May 16, 2024 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:19] should do we have Channel 8 ready let me double check so thank you looks like we're Go sir very good all right well good evening everyone and welcome to the Thursday May 16th 2024 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council I'm going to get started with a quick announcement

[5:00] so I would like to share a reminder to everyone that in 10 days on Memorial Day May 27th is the annual Boulder Boulder named America's all-time best 10K by Runners world and founded way back in 1979 we are very proud it has grown to be one of the most acclaimed events in the world right here in our hometown we are excited to welcome the more than 40,000 Runners to our city finishing in fulam field on the CU campus speaking of CU Boulder Chancellor Phil dhano who is retired IR ing from uh the position of Chancellor of Cu will serve as the official starter of this year's race Chancellor dhano joins a wide ranging list of local luminaries who have served as the starter including Olympic medalists a governor Athletics leaders and more so we invite the community to celebrate all the runners this year including the international athletes who will complete compete in the Pro Team Challenge and for more information on the race including the street closures that will happen in the morning of the race you can go to Boulder boulder.com and with that I will go ahead and call

[6:01] us to order if we can have a roll call please miss Alicia yes sir thank you and good evening everyone we'll start the night's roll call as usual with council member Adams present Benjamin present mayor Brockett present council member vuler present Maris present Sho hard here mayor protim spear present council member wallik here M Wier present mayor we have our quum thanks so much all right we have three declarations this evening and our first one is item 1A the Jewish American Heritage Month declaration to be presented by council member Marquis take it away Tina no I I would go up front because we do have people to receive the Declaration

[7:01] hi I have the pleasure of um reading the Jewish American Heritage Month declaration Jewish American heritage month is an annual celebration of Americans of Jewish faith who have helped weave the fabric of our history culture and Society this year marks the 44th annual celebration of the achievements and contributions made by Jewish Americans starting with the establishment of Jewish American Heritage week in 1980 and expanded in 200 six to Encompass the month of May Jewish American Heritage Month acknowledges achievements of American Jews in the fields of literature arts entertainment medicine business science government military service music and more Jewish Americans have played indispensable roles in our Civic and community life making invaluable contributions through their leadership and achievements unfortunately Jewish communities in this nation continue to be challenged by bigotry hostility discrimination and violence as we

[8:02] remember the lessons of the Holocaust our commitment to Religious Freedom in America obligates us to root out Prejudice and combat anti-Semitism the Jewish American story is an an an essential chapter of the American narrative as we recognize honor and celebrate Jewish Americans who strengthen our community every day we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare May 2024 Jewish American heritage month and I'd like to invite Jonathan Lev from the boulder JCC who epitomizes one of the Jewish Americans who are strengthening our community every day [Applause] so do you want to share the microphone there t Okay honorable council members esteemed guests um and fellow community members

[9:01] I'm deeply honored and humbled to accept the Jewish American Heritage Month Declaration on behalf of the Jewish community of Boulder this recognition holds profound significant for significance for us as it acknowledges the invaluable contributions of American Jews to our shared history and celebrates the rich tapestry of diversity in our society while also recognizing the discrimination and hate we still sadly face we're incredibly grateful for this declaration especially in a time when Jewish communities across the United States and around the world are facing alarmingly high levels of anti-Semitism Boulder unfortunately has not been immune to this troubling Trend recent bomb threats to our Jewish institutions and incidents in our schools have left many of our families feeling unwelcome and unsafe this declaration is more than a symbolic gesture it's a powerful affirmation to our community's core

[10:00] values welcoming connection Community it sends a clear message that Boulder stands with its Jewish residents cherishing their presence and recognizing their essential role in the fabric of our city it also underscores the responsibility of all community members including the Jewish Community to actively uphold these values ensuring that everyone regardless of their background can live and thrive in an environment of respect and safe it is not lost on me that the last time I spoke here a decade ago it was to gain approval to build the new Boulder JCC a community SP space committed to and in service of these values and tenants in these challenging times this recognition inspires hope and resilience it reminds us that together through our understanding and solidarity we can overcome adversity and build a community where everyone feels valued and protected thank you city council for

[11:00] this meaningful de declaration it is a beacon of support and solidarity that strengthens our resolve to continue contributing positively to the vibrant inclusive community we all cherish thank [Applause] you thank you for that Jonathan and for joining us here tonight right our next item is 1B which is the older Americans month declaration to be presented by counc member shuart thank you for that Mr Lev and council member Marist good evening uh I am here to read a declaration for the older Americans month each May the administration's for Community Living sets the theme for older American month and this year's theme is powered by connection which focuses on the import import of meaningful social connections for the

[12:01] health and well-being of older adults the surgeon general's framework for a national strategy to advance social connection points out the severe consequences of social isolation and recognizes the importance of creating and sustaining social and Community connections evidence shows that social connections are healing they increase lifespan and improve a variety of health risks including heart disease and stroke the city's endorsement of the lifelong Boulder initiative plays a pivotal role in promoting connections for older adults to supporting Boulder as an age inclusive community the changing demographics for this decade demonstrate a clear need to create and sustain individual and Community connections for older adults the demographics through 2030 show a dramatic increase in the adult older population in Colorado with an increase of 67% for adults age 75 to 84 and an increase of 48% for adults 85 years and

[13:00] older older Americans month is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the power of connection and to support creating new social relationships with each other and our community personal and Community connections also support intergenerational relationships where older adults can share their wealth of life experience and wisdom guide our younger generations and carry forward abundant cultural and historical knowledge older Americans month is a time to honor acknowledge and value older adults as they could contribute their time wisdom and experience to our community it is a time to emphasize the many positive aspects of Aging to push past traditional boundaries of Aging stereotypes and to embrace our community's diversity we the city council of Boulder Colorado declare May 2024 as older Americans month and urge the community to take time this month to recognize the strength of older adults in our community as essential and valuable members as well as acknowledging the individuals who support

[14:01] them now I would like to invite Barbara Middleton and Steven topping from the AG well advising committee to come up thank you council member shuhart thank you city council I am grateful that the city has chosen to acknowledge and honor older Americans month somehow this subject has become of great interest to me much of what I have read and heard

[15:01] informs me that adults over 65 will be the fastest growing segment of our population in fact we just heard it just now and while some of us can run or bicycle great distances still others cannot get out of bed without help there is a wide range of needs and I note that the city of Boulder is taking seriously the need to prepare for this growth however there's always a however like a Shakespeare sonnet I also must note that in my experience these special months are provided for groups that have been ignored or marginalized in the past black history Native American history pride month is coming up the honorary designations recognize that there is work to be done to repair the past to include everyone as partners in our society they are a step in the right direction and I honor the steps we have taken still I encourage all of us to keep both the needs and the value of our older adults in focus for all 12 months of the

[16:05] year thank you and I'll just add that um it is a privilege it's a privilege to um grow and be strong and to have support and to know that there are others who guess what you're going to get here too if you're lucky and also to have um your age and your abilities supported one of the things I like to say as someone who I admire uh I turned 81 this year and he is also 81 and he has quoted as saying really 81 is just 40 plus 40 plus one so as far as I'm concerned I just gather from my the 40s that I am and the 40s that I know as they assist me and bring me back to the remembering and the support and the ability that I still

[17:00] have it's good to have a couple of 40s around thank [Applause] you thanks again right thanks so much Barbara and Stephen for those good words all right we're going to move to item 1 C which is the remembering Lo declaration to be presented by mayor protm spear thank you um and Michelle would you like to come up and join me and is there anyone else who's here for this declaration or just yeah okay great thank you it's always nice not to feel totally alone up here in the span of less than 48 hours in May 1974 two car bombings killed six Cho activists in Boulder on May 27th at chiaka Park an explosion took the line lives of University of Colorado Boulder

[18:01] law school graduate re Martinez CU Jr NAA Romero and CU alumna Yuna jaula and two days later a bomb tore apart a car at a parking lot on 28th Street killing former CU student florencio Granado students erberto Teran and Francisco DOI and seriously injuring Antonio alcantar their deaths shocked the State and the News reverberated throughout the southwest and they became known as Lo de Boulder students including loce protested the University's administrative actions that denied students their financial aid that resulted in the decrease of parity Lo struggled to increase cu's enrollment to percentage levels that reflected Colorado's Latino population parody for almost a half century the case has remained unsolved and shrouded in mystery and for most of that time Lo

[19:02] Boulder and their deaths have gone unrecognized by city of Boulder residents businesses and institutions Lo de Boulder were loved by their families and communities and may 2024 marks 50 years since these tragic bombings Colorado shiaka has placed a memorial stone near the site of the first explosion and the University of Colorado has recognized the students through a permanent sculpture on campus the city of Boulder plans to erect a second sculpture at 17th Street and pearl in May additionally in December 2023 the loce memorial endowed scholarship fund was established with monetary contributions from community members and CU gifts the city council of Boulder Colorado declares in 2024 the 50th anniversary of remembering Lo Boulder and proclaims the importance of recognizing and remembering loce and

[20:00] their struggles and the significance of their contributions to the overall fight for justice and Equity the need to educate the broad Boulder Community about the history and implications of these tragedies and invites the community to recognize Lo de Boulder through the upcoming 50th Anniversary commemorative events thank you and we have Michelle Jaa Stein uh yuna's sister here to say a few words um thank you Nicole and thank you city council thank you everybody who's here um this is a wow moment um 50 years is a long time several Generations um and I'm just glad I'm here uh to be able to appreciate it um on behalf of the families the friends and many many community members um I appreciate the recognition and acknowledgement um that has come through in the Declaration um I invite everybody to consider

[21:02] attending um there's an archive event on uh the 21st next Tuesday on campus um at the library we have the celebration coming up on the 27th outside of TV1 and by the sculpture and we also are very excited to share in the unveiling of the next sculpture on 17th and pearl which will be on the 28th at 6 p.m I just want to reiterate a couple things that you said um the Declaration stands on its own I don't feel like I need to add a lot and I want to thank everybody for that I would emphasize the recognition and acknowledgement of these Cho activists fighting for parity and social justice I would like to emphasize the um preservation of History um and the meaning that that will have for generations to come and also the uh cont

[22:01] contribution of keeping the memory of these folks alive thank you very [Applause] much Michelle thanks so much for joining [Music] us okay we're now going to move to our item number two which is open comment Elisha if you could go over the public participation guidelines please yes sir thank you again good evening everyone and I will now review the public participation at city council meeting guidelines the following my apologies the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages

[23:01] identities lived experiences and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes we ask that you please visit our website at bouldercolorado.gov servicesproducts [Music] these will be upheld during this meeting participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted online only one person at a time at the podium unless an accommodation like an interpreter is required our remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no standing in or otherwise blocking the

[24:03] aisles no participant shall stand or hold items such as signs or Flags in a manner that blocks the view of another person no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person we ask that you not AIX items to the podium or deis or walls or other surfaces of the chamber signs Flags or other items used to communicate must be held by one person when displayed obscenities other a EPS based on race gender or religion and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the meeting will not be tolerated in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with sounds such as Applause or snapping with the exception of declarations tradition support is shown through American Sign

[25:00] Language Applause or jazz hands thank you again for joining us and thank you for listening thank you Alicia all right each speaker will have two minutes to speech speak I'm going to call three names at a time if you can start moving down towards the front when your name is called our first three we'll do in-person speakers and then virtual ones and our first three speakers are Dan hulman Ali agil and Evan rabbits so I hear you're having speech problems you like someone else to speak for you sure since you're physically having trouble go ahead

[26:01] hello city council my name is Priscilla chaplain I am speaking on behalf of Aaliyah Gilly I just wanted to thank everyone in the room uh for hearing us and your time uh we wanted to let you guys know that this is a a passion project this is not a business proposition um we would just like to see a zipline on top of Mount SAS um why would we like a zip line on top of mous to need us it is because Boulder is a athletic and daring city um tourists would like a unique experience when they come to our city students get a once- in a-lifetime opportunity like ziplining and as well as companies that can take their employees on uh team bonding experiences so it's good for all ages uh CU Boulder students are you know Thrill Seekers uh being in that age category I would really like to do something like that um instead of going to Pearl Street or shitaka I think that

[27:00] this would be a lot of fun um and then you know tourism that comes into our city it would create Revenue in our uh businesses and our city originally I came up with the idea um because I I hike I've been hiking Boulder hikes a lot especially SOS and coming back down is so hard on my knees so I thought about how would be a good way for us to get down if it was somehow we could do it fast so that's where the idea came from and also you know I have a student of uh high school kid and speaking into the microphone okay sorry and I have a student uh high schooler and you know they just hang out on Pearl Street and I thought if there was like a zip line coming down SAS they would hike up there so it's really a good healthy thing for kids and the community and the rest of the state and then we do know that there are reasons why uh potentially not to have ASA blind on top of Cenas as as far as an isore um issues with building on top of open space parking the local neighbor Hood might not like it uh funding and

[28:00] safety but we have come up with solutions to these issues and if we have more time then we could come up with solutions to all of them we really came here to see if this is something is feasible or you guys just going to laugh us out of here but if it's feasible we're going to spend a lot more time and energy and actually come up with a plan and a business plan but just imagine hiding up to the top of Cenas the wind is in your hair uh flat irons uh cityscape it is just something that you don't get to do all the time and it's nothing that is in the Denver metro area and so yeah we would just like to thank you so much we would love to continue this conversation our uh contact information is up on the screen we would really love to take this further thank you thank you and just T we address testimony at the end of all the testimony perfect and is Dan hulman in the room all right doesn't look like it so we've got Evan rabbitz Hep ingum and Leslie glustrom hi I'm an old

[29:01] Jew this ends with Gaza as civilization might the city of Boulder is constantly showing contempt there's a terrible feedback here the city is constantly showing contempt for Citizens four examples as Mike Marsh testified here last meeting at your March 7th hearing on the dark course development staff said public feedback was roughly even but that's because only written emails were counted unquote when oral testimony was counted too the public is 2 to one against the development is which is what an honest staff would have told us in 2018 we voted 71% for online ballot initiative petitions so that people wouldn't have to waste their summer har harassing people for physical signatures

[30:01] especially during a pandemic but details were butchered badly enough that a tiny fraction are signing online over half a million dollars have been squandered so far after the city rejected on false pretenses Superior free software offered by an upstanding nonprofit who flew their president to Boulder 5 years ago to make offer the city manager still won't even call them to compare their free software against our expensive failure in 2017 the citizens testified unanimously against it but Council reduced our open comment from 3 to two minutes I've since contacted all 10 large Colorado cities and they all allow three or five minutes so much for your democracy vision and four for over three

[31:02] months the city has resisted overwhelming calls for a fire resolution but thank you for your testimony now we have Hep Ingam Leslie glustrom and PTY Foster Aguilera good evening city council so uh the other day I was talking to John Fairweather he's led the closure of the Santa Monica Airport and I asked him uh what do expect if you put limits on pilot Behavior he said quote they'll come at the city with lawsuit threats part 16 provisions and they will do whatever it takes to maintain their subsidy and right to operate without oversight and then I asked him um if you try to use the Democratic process he said if you try to use the Democratic process to change the control of the airport the aviation groups will hire PR firms ignoring the criticism from the community and trumpet the positive aspects of Aviation end quote well the

[32:00] worst of these is they're downplaying the severity of the lead threat I recently listened to Robert Patel's presentation that he gave to the city of Westminster February 23 and Dr Patel's peer-reviewed study showed the devastating consequences of lead accumulation through the mechanism of respiration the main threat comes from breathing in the combustion nanoparticles that go right into the bloodstream once inside a child's body they have that for the rest of their life it doesn't leech out and the consequences are lower IQ behavioral problems and a loss of working potential his study is backed by the 2021 Santa Clara County study from Reed Hillview airport this National Academy of Science peer-reviewed Study conclusively shows the harm that comes to Children living near an airport 100% caused by Aviation next slide that's just a typical day on a Saturday but this is the pounds of lead around the the county the science um yeah so it was backed by

[33:03] the peer-reviewed study and they have the worst effects as they do in Flint Michigan the science is so compelling and the threat to Children is huge my neighbor across the street is a 4-year-old daughter and I'm asking that you immediately cease the sale of Leed fuel at the airport and not wait another day and close it down right now thank you now we have Leslie glustrom py fer Gila and Gary brener and a PowerPoint uh for uh the the talk ah perfect thank you so very much uh good evening council members and uh thank you very much my name is lesie glustrom and I've spoken here many times but not very often before this particular set and I just always want to begin by thanking you I understand that we take politics very seriously and Boulder and you take a lot of grief I don't have to tell you how hard you work

[34:01] but when I sit in the audience I'm often moved to tears with gratitude for the work you put in to keep our democracy strong start to tear up again at the local level I don't need to tell you how much we're facing a threat and if we can keep it strong and civil here that's just so profoundly important you'll start hearing from me and others pretty regularly um 2025 is in important decision year for what we refer to as the boulder Energy Future fundamental to that is the source of our electricity and while after on my part 20 years I've passed the 20 year mark of work along with hundreds of other people we are now getting much cleaner electricity and it will get much cleaner but what should be a renewable dividend that other utilities use when they move to renewable electricity we're getting ever increasing rates and the graph before you is a graph that we

[35:02] refer to as Paul's graph that's for Paul colan who some of you know we've been doing this analysis a long time but Paul has really uh formalized it and keeps this monster spreadsheet based on all of excel's data describing it for the public the blue line at the bottom of the graph is Excel sales last 20 years virtually flat the red line is excel's aftert net income call it profits for their electric sector definitely not flat and that's one of the many issues in two minutes I've been doing this for 20 years two minutes is kind of a short amount of time but we'll be back often because we want you to begin this conversation for 2025 and get the staff work done up thank you very much thank you right now we have Patty Fuster Aguilera Gary brener and Evan B hi my name is Dr P F agila I'm here to

[36:02] ask Boulder City Council to make a statement asking for a ceasefire in Gaza I think you should do this uh you know as our Representatives but most importantly as human beings you're here making declaration for Los de Boulder these were students you know protesting for race rights and I think that this is happening in the encampment right now the Nationwide students are en camping asking for universities to divest and for the for this uh country to stop funding this genocide uh we've been telling you this for a while but you can look at this website us cpr.org 1.5 million of our tax federal tax dollars of this city goes to weapons to Israel instead this money could be used fun used f 185 households with public housing 542

[37:03] children could receive free or lowcost health care we could pay the salary of 17 Elementary School teachers and I can go going go on and on but you should check it out and do the numbers because I just saw this uh article on May 10th that says Boulder City staffers are sounding the alarm about the potential for a tight City budget in 2025 so if you don't want to do it as a human being at least say that you care about the city of Boulder and try to not use that money to be you know killing children in Gaza but using it to make Boulder better you know I think that I don't know honestly you don't listen to us you come we come here every single time you don't address to us only councel Adams like acknowledges us at least put an item on the agenda say something because everybody is coming here all the time asking for this and you do like we don't

[38:02] exist you know please than you now we have uh no clapping please um it's against our rules um so that's uh now we have Gary brener Evan Buckman and Kent katnik hello my name is Gary brener thank you for this opportunity I'm here to speak about the Gregory Creek uh flood mitigation plan I live a few hundred feet away from uh Gregory Creek and I'm here because I have some serious concerns um there are a lot of issues that are not going in a good direction some of them are relatively minor things like the way in which signage is put up when uh the streets are closed for construction um sometimes that's not done properly well that will pass what's more important is it looks to me as though we're heading in the wrong direction and that you're about to embark on a project that's going to cost perhaps $200 million when you consider all of the drainages that we're going to

[39:01] be taking care of it behooves you to take a very good look at what's going on because this may be the most consequential decision of the time that you serve and I would like to begin by talking a little bit about some things that happened in 2013 and how they relate to where we're going all can I have the next slide please okay this is a picture of several neighbors building a dam on the corner of seventh and University can I have the next science slide please this is another picture of the same Dam my house is right above the head of that young man well I have to go quickly now I have 46 seconds um we learned four things in 2013 that are germine one of them was that a very simple Dam that was put up by a few people was able to seriously change the outcome of the flood and when that dam was dismantled the flood returned to where it was

[40:00] gone right now the project that's being considered is being considered without any provision whatsoever for um uh let's see for actions that will be taken during the flood we're just building a build project we're making a build plan we need to have a plan that talks about what we will do during the flood my up I email us the rest of your okay I will thank you now we have Evan Buckman Kent katnik and Mak kls do we have Evan in the room doesn't look like it so Kent Kat neck you're up new glasses uh good evening Council uh my name is

[41:00] Kent katnik I've been a pilot resident here in Boulder since 1990 I'm a professional pilot for United Airlines I earned my pilot certifications in Colorado with training at Jeffco and Boulder airports my son and daughter are both Pilots they both trained at Boulder municipal airport and they will soon join me as professional aviators I'm speaking today in support of the boulder Municipal Airport excuse me and I'm asking City leadership to make a decision to keep the airport open Boulder is important in the aviation system the next generation of Pilots are trained here the airport provides access to recreational soaring businesses employ citizens in aviation operations and the scientific Fields it also serves as the basis for personal and educational enrichment I am the President of the EA chapter 162 27 at BDU we offer many things to all comers

[42:01] including a social network safety awareness Aviation exposure for youth Flight Training scholarships and Outreach to underrepresented groups please know that the airport is self-funded there are also synergies with the University of Colorado now now number eight in the Collegiate system for Aerospace on the housing issue we all know that there are other places for housing and these are available now not in in 20 years from now from a recent study in Superior Colorado right underneath the flight path of busy Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport lead emissions were undetectable aside from that we strongly encourage the city council to invest in unleaded aviation fuel at this time BDU has a very very stringent voluntary noise abatement guideline that the majority of our Pilots comply with and that our local Pilots police our fellow aviators not unlike municipalization it will cost taxpayers millions and the

