essentially in final form and this is now just tweaking that draft with the input of planning and then having it go to legal for a final review before it gets voted on and then passed on to Council so step

013by step we're getting there if if nothing else this shows how these and some of these are how slowly some of these things move and how they need to move more quickly if we're serious about achieving climate neutrality in the next ten and a half years thank you Energy Audit disclosure ordinance yeah I can help date on that too and the next one as well the the audit disclosure ordinance is also in draft form as I think we reported last time Josh and Missy had a meeting with an IRA Board of Realtors and two representatives of the board the current and the incoming board presidents attended our last meeting we reviewed the the ordinance the thinking behind the ordinance with them they expressed some concerns and suggested some alternatives we agreed that they and we

014would do some more research they were going to be attending a conference out I believe it was on the west coast where they were going to have an opportunity to talk to people from other communities that have implemented similar ordinances we were going to try to get some more information from a contact that we had a PhD from the University of Michigan who since moved on to the University of Alabama I probably mentioned her before and our meeting is next Tuesday and the EB readiness that's also essentially in more or less final draft form we made some tweaks to the ordinance based on primarily written communication between members of the working group there were some perceived inconsistencies between the requirements in the parking table in terms of percentages of different levels of EB readiness for

015primary uses and accessory uses we've addressed those and then there were a couple of other things that were recognized in the ordinance that needed to be clarified so we've drafted new language to do that and I believe that group meets two weeks from today so hopefully that'll be in a position where we can then bring that to this Commission and then okay the meeting about in after the passing of the climate emergency resolution you know we still want to continue forward with what we've done so far as basically the baseline but maybe moving forward when you die and this baseline is not gonna come anywhere near achieving the targets of the car carbon neutrality by 2030 so it's kind of next step after this would be trying to target or tie this towards those targets

016thank you and I think we're gonna also have to rethink you know what is what are the implications of the climate emergency resolution of the target of 2030 in terms of broader let's say mobility energy infrastructure you know gas stations and fast charging and everything else all these things have to be looked at in a in their engine and their interdependencies in a very broad fashion transportation subcommittee in January 2020 right okay thanks I'm outreach to schools normally Commissioner Colvin Garcia provides that I believe she's watching this evening environmental Commission sorry John back to you so maybe real quickly obviously everybody probably knows that the bond passed the school bond passed and I think that's one thing that we'll be looking to hear from Carlene and from Ann Arbor Public Schools is how are they

017going to move forward with specific plans on how to spend that and what would be the energy and sustainability more broadly implications of that spending environmental Commission to keep things brief we basically considered three things the first was the carbon neutrality resolution and I don't think it's necessary to go into that because council addressed that and passed that last Monday secondly there was a presentation by food gatherers about what they're doing in terms of solid waste diversion obviously that being food so that doesn't go to landfill and in landfill it's when it decomposes generates greenhouse gases and by the way by diverting things also from landfill the city is saving on landfill fees and there was a resolution that was presented and passed encouraging staff are not asking staff to evaluate whether or not food

018gatherers should be compensated for the kind of that it's doing in terms of essentially compensating them financially for the diversion that they're doing so that should be studies it should needs to be obviously looked at in terms of what that would mean in terms of a precedent to other kinds of organizations but the request was to ask staff to to look at that the other thing that I would mention relative to food gathers that's of interest to this group is they have a hundred and sixty kilowatt solar system that they just installed on their roof the interconnection is still waiting right now I was out there about a week ago myself and met with the executive director and a number of issues and saw this system and it's it's really great so they're doing some

019good things and the third thing was a resolution was passed asking council to direct staff to provide support to the natural features working group to look at developing and ordinance that would protect landmark or some people call them heritage trees and that was also passed those are the three major things that we're done thank you okay staying on our agenda item for committee updates then we went a little bit out of order but we have a solar access ordinance subcommittee and we will speak on that now sounds good thank you sorry I'm late so there's been a fair amount of work going on behind the scenes on this topic and I sent out thanks Josh for sending it to the Commission today this morning sorry I didn't get it out any earlier um John as

020normal gave me very prompt comments so I thought I would catch his comments as I walked a little bit through this document the introduction just kind of talks about the history of what we've been trying to accomplish Medicus reference to a resolution that the City Council passed outside the back of your distribution that you received wherein it gave direction for us to pursue this or excess concept from a committee point of view to see what things we could do and what other entities have done statewide citywide so that's what introduction does some key definitions on the solar access John you had made a comment in terms of property ownership and you're right there should be nonprofit government non-government organization or NGOs included because anyone could own property where this might apply so that's been adopted

021kind of walking through it we have what we could term to be a solar easement we're in a piece of property has attached to it potentially an easement that describes what might be constituted in terms of limitations if an adjacent property owner decided to build something large or voluminous that might encumber their particular solar system so we talked a little bit about that SCS is simply the hardware of the solar system and talk with it about an ordinance so we then move into alternatives and we really found three alternatives for this group to consider the first one was do-nothing citing some of the ideas that we have already a challenging corroding process in the city we also looked at a solar access to the burning process which has been done effectively in a few other

022cities in this country and now we moved into solar or easements which are more restrictive more definitive perhaps less flexible process wherein we put in easement language in an ordinance and a future developer or builder owner who wants to build something might have to go through a whole series of check boxes to see if he could or could not build that particular provements so that has also been enacted it works in a few other cities predominantly that one in California so we ought to talk much more about California tonight but John you have made mentioned a few different suggestions in that easement where and we talked a little about I revised the first sentence to read existing PV owners and new owners identified through filing for PV specific building permits can secure solar access easements

