Longmont Planning & Zoning – February 21, 2023

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Longmont Planning & Zoning – February 21, 2023

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Unknown Speaker 4:23
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Unknown Speaker 4:25
commission February 2012, board meeting roll call

Unknown Speaker 4:31
terrible POLIN Here. Commissioner height. Commissioner teda. Here Commissioner Boone, Commissioner Lang. Commissioner the couch. Commissioner Popkin. Councilmember Rodriguez, Chairman, you have a quorum. Thank you very much Jane. Next is communications from planning director grant Penland.

Unknown Speaker 4:51
I have no updates this evening. Thank you very much. Next item is public invited to be heard. Jane is going out to see if anybody has

Unknown Speaker 5:00
signed up

Unknown Speaker 5:15
and we have nobody signed up. I will keep it open for anybody in the audience wants to come forward to get your five minutes. Seeing nobody coming forward. I’ll go ahead and close the public invited to be heard. Next item is Approval of the minutes. First is the October 18 2023. Meeting Minutes. And once again to note you to be able to vote you did not have to be in attendance.

Unknown Speaker 5:39
Are there any comments, corrections questions or motions to approve? Commissioner height?

Unknown Speaker 5:48
I’ve seen these before and I move to approve them before I move to approve them again. Very good. Commissioner teta. Second. Okay. With other no other questions. Let’s go ahead. Take vote. Commissioner height. Commissioner teta. Commissioner Boone. I chair Polen. Aye. Commissioner Lang. Commissioner the couch. Chairman that passes seven to 00 Sorry, Commissioner Popkin.

Unknown Speaker 6:19
You’re not on my list.

Unknown Speaker 6:24
Thank you that passes. 700 Thank you very much. Next is the January 17 2024. Meeting Minutes. Once again any corrections questions or motions to approve?

Unknown Speaker 6:37
Commissioner Lukash.

Unknown Speaker 6:39
Thank you Chair I move to approve the January 17 2024 meetings. Thank you, Mr. hight. Well, second. Very good. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 6:50
Jane, let’s vote.

Unknown Speaker 6:52
Commissioner high. Commissioner teta. Commissioner Boone. Chair Polen. Aye. Mr. Lane, Commissioner the couch. Commissioner Popkin.

Unknown Speaker 7:02
Thank you, Chairman that passes Seven to zero. Thank you very much, Jane. There are no public hearing items in front of us today. So we will move to other business. First one is presentation. This is the housing affordability needs assessment, Molly Fitzpatrick route policy research to present.

Unknown Speaker 7:23
Thank you all so much for letting me be here. I’m Molly Fitzpatrick of Route Policy Research. Y’all are running a tight meeting. I like it already. So I’m going to just keep talking fast. Because I feel like that’s the pace. But feel free to stop me if you have any questions. So my goal tonight is just to kind of give you all an update on some of the work that we have been doing with and for the city over the past, probably about nine months. That work started with a housing needs assessment, which was focused on primarily on affordability needs within the city. So we did some data analysis around that just looking at market trends, how that relates to incomes, and identifying where those housing needs really kind of are concentrated within the city. The purpose of that was primarily to inform some policy review that followed on that needs assessment work. So the policy review specifically was focused on the inclusionary housing ordinance, which is already in existence in Longmont, our role was to come in and take a look at that and evaluate it according to kind of new market trends, best practices, and just look to see if there are opportunities to tweak that and adjust it to make it more effective for the city. So that was kind of our primary consulting role. We also took a look at the city’s affordability incentives, so land use and zoning incentives that are provided to projects that include income restricted, affordable housing. So we’ve done that as well. And so my role tonight is kind of walk you through each of those and give you a high level overview. I am more than happy to answer questions. There’s obviously detailed reports that kind of go along with this. We’ve presented most of this, the city council is well. And so we’re kind of just rounding out the full loop of communication on this. And as it relates to zoning. So I’m not a planner, I will confess upfront that my planning jargon is limited. I’m an economist. So I have a whole different set of jargon that’s maybe worse than planning jargon. But to that end, I will I will defer to grant on any really technical planning questions that any of you might have. So with that, I’m going to jump in, we’re going to start just with housing affordability needs based on our data analysis that we conducted for the city. Before I jump into the housing data itself. I’ll do kind of a quick, very high level overview on area median income, because that is jargon that in housing policy world we use all the time probably many of you are familiar with that. But for those that might be listening that aren’t as familiar housing programs and housing policies are structured around what we call AMI, which is area median income. To make that a little bit more confusing. It’s not actually your area’s median income. It’s