[43:00] closure would enrich only a few thank you so much thank you now we have mon Kohl's Jan Burton and ly seagull good evening Council my name is monan KS I live at 17th in Mableton and I want to talk about Council pay for years the people serving on city council have only been able to serve if they've got enough resources to compensate for the 120 hours or more that each of you spends every month on Council business we spend a lot of time reaching out to different parts of our community to make the politics of it more inclusive so we have to consistent with that make it available so that people who have to work for a living wage people who can't afford to foro a paycheck to spend time on City business to serve on Council life has a budget where you have

[44:01] finite amounts of time and money someone who's economically stressed and has to work long hours for low pay and take care of children or Elders at home it's just not available to participate on City Council in the same way as somebody with greater Financial Resources we don't even pay for child care or elder care for any of you uh to compensate you to help you serve as you do it is very good that you are considering putting on the ballot a measure seeking voter approval of paying councel and I hope you'll do it at a level that is serious like 50% of Ami to replace the wages that somebody has to forego to serve on Council we have by the way a very well run City thanks to the work of each one

[45:00] of you and of every person who serves on our staff taking care of trying to figure out solutions for absolutely intractable problems and for your service and that of Staff the people of the city are very grateful thank you thank you now we have uh Jan Burton Lyn seagull and I believe arum Bingham is in the room as well good evening Council and thanks for your service one recent opinion piece stated that the airport land if closed could be made available for free to developers but that's a little confusing a March 2018 information packet that went to council from City staff details the money that would be owed to the FAA and stated that if land was purchased with federal dollars which 49 Acres were it must be repaid at the

[46:01] current and best market value which at the time when this document was prepared in 2018 was $106 million so what would the land be worth in 2042 when the airport could pres presumably be closed 200 million plus who knows but that's just one aspect of cost for closing the airport the total could will exceed that but we just don't know maybe some of you aren't concerned with betting that a developer would pay for this down the road but questions are there perhaps the biggest budget hit would be to the general fund to fund airport maintenance and improvements until it was closed for approximately 18 years but a recent letter says from the FAA says that because of the 14 49 area sorry 49 acre land purchase that the city must operate the land in the

[47:01] airport in perpetuity yet this is not been disclosed to the public proponents of the current petitions to close the airport are inferring that we can just sue the fa but most experts predict that the fa would fight us with the full force of the federal government Here We Go Again mun the airport is an asset to the city most residents support the asset I support your desire for affordable housing and the planning Reserve is the perfect site available now with no FAA strings attached thank you thank you now we have Lyn seagull and our last inperson speakers arum bingum first of all the budget sex right um so why are we building every single block in Boulder like we got five we got Gun Barrel two places of affordable housing Boulder housing this is not affordable this is just more

[48:01] housing more population we can't afford I can't afford my water bill at $100 a month and now we've got you know Gregory Creek we need serious you know in my bill is $14 for my water but it's all the storm water service fees and other [ __ ] like that it's like do we have money for decent culs for for um Gregory drainage next time around you know nuh-uh no we don't have money for the police we're short 20 patrol cars like where you know where is this going to come from I mean Mark interestingly said what's this 34 uh million dollars that we have that actually is real is money above that I don't get that whole thing I thought we were deflated financially you know on oured um meanwhile we've got

[49:00] 2260 being demoed because uh they can't have enough parking so they want to just demo our con uh Environmental Center for the Rockies yeah let's just take it out that's good for the environment um that that that's a water demonstration project one of four in the state of Colorado um that integrates the runoff from the building was solar panels from the building onto the landscape to clear up pollution and be a demonstration project for nonsource Point solu solutions for pollution in our Boulder Creek you know and we're going to demo that and Gilbert whes demo at 6113 Walnut think your rethink your priorities thank you our last iners speaker is arum Bingham

[50:06] my name is Dr Aram Bingham and I am here today with an appeal to those of you that have deemed it inappropriate for a municipal Authority in Colorado to weigh in on the US supported Israeli Siege of Gaza by highlighting the ways actors from Colorado are already weighing in on supporting this violent campaign this is an image taken last fall in Gaza of a so-called smart bomb component manufactured by Woodward corporation based in Fort Collins a major silence and failure to publicly acknowledge that what our tax dollars are paying for is wrong this is what the people of Palestine and the world will know of Colorado we make the tools and weapons that more effectively kill civilians and obliterate infrastructure in Gaza next slide please acknowledged in publicity on Woodward's website it makes the JD Dam's joint direct attack munition systems that are attached to us Ma 2,000lb bombs which have a 600t kill radius allowing

[51:00] them to Target homes businesses schools and places of worship thousands of these bombs have been dropped on Gaza over the last seven plus months including 200 within Israel so-called safe zone for civilians in southern Gaza in just the first six weeks of the war according to New York Times analysis next slide please Colorado companies like Palante here Denver based are also providing ai ai technology built on data from NSA and other us intelligence agencies to the Israeli military this technology targets and provides battle plans to attack people on the ground in a process with very little human oversight and which can leave to devastating air strikes within minutes the Precision these companies tout and its potential for misuse was on display in the attack that killed the seven workers of world Central Kitchen in April sending Munitions from the incessant drones hovering over Gaza straight through the roofs of the aid workers Vehicles next slide this is the message being received by the people of Gaza from coloradans when politicians like you are content to remain silent on what you call Foreign

[52:00] Affairs when simultaneously recognizing the grief and sorrow it is causing our Jewish but not our Muslim and Arab neighbors the message we send Palestine is that we gladly profit from their mass murder and the reduction of their small piece of their Homeland they have left to Rubble thank you all right our first three remote speakers are Jacob Taylor Sheila salt and aan Reed I do not see online but Jacob if you are here please let me know using the raise hand function or reaching out to me in the Q&A box okay we'll go to Sheila salt good evening many vocal community members on the airport topic have lived cohesively the longest with the airport for several years the airport has since morphed homes and open space up here into an aviation amusement park if someone has lived cohesive ly with this airport until it recently changed how can we be called anti- Aviation just for

[53:01] speaking up by our own airport that is misleading divisive a false accusation dismissing the concerns and avoiding accountability when folks in the tataka area raised grievances about college party noise and parking issues that anyone fa them for moving near a college were they accused of being anti-fun or anti-education why is Northeast Boulder shamed and faulted when Southwest Boulder was deserved protection and acute attention from leadership the noise abatement we have one it's violated every day the planes fly as 00 a.m. and as late as 11: p.m. the airport claps back that the noise abatement is quote voluntary and therefore no crime is committed this means that Pilots are choosing and consciously electing to fly against the community noise abatement over homes playing musical runways between five airports in our Boulder area the runway is the Muddy Pond that attracts the mosquitoes calling this out is not anti- Aviation it is an industry in our

[54:00] airport choosing to disrespect the community while some folks have an nostalgic image of the local airport the reality is this is not an isolated airport it is Tethered to the large industry including the FAA who revokes local control and mandates that we sell Ed fuel Council you are doing a disservice to the health and safety of Northeast Boulder and future councils if you continue to kick this can the issues are not going away currently the airport is broadcasting positive messages while producing no lived improvements and is instead seeking growth and Publishing cherry-picked data without positive changes those positive messages become what is called propaganda thank you thank you now we have Aiden Reed Lara Gonzalez and Elliot fayen I do not see Aiden online but Aiden if you are here please let me know by using the raise hand function or reaching out to me in the Q&A box so we'll go to laa Gonzalez

[55:01] can you hear me yes okay I don't have to introduce myself as you already know who I am and again I continue to be here because I am one is said the and of one of many survivors of the Ben genocidal project which you currently stand on which is still in land and because of that I'm gonna ask all of you to stop using Seven Generations uh rhetoric and also stop saying that you're un stoling land because you're not acting those values so it is actually very offensive to the indigenous community that you continue saying that while you're ignoring a genocide of indigenous people in Palestine who are in our Civ and we stand in strong solidarity with I'm also here to demand to pass an immed per fire resolution that we've been here for the last eight nine months where thanks to our tax dollars more than 40,000 people have been murdered where at least 60% of women and children thanks to all of you who are not taking any actions number two the fund 1.6 million fed tax dollarars to is RO we can use that money to actually address real issues such as the increase of Subs in use or teenage

[56:02] us suicide that's increasing of poverty that has increased before pre pandemic levels also number three Ure that our freedom of speech is protected in our city number four I would like for you to revoke the sister status of Ramat is RO due to the recent report by us human rights experts showing that the far Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza and the recent icj emergency hearing this morning you know it is not okay absolutely that we are actually having a sister city with a country or you know a SLE a a genocidal country that's committing this terrible crimes so I am asking to revoke that s sister status again it is very insulting to indigenous people in this land number five I AB by your values of racial Equity as your recent rule changes show the opposite of that if you do want to act upon your values please stop performing racial equity and I will talk to you a little bit more about why I want you to stop the sister status because the university Network for human rights along with the inter international human rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law the international human rights clinic at

[57:00] Cornel law school the center for human rights at the University of Victoria and the laow St human rights project law school conducted IL legal analysis of Israel's accen invasion of Gaza and they have wrote it in your time is up but thank you for your testimony uh no no yelling from the audience please all right our last two speakers are sh please please quiet our last two speakers are Elliot feden and Steve Whitaker Elliot Europe up can you hear me okay yes you know every week I hope that this will have to be the last time I'll have to appear at your council chambers virtually or in person but every single week that I come in there is racism directed at Jews through anti-Semitism now I'm going to give you what a common definition of anti-semitism is it's when you use one standard for Jews or Israel in a different standard for everybody else you've had multiple speakers here tonight that have repeatedly falsely slandered Israel for committing a

[58:00] genocide again a genocide since I've said in previous meetings is when you directly Target civilians trying to wipe out their population in substantial Parts un has given a civilian to C combat kill ratio of 9 to1 what should be in what should happen in the Urban War the ratio in this war is one about on tenen of that this is not a genocide and anybody who claims otherwise either doesn't know the the definition or is using a racist double standard now along those lines you had a speaker tonight who said they wanted smart bomb components not to be sent to Israel or artificial intelligence not to be sent through palen here those items reduce civilian casualties they are targeting towards military so if you get rid of them or if you thwart them in some way that would raise civilian casualties that would Foster the very genocide that they it's not occurring but that would that would fost those deaths that they say they want to avoid a final Point here because one

[59:02] speaker said that claims to speak for indigenous people uh my kids you know under her Mis definition of indigenous are also indigenous she does not speak for them and I think it's important to note here that at that you know what I'm just going to stop right there not all people you know you don't have to agree with that speaker's beliefs to be Latina even though she claimed that the last meeting thank you thank you our last speaker is Steve Whitaker I do not see Steve online but Steve if you are here please let me know by using rais hand function by reaching out to me in the Q&A box okay so it looks like that is it I'm just going to take a moment to make sure nobody's raising their hands to show that they're present not seeing any then I will go ahead and um move to City staff with that that's all of our open comment speakers so if you

[60:00] have any responses thank you mayor and thanks to community who shared their comments today I'll know we had several speakers who spoke on the airport and wanted to um remind Council that we actually will have a robust discussion on the airport later on this summer uh I believe that is coming uh in July um as we have that scheduled I'll also uh note to Mr brener I believe that um I know that staff is aware of your concerns I know they're working with Community but I look forward to um the information that you'll be sending us on uh your additional concerns to continue to delve into that so just appreciate your comments thanks Teresa nothing for me thank you council members yes taasa thank you um although I didn't appreciate how we got it I do actually think it's a great idea to add captions so that's just a small little thing didn't love the delivery though didn't love it but again great idea um and I

[61:03] sorry I just wanted to add that piece um and again want to acknowledge all of the folks that have spoken today and really appreciate the a reminder of the fiscal implications that are happening I look forward again we're I think we're having some additional conversation about conference uh Council something isn't there something Council rules thank you h Charter um and so there are opportunities to continue to have this conversation um but just in light of the fiscal I'm especially reminded of that joint meeting on homelessness that we went in um at the county hosted and all of the area cities in the county were present for that um and one consistent theme was the lack of federal funds at that are going to be coming um because of the closing or the end of arpa and some of the other big huge historic in Investments that our federal government has made domestically and so again I just want to thank you

[62:00] all um for reminding us about the fiscal implications um directly to our city um around that and so again um just because you may not get the results you need doesn't mean you were heard does that make sense um and again I want to continue to thank my colleagues for their willingness to stay engaged involved and continue to collaborate in the areas that we can move forward on thank you thanks TAA um I have something um so we had the presentation at the beginning and there was Mr uh agil and the about the ziplining on Mountain cenitas appreciate the creativity of the concept um is is something like ziplining permitted on our open space [Music] properties I actually have to confess mayor that I don't know I believe not but I will actually have to check well I'll CH in here so I would

[63:02] invite you all to email us directly so we can uh consult my because my understanding is actually the open space Charter doesn't permit something like that that's what I believe but I'd like to know from a sense of certainty so we can communicate via email anything else uh seeing nothing else I'll go ahead and close open comment thanks to folks for coming and joining us with our testimony at no no no comments from the audience please uh we need quiet we need quiet all right quiet please and I'm going to have to declare a recess if we can't have quiet in the audience last last call can we be quiet all right I'm going to call for recess we'll be back in a minute

[64:04] hour last Mons e

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[67:22] all right I'll gav us back into session can you take us to our consent agenda please Elicia yes sir thank you our consent agenda is item three on tonight's agenda and it consists of items 3 a through 3i thank you any questions or comments here Lauren I would like to make a motion to amend the consent agenda and ask cic to reschedule item 3E that was a coun a line post that I sent out shortly before this meeting got it and that's the item to amend the

[68:00] council rules of procedures is there second for that motion second very good um Lauren do you want to speak to why you'd like that to be rescheduled I have so this item would look to constrain um the size of signs and some other things related to um opportunities for people to address us and um I've had conversations with several council members who have all mentioned different items that they would like to see modified and given the interest in modification mine and others um I think a small delay would make sense for to make sure that we get these CH changes right and to make make them as limited as possible while still allowing for productive meetings thanks

[69:01] that any other thoughts on that proposal can I ask a process question sure so how I haven't been involved in the conversations about what changes might happen how does that information happen or do we schedule a conversation and pull it out of consent agenda so I mean if we wanted to make changes tonight we would U Pull It Off of the consent agenda and discuss potential changes so that is something that we could do we could off for amendments to that item if we wanted to do that we could do that now or we could do it if it if it were rescheduled at that time yes Nicole and Lauren this is a question for you um just how much time would you think is required to kind of talk through some of the things that you're thinking

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[72:44] and so my recommendation would be for have us to have us revisit that and really segments because there might be things that we can 100 100% pass at the next meeting and then there might be other comp components that may take more time specifically around signage time um

[73:01] those are things that I I I strongly recommend that we take a little bit more time to discuss especially since we are going to be moving into um some big planning items particularly the boulder comprehensive plan and many other plans that need to be done and so that's what why I I recommend that we postpone this um take a look see and and try and segment it so that we can move move quickly but also um go slow to go far in some of those other components thank you thanks by the way I've got a note from a Community member that they're not hearing any audio on the live stream um so maybe we could investigate that uh Matt thanks sarin I appreciate sorry I'm not there with you guys in person um mine is also a very small targeted recommendation I think I don't think anyone will really object to so I I I mean my my concern is this is not going to be a small conversation uh there's no question this will be a very lengthy one um and so my concern is we have a tight

[74:00] schedule we have a lot on the books and so the more we kick things down the down the road I'm worried that we're going to start stacking up um and really pinching ourselves on scheduling so I that that's my primary concern with this I I think we we gave we flagged the city attorney's office some real good things to get going and I think we could we could do that um but Lauren my question would be is if there if there's like one or two things right now that you see like hey can we just pull those out and pass the rest that might be a way to get through that I don't know if that we can do that in process but I'd hate to um sacrifice the whole thing where most of these things are are probably good easy changes and we can just move forward hopefully do you want to respond to that Lauren yeah I think um kind of in the vein of what Taisha said I think there are things that I could be comfortable passing on consent but I would really like to see that narrowed down significantly from what this is so for me as this currently stands I would object to this being on the consent

[75:00] agenda okay and I'll just just to follow up like Mike I think we're going to get to a place where we're going to be literally voting on every line and I think that I I don't know if I that's my biggest concern is just time suck is every line of written word we're going to vote on every change and I I think that's going to be that's an hour unto itself so I I'm just really concerned about time I've got Mark and I'd love to just call for a vote here soon uh yeah I I agree with Matt um I thought the package of proposals was by and large very reasonable um I think if we go into this with a line by line reconsideration um we are going to be spending an inordinate amount of time chasing our taals um uh I would prefer to vote on it very good um Lauren one more thing I have a question for Teresa if I were to object to this being part of the consent agenda what would be our

[76:00] process moving forward while you think about that I'll note that I heard that the live stream is back on yay thanks toet that if you could give me just a moment to to find that in the council procedure rules sure no pressure yes ma'am TAA while we're waiting I want to take a moment of appreciation for these amazing ear things um and I almost want to cry about it because I was somewhere and they didn't have a microphone and it was really hard um and so I just want to thank the staff and the team for making this happen so fast and again it's the reminder of I want this um to happen as quickly for other

[77:01] people who aren't elected on a thing right but to have it the issue resolved so fast so again I just want to thank you and I see Teresa's light is on so hopefully you know she's Oh no just kidding JK all right that was my time can I cqu on that cqu on here please too I just wanted to thank everybody for lowering those lights it's so much better thank you whoever did that I hadn't even noticed the ear thing Taisha this is pretty remarkable but take it out sure Nicole as long as we're waiting um I was just gonna offer I mean I think some of the things we're getting into here about what's the length of a future discussion um what kinds of things are we including in that discussion how are we constraining it what kinds of items this is all stuff that CAC can handle as well

[78:00] and so um I think I do like the idea of just asking CAC um you know Monday can kind of check in on it uh think about a good time and and bring it back pretty quickly and then we can offer for everyone um just kind of our our scheduling thoughts on how we can um fit in a a bit of a discussion um but not to your point thatt go too far in in uh taking us off track for the other things we need to do and Lauren I wonder if we might do you think it's okay to do the vote while Teresa is still investigating that or do you feel like it's necessary for the you want to okay well I think it might impact the vote potentially fine all right so typically when you remove something from that consent agenda it's going to be discussed individually um I'm unable to find something that talks about objecting to something being on the consent agenda I think that would probably it's possible

[79:01] that it exists and I'm under pressure not finding it quickly looks like Lauren actually knows in which case feel free to say I find well on let's see under the consent agenda and our Council rules and procedure packet item 3C it says that you can't do ordinances that are routine in nature which do not elicit public interest and to which no council member objects I think that's about ordinances specifically it's not a reading it's not

[80:00] an ordinance or a second reading okay so our rules don't clarify what we correct and I did check Robert's Rules and I'm not seeing anything for an objection with respect to something being placed on the consent agenda and so by to my knowledge the procedure would be to remove it from the consent agenda and make an appropriate motion right because you can always take something off the consent agenda for discussion okay um I think just for it to make it a discussion it's just one person but that's just a conversation at that point Sorry if we um call for oh I got another one Taisha just um I would like to add this to the list of things because I'm I'm surprised that we don't have Clarity around consent agenda is and and what the process is did you find it uh no um I'm not I'm still not

[81:01] finding it um I think there's a long list of things that that could be updated about the council procedures you all gave very specific Direction at the retreat with respect to the items that were changed tonight and so I brought those forward I wholeheartedly agree that a wholesale look at the council procedure is warranted great point Thank you and sounds like a work item yeah right sounds like some work I'd like to go ahead and call for a vote if I may please if there are no further objections um this would be a show of hands um I believe yes show of hands so uh all in favor of the motion on the table which uh Lauren so this is do you want to reiterate your motion Lauren so that would be to um reschedule item 3E to a soon date maybe the beginning of June um depending on on cac's ability to schedule it then is that

[82:01] clear it's taking it off the agenda for tonight and asking CAC to reschedule it for a time hopefully soon it would still be on consent unless that would be my not point of clarification yes um without direction from Council I wouldn't know what to bring on consent and I am hesitant to have individuals email their suggestions and have me make a bunch of competing um suggestions and edits and and so I respectfully um suggest that a conversation would be necessary for Council to provide Direction about what to draft so a agreed if if I may so agreed I think a um if we have a postponement then I think there will be time for council members to refine their thoughts and bring specific proposals that can could then be considered at a

[83:01] future meeting in the form of amendments to to the item rather than having the burden on you to change things TAA thank you um so just for for myself I did not I was not aware when we were doing the council Retreat that what we had decided was going to then be I I did not realize that there was not going to be additional conversation around some of those more contentious items that made it onto that list it was my understanding that I'm sorry I'm looking at you just as a response but I'm not like it's just I'm just um but it was my understanding that we were creating a list of items that we thought was really important and we wanted to change and some of those things had specific directives and some of those things were more vague like the signs we didn't talk about the size we didn't talk about the we just said hey you know it's not cool to have a sign that blocks the audience members behind you and so unfortunately um I I am going to continue to agree uh with Lauren about the need to have deeper conversation around some of those

[84:00] pieces that are not as e you know um clear and universally agreed upon um and I I strongly urge my fellow colleagues to consider allowing the cic to take a look at that the list and and try and and you know do a first pass of what we think we can all you know get ped by um at the next meeting is would be my request it doesn't it's not going to take a lot of time I don't think um for the ones that I know or rather that we know are are the those lower hanging fruit but I would request that we um give the time that is needed for the parts that are going to require more conversation it just seems disingenuous um to to vote on something when we know there are additional changes that we're going to need to make I don't feel comfortable about voting for something uh when I know that other changes are going to be coming um you know within the next month that are going to impact our ability to to

[85:00] meaningful meaningfully work with each other and to the incredible community that we have the honor to serve thank you thanks and just a point of clarification thanks for that Taisha that um CC uh can't make substance decisions about which items to leave on and which items to not to but we will not vote on anything without a conversation if people would like to have a conversation so when when this comes back we can anyone can pull off consent I'm sure it will be and we can have a conversation about what has majority support yes Tina so this will come back identical to what it is today yes okay so there there won't be any vetting of ideas outside of these open meetings I don't think we have a way of doing that so I think it would give time for people to make specific proposals for changes but during the open meeting not through an email process yes thank you that's my understanding can we can we go for a vote Mark you know as as Matt indicated um we're we're going to be heading down the rabbit hole um I don't really care if