023that either prevent new adjacent construction or landscaping from impacting their investment or offer a reasonable alternative solution such as through compensation so it kind of covers different ways that could be addressed the last sentence I addressed in terms of doing nothing through access through permitting so this is a more restrictive approach but again it's been done in other cities the last part of page 2 we do a little bit of compare and contrast of the different alternatives in terms of different features then we got into decision making so mostly this has been Josh doing heavy lifting with the Planning Group this has also been presented I think graphically to the legal group they're still working on this to figure out what we're gonna do in the middle part of page three I talked a little

024bit about what I think one of our conclusion was being following what we call alternative B I have provided an update since what you received this morning were and I basically went into the existing building permit form that existed the city it's a very simple approach I can't really show it very easily but basically in the form it's a checklist format where the owner or their design professional goes through and actually makes application to build something there's a series of different requirements whether they've been done or not like soil bearing pressure whether the barrier-free design rules have been applied whether the plans have been sealed and submitted for various aspects of architectural electrical fire suppression others item 18 in that is I have attached documentation for the energy core requirements so it actually dives into

025a little bit of energy efficiency it would be very simple in this building permit application to add a block 19 relative to have submitted a shading analysis if it's applicable and if it does impact neighboring properties that the neighboring property owner has been contacted and that there's a document that's submitted with the building permit fairly simple if there's a dispute about that we would expect the two property owners to try to settle that amicably and then we suggested that perhaps the Planning Commission could weigh in if there is a mediation needed to weigh in on something that's reasonable as far as a amicable settlement all this is obviously suggested at this structure we have not done anything with the City Council obviously I think Josh the next step is waiting for planning and legal to

026come back to us as to whether this is even going to make sense to move forward basically I wanted to present this as saying I think the subcommittee's gone too it's reaching bound here we're supposed to disband in 2019 so I think we're leaning toward that I hope that there is direction given to us to offer something up to City Council one question for this group is we're not going to have a formal meeting in December so there would probably be a resolution that would go to City Council resolution what we plan to do with this so that would be the next step if we're not meeting as a commission how do I suppose January probably bring a resolution in January yeah or alternatively we we don't necessarily have to pass a resolution here for

027me to bring it to council so unless there's strong feeling that needs to be reviewed before it goes to council if it comes out of planning and legal informed I can take forward okay so I would be interested in what others think you know yep which would one of the things that you guys are really good at is is kind of flexed by thinking to work so that you know our lawyers can't know everything about this subject matter although they they tend to the the legal constraints that that go with anything like this so you might find value in waiting until January mm-hmm I'm not sure that one month was gonna make that big a difference yeah I guess my suggestion to is we're putting everybody under the microscope here as far as read it

028today and give us feedback so I would expect this body to be able to read this over the next month month and a half and if there are recommendations in parallel to legal we come together maybe before the end of the year I appreciate that offer and maybe through correspondence we'll figure out what to do next and if it does need to be voted on by this body certainly January's probably horrible would you like just oh we are hoping to have response from legal by then so that might work out really nicely has plan been involved in the process up until now they have and have did they receive this white paper or draft and any feedback that you can mention to us if you go out on Google Docs you'll find all these documents

029an older version of the white papers actually there along with all the references and supporting documents there's correspondence out there in my conversation of city of Boulder so you'll see that there's that informations available we reviewed that with Matt who works for mr. Leonard and Matt was going to take it forward he had some action items to talk to us some other cities to get his flavor of what that looks like that's about all I've heard so far have you heard much else Jeff yeah so he reviewed it and then that's all going to legal as we speak so right now it's really in legals realm and they want to kind of as councilmember Eaton was saying they want to kind of see the boundaries as to you know what what is legally possible and

030get a better scope for it I would be interested to hear the feedback from legal before deciding how we as a commission take action on it I also have another question if we're sort of open for discussion on this now I I believe in this paper it says or we've talked previously about preserving existing and future access and I wondered if you had had discussions about your recommendation on how to approach that and what you know what boundaries you'd set on to me the future access thing opens that can of worms that I can just imagine what that might look like so how did you guys think about that a little bit bigger leap to take at this juncture to protect somebody else's rights I mean it would be impossible to presume with someone like

031you on our property so there's really no way now on the eastman front you can secure an easement in some states to preserve your space on your roof for that solar access so there is an easement process looking forward but I would suggest that that's not the suggestion we're taking on which is alternative B which is an existing landowner that's made an investment in a solar a so just to protect what he invested but I was thinking about the private property rights of the individual living next door or that's fine if you have an existing homeowner and an existing neighbor but what kind of real estate disclosures or other things would have to be necessary if the neighbor sells their property and the new person purchasing the home decides that they want to add a

032second story to that home and it's perfectly legal for them to set a second story and maybe it interferes or maybe they plant a tree and it interferes I mean there's any number of things that could be ya know be language in the ordinance that suggests how this process would work okay and they would point them to the building permit process so that if you were you know looking ahead to build something in the future you'd have to at least go through this and say this is a this is a potential risk that we can't do that when they're buying the property I know you know this whole case really came up in spades recently for the solar problems had popped up which is that huge apartment complex on Huron were that one particular gentleman