Unknown Speaker 10:00
Actually, what HUD defines as a regional family median income, and so Longmont is kind of included in the entire boulder region. And so when we talk about AMI is and where housing needs are relative to AMI, and where program targets are relative to AMI, that’s all structured around kind of this HUD threshold, which is slightly different than your actual median income. It’s not really here nor there in terms of kind of where the policy lands. But just to give you all a sense those breaks are typically we talked about 30% Ami, which is extremely low income that generally lines with poverty level, if you think about it kind of as poverty level 50% AMI is another target. That’s generally anything under 50%. Ami is generated generally, looking at rental based programs. And then other breaks that are common in programmatic delineations, or 80%, ami, that’s sometimes rent or sometimes owner programs. And then 80 to 120 is kind of considered this middle, or moderate income level, which generally target is where programs are targeted for homeownership.

Unknown Speaker 11:08
So with that jargon out of the way, let’s talk a little bit about long months housing stock. Most of our data that I’ll present tonight is based on 2021 American Community Survey data, it’s the most comprehensive data source. I know it might feel a little bit dated at this point, but it was the most recent at the time, it’s still almost the most recent that he’s ACS provides as well. And it tends to be pretty reliable and consistent, even if it’s a couple years old.

Unknown Speaker 11:31
So broadly speaking, the kind of top part of this graphic shows homeownership rates. So the dark blue in the pie chart is the proportion of your households that are homeowners, as opposed to renters. So Longmont, you’re not quite two thirds, but about two thirds of your households are owner occupied households. That’s really really similar to Boulder County overall city of Boulder is a lot lower than that, because they have that student population and a lot of renters. Most other communities are pretty on par with where Longmont falls in terms of that. And your homeownership rate hasn’t fluctuated a whole lot over time, or at least in the last 10, even 15 years.

Unknown Speaker 12:09
The bottom side is going to show building permits, and that’s going to show housing units permitted not the number of permits. So this is looking at total units. The light blue is is basically anything that’s not single family detached, so that’s gonna include townhomes duplexes, and also have multifamily apartments. So you can see obviously, your kind of the proportion of unit of building permits that are multifamily has increased pretty significantly over the last few years. But that does include townhomes. So we’re not talking all like massive apartments, buildings. And really, as we look at kind of how that has impacted your overall kind of distribution of housing types, it hasn’t made that big of a dent. Right. So we look at those permits and think, oh my gosh, we’re building all these apartments. But really, when you look at kind of the distribution, which is on this side of your housing structure, 63% of your units are still single family detached, traditional kind of unit type there, about 20% are attached, but in buildings with fewer than 10 units. So kind of that what we often call missing middle structure types. 14% are in attached buildings that have at least 10 units or more in that structure. So that’s a little bit moving more toward kind of that traditional multifamily or apartment building style, development and then 2%, or mobile or more manufactured homes. So when we look at that distribution, you are you’re pretty on par with the county overall. And in fact, you’re slightly lower than a handful of of the comparison communities in terms of your multifamily in that 10 units or more structure. So that and that has changed not a ton over the past 10 years, it takes a lot of units to really move your whole distribution, just considering the number of new units relative to your overall housing stock.

Unknown Speaker 14:01
Now let’s talk about prices a little bit. So this graphic is showing that the blue and green lines are basically what rents our median rent so that middle rent, and as of about 2023, the average market rate rent was about $1,700 per month. When we think about that in terms of a AMI that means the market is generally serving 60% Ami up to 80% Ami on its own, so kind of without publicly supported or affordable housing. That’s where the market market really starts to hit. When we focus that even further and look just at new construction. So what is new construction actually creating in terms of your your new apartments, those rents are even higher at about 1950 as a median. And so when we’re looking at new construction rents that’s actually serving all the way up to 70 to 90% Ami, that’s leaving all those renters kind of below those levels, so 50% and below, struggling to find affordable units to rent.