[86:02] that's what the will of council is to to do that but um we are going to be losing uh an hour hour and a half of time um to parse what I thought was a pretty reasonable set of proposals from the city attorney so off we go if that's the result of the vote so um I'll go ahead and we have a motion uh that's on the table that Lauren repeated that has been seconded so show of hands uh all those in favor that looks like that would be six all opposed six and three okay so the motion passes so we'll pull that off for tonight and CAC will have a to-do item for rescheduling this okay anything else on the consent agenda perhaps a

[87:03] motion I move we pass the consent agenda with the uh exception of the one we just took off second very good um and I'll just note call on myself I'll note that uh item D was about uh the disapproval of the designation for the Civic area historic district um I'll just vote against that one because I was not of the majority on the original vote uh but can if we can do a roll call please yes sir thank you we'll start the roll call for the consent agenda items a through D and F through I with council member Marquis yes shuart yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wall yes with the exception of item d thank you sir council member Wier

[88:01] yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor bronet uh yes except a no on item D thank you and council member falr yes the consent agenda items a through D and F through I are hereby passed except for the noted nose for item number D thanks very much all right if we can go to our callup check-in please yes sir thank you our callup check-ins are item number four on the agenda and 4A is the concept plan review for a proposed Boulder housing Partners Redevelopment on 3.74 Acres located at 6400 through 6570 gun Park Drive and 6560 spine road with 23 town homes in two buildings 124 apartments in five

[89:01] buildings and one community building the site is largely undeveloped to existing Office Buildings on the property would be demolished this is reviewed under case number L 20236 any questions comments or desire to call this item up seeing No Hands doesn't look like it I'll just uh congratulate uh Boulder housing partners for moving forward on this it looks like a very promising project what's that I also just wanted to comment on appreciating the comments from planning board um and also sharing a personal interest in him having the community center maybe have a little more fun and color to it you know just just in case not as a not as a required but are you thinking pink maybe yes it should definitely be pink no but that's

[90:02] not that my vote will not hinge on that agree about the planning board comments they were very good okay if we can go to our public hearing now please all right thank you sir public hearings are item number five on the agenda and 5A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to amend and pass ordinance 8629 repealing the 2020 city of Boulder energy conservation code adopting by reference the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code and amending title 10 structures of the BRC 1981 and other sections of the bould revised code in relation there to and also setting forth related details thank you mayor and uh we had a coin toss uh beforehand and Jonathan lost that and so here he is to present I'll take the hand off n thank you so much good evening Council um mayor mayor

[91:00] proam Jonathan Cohen uh honor to serve as the Director of climate initiatives while the staff team um is getting settled in I I wanted to say I'm really excited to kick this item off tonight and I wanted to do so by actually um starting with a little bit of trivia uh Council and community members that uh might be watching tonight might not be aware that Boulder was one of the very first communities in the nation to have mandatory Green Building requirements so starting I won't take you the whole history of course but starting in the late 1970s when energy conservation was becoming a national concern the city Boulder actually got a huge Grant from the Department of energy to do a CommunityWide audit related to energy and water and so as a result uh the energy options program was developed and implemented in the 1980s and so for the next couple of decades uh our energy code and our building codes uh really improved and began really aligning with our environmental objectives as a community uh I was really aware of the

[92:00] next iteration of that program in 1996 the program was revamped and Council adopted the first green points program and that was a very historic moment I think in our building requirements uh as a city since then we've continued to use our code updates to not only make buildings structurally safer and energy efficient but also to make them healthier and more sustainable and in the most recent updates of the last couple of years the energy code been uh Guided by cost savings by safety by health and environmental impact I'm sharing all that with you because I I really want to acknowledge uh how proud the staff team is of this next iteration of the energy code uh which directly reflects the growing National trend of fuel switching and electrification to enable new technologies like energy efficient and electrified heat pumps and EVS uh I want to give Brad mu Mueller a few minutes to uh share some remarks but I also really want to appreciate the entire team and of course all of the community members that have put in a lot of work and a lot of time providing comment to make this code uh our best

[93:02] and to ensure that our buildings are efficient affordable healthy and fossil-free thanks so much I'm looking forward to tonight's conversation Brad yeah thank you Jonathan Brad Muer director of planning and development services and I simply want to speak to the uh close partnership and and uh really shared values that we have as departments between Community uh clim initiatives and planning and development services uh Jonathan was able to share a little bit of the on-ramp to this point which is uh several decades I want to share with you and uh reiterate the commitment that we've made as departments and as a a city towards uh what will be the next evolution of these discussions around embodied carbon and while we'll touch on that tonight uh and this is its own Benchmark on its own right uh we also recognize there's a future to work towards as well so with that I'm handing uh we want to get started with Rob edin who is the city's Chief Building

[94:00] official thank you Brad as Brad mentioned I'm Rob Adrians and you want to start the presentation for me there Josh here we go so the agenda for tonight's uh presentation if you will we have our timeline got a basic overview of the residential and Commercial Energy provisions and then towards the end of this presentation Caroline elim is going to address some of the concerns we've heard from the community regarding the all electric requirements of this code so just to elaborate a little more on what Jonathan gave you a good background from the early days of the energy code um just going to go over what what the energy code really is so the energy code is the document that lays out the minimum Energy Efficiency requirements for new construction alterations and additions to every building within the city of Boulder it's important because buildings are major consumers of energy strict energy codes reduce operational energy costs for businesses and Residences and reduce the number of energy cost burden households

[95:01] across this city furthermore the energy code is one of the most effective and immediate tools we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions and encourage the transition away from fossil fuels towards Renewables so just a brief history of what we call the cobc so that that's an acronym for the city of Boulder energy conservation code I apologize in advance this is going to be an acronym heavy presentation tonight so the city of Boulder first created the cobc in 2017 uh that that version of the code was based on the 2012 International energy conservation code we created our own code here in Boulder to reflect the desire of our community to push the envelope on Energy Efficiency beyond the base levels laid out by the international code and by surrounding jurisdictions in 2020 this code was further updated to create the 2020 cic tonight we have presenting the third iteration which is the 2024 CC what we are presenting tonight was developed from feedback we receiv received from the envir environmental Advisory Board the two Council study sessions the planning board and feedback we received as part of our community outreach uh

[96:00] this code is significant step towards achieving our climate action goals as shown in this little infographic down below here so as you can see from this graph the city is aiming to achieve carbon emission cuts of 70% by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2035 and carbon positive by 2040 I'm pleased to say that under this code we've not only made significant progress towards meeting both the 2030 and 2035 goals but we've also taken our first steps towards that 2040 goal by adding some additional efficiency measures that Encompass embodied carbon reductions cross laminated Timber and other measures that actually reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere so this is our timeline on this slide here so back in November of last year we had the draft code available for review to the public in February of this year we had our planning board hearing uh March we had the first public hearing tonight we've got the second public hearing and we're targeting an adoption date of July 8th so once that dat hits any permits submitted will be to this new code if approved tonight so uh this code was developed

[97:01] with strict adherence to our CER principles to develop safe livable environmentally sustainable and economically vitable communities so on to some changes so under the 2020 code uh we established 20 to 25% savings Target over the national codes we established performance back stops 5% minimum solar offsets EV capable EV ready and evsc requirements under this 2024 update we're still targeting the same 20 to 25% reduction over the national code but as over the updated National codes there's still some savings there but not as aggressive as under the 2020 code the major update this time around is all electric construction requirements with some exceptions for things like commercial cooking and other industrial commercial applications that be difficult to Electrify with current technology we have significantly updated our EV requirements we've added levels at updates to our levels of renovation to simplify the code encourage the ReUse of existing buildings and recognition of the embodied carbon we've also modified

[98:00] our all electric and electric ready requirements for existing buildings so on the residential side in 2020 we established a rule that houses above 3,000 ft required to be Net Zero Energy we establish strong performance back stops and we establish solar ready and offset requirements and EV ready requirements for our homes under this 2024 code the biggest changes are all electric new construction pre-imposed solar ER targets which is a step away from prescriptive back stops to add flexibility and help reduce costs we' also updated our solar ready and EV ready requirement to align with the state model code we've made some changes to our alteration levels to help improve affordability and preserve existing buildings and we've modified our all electric and electric ready requirements for existing homes so with that I'm going to pass you on to Josh for the technical rundown of the current updates thank you rob thank you council members for tonight uh so I'm going to dive into the residential energy code updates that we have really these are the top changes we're going to touch on the residential pieces and then dive into the commercial

[99:01] pieces so the first item we wanted to discuss here is our energy rating index score or ER Target is another term you'll he us refer to basically think of this as miles per gallon for a home as Robin mentioned our current energy code requires any homes 3,000 square feet and larger to be at Net Zero um our new energy code has been updated to have two Targets so we have a net zero Target still for homes that are larger than 3,000 but we also have a pre-solar Target so really this makes uh the the developers the designers and builders and contractors really start to think outside of the box on how they have to get to this target of 50 without solar so what this did was this allowed us to remove our prescriptive back stops which basically these prescriptive back stops were items in the energy code that weren't allowed to be less efficient then and so what this does is this this did is open the door for the design teams to have more um more access to kind of do what they needed to do to get their project to comply without relying on solar first um for any homes less than 3,000 squ ft our current energy code has a sliding scale based on the

[100:01] home size so homes that are going to be closer to 3,000 square feet are going to be around an ER about 22 which is very efficient homes that are going to be closer to say 500 to 1500 sare feet are going to be closer to an ER of 50 the new energy code similar to the homes that are over 3,000 square feet also has a pre and a posts solar ER Target for the home's less than 3,000 square F feet so we have the the requirement of 50 an ER of 50 before solar and now uh once that is achieved they also have to do an additional piece of solar to get down to an ERI of 30 this really helped to streamline the process um in terms of our ERI targets just because there's a lot of calculations and a lot of variable that can happen depending on the home size what this does is it takes out that variable and we give static numbers that are easier to achieve and understand um we also have updated our prescriptive path of options as well and we've actually lifted this threshold from 500t to 1 th000 square ft um to include smaller homes and uh the addition of uh accessory uh dwelling units as well um this really is to help

[101:01] streamline this process kind of reduce overhead for some of those smaller projects and really focus on kind of the reduction in cost for that process as well um we've also looked at restructuring the insulation values per the 21 and the 2024 International energy conservation code or the iecc the next item I wanted to mention on our update is this new requirement for all electric new construction basically this is for any mechanical systems for heating cooling water heating clo drying cooking fir places and Pools and Spas have to be all electric or at least uh fueled by something other than a fossil fuel derived energy source if you're curious more information on this can actually be found on your memo on page nine another section we added to the new energy code is this section r408 for additional conservation requirements so the national code has a section that's additional Energy Efficiency requirements and so with the direction that we were looking to take here in Boulder we called ours additional conservation requirements because

[102:00] similar to the National code this is a pointand credit based system but we've gone outside of the box really and aren't just looking at Energy Efficiency we've heard from Council and some of the other uh boards that we wanted to start focusing on carbon emissions um and so what we've done here is we've added some additional credits for whole B building life cycle assessments and rewarding people for using low embodied carbon materials like concrete rebar uh cross- laminated Timber and so on we also have some additional saving or additional options in there for battery storage energy monitoring things of that nature for a full list of all of the credits that are available I encourage you to look at the attachment B which is the energy code and check out section r408 for that for the full list of all of the all the available credits right and then so the last major update here on the residential side is really going to be tied into existing buildings so in looking at additions first as I mentioned previously anything that's less than a th000 square feet so new construction and additions has the option to follow either the prescriptive compliance path or the modeled path which is the ER path prescriptive

[103:01] compliance for anyone that's wondering is basically following the book is written like a recipe right they give you the layout you build it per the recipe and you're good to go for any homes that are over or excuse me additions that are o at 1,000 square feet or over they only are able to comply with the ER compliance path because of the size of the home or the size of the addition um we've updated our air leakage testing requirements as well to provide more flexibility with these existing buildings as we know we have an aging home stock here in Boulder and it's kind of hard to hit some of the new construction targets and we've really started to understand that um another item we did is we've updated our ER compliance um for the modeling piece to align with the alterations requirements so um for additions basically you have two options you can either hit an ER of 50 or less or you can show a 30% reduction from the existing building's ER with the building now with the addition and one other thing to note on this is that all all additions being new construction um require any new equipment or appliances to be installed that are installed in that addition to be all

[104:00] electric now let's switch gears and look at alterations real quick so before we dive into that let me give kind of a quick definition of what these levels of alteration are so a level one alteration would be similar to you going in and wanting to do a remodel of your kitchen maybe removing cabinets uh replacing countertops putting in new fixtures a level two alteration is you started deciding to move some some walls around in the house and reconfigure the space level three is basically if it meets the criteria of either level one or two but it's more than 50% of the building area so those are really the definitions of kind of the different levels of alteration that we have so back into the presentation um in terms of our all electric requirements levels 1 through three there are no all electric or electric ready requirements for those levels of alteration now if it's a level three alteration that includes the replacement of mechanical equipment then the equipment can still be replaced it's just that that that space will have to be electric ready for future installation of an electric appliance if this is also a level three alteration that's replacing mechanical equipment

[105:01] but also substantially altering the envelope like say a gut rehab then the primary and principal uh space conditioning equipment has to be all electric and the furnace cannot be replaced that being said it can be retained as a backup uh system if desired basically kind of viewed as Legacy equipment as I've kind as I have really seen it um because at the end of the day we don't want to discourage um tearing out equipment that still has a really good useful life ahead of them and really kind of will eat into kind of our resiliency in our community um another couple of things to mention on the updates for alteration is as I mentioned in in the addition side the a leakage T targets have been updated to provide more flexibility for our existing buildings and then also our e compliance actually is the same as the 2020 cobc um which aligns now actually with the additions as well so a lot of this really was to make more cohesion with the existing buildings and kind of streamline the process and help reduce kind of confusion as people start to work through the energy code one last thing to mention on the existing building piece is we've actually

[106:00] provided a true compliance process detailed out in the code so when you come in for permit the Builder the designer knows what we're going to be looking for when we go to permit intake when they go for their certificate of occupancy at the end of the project they know what documents they're going to need as well there um so this really will help streamline that process and kind of eliminate any confusion and kind of questions I think uh moving forward one other update to mention on the resid residential side is we have this new allowance for minimum Renewable Energy Systems so for example if we have a home that's 3,000 s ft and they have to be at Net Zero they've maximized their roof space for solar they can't get any more solar on there they come to us and they say hey we'd have to go off site for an additional say three three kilowatts of solar so say eight to 10 panels we'll say they can come to us show us that they fully maximize the roof space and the Chief Building official has the ability to adjust their final or posts solar ER Target to make it Al with what they're actually achieving with what they've installed on site the reason for this is we are trying to reduce anything from offsite solar just because we know

[107:00] that with the homes that we have as we uh install solar on site the solar stays with the home as soon as we go to a home and basically if they're using offsite they sign up for the subscription we walk away there's no real requirement there there's no teeth that basically say they have to retain that that program um so going to switch gears up here a little bit now we're going to jump into the commercial update so similar to our residential counterpart we have an all electric water heating and space conditioning requirement uh for the commercial space as well unlike the residential portion we have Incorporated exceptions into this because as we know here in Boulder we have some unique building types like Labs Pharmacy manufacturing things of that nature and so as you can see we've tried to be thoughtful about this and write in certain exceptions for certain types of buildings as we've seen can be impacted really by this because of lack of Technology um for electrification and and source in that nature um a couple of things to note on this for any of those exceptions that are listed if the energy source is fossil fuel it has to be 100%

[108:01] offset by on-site renewable energy another thing to note is that for emergency generators commercial cooking and any scientific or industrial process loads those are exempt from this offset requirement the reason being for this is commercial cooking and say scientific and Industrial process loads restaurants may go into a mixed use building restaurants go into a mixed use building commercial cooking can help a large offset requirement puts us it puts the Builder and it puts us in a hard spot of trying to require them to put solar on a roof that they don't own and so we really tried to think through that process and kind of wrote These into with that thought in mind um to ensure kind of a smoother transition as we kind of work towards this all electric uh um as we work towards the all electric uh future um the next item I wanted to touch on here is our update to our performance targets so the two primary paths that we use as our fixed performance Target path as well as our model Baseline path the fixed performance Target path really uses the numbers that we have in the table to the right on the slide here as you can see

[109:00] bason building type um in the left column they're going to have a Target that's based in on the values in the right columns as you notice those values are the same and you may be wondering why are these values the same well the current 2020 cobc allows electricity as well as natural gas to use for compliance since we are moving natural gas from the equation to be able to use that as a solution to achieve compliance we really didn't want to go we're going to take this out of your um out of your basket to achieve compliance and we're going to go ahead and move these goal posts and make it even harder to achieve energy or your Energy Efficiency Target and so with that thought and me in mind we decided to leave the targets where they were plus we were updating our Baseline um from our ashray or our ashray Baseline in 2016 to actually 2022 so it's a sixe newer code really or two cycle code newer um we've also provided greater flexibility here as we're no longer requiring solar offset of % on the fixed performance Target path the reason being is that these values are very efficient and so um solar is more

[110:00] than likely going to be required on the majority of these if not all of these projects and whether or not it's 2% 3% 5% 10% that can be up to the design team we feel um and so flipping it around to the model Baseline path so say we have a project that doesn't fit into one of the boxes for the building types that we have listed at the right like say a laboratory they would follow the model Baseline path this path has a little bit more involvement in it a little bit uh um deeper kind of understanding and kind of um intricacies with that modeling piece and so that being said we still wanted to require that 5% solar offset because we did hear Council and understand that we do want to encourage solar and continue to encourage solar on our buildings in town um couple things one thing I did want to notice that I didn't mention earlier is any of the acronyms that you see in here I tried to incorporate the the title or the name for it in the bottom right corner of it so if you see that hopefully that shines some light on some of that confusion if there is any all right we also updated our our thermal envelope testing for the commercial energy code and so basically

[111:01] what this did was this dropped our Target from 04 to 0.25 CFM per square foot of the envelope and this really is to help us align with the Army Corps of Engineers as well as Fort Collins has been doing it for the past I would say six to eight years um we do have an exception in there um for any projects that may be under the 04 Target but may not be able to achieve that 0.25 they can show diagnostic evaluation and so forth um but we basically wanted to provide a path forward for projects that may not be able to achieve that Target we've also updated our our dwelling unit and sleeping unit enclosure testing and moved this from a 0.25 down to a 0. 2 this is really to help us align more with its residential counterpart um that being said um a single family home in a apartment is not Apples to Apples and so that's why you kind of notice there's some differences in numbers there as well um a couple things to note too is that we've also updated references um that are added now for air barrier air sealing and insulation um so if we're going to tell you that these dwelling Target these dwelling units have to be tighter we want to give you the tools

[112:01] and the guidance on how to do that and um the tables that we've we've referenced actually point you in that direction and give you good guidance on that um and we've also updated it to include duck leakage testing and ventilation testing for dwelling units because previously they weren't required and if they're doing it in residential homes an apartment basically to me is really a residential home so I think it needs to follow that same standard all right all right so earlier we we touched on the p uh the performance requirements that were updated and now I wanted to mention that on the prescriptive side of things we also updated these minimums as well to help us align with uh the iecc or International energy conservation code as well as uh ashray 90.1 um and so as you can see on the envelope we've updated um the woodf framed wallr values for multif family as you can see I mentioned I showed some of the the updates minor updates on the side really to bring us in alignment we updated the slab uh r value as well and we increased the solar heat gain requirements for operable windows on the mechanical front we updated the efficiency values to really

[113:00] align with the minimum codes and then we added some additional tables for some newer systems that have come out that technology has now come to Market um on the lighting front we updated some of the interior lighting values and there actually was a pretty decent update on the exterior lighting as well and then on the electrical front um there's a requirement now for 50% of receptacle controls in specific buildings to actually have automatic uh be automatically controlled so when people leave the space and things of that nature um and the last piece I wanted to mention too is that for anything over 25,000 squ ft energy monitoring is also required as well all right so similar to residential we also have this additional conservation requirement here in commercial as mentioned this is to help us align with the national code there are different credit amounts for mixed fuel versus all electric buildings really because when it comes to emissions mixed fuel buildings tend to put out more emissions than all electric building and for this we required additional credit requirements to to help achieve that and offset that below I've I've listed some examples of the additional uh conservation measures as I mentioned

[114:01] previously we do we have Incorporated embodied carbon reduction as well as whole cycle life whole building life cycle assessments to kind of address the current the the concerns of council and boards and start looking in that direction of really embodied carbon reduction as well as just carbon reduction overall and Emissions reductions for more information on this um you can look at the the attachment B and check out section c406 for the full list of all of the credits as well as the sections past that to explain the credits in more detail all right so the last couple of sections here we wanted to touch on is um the electric vehicle requirements as you can see kind of where we started in the 2020 cobc and where we're going with the 24 cobc between those two cycles we actually had the state model Electric Code um and and EV ready codes and so what we did was actually we had to align with that code and then look to kind of bump up the numbers um as we saw fit and so as you can see from our table anything that's in Black in the writing has something that either aligns with uh

[115:00] the model state code or our previous code anything that's in green really exceeds what the state was asking uh what the state was doing and because we're Bolder we want to make sure we meet and exceed those values I believe really um a couple things to note with these is that we're looking to allow trade-offs of up to five spaces for one level three charger or a DC fast charger or think of like a Tesla Supercharger uh and then also for any any any uh projects that have parking garages once all of the EV requirements have been achieved any of the remaining spaces that are in a parking garage that may not have any EV infrastructure attached would be required to be EV capable light EV capable light is basically having conduit or like piping to be able to install the the wiring to be able to hook it up to the panel um for a future system for a a charger looking at the commercial occupancies um similar to the previous slide anything that's in green on this slide has been updated basically from the model state code and so as you can see a lot of it some of it on the the other levels is basically where we currently are and we just look to exceed