033who owned property and his trees I think have since died that property rights access issue is it's pretty important now again I don't know that we can protect the vegetation we're trying to keep this very concise to solar and particularly the people that have invested and putting solar on the roofs around their yard that they don't get a neighbor that suddenly illuminates their investment so that's the primary purpose of this charge and I can absolutely appreciate that but then you're also potentially infringing on another person's right you don't want your neighbor to put on a second story so you put up a few panels and you're set right I mean obviously there would have to be a lot of so yeah I'll be interesting to hear what legal has to say because this absolutely people

034we should try to protect they should have a mechanism in which to try to protect their investments but it's very difficult to balance that against private primary owner rates in and adjacent parcel so I really interesting to hear what - trees - all different kinds of things so if it's very interesting I view this to be kind of a baby step as opposed to a leap I figured a leap would not work so a baby step might have some fighting chance yeah just comment will be similar I mean those things that wouldn't require a new a new building permit application I mean I'd be interested in I'm sure you've done the research on this and what other communities have done so tree is a great example right so some of the plants a giant tree

035that shades the solar you'll need a there's no building permit required for those types of things and so I guess what you're proposing is pretty limited in scope I'd be curious what a broader scope would look like well you know one in the Ann Arbor again city of Ann Arbor who's that 200 year old oak tree that's a massive tree from where it was - somebody get some other place that could have been blocking somebody's solar PV array no how would that have been dealt with you know I don't know how that works in the university probably wouldn't have got a building permit to do it they would just go ahead and put it in so I'm not sure we can cover every possibility but and vegetation gets even more difficult - to police because

036it grows right so I believe me I've got solar systems right now where we have tree growth and as soon as the tree growth hits one of the panels in a big array it starts degrading the whole system so you really have to be mindful of the vegetation but I don't know that we can police next our neighbors vegetation it's really different I don't work in any tree protection ordinance as well natural features committee and I mean the Tremont net back here solar array this year you know that they grow and so over a period of time you know probably less than it takes to recoup your investment in a solar panel a tree could include the the Sun and so these are some balancing issues that were facing I'd also be interested in knowing

037whether other cities have looked into developing like protections for looking at even how its impacted like development for affordable housing and multi-family housing units because in this same vein is like you could use it as an excuse to prevent your neighbor from just developing a second floor you could use it as an excuse to prevent an affordable housing or multi-family housing yeah that's taller as opposed to John's comments with zoning maybe that index that but you could use it as a way for like wealthier homeowners to prevent more affordable multi-family homes from being built in their neighbor that's not different so I'd be interested in knowing if other cities have even looked at that or if they're like ways that there can be protections implemented in the policy that if if there's affordable housing involved

038in it maybe you know this doesn't apply I think that kind of gets into zoning you know that's more of a zoning issue and if you if you build your house here and across yo le is affordable housing would this be zoned differently and would that look different in terms of your building permit application and could you do something here to harm that particular zoned property I have seen some of that were these easements that I mentioned then an opportunity or alternative C are written in a way where each particular zoning district of a city gets treated differently and that gets really complicated I can sure that example that I do know that like an across the street from me there were two homes that are now being turned into multi-story condos but whether or

039not they're affordable is a completely different story in downtown Ann Arbor but they went from there property that changed owners they went from being you know one or two story homes and I think they're gonna be potentially three story condos that would if I don't know if this is particularly that case but if there was a house next door that you know the the unit would know it's the sort of change I see a property could change yeah I don't know that I would view this to be protection area in a sense of building something on my house just to prevent something bigger from growing next drawer because we're not necessarily be preventing that new construction we're just saying hey look if somebody's gonna build that larger installation he needs to be somehow aggressive compensated

040maybe the panels on your roof get put on top of their roof there's all kinds of solutions that can be done but it's not preventing so I think we're all reminded about that as long as there can be agreements that's the fairness side of it I deal with the reasonableness clause all the time in my life over access easements I know some of my colleagues do the same here so it's all a balancing act so can we put in a formal request for next month's agenda to have either legal here to specifically share their perspective or to have you represent and we bring up a presentation or something yeah you guys together cover it or legal or whatever yeah okay we'll make it an agenda item for December then John did a good job of

041going through and finding things there might be other little avenues I'd love to see some feedback in terms of your thoughts on the zoning aspect and what all means let me know trying to make something that works thank you you've put a lot of work into this we know it's been great work so thank you okay well that concludes our committee updates then and we had voted to table a couple of our items until we had a quorum so we will now return to the original agenda and the IDA the first item we skipped over was our bylaws this is you should have a copy in front of you of the resolution on our bylaws we had this at our last meeting and didn't have a quorum to vote on it but a few months

042ago we we talked about the changes to the bylaws the city is updating all of the bylaws and so our recommendations at the time were to make really three changes to the bylaws one was to request that the City Council changed the purpose objectives and duties for the Energy Commission as they were written in the 70s they were kind of reflective of the challenges of the 70s around energy supply and energy efficiency so we updated them to reflect the challenges around largely climate and emissions now so that's this middle section we also wanted to update it to add to incremental Commissioner members to be filled by youth commissioners with the criteria for those commissioners defined in the resolution that we passed a couple of months ago about that and then third that we changed the