Unknown Speaker 14:58
Home Price is also significant.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
can lead up over the past five to seven years in particular. So you look at this chart, it goes from 2002 up to 2022. And see that in the early 2000s, your median home price right in the middle, there was around $200,000 to 20 for single family detached and about 175 for multifamily that has really skyrocketed over the past five years, up to 611,000 is the median and 2022 for detached and then about 460,000. For attached, so significant increases there. When we factor in rising interest rates, a purchasing power has dropped really significantly, because incomes weren’t keeping pace, even with these price increases. And now that we add on high interest rates, that purchasing power really takes a dive so so putting

Unknown Speaker 15:52
owners, particularly folks that want to exit mentorship and into homeownership, that’s where we really see a lot of that constraint and supply. For folks that are already owners in about 2012. They’ve built a good bit of equity. So we’re primarily concerned from an affordability perspective with new first time buyers.

Unknown Speaker 16:12
We do what’s called an affordability gaps analysis. And basically what we do in that analysis is compare kind of the demand for housing by price point based on the incomes that people you have already living in Longmont, so your current population and what their incomes are, and how that translates into affordable housing prices. And then we compare that with your actual housing prices both in the renter market, and in the first time buyer market. And broadly, what we see is that the reason we do this affordability gaps analysis is not necessarily to tell you how many new units to build. But it helps us understand how much of a shortage you have for affordability for your existing residence. And where those gaps are in terms of price point. So this analysis essentially tells us that in the rental market, your greatest need is for units priced below 50% ami. And you you could use about 2000 or 2100 more units in that price point. And when I say more units, I’m really speaking to the affordability. So you have the the volume of units, they’re just mispriced relative to the incomes. And so it’s a mismatch in price points on supply and demand. And so this can be resolved either by building new or new units that are priced below that, or by offering subsidies and creating preservation. That brings the price of those down a little bit lower. On the for sale side, we do a similar analysis. In this sense, we’re looking at first time buyers or potential first time buyers, so renters that are earning at least 50% ami. So there we’re looking primarily here at renters that that at least have that much income. So we think they are potentially in the ownership market. But when we compare that to what’s for sale in their price range, we have a really big gap. And that gap extends, is really concentrated about up to 100% ami. So really big ownership needs between 50% Ami and 100% Ami, big rental needs below 50% Ami, and then we get up to like 120% Ami, the market sort of handles it right. So those are the price points that we’re looking at for programmatic

Unknown Speaker 18:15
supports in the city.

Unknown Speaker 18:18
cost burden is just another way to look at housing needs cost burden essentially means households that are spending more than, you know, kind of the industry would like them to on housing. So 30% or more of your gross income on housing costs is about what kind of the industry says is about reasonable. It’s based on kind of mortgage qualifications and historical analysis. But that’s kind of an industry wide standard. And so renters are very cost burden, about half of your renters are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. And as we look at trends over time, you know, the lowest income renters have always been very highly cost burdened. But that’s starting to creep up even to your kind of moderate income renters, which impacts not only their ability to afford rental housing, it also impacts their ability to save to get into homeownership. It also impacts their household spending, which has implications and public finance as well, because then they’re not spending as much on consumption or consumer goods and services in the community. They’re spending more and more of that on housing.

Unknown Speaker 19:22
So broadly speaking, you know, can we talked about where those needs fall. This also relates to Longmont stated housing goals of ensuring that about 12% of the housing stock is affordable, and that the city is trying to hit that goal by 2025. And right now the city is about halfway to that goal. So So At present, the city needs another 26 Almost 2700 units in order to get all the way to that goal. And so as we started looking at some of the both incentive programs, and the inclusionary housing ordinance, our goal is to say Oh,

Unknown Speaker 20:00
What What can we do to help facilitate that? Acknowledging that inclusionary housing is one tool in a really big toolkit of housing strategies, and inclusionary housing has not it has does not have the capacity to fully meet this goal. And so yes, we want to make sure inclusionary housing is working well for you. And that affordable incentives are working well for you. It’s not the silver bullet, and the city will need to continue to pair that with other programs, and supports in order to get all the way to that 12% goal, that 12% goal is really a countywide goal, almost all of the jurisdictions within Boulder County have opted into that goal as a regional strategy to address housing needs.