[116:01] that um but a couple things I wanted to mention also on here is um we also are alling trade trade-offs here and we're trying to encourage really the level three Chargers in the commercial space so we would want to allow a tradeoff up to 10 spaces for a level three or like a Tesla Supercharger to really encourage that um and then similar to the multif family piece is we once any and all uh of the EV space requirements have been allocated any additional spots in a parking garage would also have to be uh EV capable light and so with that being said I'm going to turn it over to Carolyn to talk about some myths misconceptions and additional contexts in regards to the all electric requirement thanks Josh before you jump away you should introduce yourself oh I am so sorry I am Josh Hansen uh Josh Hansen I'm the energy code uh compliance principal examiner here at the city uh Carolyn Elum is our thank you our our sustainability senior manager um and so I apologize for that and that's that's my job to remind

[117:00] people of that so carine thanks for stepping in where I missed it thank you well I was sitting over here so proud of Josh um we're so lucky to have him he knows so much about the code that I was like wait I don't think he introduced himself and you should all know who he is because we're amazingly fortunate to have this team so again I'm carollyn NM I'm a sustainability senior manager I work with Jonathan in our climate initiatives department and we wanted to take a moment um I think many of you have seen that our code has drawn a lot more attention than it has historically we've gotten some press coverage and and certainly I know that there's been some social media conversation and so we wanted to talk about some of the themes we've been hearing and and address come some of the misconceptions that might be out there and clarify a few things just just to make sure everybody's clear and Josh touched on um this in his presentation but more explicitly we wanted to put on one slide and just be clear what the all electric requirements apply to we're really targeting when things are being newly constructed as the point where you can only have electric appliances this is really to avoid continued investment in gas

[118:02] infrastructure expanded requirements on our gas system those are the things we're trying to avoid with the all electric requirements as Josh mentioned additions as well um it's only the appliances that are part of that addition it doesn't affect anything else in the existing structure you know so if you're you know bumping out a wall to to put in a bedroom you can extend the duct work to serve that you know those types of projects we certainly are not trying to touch any of the existing appliances in the home as Josh also mentioned when we come into Renovations and things like gut Renovations we're actually only targeting um the real energy consuming uses so space and water heating um put a different way the thing many people have asked about what about my stove um if you're doing a gut renovation um you major alteration it doesn't alter your ability to have your gas Appliance um it certainly doesn't um alter anybody's ability to replace an appliance that

[119:00] brakes um as Josh mentioned doing kitchen remodels doing Basin finishes all those things are just as they are today um just wanted to be very clear about that that's not what this code does it's really focused on the points where it makes the most sense in terms of avoiding infrastructure and where it can most cost effectively be done next slide it's more than just a climate concern why we're advocating for this and you heard me talk about this this first one affordability really is a core component of this and I'll talk a little bit more about this but our real goal here is again to avoid both building new infrastructure as well as stranding people with infrastructure that they have to pay for in a future where we're seeing declining gas use on the system um I've been listening to Public Utilities Commission hearings we're going to see an influx of over $400 million is going to decarbonize our buildings in the next three years there's going to be attrition off the gas system and those left on that system are going to have to bear the balance of

[120:00] the those costs so thinking about fewer sales um on on a system that still has to be maintained and is growing um is even more concerning so we're trying to make sure that we're mitigating against that and also it doesn't make a lot of sense um you know uh I actually heard a public hearing comment earlier tonight about you know how all the other charges you pay for just for the sake of having a service can add up you know we're going to see a point where um you know people are paying $100 just to operate their stove in their home because that's the meter fee and all the other charges they're they're hardly using the gas and and that's the condition we're trying to void where we can um the other part is um you know appliances Gas Appliances we've learned a lot about the role they're playing in health issues um both you indor air pollutants um in your home whether that's carbon monoxide or um respiratory irritants that can cause asthma or outdoor pollution um about 5%

[121:01] of our Front Range ozone comes from Appliance use in our buildings um so we're just trying to mitigate against that as well next slide Josh the other thing we've heard is you know everybody's looking um at their historical experience where gas is cheaper um I agree with you today um if you are just taking your your existing home home you're just swapping out a gas Appliance for an electric appliance yes it's going to probably cost you a little bit more to operate that electric but that's rapidly changing and again I as I mentioned we're targeting new construction so even um you know you're having the much more efficient home already it's it's very tight it's very efficient you're actually can go all electric and still be less expensive in terms of utility costs than the the rest of the community who are living in older homes that were built under less stringent codes so again we're we're trying not to add cost onto people

[122:00] moving to those homes that they wouldn't you know comparative to what other people are paying at the Times where it makes the most sense and as we go forward you know electricity prices and I have a chart for gas prices yes electricity prices are growing but they're going you know basically on par with inflation and they're growing just steadily they're much more predictable um when when we get to the gas I'll I'll talk a little bit more about that here's the gas chart this is excel's um 10year um historical gas prices and you can see a lot in this chart um it's very volatile you can see why many in our community have experienced um some uh unexpected costs particularly when you saw that Peak happen in um fall winter of last year that had just a material effect on so many in our community um you know that's that was caused by Global issues that happen to impact our prices as well um I highlighted winter storm Yuri that was one winter storm

[123:00] that caused um pricing to go up across the country and we're going to continue to pay for the impact of that because Exel um was able to basically prate the cost of the shark Peak that they experienced over a number of years um so the costs are very volatile it's very hard to manage to the other thing I just want to point out is that gray bar again I I know you can't read the chart I'm just kind of going with the colors here um you can see that gray portion of the graph has grown pretty significantly that's the maintenance of our infrastructure um so this is really recognizing that we built a lot of our infrastructure in the Denver metro area around the middle of the last century so we're approaching 70 years um end of life there's a lot of Maintenance that's happened to go on so that's just going to keep growing and so we're trying to shore our community up with going Electric towards this future price volatility so that's a component of our decision next one you know I want to really appreciate I know so many in our community um uh

[124:03] really experienced a lot of hardship around um excel's Public Safety power shut off um there it was very impactful on many in our community and certainly everybody equates Powers off what do I do how does that interact with the code we're requiring all electric so we just wanted to to be clear first you know we don't think that multiple days without power is is the end State um we're we're in a space where a lot of investment needs to be made and it takes a little while um to shore up the system and Harden the system I think you've you've heard from Excel about that gas appliances don't work when the power's out either for the most part there are some older appliances that that's that will work but new appliances aren't going to work when the power's out either so we really need to think about resilience in a different way but we've offered just a few things of clarity around which appliances may or may not work just so people can understand like where they may have experienced something different um than what I'm saying here so for example if you had an

[125:00] older hot water heater um it has a standing flame that stayed on and continued to heat your water new water heaters don't have that um they require electricity to operate no furnace works when the power's out because it has a blow or it can't move the air um ovens are all protected now you can't you can't like go in and stick your head in the oven please don't try it um to to light it um so ovens don't work um cooktops we've all done it um you've had a guest stove you've taken the match you've lit it because there's something wrong with your your pilot it's you can get burned that way um also if your mechanical systems in your home aren't working you're not moving air um if you're running your stove for an extended period of time you're building up carbon monoxide and actually also sucking oxygen out of the air and so people have died especially in small spaces trying to for example Heat their home um with their gas stove so so

[126:02] Public Safety announcement please do not do that um the manufactures are also making it so you can't do that um so they're starting to put safeties into those and we're going to be seeing that more and more so what you maybe could do a few years ago you're not going to be able to do it into the future and then fireplaces um yes some of them have a battery backup so you can an item but without a blower they're not very helpful mine counters the effect of my dog tour um you know when it's that's that's my analogy I use so um you know we we need to address resiliency in a different way it's it's not retaining our gas appliances so with that I think we're back to you Josh for our staff recommendation thank you Carin so we actually wanted to bring forward a staff recommendation um and ask for a motion to amend and pass on the second reading ordinance of number 8629 repealing the 2020 uh cobc or city of Boulder energy conservation code and adopting by reference the 2024 city of

[127:01] Boulder energy conservation code and amending title 10 structures in the BRC 1981 and other sections of the boulder Revis code in relation there to and setting forth the related details all right well thank you for that information packed presentation really appreciate it Carolyn and Josh and Rob and Rob I don't know if you've been in chambers before presenting to us but so welcome we hopefully we won't give you too hard of a time um and also want to thank uh Carolyn and Jonathan I've been bugging them with all kinds of questions and emails and such really appreciate all your responsiveness all right do we have uh Council clarifying questions before we go to the public hearing I got Tina I got Mark yep I just had a few questions and this was really helpful thank you so much for everyone for working on this and um as a newer council member making it so clear it's just it's great um so for homes that are in the historic district there'll be some things in terms of getting efficiency with old windows do they have a different process

[128:01] now um to achieve these energy efficiencies or do they still go through landmarks how does that work so there is exemptions in the energy code for historic buildings especially landmarked or listed historic buildings but if they were going through like say level three alteration they would still typically be required but let's say it had you know historic windows and they wanted to preserve that fenestration we have the ability to you effectively wave that requirement and say that the historic component overrules the energy component in that case but we would still want them to be as energy efficient as possible and that's kind of the process we've always followed even with the 2020 and the previous curx so we work really closely with historic preservation to ensure that we're you know improving these buildings but not risking the historic Integrity or even worse having them be demolished and losing that that character in the community um and then another question I had was um right now in construction for buildings of all sizes on the residential and on the commercial side

[129:02] are you seeing people organically trying to meet this type of energy efficiency or do you think this will be a major shift we're already seeing this um we seen people voluntarily install heat pumps to replace gas systems um the price of this technology is very rapidly becoming competitive with existing you know gas fire technology and people like it it's more comfortable it's more efficient it's quieter and it's bit of the environment as well okay and then I have two more um are we going to so um the tighter the building is the more the impact of radon can be will we at least my understanding is I'm not an expert in any of these things but will we try to remind people that they should radon test um not just what during radon month but maybe do more of that so new construction we require it and we require made on rate on mitigation systems already so um with existing buildings we would encourage it

[130:00] we do not mandate it okay and for renovations but we don't for renovations do we no not for renovations just construction okay and then um on the electrical vehicle parking does this do these um how does the new legislation on parking minimums and our own thoughts about parking minimums minimums intersect with these recommendations and and one of my concerns is I don't want to end up where people uh find it more convenient to use non-electric cars uh and I I think people will still be using cars to recreate in particular uh go up to the mountains and go to ski places and things like that and also to use their cars as a backup energy source hi I'll I'll take that one um so our EV requirements are based on what um whatever is required under zoning or proposed on the project which ever is

[131:02] more and so that's that's their basis so the extent that those end up getting modified um you for for zoning or other requirements our e requirements would scale with that um there they a percent of parking spaces so as long as there's parking there's always going to be a percent of parking spaces um this one aspect did you want to add something to it Brad go ahead a friend Brad Mueller um one other aspect of the new state legislation is that it applies to Commercial and Industrial so not single family residential but we do know that this will be a point uh that we look at in in more detail as part of the uh comprehensive Transportation regulation review that's one of the work plan items okay that's all I have thanks so much Mark could I could I call a quei on Tera on Tina's Point go for it I appreciate I had my hand up but I have no way

[132:00] of sorry it's the nature of it's nature of what we're doing um no I appreciate uh Tina bringing up I and and I I heard that from car what Carolyn said was that the um uh code the the code as it would be sort of proposed would scale with any parking but what if we I'm just trying to wonder what trumps what in terms of superiority in the code because what if we start tweaking our parking to sort of say look we might allow more parking but only if it has a greater fraction of that parking being EV I mean if we were to do that I I just want to make sure that this code doesn't then prohibit us from creating um perhaps greater fractions of EV than we might otherwise have gotten here should that project sort of benefit from that or be in a place that would benefit from having a greater fraction that would be provided in the code and and if I can just call a on that as you're thinking about answering that question would it be the case that that as we um maybe develop new parking

[133:02] regulations that we could adjust our EV parking requirements at the same time if we felt like that was a desirable thing to do yes I can for sure answer the your question Mar and say yes I think um I'm going to phone my legal friend um Hela uh just to understand what what we can impose um in tradeoff for more perking um in terms of the code because that's that's I think a little bit more of her alley I'm I'm not sure I fully understood the question but if you can introduce yourself please of course hel penwick city attorney's office um I I'm not sure I fully understand the question but I could Envision even a requirement for charging that's unrelated to parking so I think we could certainly draft around the limitation of requiring part par on requiring parking I I appreciate that I mean I obviously don't want to go on the whole parking stuff we'll get there I just want to make sure that what we're what

[134:00] we proposed tonight doesn't tie our hands of what we made inv Vision with regards to EV infrastructure as it connects to parking when we do address the parking issue I I just want to make sure that we're still free to do that and this doesn't tie our hands in thinking uh broadly or or differently with how we tie parking and EV charging together yeah and I'll just add to that this is Brad Mueller with planning uh in general any if there was a zoning regulation uh ratio requirement for for Ev that was greater than what this code had um the more stringent regulation always Prevail so we would have that in place and then we would catch up at some point in updating this code perfect that's what I needed to hear thanks Brad Lauren you got a follow up on this no good okay Mark yeah just a couple of quick questions um did I correctly read in the memo that the new requirements of a code are

[135:00] priced out at about $4 per square foot for construction purposes that just occur in my fever brain yeah I believe that's the number I'd have to look at the exact number but that's inclusive of the solar okay and and what did we base that on um so our engineering Consultants uh did did a lot of Investigation into what they're seeing in terms of you know what we would be installing in an average home to to meet the the code and then pricing out what the incremental differences between equipment um as well as the savings that are attributed to avoided infrastructure okay um and with respect to older rental properties did you have any concern that some of these code changes might actually inhibit uh renovation due to the extra cost and keep those properties

[136:00] in in a a state of Greater disrepair than we would like to see yeah first is a clarification the the $4 is for the new construction um so where we're actually requiring um it to be Net Zero adding the solar on um to to that project that wouldn't apply to a renovation so those are just the prescriptive requirements ments they're they're far less than that that number you saw in in the code um and I think as as Rob and Josh mentioned one of the things we did is actually we um where we could um and still comply with the state requirements we actually simplified a lot to try and make it easier um to preserve and also encourage so that was the goal um I I think we're certainly going to monitor it closely because again it was a goal um to to try and make it easier to preserve existing structures and and not have the same barriers but um I I think we'll take feedback um through this code cycle for sure and and make sure we're accomplishing that goal and and my last question I just want to bring this sort

[137:00] of down to earth uh for me uh let's assume a couple owns a 1500 square foot home um and and they're going to renovate it substantially renovate cut renovate it um what's the incremental cost of compliance with the new regs versus how they would been able to renovate the home previously what what's the additional cost that we're imposing upon them well I think the only difference in this code because we didn't make the efficiency requirements more stringent would be the difference between for example a furnace and a heat pump um so you know all things uh because you already have the gas infrastructure in that home you're not getting the the savings um you know we're seeing roughly um assuming you're replacing both the furnace and an AC versus a heat pump solution you know we're seeing somewhere in the3 to $6,000 differential in pricing but then there's all there's

[138:01] rebates now um so I would say they're almost on parody at this point um as long as you're taking advantage of the utility rebates that are available because they're in the order of um you know2 to $3,000 depending on on on what you're doing okay and uh I do want to thank all of you for the tremendous amount of work that you put in to this and and this very clear presentation um and and and thank you for what you have done Taran then Lauren as many of you know I'm super worried about Excel so you almost took care of all my worries Carolyn except for the Excel portion just def so I just want to make sure that we have the energy that we're going to need to make this transition is it possible for you to let us know or provide information on the expected increase in electric energy demand over time or maybe just an assurance that Excel will have the

[139:00] capacity to meet the electric energy demands of our residents and businesses hopefully not relying on blackouts but I did forget what Excel what did Excel call blackouts again who remembers Public Safety power shut offs that's my first question wow council member Weir that was a lot to ask of me um if you'll if you'll forgive me I'm going to answer it first in the context of our building code um you know so again what we're mostly um talking about is is construction and um you know we when we're talking about Boulder there's few projects that are new construction every year they're largely like scrapes and and rebuilds or or some small infill maybe some Redevelopment and in most cases because we're building back more efficient and what was there we're we haven't run into a lot of service capacity constraints you know certainly um for larger commercial projects with some of our EV requirements they are having to make

[140:01] some service upgrades um to meet those it's on the EV side not the building itself um you know when we talk about transitioning existing buildings again we're striving we're replacing older equipment um even though we're going from gas to electric I mean there is some service capacity that we're going to be taking a close look at and then um I I am not the um legislative the person who remembers all the bill numbers um but there is certainly um there was some legislation this year to really try and do some of that more comprehensive planning around where we we're seeing growth and so we're certainly going to be looking at like the East Boulder um area and start to plan with Excel like how to build out that infrastructure so we're not constrained and then to your broader question on you know how we avoid um you know public saate for power shutdowns right we know we have um a lot of infrastructure that needs um Improvement and upgrade and I there's been a lot of wildfire mitigation work that's already been going on in the community I know we we've heard from folks who've had outages is there's been pole Replacements and other things um

[141:01] you know it just takes time and and we're looking at you know a couple years for them to really Implement some of those early programs um so you know we may have some additional outages I would um you know I think they're going to certainly strive to um really scale that back to just the areas that you know they're still working in or are are considered a risk um I think my biggest message I I'll give my please don't go out and get a generator um message um you know it really is the endgame that everybody should have reliable power here and that is certainly what our staff team is working with Excel to make sure we we get and we understand that we don't get there overnight um but we're certainly very cognizant about where some of our constraints are and how this code specifically doesn't create a concern that that wasn't already there at least by the way I was making a joke about the blackouts I wasn't serious okay but please don't go out and buy a

[142:00] generator what I meant was what I meant was we don't want to depend on blackouts to control our energy demands is what I meant as a joke yeah okay Lauren then Taisha thank you um so I had a couple of questions mostly on the commercial side um I saw that the large office eui targets of 40 are still substantially higher than the medium and small office targets and I know that was something we had discussed so I was just curious how we ended up there sure Josh Hansen energy code for planning um so we actually did look at that we actually looked at using a formula to base the square footage off of the problem with that is it's great for uh offices up to 90,000 Square ft then we set it in the uh eui of 50 so then the problem would be is okay so offices that are 120,000

[143:00] square feet may have an eui of 60 so it's a sliding scale in that respect versus having a static number at 40 the other thing too is where we pulled those values was from the epas I think it's called the building types uh their technical reference that updates basically was updated actually last August and showed a lot of the average uh building type kind of energy usage across the country the these large Office Buildings actually came in I believe at a 53 on the eui and so basically we looked at that and took a 25% cut from that because being Bolder we thought we wanted to be bolder and really try to attack it no I and so that's kind of where we really landed with that um plus I don't know if the buildings that are larger requiring them to have a lower ER Target or eui Target um I don't that would be probably a very hard path I think um and so that being said to your point I think what we can do too is um you know monitor this and see kind of if we are having projects that you know are easily achieving this 40 or maybe they're struggling and maybe they're not and so we'll have that kind of as a goal to kind of monitor that and

[144:00] see as well I think um so for comparison what percentage cut is it for the small or mediumsized offices from what the the mediumsized office is a 23 still so it stays the same as it currently was but from sort of that National Database of existing buildings that type so I will say this sorry about cutting you off apologies um the office that I was referring to was just an office it wasn't 25,000 square feet or less or 50,000 square feet or over it was an office building period was at an eui of 52 and so since we already had medium offices set at the 23 I was like well that why we're not going to change that that doesn't make sense but to your point on these larger offices why not and so the other thing too I would say is if they can't achieve an eui of 40 we have the modeled Baseline path as well they can go through and I know that was kind of some of the previous discussions of should we set this target at a 40 or should just make make them go the eui or the the model Baseline path and actually model it and so um I know that I I felt kind

[145:02] of strongly that they should followed the modeled Baseline path but I know that we wanted to give them a Target as well um didn't want to leave them out of the the the other list of kind of buildings that were available to have a fixed Target and so um I know that we kind of went back and forth on kind of the different uh euis and we landed at the 40 and so um yeah does any you any other you want to add anything on that and see if maybe clarify sorry no I mean I think you did I mean we certainly explored the concept of moving it lower I think we were concerned um that it would be really hard to achieve and you know I I know we have like an amazing team like even working on our Pavilion project and they're going to beat that but um it's really I mean it's really hard so we just wanted to be if we're going to move them to an eui path we wanted to make it feasible um also acknowledging that most of our large Just Pure commercial buildings have been doing a really great job in in leadership in that regard anyway so I think that's where we're at and we also

[146:01] have uh John erant with his hand up remotely John did you have an answer to that question yes I I just wanted to add on to and if you can if you can introduce yourself please yes thank you my name's John Arts I'm work with Nesco I'm a consultant or company is for the city of Boulder and just wanted to um kind of elaborate a little on the eui so the large office building at a glance would seem to be much higher ey which might in one might one might infer lower performance but I think a part of it is due to the uh the types of fenestration that is used on these buildings there's large window areas a lot of curtain wall glazing and a lot of uh you know a lot of heat gain that happens in these buildings so it's just the nature of a high-rise building is kind of fundamentally different than a medium office and these also besides the other studies that Josh mentioned we we look at euis as far as far as code baselines

[147:01] and find that the large office is typically a little diff difficult to to uh get to a lower eui thank you for that um technical answer I was also wondering about commercial cooking equ and it looked like the there is still going to be a solar offset for no okay so for because I was just wondering in a TI with a tenant how that would work so okay great I can take the nodding and shaking of heads to exactly like that it's been addressed um and then I was wondering if maybe you could tell us a little bit more about this true compliance process so sure it's actually pretty simple I think it's it consists of one section and a couple of different subsections in it but basically it lays out you know when you come in for permit at this stage what documents are