043City Council members who are currently non-voting members to make them voting members of the Commission so I guess we need to move to introduce this and then we can open a discussion second what do we want to discuss or and this for just for discussion okay yes discussion yes yes you know it is defined it was clearly defined in our resolution in the first resolution we passed about the youth members and I don't have that in front of me so I don't want him to speak I want to say it was like through 25 18 to 25 I think yep and we had to find their terms so if this passes with that council house then there essentially be two open slots for youth commissioners by the way environmental Commission passed a similar resolution in

044terms of adding amuse commissioners so what would what we would do would be consistent if approved by council with what the environmental Commission would be doing as well believe they would go through the same process as any Commissioner so they would submit an application those get reviewed by by the chair and and the City office and then the mayor puts them forth for City Council but because we're doing this we really need to reach out to we're gonna put you behind the two I mean it's always the challenge when we're filling empty seats and on boards and commissions especially when there's a particular type of person we're looking for yes and I believe Commissioner Calvin Garcia has we've talked about that with her in the past she's had some ideas around through her work with

045the schools getting connections to you know the Civic instructors high school government teachers and so forth for the high school and and then certainly lots of connections that we have to the university here as well yeah I think in the Office of Sustainability innovations has now made some contacts through interns and through other means with several student groups the firehouse project was mentioned and the students for clean energy were involved in that climate action movement there's a couple of handful of student related groups sunrise etc so we would certainly want to be reaching out to them environmental Commission would want to be doing the same thing there's also groups that are you know there may be climate related students that are interested in working on the environmental Commission as well so there's can be some

046real reach to a number of different college as well as high school I think we allow down to 16 if I recall correctly didn't we didn't and there there had to be some kind of maybe a parental um I think that was what we agreed parental agreement or release or something wasn't do that yeah I think so yeah [Music] but for the youth they were theywere I want to say it was one year um we didn't think it was reasonable to ask somebody to make a longer commitment than that at that stage of life but they could they could extend and then any youth member who isn't yet voting age would require seven votes in Council for confirmation but I think we did that also for students that live strictly outside the city this the

047city limits so somebody could live in a Township that'd be very very active and apply and I think councilmember Eaton I think there was also a one additional vote or something like that that was required for those kinds of cases as well okay so we're ready to vote on this no no further discussion all right all in favor aye all opposed okay it passes then moving along to the policy agenda so council member Eaton brought this up at our last committee meeting Commission meeting that the city is preparing its policy agenda for the coming year and asked us to provide input to that so he emailed around a copy of the 2020 policy agenda as it's currently drafted and we have a proposal of resolution to consider for proposed additions to that and everyone should

048have that in front of them as well a resolution advising City Council on energy topics for its 2020 policy agenda and and I should clarify because a couple people emailed questions about this the intent of this resolution was as a dish to the existing policy agenda draft that councilmember Eaton sent around and not as supplanting it and you know not eliminating the other ones that were on there that we did not provide commentary on what yeah so I can read it I have a copy here I won't read the whole thing but just those that are related to the energy so so in the interests of protecting the environment as responsible stewards of natural resources the council directs the following some of them are not energy related there's solid waste management water quality another one

049on water to more on water then there's one that says pursue remedies that incent the installation of sustainable and renewable energy resources including but not limited to residential and community solar and wind systems and specifically advocate for the reintroduction and adoption of House bill 51:43 and House bill 56 80 from the 99th legislative session and that is really it from an energy perspective actually there was one that fell in another category in the interest of building and maintaining a sustainable infrastructure the council directs the following and that it was building code related let me see if I can find this one and somewhere in here if somebody else finds it before me please please I didn't turn page four there was one summer that talked about building codes to me I'm sorry I'm not finding

050it right now but um here I'll pass you this copy and you can I have a second copy in case anybody else would like to see it I'll just pass it down this way folks want to peruse through that but I will read I guess the resolution so I guess I'll read the draft oh we need to move to discuss this introduce it and discuss it iMovie read introduce this resolution for discussion consideration by the Commission okay all in favor aye okay so resolution advising City Council on energy topics for its 2020 policy agenda says whereas by the purpose and Duty is set out in its bylaws the Ann Arbor Energy Commission is charged with proposing evaluating recommending and responding to policies and practices related to energy and climate whereas the Ann Arbor City Council

051is preparing its policy agenda for fiscal year 2020 be it resolved the Ann Arbor Energy Commission recommends that the City Council incorporate the following into its policy agenda in the priority order as laid out here because achievement of those higher priority items will make the others more likely to follow naturally support for a national carbon tax consistent with resolution we don't have the number in here but we passed a resolution on this passed by the Energy Commission in some time in 2018 support for federal green New Deal legislation support for a state of Michigan carbon neutrality target support for changes to the state building and energy codes that lead to more energy efficient and sustainable structures and/or which give local jurisdictions authority to implement building codes with stricter energy efficiency and sustainability criteria than those

052at the state level be it resolved that the Ann Arbor Energy Commission recommends that the City Council consider prioritizing or ranking its policy agenda items to reflect the varying degree of potential impact achievable with the different measures open it up for feedback conversation question so I agree that the impact of the federal level ones would be higher but I just I'm wondering like this way that our policy committee has it more on the state level we have more Suites the way at the state level that we might have more opportunity to impact those or do we actually have our policy so we actually employ a lobbyist to works in the state legislature with the state legislature and we don't on the federal level on the other hand we have excellent representation through our two senators