Unknown Speaker 20:38
So that was kind of our assessment of the housing market. And well, it’s a lot at you really fast. And then kind of our next phase was to look specifically at the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance, and look at ways to evaluate Hey, is this is this hitting the right folks are we isn’t structured the right way, what’s working well, what’s not working well. And so I’m gonna just kind of talk through a couple of our recommendations on on that front.

Unknown Speaker 21:06
And so

Unknown Speaker 21:08
we would say let’s, let’s start when we have take this little chunk, So, broadly speaking, the city’s current ordinance required before we looked at it or started looking at the city said, 12% of units that are new construction, need to be set aside at affordable price points, those affordable price points were 50% Ami on the rental side, and 80% Ami on the ownership side. And again, inclusionary only applies to new developments, it doesn’t force rent control on anything else, it’s just a way to help designate when new construction is happening, we want to make sure some of it is set aside for folks that have these housing needs or have specific incomes. So that that was kind of the affordability requirement. In the old policy, we took a look at that evaluated it with what I just talked through, and some of those gaps analysis and where really are those needs and felt like, you’re pretty well aligned to actually with what the market or what your affordability needs are in terms of price points. And that 12% set aside still looks really reasonable when we looked at both the feasibility of developers hitting that target, and also kind of keeping in line with your goal. So bottom line, we didn’t change anything, we didn’t recommend any changes, we felt like your program is well designed in terms of affordability requirements,

Unknown Speaker 22:28
on compliance options, so that’s ways that that new development can make sure that they are in line with your policy.

Unknown Speaker 22:36
There, there are a handful of ways to comply, the most common being you can build those affordable units, or you can pay a fee in lieu of building those units. Those are super common, we recommended keeping those, we also recommended keeping the land donation option which you had in there. But it was not super clear on your policy of exactly how developers could do that, and what evaluation criteria might be part of that. So we just recommend making sure that’s clear. We also recommend on the fee in lieu to raise the fee in lieu Longmont had, essentially the lowest fee in lieu of building units of any other community in the metro that has inclusionary housing. Part of that was because it just needed to be updated with market data. And part of that was we took a look at a couple other options on how those fees are set. So I’ll talk through that in just a moment. But broadly speaking, our compliance recommendations were raise your fan Lou so that you can actually kind of do with those fees, what you’re supposed to do with those fees. And we also recommended some seven administrative improvements, which are really based on state legislative changes, but that allow you to kind of streamline the approval of developers that want to build those units on the rental side. And then there was also a little quirk on compliance related to other subsidies and whether or not developers can use outside subsidies to help them get to those units. So we cleaned up the language on that a little bit. But broadly speaking, the most substantive change on compliance was a recommendation to raise that fee in lieu.

Unknown Speaker 24:05
To spare, you’re getting into too much detail on fee and lose. But to give you a little bit of sense of kind of how we shifted that or how we recommended shifts on that. There’s generally two methods like nationwide that communities used to establish a fee in lieu on inclusionary. And those are called the affordability gap or the development cost. So the purpose of a of an inclusionary housing ordinance, right is to set units aside for certain income levels. If the developer is not going to set those units aside, and they want to pay a fee, instead, they’re kind of to rationales to say, well, how much is it going to cost the city to create those units since the developer saying, Well, I don’t want to build them, you build them, right? And so the two ways are to say, well, what is this? What is the cost to subsidize that unit? So what’s the difference in market rate and the affordable price points that’s called the affordability gap? Because it’s essentially saying well, now the city has to cover that subsidy. The other approach is to say

Unknown Speaker 25:00
If you didn’t build it, we have to build it. So we need all the money it would take to actually build that unit. And that’s called the development cost method. As you might imagine, the development cost method is higher.