[148:00] required and so it lists those documents you know at at se certificate of occupancy safe for a home you're going to be required to show an eui or an e your ER report as well as your blower door report but it kind of plainly calls it out no sorry plainly calls it out in the code that way they don't get to final they're like so what did you need now and so it kind of helps the design team up front really know what they need that way when they get into the city we're not kicking it back and making them wait even longer to get their project it really helps kind of with cost I think as well so sort of adding to our existing checklist process to just make sure that the energy portion of it's more clarified exactly and this is actually built into the code versus in a separate document too so it's nice thank you and then my final question is about our effective date I know before when we were looking at this we were planning some Runway um between when this would get adopted and when um the effective date would be and I noticed that that is not the same

[149:01] amount of Gap that we have now between our adop potential adoption date and our effective Target um I guess I would be interested in your thoughts and potentially why that why we chose this effective date and if there would be any difficulties in ensuring that we have that Runway a longer runway for implementation just because takes a lot of planning and time to get these projects going and I don't love the idea of changing things on people Midstream yeah Brad Mueller with planning I I'll take first answer that and ask colleagues to speak to it but uh one thing that I think is real important is since the fall road we've been talking about that as the implementation day so there's very little chance it would be a surprise on folks um we are trying to balance the eagerness of uh

[150:01] policy getting put in place so that we are capturing uh new construction that comes along with uh with whatever council's you know preference and and desire is and we'll of course adjust uh as Council might see fit tonight but we do feel that that's been well communicated and and essentially not a big surprise to folks thank you I've got Taisha and then Matt and then Ryan thank you all right thank you so much this is really fantastic this is a huge growth area as I indicated when Excel Energy was speaking with us and so I really appreciated the breakdown of the breakdown of the breakdown um and so I just have a couple of questions um and one is around cost so um in the economic section um I noticed that there were indicators that there were going to be costs around both

[151:01] solar and the EV infrastructure um considering our current economic position I am curious if there's any kind of like Windows of costs or what what we currently know and um again I know during our Council Retreat we talked about the need for fiscal note or some mechanism that indicates to us when we approve something what the financial implications of that decision will be or what we think it or the what we think it will be based on the best available uh uh data at the time sorry I hear myself in my ear it's really hard anyway but still grateful um and so just about that the cost for that if if we have some just because again I believe we are voting today on this and so I just want to know what information we currently have to do that so that's that's my first

[152:00] question I'll I'll start and then look to the team um so earlier um council member wall referenced the $4 um per square foot um so that's um yeah so that's the new construction cost with the solar and the electric vehicle um and might ask John if he recalls the um one on the commercial side what our estimate okay and just point for clar point of clarification on even just that piece right so Mark has an incredible expertise in in building and lots of other things so for him when I'm just saying based on what I've observed thus far right and he understands what $4 per some something means he he can apply he understands the formulas and how that can apply across the Spectrum unfortunately I don't have that and it was not you know what I mean and so I'm just trying to understand

[153:02] like like a you know for a 10th grader right how do we correct how do we put some other numbers behind that again I feel confident based on the conversations that have been had the extensive work that has been done on this around that $4 piece I'm more concerned about the infrastructure quite frankly yeah so a few things and I you connected one for me um so for residential construction um it obviously varies wildly um but I think a good number as a baseline is around $500 a square foot and so our $4 is adding to the 500 to be about $54 a square foot okay um so that's that's what we're talking with the increment and for the residential single family and town homes those requirements um you know it's that cost of like just making a a single family home electric vehicle

[154:00] ready for example is um you're just adding one circuit into the into the garage um so it's a pretty small cost it's on the order of maybe $500 $800 just for the breaker and wire um to give you a sense of that certainly it gets more expensive when you start to talk about um the commercial properties or the multif family and you're putting in that infrastructure and do you all remember the the price um I might phone my friend John who might have that handy for me um on on what the the length you know like how much conduit it costs and um we do have those numbers um do you mind if I Chim would do you think it would be comparable to like around a little under 1% increase in cost like on the residential size it's similar I I think when you add the EV and it's maybe just slightly more but I I just want to also make the point that we actually um didn't make a substantial change from our current code so we've been building um to this we did some tweaks on the commercial side to align with the state

[155:00] um but we've already been there um since 2020 um and actually since 2017 and so it's we're not really causing um higher cost than compared to where we're at today so we can certainly pull those numbers um for you um especially I know we we have public comment and we can also come back if that's helpful no this has been incredibly helpful thank you so much for just kind of grounding those numbers pun intended okay next is um edus so I am very excited that our that the state has passed edus and now many in our community are starting to explore edus and one of the things that have come up now is the cost of edus and so I'm just kind of curious if that came up in the conversation and what some of the outcomes of that conversation were thank you yeah thank you that's a great question and one of the key changes we made in this code was expanding what we call the prescriptive option to allow for construction of single family homes up to 1,000 square ft we all know no one

[156:00] actually builds single family homes to 1,000 square ft so really that was aimed at accessory dwelling units okay so Josh kind of hinted at what prescriptive means but prescriptive is basically like a cookbook instead of paying a design professional to model it you know $6,000 or something to come up with a design for you you can just come to us and we'll tell you how to build it R20 in the walls R 10 continuous on the outside r60 in the Attic you're good to go you can build your 8 year so it's intended to simplify that process and make it cheaper easier and faster people to permit those projects and another thing I'll mention just from personal experience with this it's actually cheaper to install a heat pump in a very small unit like that b you use Min splits you don't need to run darks it's it's cheaper easier faster so this this codee's actually a big step up in terms of affordability and ease of construction for accessory dwelling units awesome thank you so much and thank you for unpacking that acronym also for the slides um okay that was one two and then three was just tax credits in general and again I'm assuming again this is all new construction so these

[157:00] are people who can afford to do that right but again it's just one of those thing that Noss my gr because it it's just you know at its core it means that it requires you to have that money in advance and then you get it back later and so I was just and I know our city does so much to support low wealth um um community members in making some of those energy adjustments and so again I'm not with the new build I'm I understand but at the same time I just am curious if that came up in the conversations um I will offer I mean we certainly didn't make affordability assumptions around assuming people could get the tax credits or incentives I I think they create the space to buy down what we already think is is feasible um the other thing I would just add is um you know as an example like let's talk new construction um agree that tax credits are are a little bit more challenging um but I we now have a

[158:00] $10,000 rebate for all electric construction from Excel that anything built under our code would qualify for so we're also kind of thinking about some of those other tools um but yeah definitely appreciate the the comment that we we can't count on and and you have to have that money up front right as a tax credit so um when we talk about those I mean this is different I'm not going to talk to you about um affordable housing no and I I absolutely agree but I think we're making the assumption that every single person building a new home is affluent and I would argue that is not the case most of them are scrapping every penny to make this a reality so that $4 per something something something matters and so that's where I'm thinking about that so again thank you so much for those questions and I have comments that I will save for later thanks TAA Matt and then Ryan thanks Aaron appreci uh just just want to compliment staff I know there's been a long road uh to get here and a

[159:00] lot of tweaks and a lot of kind of going back and forth so so really appreciate the efforts and I think we've got a really good uh piece of code here so um I want to just Echo what Lauren was saying kind of about date um I always think of something like this big it's been a Runway we've had I think like a Jan one new year new code New Leaf um anyway I just want to throw out a Jan one possibility there um because it just sounds clean and also sort of psychologically Works uh with folks um my question centers around um off-site solar um and we got a um a letter to us um from uh a group that does a bit of development in this community um and they sort of do unique development where they actually have a fair amount of uh scientific instrument and uh things like on their roof and there were concerns about being able to actually meet um the on-site solar requirement given the amount of stuff that they actually need the uh square footage of their roof for and so I was just want to ask is there an opportunity to create any sort of uh exemption or alternative for uh groups

[160:01] in that ability to uh perhaps do maybe some on-site but be able to meet the rest of their needs offsite as well just so that their General business model isn't um prohibitive um given the nature of our forced onsite solar requirements yeah thank you for that question um we do already have some language in our code that allows flexibility if they cannot meet the on-site solar requirement we have that Josh mentioned in the presentation that you know if they can prove to us to maximize their on-site solar and let's say they're at 80% there and they can't get that last 20% they can provide us documentation and we can approve that uh that eui Target where it's at without requiring any additional offsite the problem we have as staff with offsite solar is it's very hard for us to track it um you know tenants change frequently in these contracts while there might be ways to make this you know more legally binding we just we don't have the followup you

[161:00] know down the road to make sure that that contract is still staying with that building versus on-site Soler even if they only achieve 80% it's physically there it's attached to the building it's doing its job so we're confident that it's going to be there for the next 30 Years and help offset the carbon emissions but if Carol Josh want to add anything to that no I mean I I think I think you covered it pretty well um Rob I mean I think our our goal of solar is is it's at this point it's less about emissions reduction and more about on-site efficiency and resilience um you know so just thinking about you know we're seeing diminishing I hate to say this I'm the climate person and the energy person but we're seeing diminishing returns from solar um distributed solar right as the grid gets cleaner um our on-site solar is is causing curtailment of utility solar right so what was a a carbon dioxide reduction before um we still think solar is important because again it it's can lower the the use at the at the site to the earlier question

[162:01] around um you know is the infrastructure able to do that meet um the needs like we're we're providing some of the generation on site um and then it's providing for long-term affordability because you're getting the benefits of that solar on site in terms of net meter credits um so we think that it's a good investment as well the offsite um again we understand that there's reasons um why people are going to want to use that um that's Broad and we can certainly consider it within a project given the the code requirements um but just that's just a little bit W where we're at in terms of um where offsite fits within the code right I I appreciate that response and I just will hope that we can build some of that flexibility in because I'd hate to have our code be prohibitive to various different business types we want to be welcoming to all business types and I hope that our code doesn't uh create that conflict so so hopefully we can sort of bake that flexibility in certainly with the ability to administratively review those on a case-by casee basis yes and just is just

[163:02] so we can say it you know very clearly I mean I think our preferen is just to do what we can on the on site and then not make them go out and spend the money um for an off-site solution as opposed to um acquiring it just solely for the purpose of meeting our code right so thinking about that trade-off is let's spend the money um where it provides the benefit we're trying to achieve and not not just drive compliance to to make people spend money so that's really where the goal is appreciate that thanks Matt Ryan impressive body work uh excellent technical presentation and a a nice explainer um for Lay people I have three questions I know the hour is going on so brief responses are fine if if you like uh the first is on costs and putting costs into perspective I understand that some of the top goals of this initiative are to better Steward energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to advance affordability um and and I understand that a there are other paths to do that around the built

[164:01] environment including building smaller and more middle housing near where people need to go um and my understanding is I think I'm hearing and I have read that we're not anticipating real substantial new Coster complexity to building but I'd like here just to hear has has the team made considerations about the I guess the climate tradeoffs if there are any with making a stricter and more um yeah just a sophisticated building code at at any expense to letting people do create the building and live live near their way need they need to go anything to say about that can can you expand I'm not I'm not totally sure I followed everything there did you okay so um Brad Mueller again I I think uh council member Shard if um if I understand your question is is the cost point of these changes such that it

[165:00] might discourage people from building in a um in a more dense Urban environment for example that provides other sorts of uh climate benefits in close proximity the live work play kind of model and I think um our expectation that these are incremental increases that really reset the foundation for expectation in new construction and that um it really complements many other types of land use uh strategies that the city has adopted and will continue to adopt as we review those in the coming years great thanks uh second question um forgive me if I missed this in in the reading but I understand in general if you were to take two um two domiciles that are the same square square footage all us being equal the multif family dwelling would be less energy efficient it would leak more energy because the multif family dwelling the the units are sharing walls which which leads towards

[166:00] insulation and I guess tell me if that's wrong but assuming that's that's right um does that suggest that that single family homes would would deserve a greater string stringency or at least a relative difference between the two and have you contemplated that Ryan did you say multi family would be less efficient more less energy loss yeah what he said but the opposite yeah than here here thank sorry if you don't mind the clarification no thank you I appreciate that I I was like wait interor um no thank you um that that's why we have Net Zero requirements for yeah that's really applying to the single family the when you think about the over 3,000 foot um the residential um require ments we have you know eui Target so they're they're roughly intended to to mitigate that okay great can I just comment too that most of the new single family homes we see in Boulder are over 3,000 squ ft

[167:00] the vast majority so they are nit zero and they made a very stringent standard they would have been built to Net Zero in 2017 which was the 5,000 okay great thank you and then my um last question and hopefully this is simple and I'll get the polarity right on this one is um are we can you discuss the the extents to which the code is rewarding or encouraging small attached units in general just like kind of big picture yeah sure so we we allow prescriptive code for smaller units as I already mentioned we also allow a lower ER Target for small units so they have to meet the same basic thermal envelope efficiency but they don't have to put as much solar on in recognition that solar is expensive and you know part of that is yeah if you got a 5,000 foot home or 3,000 foot home we're going to make you build that near zero because you probably have the means to do so if you're building a 1500 foot home and Boulder you may not have the means to do that in recognition of what everyone has been saying tonight you know you're probably scraping every penny together the last thing we want to do is make you spend an extra $20,000 on a solar system

[168:02] that while it has a payback period right that might be 30 years at 7.9% interest rate right now so we don't want to do that to you thank you right thanks for that Ryan all right I am not seeing any other questions so I we'll go ahead and open the public hearing so we have seven people signed up to speak so everyone will get 3 minutes and our first three speakers are Phil con Lauren re and Devin Edgley I think the mic needs to come on sorry this is my first time no worries go for it okay uh hi my name is Phil qan I'm a principal at Rocky Mountain Institute which is a nonprofit organization with one of our primary offices in Boulder uh I am here tonight to Advocate that the city council uh

[169:02] adopt the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code uh over the last 20 years my career has been focused on high performance buildings and much of that work has been oriented towards supporting building owners and increasing Energy Efficiency and reducing Greenhouse gas emissions but based on my work I believe that the proposed code will send the market signal and catalyze projects uh which is a step in the right direction for achieving Boulder's Target of carbon neutrality by 2035 as I'm sure most of you know uh furnaces boilers water heaters stoves are commonly uh pieces of equipment that last longer than 10 years but that's approximately how much time is left to achieve Boulder's carbon neutrality goal uh installing fossil fuel equipment in the next few years could result in costly future retrofits since achieving sustainability goals will require uh

[170:00] conversion to electric equipment before existing equipment reaches the end of its useful life luckily there are excellent uh electric options for all these types of equipment already available on the market it has been exciting to see heat pump technology develop over the years uh electri buildings are the most uh cost effective and technically feasible they've ever been uh they work well in our climate providing dependable heating even in subzero temperatures they reduce carbon emissions a heat pump installed in Colorado today generate 66% less carbon pollution than a gas furnace over 15 years uh they can also reduce cost uh for example in Colorado building an all electric single family home saves 700 $75 uh compared to building uh with gas um and lowers utility bills by $290 annually um and finally electrifying equipment can make

[171:00] buildings healthier a couple of years ago I volunteered to have a team from Stanford University complete an air quality test at my home as part of a indoor air quality study uh the results showed that high levels of benzene which is a carcinogen were present uh and filling up my kitchen um so although that's anecdotal it was uh more than enough evidence for me to become a believer in the benefits of electric cooking um in closing I wanted to express my gratitude for being that provided the opportunity to speak and for your work on the city council thank you now we have Lauren REI Devin Edgley and Steve hog hello everybody my name is Lauren REI and I'm a resident here uh living North Boulder and I'm here to support uh asking city council to adopt the proposed code and there's a couple of reasons why I'm here today to support that first is economics uh I am a

[172:02] resident here and so I'm also a customer of XL Energy and I know that I've heard a lot of opinions about XL Energy just tonight and to be honest like the cost variability of natural gas is wild and is very extreme and you as a resident have to experience that and to make plans in your monthly budget not knowing what your gas is going to be is really difficult as it's not a cheap city to live in and having that be a part of it is hard also the data is aligning with the experience that I have had and have seen on my own bills it is expected that gas prices in Colorado will increase by about 130% by the end of the decade and so electrifying our building now will help mitigate that issue in the future additionally a point that I'm supporting here is the climate so we're feeling the affle of climate today the

[173:00] summers are hotter and the winters are also kind of hotter it just means less skiing and more sunburns which like no one wants so as Phil said earlier heat pumps emit fewer emissions than furnace over the lifetime over 50% fewer emissions and heat pump water heaters are around 70% fewer emissions compared to the gas alternative and so adopting all electric appliances in the residential and Commercial spaces will make the climate or allow Boulder to address the climate more efficiently and then finally Health uh honestly in Boulder some days it feels unhealthy to be inside and outside so like where do you go we've all been outside and Boulder and like can't even see the flat iron and they're three miles away because the outdoor air quality is that bad and the EPA lists the Front Range as a severe violation of the national air quality standards and that's something that's really

[174:00] concerning to me as a person who is outside in a city that is chronically an amazingly outside but there's also no indoor air quality standards and so therefore when we have gas appliances inside our home such as gas cooking equipment we don't know the we we don't know what the indar air quality is all the time but there's a lot of data suggesting that it is bad for our health and also data finding that it can increase health impacts of asthma and other lung and heart issues for ourselves and our children so thank you all today and I really want to urge the council to adopt this code to help help Boulder be healthier more climate aligned and hopefully more affordable thank you thank you now we have Devon Edgley Steve hog and Lin SE good evening mayor Brockett and members of Boulder City Council and thank you to the director of planning and development services and City staff for their

[175:00] Outreach and interaction with the business community and stakeholders on these issues my name is Devon Edgley and I'm the policy program specialist at the boulder chamber the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code creates energy efficiencies that promote sustainability and climate friendly opportunities for our community Community these Energy Efficiency and climate protection goals and are goals that Boulder chamber and the business Community Support however there are a few issues of the energy code as proposed that are problematic for the business Community impacting economic development for the city of Boulder the developers that work to build and maintain infrastructures within our city need ample lead time to incorporate these energy code changes into their current and future plans changes in Code by municipalities are mostly made at the beginning of each calendar year and the energy code update should be no different the additional cost to developers working on behalf of businesses must be considered deliberately to incorporate these Technologies into their designs without

[176:00] adequate lead time re we run the risk of creating barriers to development for affordable housing and Commercial businesses it takes time for businesses to absorb and plan for these kinds of costs therefore we ask you to please consider delaying implementation until 2025 next would direct you to the biomed realy letter stating that new energy code changes should allow for Provisions for optionality for those businesses already successfully moving toward sustainability goals including equivalent or better off-site renewable energy production options we also ask you to consider if leaving the de if leaving the decision to one single business official is appropriate most importantly please allow companies to provide energy gener energy generation in an off-site fashion particularly those business businesses that use their roof for crucial equipment finally the boulder chamber would also like a commitment to our business community that before implementing these changes there is reliability from our power grid

[177:01] to minimize service interruptions to our businesses and residents please ask staff to report on the expected capacity need that is generated by this code and to provide assurance that Excel Energy can provide that electric energy need thank you for your time today thank you our two other inperson speakers are Steve hog and Lyn seel hi Steve hog 1300 Hawthorne um all of you have received an email from me expressing my disappointment that in the new addition to our house at 1300 hawthor we won't be allowed to continue using a gas range under the current wording of the city's proposed new energy code we love the idea of electric heat pumps for space hot water heating but we're bummed at our G range will not be allowed this conclusion is confirmed by my conversation with City staff Josh and Jonathan and depend on the scope of work and the

[178:01] specific kinds of ratios of Flor area that's being changed and the amount of addition to this uh small house um as you're probably aware Boulder's Cod is based on the latest version of the iecc many other municipalities have based their current energy codes on this same template but have chosen to exempt residential cooking equipment from the all electric requirement for remodels additions and even new construction in some cases locally for instance Superior has Exempted residential gas ranges from the all electric requirement for new houses in the Marshall fire burn Zone Boulder originally had a ban on cooking gas ranges in commercial kit too but that part of the code was excised based on strenuous objections by the Colorado Restaurant Association during the comment period in the on the new code last fall uh I'm sorry I wasn't around to speak up at that point but I'm not sure that I would have even discovered those restrictions on residential gas

[179:00] ranges that are based on one sentence in a multi 100 page document thus under the current proposals professional chefs are allowed to cook with gas but home chefs are denied that privilege so I'm here tonight specifically to ask you to change that one sentence section 43.1 to remove just the single word cooking this is the only reference to residential gas ranges in the code and is the basis on which the restriction on gas ranges in residential remodels and additions is derived thanks thank you Lynn seel please draft a resolution to free Palestine it's local it's

[180:01] economic it's as political as this situation tonight it's how to get there I like electric as much as the next guy but if we don't munici eyes I'm possibly not going to even accept all these amendments I'm going to get air source heat pump and everything else because we aren't municipalization the reason we need to air source I don't want that I you know and I know I have to pay for it but I'd rather have the difference you know toward on the air source and I don't want I'm not going to want to bake

[181:02] because with a MAG induction I'm going to use resistive heat to bake and I love to bake so help me out here we need transactive energy and we need the the solar put on local every square inch of Boulder so that I can get it distributive you know and and transactive energy all over rather than buying into XL energies transmission electric it's not that I don't love electric right tra Tracy this this uh she was on legislature in this house had this ground Loop heat pump they got an electric hot water heater because they got too much solar and they can't they just have to bank it up Excel doesn't do this the city of

[182:02] Boulder will so I'm leveraging you I'll get this stuff I'll help you out if you help me out and make it distributive and get get us off XL Energy you know this outage they could have done this outage on the freaking Marshal fire instead they're reacting you know there were two substations that we bought we paid 1,200 a month to maintain they and we got it because a generator was too expensive for our water treatment plant they dumped they cut off both of them anyway we should sue them where are we suing Exel Lynn your time is up thank you uh we have two virtual speakers the