053and our local House member and communicating these ideas to them is as effective but you're right what Ian Arbor says to the US Congress is just one small voice ready so maybe would it make more sense to prioritize the state level stuff if we feel like if I tell you that once it's in the policy agenda every opportunity we get to express an opinion on the subject we will now take advantage of so the order of yours is less important I kind of think although you're right it you've set out the priorities in right before or because some of the lower priorities are just made easier by the accomplishing any higher priorities you get what you chuck I don't think we need to last be it resolved I think everything that's embodied didn't that paragraphs

054already in the previous be it resolved am i reading this wrong because we're basically recommending and the first one that you incorporate the following in the agenda and that's kind of what the second one does yeah well based on councilmember Eaton's feedback you know the prioritization pieces may not matter we could take that even out of here when John and I were discussing this some of the policy items outside of the ones we were recommending here but the broader ones some are big and some are very small and that was where our thinking was that even among those there it might be helpful to prioritize but if it's not if that's not helpful then we're I certainly don't feel any strong strong resolve is necessary I want to reassure you that we have councilmember Smith

055Haner and myself on the policy agenda committee so we may actually initiate a whole new section just and try to be appropriate bullet points under that item and it's a very active committee so they may in fact edit your your suggestions but they'll welcome just like the green new deal is not even legislature know I think it's been retracted yeah yeah I would say too like the the green New Deal legislation since it's not actually legislation anymore right I don't think it ever was right I don't and so and so how can we support a thing that actually isn't a thing and then or is there something else that we could support at the state level to the other commissioners point earlier there may be attributes or pieces that were in the green new deal

056that I just don't understand why you would support the green new deal as it was written at some point and then economically speaking there's a lot of pieces in that green new deal from my my limited understanding that are just not economically viable or feasible so why would we support that if I can just make some general comments so after council Murray Eaton sent out the Kerr agenda I sent a bunch of specifics in an email and copied everyone encouraged every one else to add to the list when Shoshanna and I met we looked at that as my list as well as what was on the current agenda and one of the inputs that councilmember Eaton mentioned to us was make these broad statements don't make don't say support legislation to support HR one two

057three four because one two three four potentially doesn't get passed and it becomes five six seven eight in the next session but basically is the same kind of legislation so what we did is we took a lot of what I had put tried to make it more general I think that also applies to the Green nil deal the green new deal is as you say it's not specifically legislation but it's something that at least I mean one of the things that we wanted to do is go through each one of these today and say thumbs-up thumbs-down because we may agree or disagree individually as well as collectively on what belongs in there so that's why the green New Deal is in there it's in there as a concept just as support for additional renewable energy

058or whatever the statement is in the current bullet point for the agenda it doesn't or if you look at the the current agenda it doesn't give a whole lot of specifics it outlines broad concepts that was the rationale behind I'd like to point out that I've heard a rumor that there will be something along the lines of the green new deal being introduced very soon with some with considerable support there's some kind of climate meeting in Spain in the next couple months there will be some legislators from the United States there who will announce it and all of the many sponsors and I think that you know this is in anticipation that they're gonna try yeah I guess I'd my recommendation would be removing the green new deal so do you think you know I

059actually personally support it but it's more of a concept and in the resolution right now and I think we should you know we do better having specific policy pieces but but I think the thing to add in there and John I believe this was in your initial email but the but the I don't see it in here which is the elements of the bipartisan state bills called powering Michigan forward I know we're talking about not doing specific bills but as I remember them it was basically removing the cap on net metering is actually restoring net metering and those are actually policy proposals that you know they don't they don't stand a great chance in the current far-right legislature of the state but those are things that I think over time could be moved and I'd

060like to see our profit working on those on behalf of the city of Ann Arbor that was in my email and in the back-and-forth that Jean and I had we felt that that fit under the very very broad category that's in the current agenda I mean I would defer to councilmember Eaton's advice on whether we want to do that so I what I had written is support for state legislation which caps which raises the cap on renewable energy participating in net metering / distribution generation increases the capacity of solar category to generator interconnection from 150 kilowatts to 550 50 kilowatts makes micro goods available blah blah blah I mean just goes on and mentions a bunch of specifics so and the existing let wording which I passed out sorry so I can't read it but

061that said support for increasing renewable energy right so which legislation or via which tactics again that bullet pursue remedies that incent the installation of sustainable and renewable energy resources including but not limited to residential and community solar and wind systems dot-dot-dot so we thought that that covered lobbyists at general direction but I would not be offended if somebody moved and seconded adding the language that John just read so it's more particularized you know so that we really have a goal because you want both the general language so that the committee doesn't have to meet every time a bill was introduced but you also want some particular eyes language so that we can actually kind of try to make it happen you know try to get our legislators to bring something of this re which I

062mentioned useffin and Jeff Jeff have already done so yeah I would I guess moved to adopt the language that John has in his email which he you just read cuz I agree I think that's good guidance it's not actually referencing specific bills we know that's in the powering Michigan forward but you know those are things that I think will translate through multiple sessions and gives much more specific guidance than in 0.5 of the current agenda I got a question for console mode remember even you said do you have like specific kind of focus areas of the policy agenda would it be helpful if we in our resolution recommended creating a climate focus area or something when we get your memo or your resolution somebody at the committee meeting will say well gee this is probably

063something that deserves separate attention and do that what's the timing on that typically we try to pound it out so that we pass it sometime between November and January that was one of the reasons why we wanted to try to get this on today's agenda it seems to me that this last year he was delayed because it might systems we added the whole West area about employee and labor issues so it took a while for us to pound out particular language so we didn't adapt an agenda in November it it took a little longer so you have a motion on the table you need a second I second the motion about including the specifics in my email it's point three I can read it again as a friendly amendment I guess that would be your