Unknown Speaker 25:11
The city of Longmont was already using the affordability gap method. But there were a couple tweaks to it, which were,

Unknown Speaker 25:20
which were making it lower than the true cost of subsidizing new development. And so our recommended changes were to keep that affordability cost method. So maintain the same methodology, but just update that formula so that it more accurately reflects current market conditions, and reflects the difference in new construction relative to affordable rather than kind of the whole shadow market, the entire kind of like all of the rentals, relatively affordable cost. So broadly speaking, the bottom line is we raised the fee and Lu and city council said, Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s use the affordability gap method. But let’s use that kind of more modified approach, which really brings it into kind of full market reality around trying to accomplish really what the the policies intended accomplish.

Unknown Speaker 26:09
So that was inclusionary. And, and so hopefully, that kind of covers the main thrust of it in a lot of our recommendations were around let’s, let’s bring this up to market standards, and make sure it’s kind of aligned with where your market is right now. And let’s keep all the parts that are working. So rolling right out of that, of course, we also started looking at incentives, these are very closely tied to the inclusionary housing ordinance. Because if a developer says yeah, I’m gonna build those units, instead of paying you guys the fee, then they get some incentives for that. The City actually has an incentive program, that that gives those incentives to folks that are complying with inclusionary and building their on site, I HoH units. The city also has additional incentives, we call those enhanced incentives right here for developments that are exceeding that inclusionary housing ordinance. That means mostly low income housing tax credit units, or like Habitat for Humanity or nonprofit development that’s coming in and building majority affordable, or most of the units and that are affordable, not just the 12% of units are required by the IO. So our kind of next phase following the inclusionary, was to look at what are these incentives working? And are they aligned with kind of what developers want and need out of out of the market, it doesn’t make sense to adjust those in any way to encourage production of affordable housing, on the inclusionary. Side, and also just to make life easier for some of those larger, affordable developments like a low income housing tax credit.

Unknown Speaker 27:40
So when we look at at these kinds of incentives, we kind of take, we look at three different kind of ways to evaluate that. The first is the first is actually talking to developers. So we spent a lot of time in conversation with folks that have recently built or have wanted to build in Longmont and what their experience was, were they was their entitlement zoning what they wanted it to be if not, what did they want? And that doesn’t mean we’re gonna give it to them necessarily, right. But it helps us understand, where’s your zoning, potentially, not perfectly lined up with what the market is saying to developers that they want to build, right. And so that helps us evaluate, oh, are there places we can play with this, or create incentives to give developers what they want if they’re also willing to give the city something the city wants. So that’s one way is just talking to regular developers. The second is doing a feasibility analysis. And in that analysis, we actually build out typical development pro formas, for for a couple of different contexts. So we’ll look at a single family home, we’ll look at a townhome, we’ll look at a four story apartment, a three story walk up, we kind of build those out. And we say okay, typical land prices in Longmont typical construction costs. And then what are typical rents. And then we basically play with the pro formas. To see what happens if we give you a parking reduction. What happens if we give you a density bonus, what happens if you then give us 12% of your units at 60% Ami and play with both sides of the pro forma to see what works? What has high value? And then what doesn’t in terms of those incentives? And then finally, we look at other communities, what is their buddy? What are other folks doing that or a similarly situated that have similar markets? And what does that teach us about maybe some incentives that we can take a look at? We also had a lot of conversations with planning staff around what are you hearing from developers what’s working well, what’s not working well, and those types of things. So

Unknown Speaker 29:29
I’m going to just kind of run through the kind of bottom line recommendations that came out of this. But I will start by saying by giving you all a compliment that really what we heard from developers was like, oh, you know, zonings pretty good. Like, I’m pretty happy with what I’m getting to build it and that is a high compliment to the city. It makes my job a lot harder because now I don’t have any low hanging fruit to like throw out as incentives. I like it better when your zoning is terrible, because then I get all kinds of incentives for affordable housing. But the reason

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Elliot is when, when your zoning is really well aligned with your market and with your community, then there’s not a lot of for me to play with and work with on that front. So high compliment to you all, you made my job harder, because you’ve done a really good job with a lot of the land use and zoning. That doesn’t mean there’s no nothing we can do. But I do want to at least just kind of acknowledge that that we did hear lots of compliments from developers on that front.