[183:02] first is Daniel Howard and then Jordan Bunch hi uh this is thank you Council I would like to share my support of theis energy code in general but also with some concerns to voice prior to the third reading and final adoption of the code June 6 this is part my efforts as a member of eell Engineers and scientists acting locally first I wholly approved the all electric appliance requirement methane natural gas based cooking and a small part furnus gas heating contribut significantly to poor indoor air pollution gas cooking releases carbon oxide nitrogen dioxide ultrain particles and cogens like faldh affirming a 1992 summary study on childhood respiratory illnesses a 2013 peer-reviewed summary report in an international Journal of epidemiology found that children living in a home with a gas stove have a 40% increased risk of experienced asthma Sy symptoms emerging research also shows that the gas delivered to stoves contains air toxins and chemicals such as Benzene a known carcinogen with no exposure no safe exposure level as mentioned earlier as a user of a $50 portable induction stove top on top of my built-in stove all electric

[184:01] appliances mandates such as this serves the long-term public health of future bu of residents and children also it's a much more enjoyable cooking experience in terms of solar energy requirements I've concerned with the strictness of the code to residential solar alongside offsite solar Alternatives considering the cost benefit analysis for the substantial invest ment I'm okay with expecting solar ready zones to be identified as part of the code but requiring residential solar to be built within construction may not be the most effective Financial investment at this time for example even though solar costs are decreasing in 2023 utility scale solar cost $1 $16 cents per watt while small scale rooftop solers cost $268 cents per watt thus it is more effective for community members to invest in a community solar projects and use the savings to create more energy efficient insulated homes for example I use Arcadia power to pay my energy bill tying my electricity to a solar project near Platville and actually giving me a 5 to 10% discount on my energy bill overall each month even more importantly the greatest opportunity to R reduce G emissions is towards streamlining

[185:00] permitting for multi family and attached housing per research under anel's residential stock dashboard two to four unit complexes use 40 to 53% less energy per housing unit compared to single detached homes while five five plus unit complexes have a 60 to 70% energy reduction this is a far greater benefit than excessive en enforcement of solar energy requirements that might divert investment for more units of affordable housing or multif family housing as Boulder housing Partners already expressed concern about in your document today instead I would encourage seeking additional feedback from BHB on best practices for affordable multip family housing in this case expecting staff to clarify any specific allowances of alternative means and methods for decreasing costs for and funding multif family housing would be an appropriate amendment to make as is already recommended as staff responses in V one and five of page seven of the 5A document as follow actions to updating the energy code I employ the considerations and Adoption of zoning policies that encourage light touch density such as legalizing home convergence to duplexes or up to six pluses and mixed use buildings across the majority of bulldo low Den neighborhoods by reducing far and

[186:00] stepback requirements Rec quoted from Lloyd alter and sped by University of Toronto center for the sustainable build environment the single biggest factor in the carbon footprint of our cities is in the amount of insulation in the walls or solar pedals installed is the zoning thank you for your time thank you our last speaker is Jordan bunch good evening thank you so much Council my name is Jordan Bunch I'm with Holland and Hart 1800 Broadway sweet 300 Boulder Colorado we represent biomed reality and I want to address exactly the question that Matt brought up earlier um and that Rob responded to we sent in the letter that that Matt mentioned regarding um on-site renewable energy requirements for Comm for commercial buildings and I do want to note that although we represent biomed ww Reynolds has also reviewed and supports our position now our proposal addresses exactly what Matt's concern was and it squarely addresses the need for offsite renewable energy in certain circumstances and it would in fact expand renewable energy options for commercial real estate under

[187:00] the new code which will maximize the opportunity for commercial development to create new electrons in an efficient and effective man as as Matt noted in our letter not all buildings will have the on-site availability because of specific equipment needs and now it is the case as Rob noted that the current iteration of the proposed code allows a developer to use off-site renewable energy but it is only at the sole discretion of the building official that's section c1021 and this has the potential to lead to disperate treatment of developers as building department has turnover over time you know Rob may leave and his successor May view the code differently and it creates ambiguity and design difficulties for developers because they will be designing to an individual's discretion rather than adhering to a set of clear regulations we believe it's in this City's interest in maximizing the number of new electrons feeding into the system that the city allow more optionality for off-site renewable energy while adopting a stringent model that provides clear Direction and standards for off-site renewable energy

[188:00] our proposal is narrowly tailored and is only applicable when on-site sources are not practical or economical due to the occupation of roof Space by reasonable and necessary equipment it contains clear standards the developer must meet in order to adopt off-site renewable energy and requires a commitment to deliver new electrons not this buy up existing renewable credits already in production this will serve the dual purpose of giving developers more predictability than a pure discretion standard while also giving the city confidence that any off-site Source will result in new electrons it requires a placard identifying uh the source of renewable energy and finally IT addresses concerns about off-site solar obligations being measurable and verifiable and running with the property in the event of transfer this is critical and addresses Rob's exact concern we've drafted to solve the issue this will run with the building and therefore won't be affected by any changes in ownership or tenants just as a new building owner couldn't remove on-site solar panels a new building owner couldn't cut back on existing offset use and what we don't want to do here is choose administrative efficiency

[189:01] over more efficient renewable energy systems with lower embodied carbon in these cases offsite energy will be much more efficient and will be more feasible and we can add more electrons than purely using on-site uh we believe that this optionality combined with the predictability for future development is not only consistent with the city's renewable energy goals but actually encourages and enhances more efficient production of renewable energy thank you thank you all right that brings our public hearing portion to a close so thanks everyone who came and spoke to us I'll close that now and uh bring us back to council for discussion of the proposed ordinance and motion in front of us anyone want to get us started Nicole just just one question if first um if off I'm sorry did I it's if offsite solar is permitted by discretion why is

[190:00] it not simply permitted I think what we're um I think if we were to permit it we would want to make sure it has all the provisions of what needs to happen before it's permitted our biggest concern is that um we create a condition where people use off-site solar to avoid doing the efficiency um an investment in the in the building and certainly that's one of the reasons we um started we imposed all the back stops and other requirements because we were seeing a lot of solar um being used to avoid doing the um efficiency as just the easier way to comply so I think if it were a tool that were to be considered it would be a last you know kind of Last Resort um kind of a structure that we would need to to move towards would be the kind of the answer to that and again I think the other point I made is that um when when we talked about the code originally you know we were concerned

[191:01] about again the traceability of um the assignment of the solar and also the fact that um from a economics perspective like as I mentioned you know the Sol is not reducing emissions if it's also not then benefiting the building why are we making people do it is the question at the end of the day that we were having and so we strive to just maximize what's on site to to manage the building and strive to not go off site so that that's that was the rational but uh go ahead yeah if I if I can end that uh council member pa um Carolyn just gave a good uh history of kind of a a long series of discussion going back to the Outreach uh way back in the fall and before so we we you know we've recognized this issue and and we understand uh some of the trade-offs as she she articulated I

[192:00] would say that the the latest information we got a couple days ago from Holland and Hart introduced some new Nuance um and and some other you know considerations on financing and such we are open to those possibilities uh we we would have the ability to consider those as potential uh Standalone amendments and be able to do that in Fairly short order through the summer um I would I would want to be transparent in saying that it would be difficult to fully vet some of that in a short order here prior to say the third reading that's anticipated but but we certainly do see um some Merit to to some of the the nuances that were presented um just very more recently but this was part of a longer conversation okay I I'm I'm urging you to have it because this is the sort of thing that that businesses tend to get uh very aggravated about if it's

[193:00] another set of approvals that they have to undergo in order to get a building fully approved as opposed to setting up whatever standards uh you wish and saying if you if you meet these standards um you're approved I mean unless the concept itself is is is not uh valid um and that you don't want to permit off-site solar but if you do um I I I would urge you to put it in a position where it's just another thing to be uh dealt with as opposed to making it a discretionary approval which is you know a great unknown tell people what they need to do and let them do it yeah we appreciate that feedback which I would characterize as being a little more perspect uh prescriptive uh through again this Arc

[194:00] of discussion over many month we we felt like we were kind of uh threading the needle by saying there would be an allowance to not require that less with the idea of doing the offsite but more with saying hey 80% on the building is good enough and and we can do that however I I understand and we appreciate the um you know possible preference for more uh prescriptive kind of uh option or or or more clarity on on a prescriptive right rather than what we thought was a good way to thread the needle with something that would uh make that more discretionary but but that's where I would say we you know we can step back and and look at that uh just as an option for council's consideration we could handle that as a standalone Amendment if it was the design desire for us to do that kind of out of this sequence is that something then you you will take a look at and come back to us yeah we absolutely are committed to do that we've got the the Staffing capacity to do that through the summer um okay

[195:01] again we can prioritize that thanks sh Brad Mark do you mind if I pause on this for a moment here yeah so just with this on the table we have an offer from staff to look at some of these new ideas that have come forward from Miss bunch and Holland and Hart uh is would that be something Council would be interested in I thought I might just Dr pull on this really quick and get a show of hands of who would be interested in having staff look at that oh but sorry please I don't want to cut you off um yeah so just just one kind of clarifying question there I know you know we often have internal operating documents right what I heard in that request was um just something that offers a little bit more clarity and I'm wondering if that is anything that could be in an internal operating document because that way if whoever is in that position that's making those decisions uh moves on or something like that it's still in an internal document kind of gives you all a little more flexibility see how this rolls out potentially change it I mean I think rather than doing more prescriptive changes I think

[196:01] I would prefer something that H offers a little bit more flexibility and speaks to what I heard the um um the the the speaker say about wanting just some cons some consistency right a little more guaranteed of consistency yeah I will say with uh the city's codes in Generals in particularly zoning and building we do have um administrative interpretations and that would be yet another uh approach toward it I I suspect you know for some from some folks perspective that still may not be as prescriptive as they're hoping for but that would be an approach and I just want to add a couple clarifying points you know solar isn't necessarily required to reach your eui target so part of the problem with offsite is it does become a little bit of an equity issue if you have a big enough checkbook to write a check to offset your on-site energy usage and the lower thermal envelope that you've built

[197:00] into that building I mean not saying this is feasible right but if you build your building like a Waring the people with the most means at the expense of those with the least means and that being said too there would be an option to look at just certain land used types commercial and such versus residential I think I think the point Rob's making is we wouldn't we wouldn't Envision looking at those kind of allowances across all different land use types great Point Tina did you have some down I just am wondering when you talk about an internal operating document is that um that is still through the administrative review but it just gives the person reviewing the plan an option to do something different than what's written in the code well what's uh what's contemplated in the code is already that option I think kind of another step above would be some

[198:01] administrative Norms I guess would be another way to describe them um so that that that's kind of in between what's being proposed and a more prescriptive level this would be an administrative Norm I guess would be a way to describe it so as one way to think about it is regardless of who's in that chair there would be an expectation of applying it in a consistent way okay and then and the chair would be both the the customer we're serving and the person helping them understand building official specifically the chair I was talking about you yeah I've got something to go ahead Lauren um and just someone who has gone both through a lot of discretionary and administrative review processes I do find that the sort of Staff level administrative review processes tend to be fairly consistent and predictable and so you know I wouldn't have the kinds of concerns that I have around a discretionary review process with giving

[199:02] staff this level of flexibility here thanks for that and I'll just say that um and thanks for that um Nicole bringing that up I did hear uh in the testimony in the letter a fear of maybe something a little too arbitrary but but also an desire to write in some specific options that people could take advantage of so I would leave the straw poll on the table and people can feel free to think that that's unnecessary but um maybe we can just go ahead and see if we would like the city staff to look at a possible small Standalone revision to in include some additional specific options with that said just call for a straw pole show of hands people who'd be interested um so what I was just stating was that so that this would be a straw poll to see whether we would like staff have to work with the community on a potential Standalone Amendment related to off-site solar that would include some more certainty about when and when you would not be able to take advantage of something like that and as a point of

[200:00] clarification that would come at a later time at a later time yeah so they would come back to us with something that we could approve or not approve at a later time yes TAA um and I'm just curious if we in that motion if there are considerations around um the ecological impacts of solar I mean again I I know what they are I'm coming at this from being a commissioner and we actually provided um guidance to municipalities on and solar companies on how to mitigate the intersect between wildlife and solar um you know our our city has a history of nimi not nism not in my backyard and um you know we pride ourselves right right um on not having any fracking and yet we use natural gas um similar with solar um I I am I I commend the staff for taking um a courageous um uh step to say no we're

[201:03] not going to pay our way out of having to um to to do the work we need to do in our own backyard so I I actually commend you for for making that bold step no ing specifically um the the impacts of off off off offsite solar Farms um particularly solar erosion Forest Clearing loss of wildlife noise pollution habitat loss um damage to the National layoff of the Land There are significant issues with solar farms and although we have made significant strides on the pollinator aspect of it because we have lifted them so that more natural native plants can la la la la and that's awesome however we have not addressed the issue of the wildlife corridors and the impacts that it had that it has had um and so once again um I am I if we if

[202:04] if that is to come back to us in some kind of way I would be very interested in knowing any more information around what are the current practices that Boulder has on offs offshore where are they are they in Colorado are they somewhere else um I'm just and then How does the energy get from there to us and so again it is not just the bottom line when you see your gas bill or sorry what your energy bill it is also all of the things all of the things along the supply chain that goes there um so I'm fine I'm I'm happy for the straw poll but if we are going to move in that direction these are the k of things that I'm hopeful will be included in that packet so we can have a really robust conversation around the implications of that decision thank you yeah definitely heard we would your mic is off car oh I'm sorry I went the wrong way um so yeah definitely heard and we

[203:01] would present all the the pros and cons of of any strategy so thank you okay thanks for that TAA can we move to the straw P just a quick comment um I was going to cqu on this but we haven't banned the practice we we simply have put it uh within administrative discretion and all I was asking for is whatever the standards are you want and whatever the issues are you want to deal with um set them out and let businesses have know what it is they have to do in order to be in compliance as opposed to coming to someone and saying you know please may I do this um and so all of those issues are are good issues and we ought to deal with them but let's you know let's not pretend that we we've banned the practice of offsite um uh solar we've simply put it in the discretion of Staff as opposed to a set

[204:00] of regulations thank you for that clarification okay straw pole who would be interested in having staff look into this raise your hand if you are I got one two three four five so we got five so uh we have a majority who's interested in you all uh looking into this so appreciate your willingness to do so and we'll look forward to hearing from you again later on that topic all right um so it's uh we've got a topic in front of us thoughts on the broader ordinance any you Nicole was in the queue you have more questions okay go ahead sorry I jumped ahead with that one because we were on topic um I just had a couple of what I think are really quick questions for um projects that are already in the works um for example the homeowner who came and talked to us uh sounded like they're already doing something um what happens to projects that are already in the works and have already planned on taking a certain approach yeah so if they already have a building permit issued they're in that permit forever so if it takes them 3 years takes them 5 years they're still

[205:01] in that permit so whether it was the 17 the 20 whichever one they initially permanent under we don't raise the standard remove the goal post once the project is already begun thank you um and then repeat that yeah terara didn't quite get it sorry yeah yeah so once the Project's been permitted and permit's been issued or even applied for actually as long as they apply for the permit before the cut off date whether that stays at July 8th or moves till January 1st as long as they've applied for a permit by that point with a complete application they grandfathered done under the permit under the code cycle they applied under which in this case would be the 2020 CeX of the current code but I was clarifying you know we have projects that have dragged on in town that are still under the code before that even so we don't move the goalposts after a project has been reviewed and approved for construction can I call can I call so that particular too many things that particular person already bought that

[206:01] unit right but I don't know did you read his letter he's not here right no he's not the gentleman that was with the gas stove so he does not have a permit in process yet if he applies for a permit before the due date of this he would be under the Elder card so that would be one possible way he could have his gas over if he was to apply for that permit I wonder if somebody already bought the item if they have a receipt but he didn't give do his permit yet is that's good enough since you don't really want people to throw stuff out or what do you think unfortunately that's not really how the code works so no it's not good enough would be the straightforward answer um and then my second question kind of loosely relates to that I guess is just around uh the the kind of education process for homeowners so that um anybody planning something would know what to expect to begin with and I was just wondering um what is the point that they would have that information or how would they get that so thank you for the question we're

[207:01] actually going to be working on um training material actually I want to say it's probably in the works uh currently with our consultants and so that is something that's on the docket actually and I believe in the memo it laid out towards the end kind of the next steps being working on that training material for the public so and one point I'll make too this code really only applies to new construction so let's say you're an existing homeowner and your furnace goes out in the middle of the night and Christmas Eve you can still put in any replacement gas we're not going to make you upgrade your entire home infrastructure to install heat pump at that point we would like you to but we're not going to force you to thank you yes please do I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of those work um I know we last Council kind of set you back to go and do a little bit more before coming back and um I ALS just wanted to thank Lauren for uh pushing us I think a little bit further on some of the embodied carbon um work than we would have gone otherwise so thank you for um working with us thank you for all of this work really appreciate everything that you've

[208:00] done very good so I guess I've just heard one outstanding issue which was about schedule so I I wonder if uh Lauren you were talking about a potential delay uh did you want to make a case for that because I feel like we should pin that down before we get to a motion yeah I would like to push back the effective date um so I would be interested in at least six months like having the effective day be at least six months from this vote that's also very getting pretty close to the beginning of the year um I don't know if staff has an opinion on whether it's easier to do an effective date on the beginning of the year six weeks before that or the one comment I'll make is it does make it difficult cuz we have a lot of stuff out over Christmas holidays and that we always as you no doubt know get a surge of applications right before any new code comes into effect and this one in particular there will be a very large surge of applications so if we were going to push it back I'd rather push it back to February than say January just

[209:01] for that reason can can I make a counter on that yes because I I I'm hearing the need maybe for some flexibility in the development community and also from the individual who came and spoke to us about um his project that isn't quite permitted yet uh but I do want to see this happen earlier rather than later so that we get these energy efficiencies and don't build in the fossil fuel infrastructure sooner rather than later so I might counter let's get away from the Christmas holiday the sorry the H the winter holidays and maybe counter to say um November 1st so it's before the whole holiday season which would still give people some additional time but um but misses those busy periods of the year yeah yeah I would like to support Lauren's proposal I think uh something like January 1st would would be an appropriate time for something of this magnitude uh to go into effect businesses I understand the fear of a flood of applications but most businesses don't operate quite that

[210:00] quickly and they need to get used to these new regulations and they have to plan for them um and plan their future you know Capital expenditures and I I think that a period of time would be appropriate to give them so I I would go I would go out that far can I go to Nicole and then back to Lauren um and and I just wondered because you've done so much engagement with folks in the community um what what was what have you been telling them in terms of when this Maybe started starting so from the start of this process we've been saying July 1st and we did move that a couple days um but yeah basically what we're saying right now this isn't a this timeline has been consistent from the beginning of this I want to say the beginning of the process we actually started this back in all honesty we put out the proposal to our consultants in January of last year

[211:02] and so we really got deep into it I'd say about March to April and then kind of hit the ground running and so we've been telling them July 1 since then um and we've kind of tried to hold hold that um just because we don't want to say hey we're going to keep changing these dates on you at least they know that that's one static date so and one more point I'll make is that projects that already in site review are actually grandfathered and under this code so they wouldn't necessarily be held to the new code if they' already gone through a twoe side review process um and then one just just one more comment on that um is there aside from kind of pushing a bunch of reviews into times that staff may be out um are there other potential impacts of pushing it back beyond what you've already been communicating to folks I mean I guess you would have to communicate it again um no I mean the main concern I would have would be that just that and this is going to happen regardless right whether it's July November we're always going to have a surch of applications it's just that winter holiday period is a rough time to do that um particularly

[212:01] intake team really struggles with that you know because we get a lot of incomplete applications when codes change so then the sorting through that you know as people try to get under before the deadline thank you got Lauren Thena yeah I think that um that resonates with me that there is going to be a really big push to submit um and we probably are going to see delays already due to Staffing being out over the holidays so I think giving a little bit of room makes a lot of sense whether that's November 1 or December 1 maybe we split the difference between the two um that my suggest yeah so that we're not stacking those two things on top of each other makes sense to me is December 1st do we is that better for the holiday situation absolutely

[213:01] yeah okay TAA we're on timing here okay so I I have um marker UK If we look at December 1st rather than January 1 that's it so I guess I would then look to folks and unless somebody else wants to put yet a different date on the table um straw P whether people are in support of a de December 1 commencement date or effective date yes the alternative then would be no change just to go through with the plan that staff's been communicating is that correct correct that would then be July 8th okay thank you instead so uh straw pull for uh December 1st effective date I got looks like I got eight there so looks like we're looking at December 1st uh assuming we passed the whole thing uh so we got that issue taking care of uh General comments before we go to a motion TAA I see you got

[214:02] something awesome thank you so much um thank you for this robust discussion um I also wanted to extend some real appreciation for Leslie whose last name I can't remember at the moment but um who just I I love John's slide so I just want to I want to talk about that and I'm hopeful that our team will continue to talk to excel about whether or not they're going to be in a position to um handle this transition and I also wanted to lift up that when we say all electric do you know what that means do we know what that means does the community know what that means and I I asked because I like wrecked my brain like what does that mean like what and I'm looking online I'm trying to figure out like what does that mean like it's all electric no no no it's all electric oh okay great like what does that mean and so then I like get into it a little bit more and I find the thing I'm like okay well let me look at energy sources okay we have the um fossil fuels nuclear

[215:04] renewable Hydro power storage pumped and other sources is like biomass and stuff like that anyway my larger point is is when we're saying all electric what that really boils down to is not fossil fuels it is very important that we all understand that currently how Renewables are created there are still significant fossil fuels used to make this energy so I'm all for these code changes yes we this is the direction we need to be moving in and it's the tip of the iceberg related to all of the Ripple effects and so I'm just excited about the up cut update to The Climate action plan and the comp plan and all of these opportunities that we have to to to level set where we are right now um and so I just wanted to again lift up and also right now seven okay so that's my