064how about while we're at it the other two I don't know if you consider them friendly amendments but removing the federal green New Deal one and the removing the final via resolve Clause ones is that it I mean that's fine with me those that would second it or or or so I'd consider this friendly innocence no we can add that a year from now it's not gonna be acted on that quickly any home and then we'll have greater specificity and we'll know about with the financial implications are outside of rights that you know could we amend it to be something that still addresses federal supporting federal legislation but not have it be specific because their comment the one that you motion to recommend was state-level right so if we took out the federal green new

065dealing with legislation it would remove any mention about federal legislation except for the national carbon tax so so my yeah my email included support for federal carbon fee and dividend legislation we had a presentation on that a year or so ago roughly from the CCL and that that actually there is legislation that has been bipartisan legislation that has been implemented so maybe we could just say federal climate action legislation is that what you're thinking yeah something that could at least encompass if something else comes up but our like if this comes up quicker than we think and it happens in the 2020 fiscal year have anything on the table to talk so something brought me federal climate legislation is too broad it doesn't say you know energy really it I would actually recommend that your

066net strike those to perhaps the new group green new deal the express slightly different way so maybe something support for federal legislation of the kind expressed in the green new deal you know so so you're not saying that particular item but things of that kind I don't think we should shy away from asking for things just because we have a horrible federal government you know I think that this is it's an imperative that we insist that our federal government would be responsive to our needs so if if legislators are going to announce that they're pursuing these things we should speak up in support of them Hoppus in a couple weeks within the next couple months I forget the date and so you know we should express our support for things even though that the chances

067of it being adapted in this legislature are kind of slim because um you have to keep pounding away so so maybe check see if I captured it cuz I could go with that if it said something like support for a federal policy consistent with the green new deal yes I mean is that that makes sense to me because actually my main thing was that there isn't federal green New Deal legislation that's much the content of it so and we have to rewrite this and vote on it tonight because why you want to send it along to us you're not gonna have another meeting until January right so if we make enough suggestions that doesn't mean that's the only thing that the policy agenda committee will add to its agenda under this topic that certainly gets

068us talking about it at there at the meeting when we try to formulate this this document for next year and I kind of like the fourth bullet better than all the other ones because we can actually make a difference with the fourth bullet whereas I don't think we have a fighting chance to make much difference for the other three as far as the city goes the city's voice on number four to find a solution to her I think it's the still Edie Ross attacked we could find a solution to that that would be immense well in one option I believe that you laid out last month is we don't have to vote on a resolution and try and find the exact language and bullets that all of us here or a majority of us here

069would vote on right we have this conversation and you hear the input and can choose to go have the conversation with your fellow policy agenda committee members based on what you've heard here but if we do want formal input from a timing perspective we've got to get to a minimum passable resolution tonight so I don't get a vote but I hope that you will take a vote yeah I would like to take a vote yeah me too I think you stole did you vote on the amendment no I think we're into the amendments so I would hope that you withdraw the the amendment that strikes the first two bullet points in vote on whether or not to includes John's language in addition to these four bolt points and then he could vote on the entire

070resolution so that I have guidance when I go to that committee do we have to vote on each line by line so yeah I'd be happy to read it so the first is support for federal green New Deal legislation I think we more or less adopt at that point but the recommendation is to change that to support for federal legislation consistent with the green New Deal the second point was support for federal carbon fee and dividend legislation and I have a note to that saying specific legislation toward this end was introduced in the US House on January 24 2019 is the energy innovation and carbon and dividend act of 2019 I don't think we need to mention that but for everyone's information there is legislation specifically being considered by the house the third point was

071support for state legislation which raises the cap on renewable energy participating in net metering slash distributed generation increases the capacity of solar category to generation interconnection from 150 kilowatts to 550 kilowatts and frankly there we can just say from 500 the current 500 150 kilowatts and not give a specific figure I mean I don't know I don't even remember where I wore I got that figure from I think I got it from someone from here yep makes micro grids available more broadly and then per and parenthetically not just critical sites restores monthly net metering of import-export and I think I must have let left off a word there and then implements a fair tariff or solar so monthly restores monthly monthly netting i--sorry restores monthly netting of import/export I guess that would be import/export Yeah

072right exactly right so oh it says this is more specific language in line with energy fridge of freedom legislation introduced every year since 2014 yeah so those are the three points the fourth point but in my email is the fourth point in the draft resolution in front of us just simplified someone I will say I'm less than comfortable with the detail on the net metering and category two and all of those components I think partly because I don't know that that's the gap that needs to be closed right now if you look at well first of all in that metering doesn't exist right now for any new installations okay for DTE where we in in the service territory for Ann Arbor I think right now at least last I heard something like point one five

073percent of the maximum capacity was actually in use so the gap to getting more solar installed is not that the cap is too low right there's not people knocking down the doors who are being told they can't put in solar because of the cap so my concern with this is just you you kind of send the policy committee working on some issues that I'm not sure are actually the right ones to drive solar adoption and so that's where I prefer kind of the broader language to say to incentive as it was written to say to incentivize additional renewables through whatever means that is it may not be lifting a cap which I think that if you write something in the policy where the we do support incentives to install additional renewable energy that or sustainable