Unknown Speaker 30:26
That said, they of course had things that they would like to do differently, that we also felt like might work well within the context of an incentive. So bottom line are our recommendations kind of based on those, those components of analysis that I just went through are two, there’s kind of three administrative improvements. And then I’ll talk through a handful of other more like variance oriented improvements on the administrative side, Fast Track review, developers would always like their stuff handled faster, and they’d prefer not to give you any information about that. They just want you to do it faster. Right. But that said, that’s actually already in process. So the city has opted into prop 123, which gives you access to state funds for housing. But it requires that you figure out how to fast track

Unknown Speaker 31:12
applications that include affordable housing. And so that’s already in process. The city’s already trying to figure out how to do that.

Unknown Speaker 31:20
The next one came up and was administrative review for subdivision plats. So the Administrative Review recommending an Administrative Review process as opposed to a public process for subdivision plat of four or more lots. So right now, it requires a lot more effort to kind of get through that subdivision process. And we’re recommending, look, if they’re gonna include an affordable on those, then then let’s make that administrative.

Unknown Speaker 31:48
The other process oriented one, and this is the only one of our recommendations that is not tied specifically to the provision of income restricted, affordable housing, is to streamline adu approval. So right now, if that requires public notice, it goes through a site plan approval process to get an adu. And we’re recommending that the city consider administrative review of at us as well, that is not technically tied, the other ones are all tied to income restricted affordable provision, we’re just acknowledging look at us can help boost your supply. And they create a typically more naturally affordable product. And so we’d like to streamline that as well.

Unknown Speaker 32:30
Now of the regulatory variances, so this is less on the process side and more on the technical side. But what is a buffer variance. So this one popped up, particularly for projects that are adjacent to open space, or parks, so the city requires buffer space, when there’s two different uses adjacent to one another, which makes a ton of sense when we’re talking about, you know, residential, and commercial makes less sense when we’re talking residential and a park. So right now, they would have to add extra buffer space between the residential and the park because it’s a change of use, we’re just recommending that when it is that context and when the residential is affordable, waive that buffer or reduce that buffer that just allows the affordable development to make better use of their site, they can more fully maximize the land use efficiency of that site.

Unknown Speaker 33:27
utility easement access this came up a lot in stakeholder conversations, just acknowledging the stringent separation of utilities and access requirements can be a barrier again to efficiency in the land use particularly for quirky lots or small lots. And so we’re not saying do away with those or just ignore utility needs. But just look at ways that maybe the city can be more creative about allowing for less separation there to kind of consolidate and make more efficient use of that land as well.

Unknown Speaker 33:56
parking standards. So we understand the city’s already lowered parking requirements and mixed use. But minimum parking standards in other districts are still pretty high on multifamily. And this is one that when we look at pro forma analysis of parking is a huge incentive for developers, it really does add significant cost for them to add more parking units, both in the sense of you know, if they’re doing structured parking, it’s really expensive. You know, we’re talking $35,000, a parking space, pretty much in terms of straight cost on that. But also the less parking they do, the more units they can use, or the more units they can put on a site just in terms of efficiency and land use. So recommending that the city look at an incentive, further parking reduction that would apply not just to the affordable units within a development, but if you include affordable units, you get a parking reduction across the board. And that test tends to be the most effective in terms of an incentive, both from a performance standpoint and in other communities.

Unknown Speaker 34:59
Density and height

Unknown Speaker 35:00
on us, we did take a look at this, the city does already offer a density and a height bonus. Right now the market is not necessarily supporting much more height than you already allow. So this is one of those incentives, we think, look, keep this in place, we don’t think it’s a huge incentive right now. But if the market shifts, or if rents continue to increase, this will become a more enticing incentive. So keep it on the books, but don’t expect a lot of play from it at this stage.