[216:01] comment on all electric and just as a community council staff recognizing that all of that really means is non fossil fuels and I know it is super important that we get our carbon down but our International climate Community has been crystal clear on the importance of biodiversity restoration so unfortunately there is a tension between Renewables and biodiversity restoration that we need to reconcile and the city of Boulder has a a wonderful Advantage because we've got all these institutions great staff great Council great community members to do it but I just wanted to lift that up as in our discussion as something to keep our eye on um the next thing is Eves we will not EV our way out of anything climate related if anything I I just want to read this quote um because many people have talked about the fact that we're not lifting up some of the other crises

[217:01] that are happening around the world and I wanted to lift up one a quote from um Seda Cara a fellow at Harvard School of Public Health and an author of colal read how the Congo power ERS our lives in it he says quote there's no such thing as a clean supply chain of cobalt we shouldn't be trans transitioning to the use of electric vehicles at the cost of the people and the environment of one of the most downtrodden and impoverished corners of the world now many of you may say oh no no no don't worry tasa we are going to produce these minerals um domestically and what that means is we will be extracting minerals from our public lands which is water intensive and in a state like Colorado we don't have a luxury around water use

[218:01] and so again I just the idea of us prioritizing EVS when we know that there are other more impactful things that we could be doing is troubling it's also incentivized ing a pathway that we know is not going to get us to where we need to go in the timeline that we have EVS would have been great in 1970s but we're not there we're past the Event Horizon so again I'm just I'm hopeful that we can continue to expand our understanding of this trans of just transition and the impacts in our own Community as well as all of the communities that we are considering being in relationship with so I just want to to lift that up and then lastly I wanted to give some love on this feedback section page 246 thank you thank you for including not only the

[219:00] comments their concerns recommendations and your response your responses included not only hey yes you were right or whatever but when you when when you were not in agreement you provided the ration now in a way that was userfriendly and I'm just so thankful it's something I rarely see people give comments but then they don't get that feedback back and so I just want to thank you for modeling what that looks like how it's codified as well um and so I think that is it for me plus plus plus oh and um just a point you mentioned a report in the 1990s about water and energy so I would love to see that and that is my comments thank you so much thanks tasa Ryan just want to lift up a couple of um comments from folks who didn't make it here to speak they tried to um they didn't get into the deadline so council members have uh email comments from them but they just

[220:00] came in right before the meeting so I just wanted to point out one of those um is Brady seals another one is Jack Hansen uh Jack Hansen is a former city counselor in Burlington Vermont and currently the executive director um of runon climate which is the National Climate advoc organization and he points out that um Burlington adopted um some of their building RS uh copying or borrowing from Boulders smart regs and pointing out that the rest of the nation is looking at us to what we do to follow so um just wanted to lift those voices up there might be some others also that have tried to come to us and support um and finally just say thanks and congratulations to staff for this incredible body of work and I look forward to supporting it thanks Lauren I will call in myself thank you yeah I also wanted to appreciate staff I know that no one thing that we pass fixes every like we're dealing with really complicated really intractable problems but I do think that um Carolyn Josh Rob you guys did excellent work trying to um reach

[221:00] out to the community have really engaging meaningful conversations and balance kind of the big picture sustainability issues and goals um with sort of the local nuanced concerns about feasibility and cost and other issues um at one point I think Rob and I were chatting about weekly about Community concerns um and to make matters more complicated we have state code that only allows us flexibility in some areas um given all the competing interest I really think you guys have done an amazing job um to make Common Sense change that balances a lot of these competing issues so thank you for that thanks Lauren so um if people don't mind I thought I'd make a motion so I will move that we amend and pass ordinance 8629 repealing the 2020 city of Boulder energy conservation code adopting by reference the 2024 city of Boulder

[222:01] energy conservation code and amending title 10 structures BRC 1981 and other sections of the boulder revised code in relation theto and setting forth related details second thank you and so I'll just speak very briefly this thank you for all of your incredible work uh that presentation was so action-packed the level of detail was extraordinary and boy do you all know your stuff and so very excited to see us once again take a leadership role in the region and in the country with our energy codes and moving to the all electric requirement is a very exciting step we need to not install new fossil fuel infrastructure in order to get to that point in the future we have that more sustainable Society with lower emissions so I'm very excited to see us take this sign significant step forward and just want to commend everybody for your extraordinary work any further thoughts before a vote Yes hello one for me if you could incorporate yes changed effective date

[223:00] uh and with an amendment to change the effective date to December 1st 2024 appreciate the reminder was that a seconder was that right okay uh seeing no other hands uh Elish if we can have a vote please yes sir thank you tonight's vote on item 5A the second reading of ordinance 8629 will begin with council member shuart yes mayor protim spear yes council member wallet I Wier yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member fuls enthusiastically yes and council member Marquez yes ordinance 8629 is hereby adopted I mean I'm sorry is hereby passed as

[224:02] amended with a unanimous vote all right thanks again everybody really appreciate the phenomenal work so uh it's time for our time check but figure we'd let that item conclude um so I actually have in front of me our Council rules of procedures because we've been discussing this and I'll just read from that um Council will table and ask the council agenda committee to reschedule any item that council members reasonably believe will prevent 30 p.m. so I'll just note our next thing is budgeted at 60 minutes but I'm guessing this is at least a 90-minute discussion based on a conversation or two I've had so just wanted to check the temperature on Council whether we want to pursue this tonight temperat it is also extraordinarily hot in here but no I just spent check how people are feeling about going ahead and tackling this tonight with a late meeting or whether we would rather reschedule I'll comment on that we' we've sat here for three and a half hours in a sauna um I I I think it would

[225:02] be appropriate for us to take this next issue on Fresh um and reschedule it and you know let us um recover from uh uh tonight's uh um tonight's like conditions yeah steam bath um so does anyone want to offer a Counterpoint who'd like to go ahead and take it on tonight yes Nicole yeah I'm just I'm I'm wondering if there's any way that we can regulate ourselves to to have it be a little bit shorter um and I just say that just because we've got all the relevant staff here um and everybody to try to get it on so um no we don't think we can do it fast uh if I make cqu on that yeah are you kidding Let's be polite no um no I I really yeah no I just um I was anyway I don't I don't

[226:02] have that too much discussion about it so I liked where you were going Nicole if everybody speaks one time only I will do it but otherwise I go with Mark all right I I I appreciate your your approach there I'm skeptical whether we would do it um so I think there are some issues that we need to discuss through this time so let's maybe we just do a quick straw poll um who would like to um go ahead and Tackle this item tonight if you need to raise your hand okay we got a majority to tackle it tonight let's go for it I heard that intention from folks to be brief so I'm going to I'm going to hold you to that good evening Council in case you let me just say Elicia did you read it ENT the record oh yeah thank you no ma'am I didn't thank you item the last item on tonight's agenda is item

[227:01] six Matters from the city manager 6A is the item addressing impacts of gas powered landscape equipment thank you so much and Council thank you so much for your patience we've been trying to adjust the temperature all night and it has been fluctuating up and down so bear with us uh we will try to do that and without further Ado I haven't noticed the down yet area it it has been down and it's been back up so sorry interrup go ahead without further Ado we will give it to Carolyn because as long as we had climate initiatives here we thought we'd take advantage and do two topics on climate Carolyn yes it's all about fossil fuel tonight thank you um again I'm Carolyn neam I'm a sustainability senior manager um in the climate initiatives Department um and I'm going to this the intent of this is an update on our um project to explore how we might best address the impacts of landscaping equipment this was originally scheduled as a study session so structured a little bit that way in terms of

[228:00] questions um just a brief history and I realized we have some new council members who weren't here for our study session last year um you know we we certainly um hear a lot from Community around concerns about landscaping equipment broadly we we know it is um does consume fossil fuels so therefore is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions um it's got air quality concerns and other things and and in 2022 Council asked us um you know to be responsive to the community and take a look at um really better assessing what those impacts are um in the Bolder context and what strategies might be appropriate for us again when we talk about Landscaping Maintenance in Boulder um you know it takes a lot of forms from you know self form maintenance in single family homes to um you know HOA managed Pro projects to contracted Services um the focus of our project was really primarily around those contracted Services um because we quickly recognize

[229:00] that's the largest impact area um again from a noise perspective this has been the number one concern we hear from Community is around um the noise pollution issue um this chart just gives you an illustrative of what we're talking about in terms of noise um it's you know the the dial roughly around 85% at 85 DBS if you're close to the noise you can experience hearing loss historically leaf blowers um which is our biggest um piece of equipment that is of concern um to folks Falls in that um 90 range although I want to note that the um industry has been making a lot of progress in surpressing that noise and so what we see is the most commonly used leaf blower in our community is more in that um 80 uh low 80 range um so below the the damage thresholds that we would see um a lot of folks um couple the noise concern with the um environmental concern and we see this chart quite a bit in terms of this comparison that c I

[230:02] think showed up in a California report around how you know an hour of lawnmower use or hour of leaf flower use compares to vehicle driving I I wanted to clarify that this is in terms of pollutant other than greenhouse gas emissions um so it's looking at particulates carbon monoxide voccs and nox um considering you know you have a vehicle that has a catalytic converter on board and and landscaping equipment that does not um from a you know these are seasonal uses um used for short periods of time and duration um so comparatively the greenhouse gas emissions is is quite small again comparatively I don't want to diminish that it doesn't produce greenhouse gas emissions so this is our project um we did um have a study session with uh Council in April of last year um we did some scoping before that we hired a expert consultant um who is the American green zone Alliance um they do a lot of work um for California in their core program um and brought a lot of

[231:00] expertise the principal there um himself was a landscaper he electrified his business so brought a lot of his own experience um so we've been working with them for the last year um this is an update again on on what we presented at that point in time um where we are today is um seeking additional feedback on where Council wants to go in terms of strategies um so that's the point of our presentation um I did want to go back through our um racial Equity analysis on this project because it was something we we conducted and spoke to last study session so we're again we're using the city's racial Equity instrument um and working through these steps and we work through those steps with our contractor so at the onset of the project we started by establishing what we believe to be our outcomes um from the different Vantage points um of those who are interested so thinking about reduced um pollution and greenhouse gas emissions reduction in noise levels improv Community Health and well-being um health and wellbeing of service

[232:00] workers acknowledging that they're exposed to these pollutants as well um reduced operational costs was a goal for ours so we did not want to materially um impact the business model as an outcome there's a potential for increased wage and social image that we wanted to explore as well as the ability to maybe transition to emerging workfor so these were the goals that we were going to evaluate as part of the project um we identified um took took the opportunity for the instrument to to take the vantage point from um the different stakeholders in the process um so considering we have you know as I mentioned in the memo roughly 2,000 to 2500 um micro businesses so a micro business could be a one person shop up to you know a few people to some larger businesses um that serve the Boulder County area a lot a lot of them coming into the city of Boulder we don't have a way to determine the exact amount these aren't licensed to Simply operate in the city um but I I think these numbers are pretty solid um about 80% of the the workforce um are Hispanic um not on this

[233:02] slide but you with our discussions um with our Consultants I think we typically see around half of these businesses are going to be minority owned as well um so it's a good entrepreneurial um venue it's got a low cost of Entry um then we took the customer side so multif family and Commercial properties um you know they're going to be concerned about things like um the environment and health affordability in terms of costs and then you know again residential and um public agencies like ourselves as the municipal government um we did some data analysis again understanding from a Workforce um perspective um you know roughly about 1% is um grounds maintenance jobs um so just thinking about that in terms of impact and then we also consider Geographic um considerations so a lot of our businesses that serve Boulder actually are based outside of our Municipal boundary they come into the city um to perform this work um based on our analysis and there's a large number

[234:01] of them um based out of the Longmont area but we also see many businesses coming in from some of our other surrounding areas and then particularly some of our larger ones so um the the larger trucks that have multiple fleets are are coming from farther away such as Federal Heights leveland um but a lot of our smallest business are coming from the adjacent communities um as we one of the reasons this is important as anything we do that might have economic impact on the businesses we need to also consider the impacts on those surrounding communities that where that Workforce um lives in and um also works again in our this is a on balance conversation that we want to have so we're trying we certainly understand there's benefits in terms of um pollutant reductions whether that's noise or other pollutants against you know what some of the potential consequences are as well as how we might Implement so we did consider um some of the influencing factors in this project they're shown here but you know everything from um you know some of the

[235:01] challenges with the workforce we know some of our Workforce already um gets confronted around their use of of gas power equipment in our community um we certainly know that there's concerns around trust and enforcement um we also know we're um largely dealing with customers who are more fluent um and more Caucasian and a Workforce that's that's more um people of color and maybe um lower economic standing so those were considerations um we did we really focused on data Gathering through engagement um these are some of the examples of of what we did and I'll talk about some of the feedback we got but you we did broad Community engagement through our beard Boulder platform but for the businesses we we used a number of tactics from direct Outreach um our team uh camped out at Western Disposal where a lot of the depri deposits are um so they could actually speak with some of the workforce um we certainly used um you know trusted allies amongst them so

[236:01] peer peer units um work closely with the Latino chamber and then also with the um the local uh supply houses that that sell the equipment and leaned into them to understand a little bit about them the businesses as as well um this is really where we are today and these steps um I I think of these steps as um you know uh something where we we develop some strategies we test them we use that feedback and then continue to iterate um we're continuing to do Education and Training events we hosted an event um just uh at the end of April we had about a 100 attendees there where we were demonstrating um different types of equipment use doing Outreach um and then as I mentioned we've been running our pilot Voucher Program since 2023 we were able to get Grant funds through Boulder County through their sustainability matching grant program to launch this bialer program um it buys down the cost of equipment um by 80% and I'll explain why when I get to the cost

[237:00] slide and then we've been working with those um local supply places um to provide those vouchers so the point of the voucher is it's not a rebate where you have to expend the money up front it buys down at the point of sale um so that we were we're trying to make it more accessible so what we heard um through our pilots and through our engagement is is what's coming up next so through our be her Boulder platform and this is um when we did the survey people could identify if they were um community members businesses or um businesses that receive Services um the majority of the respondents we were got we got were from residents who self-identified and you'll see demographically how that broke out um most of the people we heard from um are are people who have a home with a yard and do their own um Landscaping service um so and then about 61% said noise bothers them a lot another 20% identified um concerns around noise um

[238:02] so we're largely you know the data tells us we're largely hearing from people who were concerned about the noise but not necessarily the receivers of the service although we did hear from some of them as well and I'll talk about some of the the comments that we heard back back um the business side we did hear from some businesses but again we we largely relied on on more proactive Outreach to those businesses um through this engagement um some some of the themes we heard and again I reported this at the study session this isn't new data um for those who were with us there was Universal support for education and Outreach um to really raise awareness around the impacts of equipment the opportunities for electric um there's Universal support um that we needed to help small businesses we expected them to make a transition um we also asked about strategies such as sales band um most everybody felt that those would be largely ineffective simply because again our businesses are coming from outside our community and and equipment is

[239:00] readily accessible by other means um we got wildly varying views on some of the other things like around technology Readiness and cost um Equity impacts and Regulatory strategies and I'll show you a slide with some of the um takeaways we took from that um so we certainly heard from people who are willing to pay double and people who said they can't afford to pay more and people who said they aren't willing to pay more um we heard from people who said um you know they observe it doesn't take longer to rake than than blow leaves um whereas we also heard the same argument that the tools aren't um as effective or also people noting that electric is also noisy and wouldn't necessarily alleviate the the noise concern um for people who who have their own experience they're referring to um they don't really use a lot of fossil fuel consumption so it doesn't seem like the largest impact so that's you know kind of the range and then we certainly heard about folks around the noise and and the serms of quality life and those concerns um we did hear from both

[240:00] businesses and Community around concerns around battery um consumption so I just want to you know make that note that um if we had the discussion just a little while ago about um how batteries and and other Technologies impact other areas around the world in supply chain issues so we certainly heard that from both as well um businesses these were the challenges they identified certainly the cost of transition as I mentioned Market entry a lot of these businesses start out purchasing used equipment there's not a lot of used electric equipment there's certainly not used batteries um and so it's a little bit steeper um entry point if they were to go to Electric um certainly we hear about lower performance particularly around some of the heavier Duty equipment like the backpack blowers and um certainly there aren't great Solutions around some of the deck mowers yet um impacts and RIS of battery charging thinking about the shifting model um where most of these businesses don't have for example a location where they store materials

[241:00] it's their homes um so they're taking Batteries Home the workers have to take batteries home to charge them and they don't necessarily have the infrastructure I'll talk how we address that in the a little bit in the pilot but that is certainly a concern we heard um just a lack of training was another one and and keeping Workforce trained um they also saw opportunities um oh I guess I wanted to say this one um a lot of our smaller businesses were concerned that the larger businesses could absorb um the costs and they might lose business I just want to name that as well they also saw opportunities though and I think this is why we're seeing you know 100 businesses show up at our our our events around um you know the opportunity for better company image they understand the impacts of equipment it's heavier um there's a lot of vibration with the gas equipment in particular and then the exposure so they see the opportunity for healthier Workforce so that's where they they were certainly seeing some positive opportunity um other considerations and I mentioned this one earlier um the

[242:01] biggest concern we get is noise and and noise disturbance so as we think about strategies electric leaf blowers are are slightly quieter on a decel perspective but they aren't quiet um and so if we're solely focus on noise we just need to be cognizant about strategies um you know for example we've proposed like seasonal use of of gas powered but the rest of the time is electric and just noting that um we'll probably still hear noise concerns in that scenario um again we mentioned um environmental perspective um there's certain if we're thinking about really tackling the biggest emitters of for example ozone it's it's the mowers more than the leaf blowers just because of the duty hours and then um enforcement is a challenge and um I share one of my early conversations with um Aspen who had enforced um a ban on their side of all gas powerered equipment um they were just sharing like they had um one one location where they were

[243:00] constantly getting complaints and by the time the enforcement teams would get there the the person would be gone and it happened repeatedly and I don't know how they eventually figured it out and this would never happen here I just want to shout out to my parks and Rex folks who would never do this but it was actually a city worker who had stashed their um gas power leaf blower because they didn't want to give it up um and so it's really it's a real challenge um to enforce on on Workforce um for that reason um so just wanted to name that as we think about enforcement strategies um cost of transitioning um our team you know specked out what is a typical truck that they see um Again by um shadowing um workers we then priced out what the that is in terms of the gap um equivalent and the electric equivalent so that's what this chart is showing here um you'll see obviously the cost of batteries is a significant one um for um redundancy and reliability reasons as well as duty hours um there is a need to have multiple batteries on

[244:01] the truck for a given piece of equipment especially during the heavier Seasons like spring and fall um so you can see that an electric is is more than um three times the gas and so that's how we use that to set our our voucher is the 80% buy down to try and make them a little bit more equivalent again from an implementation I mentioned today um we've been hosting workshops seminars we did the pilot program uh for participants who joined the pilot and we gave them a free charging Hub to manage some of that safety concern I I spoke to around battery charging um so that they don't have an over um charge on or you know overload on their circuits um we also gave them fire blankets and fire extinguishers um for safety um we also provided them an online certification course through AA so that they could actually be certified in equipment and and get familiar with it um I mentioned in the memo oh actually before I go to this one I mentioned in the memo because

[245:00] we had the startup of the pilot and how to get all the contracts in place um we did have you know good interest in participation but limited experience with the equipment um so most of them didn't have very many hours of operation so we did work to extend the pilot into 2024 um and expect to get a lot more information this year finally I I want to just name this um one of the challenges our businesses site is is just really customer satisfaction and what you know any kind of change in their ability to deliver service could mean in terms of customer expectations and we certainly asked them you know do you get call backs if there's a few leaves left on the lawn they said absolutely yes um so we also need to do our work on um Community perceptions and understanding about better and more holistic Landscaping practices we're still we still have a large proportion of of folks who really focus on the hyper manicure Landscaping solution the pristine Lawns um so our our um nature-based Solutions team is

[246:00] certainly doing a lot more education around things like you know pollinator Gardens Pathways different Landscaping practices um that's a priority um for us in really creating that later Vision I think it's where we need to go to really Shore up the success rate if we want to um take actions that require certain outcomes of our businesses the other thing I was going to report back on this was a Action Council gave me um at the study session is really tracking State policy the a Quality Control Commission did adopt their rule 29 this is to address the non amongst the many rules they're adopting to try and address the non- attainment issues around our ozone Front Range ozone this one tackles landscaping equipment um the see sorry the um commission considered a broader portfolio of of Regulation to include regulations that would um ban the sale of equipment in the Front Range as well as require limitations on Commercial businesses and homeowners as well they

[247:01] chose to just focus on public entities um concerned around about the cost um that I shared with you as well as the supply chain availability like if you're going to oppose those requirements are are you going to to be able to get the equipment certainly California's seen some struggle with that with their regulation um so this will go into effect um of June next year it'll affect um the municipal governments um certainly our our team has been well they've been well ahead of the curve on this for some time and been leaders in our community um we as I spoke at the last um study session we already largely con converted most of um our use equipment to Electric next steps um I won't go through all of these these were the strategies I presented in the the first um study session I'll just touch on them you know I think we all collectively agreed that at least education and Outreach and trying to work towards that better vision of holistic Landscaping practices um is

[248:01] necessary so we we ruled out a business as usual um kind of strategy of ignoring it um we're certainly going to continue to p p pursue um policy actions um whether that be tax credit or additional policy changes that have broader effect than just locally um education Outreach um on different equipments hosting events working with vendors so people can get more operational experience with electric um we talked about advising and incentives um I think you know we went after additional um funding through Boulder County through their susp Grant I anticipate you know we can continue to um extend that program a little a little bit longer so I'm going to ad you know continue to do advising incentives is my recommendation um again we didn't recommend a sales ban I know there was some interest among Council of at least you know making a statement and and and at least articulating what the direction we're heading so that may still be on