074energy solutions because you can't focus just on one particular technology being solar because you're also talking about micro grids you know we've got solar plus batteries there's other types of systems there's geothermal systems there's heat pump systems there's all these other things so if you only focus on solar we may be limiting ourselves if we think of renewable and sustainable energy technologies and we support policies that incent those so that you are displacing fossil assets or displacing carbon emitting sources then I just think that's more broad and then we can get into the specifics and it allows us a little bit more flexibility when we're writing and supporting well if I can play catch ball so support for state legislation which raises the cap on renewable energy participating in net metering / distribution generation but

075the cap doesn't prohibit people from installing sustainable solutions or solar or any other renewables it just we're asking that the cap be raised right which raises the cap so there's no there's no specific figure in there I don't know that there's anybody that there's any reason to be I mean somebody might argue that utility scale institution as installations are cheaper but if somebody wants to put in something more than what's allowed today I don't know what's wrong with that another one increases the capacity of solar category to generation interconnect we could just strike out the figures but increases the capacity makes microgrids available more broadly yeah absolutely a category twos are actually defined in the interconnection rules by the Michigan Public Service Commission that's not a I mean you can add but when they rewrite

076the rules which they're doing next year we would have to go and say that a category two generating system would have to be up to 550 and you'd eliminate the category three level because there's category 1 category 2 is category 3 4 & 5 based on the way that the MPs C has written the interconnection standards and the interconnection rules which doesn't actually I mean it's part of because net metering refers to those but you would have to it's more about rewriting the distributed generation rules because the interconnection rules come first and impact those so I mean I'm gonna actually abstain from this vote apparently cuz i just i don't agree with being that specific about what metering there's so many things happening state policy wise it's hard to put a finger on what's gonna

077shake out I think if he just took generally and and have our lobbyists think about what is out there and think about what makes sense from a city point of view that would be useful rather than be really specific others comments so it does seem from this conversation that sir is utility to console person Eaton's Smith and sorry the third person painter to have this guidance from us and so I don't know if I should move that we vote on this with the two amendments one to the item around the green UDL changing that to support for federal policy like the green new deal and I think there was another one that when we were discussing at the start of this conversation that there seem to be general agreement for in changing striking the final

078be resolved oh yes thank you so I don't know if people are ready to vote but it seems to me there could be utility in putting this to a vote with those two amendments so that there's general guidance without the detail that seems like it could become problematic down the road and doesn't have a lot of utility perhaps would people be open to moving that proposal yeah so I think what Bridget was proposing is not introducing any new bullet around the net metering solar renewable energy piece and voting on it with just the two amendments to what we have in front of us one around changing the language around the federal green new deal and the other mixing the last there was one that he read from his email around carbon fee and dividend legislation

079which really at least in my perspective rolls up into the national carbon tax it's just another way you know it's a subset of a carbon tax yeah yeah and we specifically at that time shied away from naming a specific legislation and you can see that you know some of these things have changed over times in terms of their their details and their specific nomenclatures and things like that so yeah it's essentially covered so I think what what Bridget is proposing John I guess you have to say whether you accept as friendly amendments the way we have in front of us with a change to the second bullet which currently reads support for federal green you deal legislation to change that to say I heard you say support for federal register with the green new deal

080correct and striking the last be it resolved yes and otherwise it is as we have it in front of us and put forth for a vote so the question that I have for other commissioners even agreed with everything there the question is do we want to do anything in terms of energy fret freedom legislation and maybe maybe that is what we could have is support for state legislation consistent with and with well yeah energy freedom legislation introduced every year since 2014 and just leave it generally at that those not what's already in their house bill 5143 and 5689 something different no I think I think those were the what no I think those were the ones that were eliminating the property taxes on residential solar installations I'm almost sure that those were that's what those

081were and that's now passed and is due or hasn't been signed by the governor it was it's gonna be signed it's gonna be signed Thursday at the Michigan energy innovation okay so yeah and I'm almost positive that's what that was yeah I'm just looking it up that's that's right sure so we so if somebody wants movie that we add a point even something just simply that says rather than all the details something that says support for state legislation consistent with the energy freedom package introduced in the Michigan House every year since 2014 or in previously introduced in the Michigan House or something like that and then we don't get into the details of the same kilowatt resource categories or anything else which I agree it's probably not necessary read is in that energy freedom package

082and some of it I think at least says we've had conversations here before my perspective is some it's problematic either not working on the right things or or actually potentially moving us in the wrong direction some of it is absolutely the right thing right so I don't want anybody to think I don't support you know broadly it's certainly the end goals of it but I do think some of the pieces within that legislation or not are not the right way to move it forward so so to my perspective on that is we're not endorsing individual sections of it or not we're just saying that we support broad energy freedom legislation state federal states scuse me energy freedom legislation and I'm sure that your concerns will be addressed during this legislative process in dealing with that

083that's my sense and the question is do we as a group and we may have a few dissenters and we may have broad you know I don't know we'll see do we does someone want to others feel that we should have something addressing the energy freedom legislation I mean for me there are some important aspects of that making microgrids more broadly available that's really important to me raising some of the caps I think those are important community solar is really important as far as I'm concerned they may not be important to others but that's why I proposed these back in my email on the 22nd how do others feel I think it makes sense dads like that I'd love to see something in here would suggest that the City Council policy folks talk to us

084about some of these specific because be true like the lay it out because I don't think our lobbyists really understands them all and general I support we got it we do have a Office of Sustainability and when energy issues come up I'm pretty sure that's staff no communicates the assistant to the administrator also it's a lot of effort into the lobbying activities that we do and so I'm pretty sure he communicates frequently with the Office of Sustainability and so if we give them a gist of what what we're after this is getting painful the only other I guess the only other idea I had is just adding federal and state to like the first three bullet points I mean they're basically just broad things that could be at the federal level or we could have

085state legislation similar to the green New Deal which might be similar to some other things that are in the energy freedom or just general so I would move to formulate the the resolution so that it is as written striking the last point modifying the second point support for federal legislation consistent with the green New Deal and adding a point support for state of Michigan legislation consistent with energy freedom packages introduced in past sessions is there anybody that seconds that so can we take a vote on on that or do we have further discussion okay all in favor aye all opposed to nays and it passes thank you thank you okay that gets so we covered our two items there in the middle of the agenda we covered our committee updates earlier and that brings us

086to the next item on our agenda which is another opportunity for public input if a public would like to make input once again you're welcome to provide any additional commentary so on the topic of the youth commissioners I am with the central student government like I said previously so if you would appreciate having central student government released any information for students to apply to the youth commissioners a spot I would be happy to work with my director of communications on that thank you that sounds wonderful okay you said you brought cards right yes good we'll take some after right okay great thank you very much thank you okay then moving on to items for the next agenda the one that I captured so our next our next meeting unless something emergent comes up that we

087absolutely need to change at the next meeting would be a work session so no voting and the one item I captured was that we would have legal provide feedback on the new solar access carbon neutrality yep I was wondering if we could also get an updated metric on solar installations in Ann Arbor in the past we had tracked the number permits as well as the total to be installed based on those permits we don't know for sure that they actually installed that exact amount but I think we used the data from the permits to estimate how much was actually being installed yeah so fee and we could do that if it's January maybe too early because we'll probably want to look at it I think we were looking at it on an annual year basis

088or calendar you're not a fiscal year basis so maybe if we add that for the February meeting sure no the same Venus solar is there a week that you guys have measured energy efficiency upgrades and energy efficiency installations I don't know if you can really do that as much through building permits it's hard to do I mean there's some homeowners that weatherize their homes and you can't capture that a little difficult it all depends on what kind of upgrade it is so for certain types of upgrades you need to pull permits um things like that but yeah I mean we've explored the option I guess it all just depends on what we're looking for in particular okay because I was just trying to think like if we're thinking broadly about sustainability and how to incent

089and how to look at it like how are we tracking all of those different components to get us to Net Zero and sustainable yeah the best way that we've been able to do that is mostly again anything that kind of a furnace usually have to pull a permit so you get a rough idea as to you know when the last permit was pulled there's a few other databases that we could possibly look into as well that's public information but the permitting is probably the best way so it is something where if we want to identify certain processes where you have to pull a permit we could probably get rough figures from that site okay curious and then on the agenda item we also talked about discussing a formal structure and how the roles and responsibilities

090are going to be defined with the Energy Commission now that the climate emergency our agenda for a working meeting I'd like to possibly think about something for either the working session or the next meeting considering the resolution that we just considered I would like to understand frankly what aspects of the energy freedom package in both of your perspectives is not in the interest of the city of Ann Arbor residents so that would be I think enlightening for me you know for example I know this development Verdean at County farm one of the proposals there or one of the things that they would like to do is be able to have a micro grid for that development my understanding is that's not possible right now because of restrictions and limitations is that correct I know Matt

091broke offices talk to you yes but maybe that's that's not a good specific example but I would like to know broadly the outline of that package is known it's been introduced more all times and if we're talking about the perspective of the residents of Ann Arbor what elements of that are not in our interest and that might then guide the policy agenda for the city so it passed but I think it's important that we know if we're advocating for this legislation that our lobbyists say well these are the things that we really favor maybe there are some elements that were neutral - or maybe there's certain elements that we think are ill-advised so maybe if we can get that I don't know if that's available for the working session or for our next meeting I

092think it would be appropriate that we that we hear from that and as we go through our committee updates in December let's just make sure how we're gonna add or change or remove you know as always we can do that and then we'll see where each of the loose ends from these existing committee as Josh can you send out a copy of the plan for developing the carbon neutrality plan there's something like I don't know a six step plan that Missy put together with multiple meetings and deliverables each month and then what's to be provided in April I think that's important pre information for our working session will obviously get a lot more after the meeting tomorrow but maybe you can send that out as advanced information yeah a lot of the kind of because

093I think we're scheduling events after the initial event and I think a lot of the specific dates will be decided tomorrow but maybe if you take a more kind of a framework kind of thing but I think there's there's you know a meeting in November a meeting and Earth's me in December in January whatever that the specific dates aren't mentioned but there's specific dates there's specific um areas that are going to be worked on I think one is energy one is mobility transportation another one is consumption and solid waste is and then there's an equity portion - there's I guess there's four main tax which is technical advisory committees all right one of them being energy that covers natural gas and electricity the other one being mobility as you mentioned yeah there's one that's adaptation

094so that's review the outcome yep and that's the equity part that the adaptation is addressing equity yeah and the last one is resource again a reduction so dealing with waste management yeah so that's that's yeah yeah we get definitely yeah thanks anything else okay with that we will officially adjourned thank you thanks for everyone framing the snow to make it out tonight especially you