[249:00] the table for this Council um electric only um certainly we think that there's a space where regulation um would be helpful in in driving the transition as I mention in the memo we're a little bit concerned about the Readiness of the um industry to make this transition and also the enforceability of some requirements um but certainly it's something we continue to think is on the horizon um you know leaf blowers is the principal issue of um concern amongst the community based on on feedback there are some tools um which could just be focused on them we are a little concerned about the heavy debris um seasons of spring and fall and so when we were here for the study session we talked about a seasonal allowance um where we could Define certain weeks in the spring and the fall wear gas equipment can be used um just noting that um to people who are annoyed by noise it's a little bit hard to distinguish and so we might get a lot of

[250:00] complaints um even if the equipment isn't used and that the whole enforceability issue um needs to factor in um it also would you know likely requireed that we have businesses keeping both pieces of equipment on the truck um that can create some additional cost for them and confusion so just want to name some of the risks with that and that's the seasonal equipment allowance we talked to there we could ban all Leaf flowers which would address the noise issue um again that's going to reduce productivity while you know certainly breaking one lawn doesn't take longer than blowing one lawn um these these businesses are are doing you know hundreds of jobs a week um that certainly um has an impact on Workforce to have that expectation of them so with that here are the questions um we wanted to bring back to council so again just as a reminder from the study session we were asked to to return now um in the spring to or you early this year um to check in on the the results

[251:01] of the pilot and what had happened in terms of State regulation um there was certainly some some discussion and interest um during the study session of potentially moving forward with a regulatory strategy so we wanted to check in on if there um is still desire towards that direction and then if so just you know discuss you know what that could look like in terms of timelines and and resource needs I think I mentioned in the um memo that if we wanted to do a regulatory strategy we'd certainly um recommend adopting the best practice we've heard from other communities of a dedicated um enforcement person for the first part of the the roll out to ensure you're doing Outreach and education um and also to to do some of the soft enforcement in in the beginning years ju recognizing we have a large number of businesses that um we'd have to create awareness and then I think the other thing I had mentioned is um because of the um enforcement challenges on businesses and some of the potential confrontation that can come with that um

[252:02] if we do go for a regulatory strategies um as staff we're recommending it's a property owner or contract the person uh who's Contracting for the work that's accountable as opposed to the the workers um so with that I will stop and answer any questions and we can um support any discussion thanks for that Carolyn they're really putting you to work this evening this like two super complicated presentations in in one night uh questions for staff I got Tina yeah um do we currently have uh restrictions on which hours you can use Landscaping it's the same in construction or yeah it's it's the same as construction um B basically the it's an exemption um in the noise ordinance during those hours that allows for landscaping equipment use okay um and can you tell just by the noise whether a leaf Flo is electric or

[253:00] gas or do you have to observe it you know I can um it was ironic I was finishing up the memo when the um Landscaping crew that does the green space behind my house was doing those um I would describe an electric as a as a higher pitched um sound um so people who have that ability to distinguish that audible range can can likely tell the difference although the farther away from it what we what we find is um for electric they're using two and that starts to make it a little bit more challenging like so for one gas powered equipment they might be using two to try and get the same outcome so I wouldn't guarantee you could tell the difference but if if you're up close yeah you can and they're just using one you can it's complicated it's all I got Lauren then Ryan um you mentioned you know the recommendation being to have one full-time person sort of working on this

[254:02] in terms of the kinds of things that we could have a full-time person working on that would get you know that would help us meet our sustainability targets do you think this is the the best use of someone's time in terms of what we as a city can do and how fast um we could move towards a higher level of sustainability in our community yeah certainly for the the you know focused on sustainability emissions reduction greenhouse gas uh you know I think as I mentioned in the memo you know it's it's a relatively small footprint comparatively um so certainly from a um sustainability investment um I think we'd be you recommending away from from that allocation uh I just want to acknowledge you know the noise component is certainly the concern um so outside of our you know climate specific role just acknowledging that our first enforcement

[255:01] team could could take that on um longterm I mean I think our enforcement team would take that on um so we would you at least look just to Resource um for the first few years if Council wanted to pursue that um but again I think um we'd certainly not recommend leaving it to our enforcement team from the get-go um because it is going to um take a lift and we did a similar thing for example if you'll recall when we adopted like smart Gregs we had a full-time person to to manage that early works because it's it's a pretty big lift do you mind if I add on to that in the analysis of uh whether it's worth it from a sustainability perspective I didn't hear you mention ozone and particulate emissions that would be avoided yes um so I I think certainly we know that they are ozone contributors we also know that um you know comparatively um if we're just addressing Boulders footprint we're you know they're they're not the biggest contributor of of what we're causing in terms of ozone um you transportation is

[256:02] is a far far greater one so it would certainly contribute to a reduction I think if we don't bring along surrounding communities and they aren't ready to move with us I'd be a little bit more concerned about how consequential our impact is I I do think we want to be signaling and continue to have the conversation that it's a direction we're heading and and collaborate with our surrounding communities to drive that way and I do think that the aqcc at some point is going to tackle this issue more broadly um I'm interested to see what outcomes we get from the the current role appreciate that did you have more Lauren we received a technical comment uh from Brady seals a different comment than she sent on ear on the energy code and um she discussed that there's the medical and health research shows that worker exposure to um to essentially gasoline internal combustion powered equipment like this is is is very

[257:03] unhealthy it exposure to Benzene ultrafine particles um and other particles um leads to bad Health outcomes and in the same note then that 80% of Boulder's Landscaping Workforce is Hispanic um and as we've discussed the business issues around I'm curious if we've given much thought to the um the health the equity Health impacts in this and um I'm just curious if we've given that much thought if that would seem included in the equity analysis we've done or is that separate thanks yeah no and I I appreciate that and I I saw that U message as well and realized I hadn't really carried forward some of the conversation from the the previous um Council conversation around that we you know it's very correct um that our Our Workers are exposed to pollutants voc's in particular um so totally agree with that research I I think the concern and certainly what we heard from workers

[258:00] when we had that conversation with them is you know first I think their comment was you know I can be responsible for my own health decisions um if you do this I may lose my job and have for consequences so I think we just need to be thoughtful about how much we take on in that regard and so that's why I think for sure education and and trying to provide um better solutions for them is important but I'm not sure we're guaranteed the um health benefit outcome would be achieved necessarily so that was the concern that we heard okay so I'm hearing you you've considered it you didn't write it down but it's okay thanks yes no any other questions all right well then why don't we tackle the questions for us we've got uh two basic ones the first one let's start with the first one does counil wish to Pur pursue a regulatory strategy at this time so some kind of regulation on some or all of this equipment uh want to get council's temperature on this I

[259:01] got Taisha to start us out um I am interested in some kind of regulatory strategy um I am in favor of a phased approach in in light of all the considerations I also am eager to it's very funny to be irritated by the sound of your own voice when it's in your ear I hope it's not as irritating for you as it is for me you sound great um so I'm a yes on this I am also curious on the same conversation around regulation um I'm excited for a conversation around Turf I'm excited for a conversation around Lawns which have a much more significant impact um around s in our efforts to meet sustainability goals than changing um this particular piece so this feels like a leaf on a much larger forest and I'm excited to get there but I recognize that these are the iterative steps that are needed um

[260:01] and I also have kind of a question around this um because most of those companies are not boulder-based um I'm city of Boulder based I'm also very mindful of the regional components I saw on the advocacy slide um that we were advocating at the state level right and I was just curious if there were any efforts sorry I put a question here if there was any efforts um or considerations to also Advocate at the federal level I would love to see us do a little bit more advocacy at the federal level I would like us to Advocate to the people that have money as opposed to the ones that don't um and so uh to the question yes thank you other thoughts I got Nicole um yeah I think for this one um I I think yes to the degree that that you are recommending here um and I'm just going to make my comments now because it applies to the second one too so um yeah

[261:02] anyway and no to the second just so I don't have to speak again um I I think you know it's pretty clear that this is going to disproportionately hurt a lot of the Latino businesses um and you know I I think that even even when those of us who are not part of a community um that we are are trying to solve for uh have a different view um in my mind we really show Equity when we're recognizing that the communities have asked us not to kind of head in this direction and really listen and not try to do things for people but listen to what they're saying about what they would like um so uh the other thing you know I'm thinking about Taisha what you said earlier just about moving to Electric rate the batteries come from somewhere all that comes from somewhere and it's um you know we're we're either uh creating some uh climate issues here or we're destroying land and health elsewhere so that our air is a little bit cleaner um and our neighborhoods are a little slightly very less less noisy um a couple times a month that doesn't feel really great to me so I'm not I'm

[262:01] not interested in moving forward with this super quickly uh but I do you know appreciate the recommendations around um pushing for policy around education Outreach uh around advis and incentives as long as it's not going to take too much time from staff uh to do that because I I do think there are more impactful ways that you all can use your time um and and I think that you know the um what you mentioned about signaling that we're still moving um in this direction I think is is uh important so anyway thank you um for all this work I know we we asked you to do a lot of it um but I'm a loose yes and then no thank you yeah and just as a clarification I just wanted to offer um I don't know that staff is recommending um a regulatory strategy at this time I think it's a um okay a strategy that's still a viable one to keep on on the table and and discuss and and so I just wanted to be clear that um to the earlier comment we're a bit concerned about the resource impact and Y okay

[263:00] then then I think that I'm probably a no but not kind of write it off for forever sort of thing does that does that give you enough yeah yeah I just I I don't I don't know that this is where I would um prefer to be devoting a lot of your time right now got Ryan and then Mark so I'm a general yes and a general no on two but i' say like to say a few things and then I'll I'll specify a little more so I was originally tepid on this whole thing um because of the reasons that Caroline said that um this is a rounding erir on the pie chart of our greenhouse gas emissions but but now I think we should rise to the moment and I don't think we should be equivocating on electrification especially in light of what we just passed on the previous agenda item and air pollution and well managing a down air pollution and fossil fuels is um and given that we're in an entainment area is is fundamental to this whole cause so I I don't like the idea of us um not being ambitious with what we can do with the technology um speaking of which I um I I'm more optimistic that we that the technology

[264:01] um that there's a curve coming that that looks um favorable to us um I've sat with auto Executives who said you're not going to Electrify pickups I've talked to to Industry people who said you can't electri semi-trucks emergency workers have said you can't do this with emergency vehicles and people pretty much everybody said you can't Electrify aircraft we've done it all and every turn in the electrification movement um PE people are pessimistic but then innovators innovate I think I think LED light bulbs used to cost like 20 bucks now they're like I don't know 20 cents so um technology forcing is what creates these things the it's the reason we have electric vehicles is because of policy that is forced technology um so I'm generally ambitious and I I think we can do a lot here I also recognize that we are not the California air resources board and don't have the you know the the kinds of powers that they do um so we need to be realistic but if we can find ways to coales with other cities or

[265:01] or or Partners in the region or the state to create packages of Regulation and incentives at the same time maybe through Dr Cog I'm not sure I think that feels to me the most exciting I think it feels the most consistent with our climate Mission and our air quality Mission um and that I think that's mostly what I have to say so I I would like to be to move forward towards regulation um I'd like um to do that with with Partners ideally um so on on 1A does council support a phas in strategy yeah in general interested to yes like I say move move towards the regulation and then um feedback no I I'm flexible I'd like to hear what other my coun council member colleagues say so but in general I'm interested in regulation and I think the I think the sales man I'd like to see what California just did which is um they they ban sales Statewide January 1st 2024 I understand we've tried that in Colorado before so I don't know if next year is our year but I'd love us to be

[266:00] talking about how to work and do this in a bigger scale thanks thanks I got Mark then Matt okay um uh I want to accept the uh recommendations of staff on this look none of us like the noise um or the pollution of any of this equipment but the costs of change are so uh thoroughly focused on uh the Hispanic Community um and the cost of conversion being about four times the cost of gas powered equipment um to me over you know outweighs uh my desire to you know sit at my desk and not have uh hear any noise when when someone's cutting the lawn or my neighbor's lawn I'm sorry that's that's a really a first world problem and and um you know that I just don't want to go there um uh uh

[267:04] I just don't see this as as a as good policy in terms of enforcement I think it's whack-a-mole you're going to have one person chasing around the uh landscape companies uh trying to find you know the offending equipment I mean it's going to be absurd um and it's going to be a total waste of of money to do so um now having said that I'm also going to say that um uh I am I've made my position on this pretty clear but I'm now going to absent myself from the rest of this conversation I dislike very much 30 at night uh I 30 at night under these environmental conditions um which if if they're not making anybody else uncomfortable or making me feel very uncomfortable and I will accept whatever decision as I always do uh of what council wants to do

[268:01] on this matter uh I've expressed myself but uh I'm not going to stay for the rest of this conversation okay totally fail Fair Mark get some rest and your comments are duly not noted and will be incorporated into the eventual outcome yes I got Taran the oh Matt I missed Matt Matt you're up there on the big screen keep overlooking you I apologize I can't see no worries so so you have me up now Erin is that right yes please sorry yeah I would have thought that ominous look from above would have would have kept me in the queue but maybe not um all good um it is late um take care Mark good to see you uh be well um I I mean I thought what Nicole said was was pretty spoton um you know yeah I'm okay with a phased approach but I think the bigger issue here is this is where we do the work with racial Equity this is where as Nicole said we listen um and and if we

[269:03] don't listen then you know this is you know then we're an emperor with no clothes I mean this is just sort of kind of ridiculous for us to not I mean it's kind of almost a non-starter just because of the nature of just how overwhelmingly this issue impacts a particular group in our community and communities around us so to to me this is an obvious thing for us to slow down on go with a phase maintain incentives in fact if we want to look at increasing incentives and it's and it's not Banning things that drives change in our country usually it's heavy incentives until you reach a certain Market saturation that the market then takes over in its own course correction um and that's the way it was with EVS that's the way it's been with a lot of other things and so I think we need to be careful not to come in with too heavy of a hand and I'll just say anecdotally I met with three landscaping companies in South Boulder over the last week and a half and I was expecting certain uh uh dialogue from them and certain reactions but the thing that stuck out the most it was just so

[270:01] direct um and and each of them mentioned this in their own way but had the same tone which was this sort of exhaustion with the fact that oh here government goes again forcing us to shoulder the burden of of their greater good campaigns I was not I was not expecting that to be said to me um so but that resonated with me that that we just need to stop and listen um and I think this is an opportunity for us to do that but but be able to provide those incentives and move forward and in terms of a ban I think I mentioned that I I'm not interested in a ban until we have better market conditions better interest rates for people to be able to take loans to cover that stuff um and our incentives are in a better place so um I think it's a yes to phase approach and and no to sales ban not for for quite some time and I just want to thank staff for doing the work and doing the Outreach and and doing the observations because I think it was really good to help us slow down and really get a good sense of what's right in front of us and how we can be thoughtful in our approach going

[271:02] forward thanks Matt ter and Lauren I just can't do that I can't do that to the businesses the small businesses we we talk about small businesses all the time and I just feel like we need to support them and so I'm just going to say that whatever staff's how you decide it is I agree with you and whoever agrees I'm already confused who agreed with staff but also I think you Nicole Lauren thanks um I strongly support the education and Outreach aspects of this um and also look forward to maybe some of this thinking coming into our Landscaping requirements both maybe requirements and also recommendations um and how we try to move towards landscape that maybe doesn't require or suggest as much um

[272:01] maintenance like this I also would be really interested in not going this alone I do think that sort of the biggest impact we can have is in trying to move sort of the industry as a whole um and that doesn't what we do individually as a city isn't going to make a huge impact um I also think that doing something quickly doesn't necessarily make that impact so I'd be more interested in a phased approach that is pretty long-term and that tries to bring in as many other partners as possible but this like I want the most impact we can have with the staff time that we have so if this isn't that I'm also open to this taking a backseat to other items um on our

[273:00] agenda and and so so that is include does that include a potential interest in some regulatory approach but as they have time on a slow scale yeah I mean if if if we can make that regulatory thing have impact that is larger than just the impact on this on our community um you know I'm open to it but I'm not like let's do that this year so got it Tina then I'll call myself yeah I um agree with much of what's been said by Matt Nicole and Lauren and um I I do want to just appreciate the staff's work on coming up with alternative Landscaping schemes and their replacement programs and all that I think that's great and I think there's a lot of interest in the community so I think the incentive approach is best um also uh you mentioned the piece where we're going to not be doing some of this work between June 1st and August 31st maybe we can lean into that a little bit and make that more of um something that the broader Community can get engaged

[274:00] with and understand why those actions were taken uh and and use that as some kind of thing but um at this point I I'm very sensitive to to the noise and I'm you know I'm sorry that it is it is disruptive and it is difficult when you're out with your friends and there are um blowers but hopefully we can also incentivize the blowers that have a lower deciel output in the community and and just make sure that but again they're not being bought and Boulder so uh it's very tough to do so but I just want to express how sympathetic I am to the noise issue all right well I'll go last I'll try to be quick here I I I'm interested in in some potential regulation and for me much of it is the air quality issues I we're seeing deteriorating air quality year after year and we're in a severe ozone non attainment area the wildfires are only going to get worse and while uh these devices by themselves are not going to fix our air quality problems when in the graph that you put together in the memo they're actually a

[275:00] noticeable percentage of the contribution to Ozone in particulates so I think if our region moves away from these uh devices we will see an improvement in air quality and I think we need to to look for things like that um as well as you know for the other sustainability aspects I just want to chime in with what Lauren said about changing Landscaping standards and approaches because the and particularly with your nature-based climate solutions that moving towards a landscaping approach that does not require you to use leaf blowers for many hours and does not require the use of trimmers etc etc um so i' really like to see our education efforts move forward and also look at some potential ways we can change our own regulations to help move us in that that direction I'm very sensitive to the equity considerations here so anything that we do have we have to make sure that the the impacts do not land on the backs of minority owned businesses so I love the incentives that you all are doing the voucher programs we should keep that up but I also think that we need to keep in mind that 80% of

[276:01] the workers are Hispanic and so we're having uh really well manicured lawns in town but at a health cost to our latinx Workforce right through the the fumes and the noise and the vibrations and the pollution and such so I think the the equity argument is one that we have to keep very much in front of things but look at that in an overall balanced so to summarize a little bit I you know I'm from what I'm hearing from Council you all have just heard it but I I don't think there's an appetite from anybody to rush into any kind of regulatory approach and it sounds like there's a majority that's queasy on regulatory at all so you all have a great set of recommendations I think I support all of them 100% I think all of council support your recommendations so I think there's a lot of great work to be working on and I know you included in your recommendations considering to keep regulatory approaches on the table but not rush into them so I think council's interested in continuing to think about those but I think the clear message is this is not something we're going to implement you know this year or probably

[277:01] next year um we're going to need to take some time with this so does does that make sense from from what you've you've heard from Council and do you want to ask questions or respond to that um thanks mayor uh Jonathan Cen climate initiatives thanks for doing that summary I was trying to keep track in my mind and and doing some basic math on where we sat in terms of some straw polling in my head thanks for that summary I think that's exactly what I heard and I just to clarify there's not an expectation from Council that we'll be bring back any type of Regulation any type of policy this year uh what I do want to commit to is that we'll continue to emphasize and focus on the incentives and the education the information really leaning in into our racial Equity instrument and what it exposed for us I think it's really critical that we use that because I wanted to share with you that I think we were in that camp of well maybe this is just an easy thing to ban and once we ran this process through that racial Equity instrument it gave it gave us a different outcome and I just want to really be true to that and I

[278:00] think it's really important that we do that the other thing that I heard tonight is making sure that we're thinking about policy at a higher level working at a regional scale working at a federal level I think there's some real value and tracking what's going to happen with the aqcc rules to see how that plays out I also think we have opportunities to lead by example really want to give um great credit to our Parks and Recreation Department who would do an incredible job they have been on this journey for a while they have been electrifying most of their equipment um so we can show how that can be done in large organizations like ours so that's all part of the information and education piece of it and then the last piece I wanted to just summarize I really appreciated the comments from all of you about the more holistic and broader approach um that is exactly where I believe our staff resource should be spent um the reason this came to our department in the first place was to analyze is this an actual climate issue is it an air quality issue or is it not and I think you've heard from some of our analysis yes there are absolutely concerns with regard to this

[279:01] this this equipment but I would rather have my staff working on this approach where we start to think about the strands on our water cycles how we can actually move away from needing this equipment in the first place how do we think about standards that make us uh kind of get away from the idea of manicure Lawns as as the default and that's the work that we're doing through Cole Boulder and the nature-based climate Solutions team we're going to continue to emphasize that work and I think that's going to be really uh impactful and important and informative as we move that forward so I'm making sure that I am summarizing what I heard and if there is any disagreement please let me know I think that covered it before we wrap up does anybody want to advocate for a sales ban on equipment seeing none will say no to that question oh yes go ahead what's that okay we'll come yeah Nicole and then Ryan okay did you want to speak to that Ryan well just on that yeah I mean I no in terms of our city but I do think that to the point of of coalescing and

[280:01] thinking about um technology commercialization strategies and involve regulations and incentives with other partners around around the state and maybe Beyond and with with commercial providers um you know the way these cost curves work on Electro technology is it's expensive expensive then it's not and it's not because the packages you know we we we did the work so um I agree with the council member ferz and others who said let's let's think about ways to be um strategic and big bigm minded about it and So eventually I would like us to get to a sales pan and it's it's not the city perhaps but it's it's bigger than that yeah to be clear that was about whether just the city has a sales ban because you're already including advocate for potential salesman at the state level in the work that you're doing yeah correct great Nicole and I just wanted to say thank you Jonathan for your words and the way that you just uh summed that up I mean what you're talking about is exactly the type of transformative change that needs to happen to move our city into a place where we are uh emitting less greenhouse

[281:00] gases but also prepared for the future that's coming and um I don't usually 45 at night but uh you gave me some so I just wanted to thank you for that appreciate it great anything else on this item seeing none thanks again you you all had the big night and you totally nailed it thank you so much for everything that you do thank you all and and then don't leave quite yet but um I want to almost done but I want to I want to commend my colleagues because we actually did that in 58 minutes two minutes under schedule so Nicole you were not wrong well done not um and so great so can can we wrap up or are there any final thoughts all right seeing none I'll 37 p.m. good night everybody