Unknown Speaker 35:34
And then the last two, and I promised I will, I will wrap up here are looking at your high density exemption, and your mixed use standards. So the high density exemption is, was kind of a nuance within the inclusionary housing ordinance that essentially says, Look, if you’re a really high density development, if you’re if you’re building more than 20 units per acre, we’re only going to put in, we’re only going to enforce the inclusionary housing ordinance on your first 20 units per acre. So if you’re building a development at 40 units per acre, then you basically get half price inclusionary. So because we’re only going to assess it on those first 20. This was put in place initially with the intent of saying we don’t want to discourage those high density developments, they tend to be high cost because they might need steel framing, and we’re not sure the market is gonna encourage this. So we’re going to encourage it instead, our assessment is that now the market has caught up to this and the market is already supporting this, you have a handful of developments that have that have well exceeded that 20 units per acre density threshold, this only applies kind of in your central city anyway. And so we’re just recommending take a look at that exemption, maybe you still want to keep some type of exemption, but we think 20 units is per acre is too low. And you’re missing out on a lot of affordable units that could be created, because you’re discounting their inclusionary housing assessment of both on fees and on what kind of units so the chart there kind of shows you right now with the exemption based on these seven example projects that are actual projects that have already been built in the city. The with that exemption in place, those only required 68, affordable units from the inclusionary or fee and Lu equivalent to that. Whereas if that exemption didn’t exist, that would have been 158 units. So that’s 90 units that could have been built or funded through fees in lieu. And if you set it kind of at a more moderate rate, like bumping that exemption up from 20 to 35, you’d still generate about 120 units. So just looking at a different exemption there. And then finally, your mixed use districts right now require

Unknown Speaker 37:49
they assess are not assessed, but consider residential as a secondary use, which means it cannot exceed 50% of the use in that area. That’s not by building that is by district. But that does create a barrier for multifamily development. So we’re just suggesting that if it’s an affordable, it could go above that 50%. That doesn’t mean you can’t impose some other safety or not safety, but kind of checks in that you could say, well, we’re gonna allow affordable, even if it exceeds 50, as long as the ground floor is activated, or as long as it’s a mixed use building. So there are other things you can do to make sure that you’re maintaining some of that commercial use in the district. But being more flexible in terms of the proportionality of residential, if it’s affordable in those districts. So with that I will stop talking. Here’s a quick summary, kind of of those incentives that we’re recommending it just and I’ll just leave those up just in case you have questions on any of those but happy to answer any questions that y’all might have a kind of any of those components of work, the housing needs, the inclusionary recommendations and the incentives.

Unknown Speaker 39:04
Thank you very much, Molly. We will open up for questions. The first one is commissioner to

Unknown Speaker 39:11
start with. So what would you think the fee in lieu would go to or should go to? Yeah, um, I don’t know how to go backwards. Oh, wait. I right click, I’ve got it. Um, let me just scoot back right here. So this chart right here is gonna look compares the fee that was in place when we started this project. So on the rental side, and these are per square foot in kind of that middle column, that’s how the fee is technically listed in Longmont. But then it also gives you an example of okay if this is 100 unit project, what’s the project’s level commitment on that? So right now are when we started this project, the current fee on rental was a buck 90 per square foot, which is about 200,000 on 100 unit project. We have

Unknown Speaker 40:00
recommended that modified affordability gap, which bumps it up to about $6 a square foot, or about 650,000 per project on that 100 unit project example.

Unknown Speaker 40:11
That is, that still doesn’t put you at the top of the heap in terms of Metro wide, you’re still kind of right about in the middle, there’s a couple of communities that have really high fee and Lu city boulder just raised there’s quite a bit they were already higher than this. And they’ve raised even more, I think little tenants, maybe the other community that has a pretty high fee in lieu, as well. So that’s about where it would put it. When we look at feasibility on that. We still think that is within the realm of reasonable in terms of projects being able to absorb that based on their their overall cost. And on the for sale side, it would go from 790 a square foot up to about $13.13 and a half dollars per square foot, which takes it from about 1.7 million to 3 million on 100 unit project. You don’t have very many 100 unit for sale projects, but just as kind of a scale example on that.

Unknown Speaker 41:10
Any other questions?

Unknown Speaker 41:13
Commissioner pumpkin. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Molly for that rapid fire, but very detailed presentation. Really appreciate it. Yeah, please take a drink.

Unknown Speaker 41:25
And a couple questions, mostly to understand a little bit more about kind of the methodology that goes into this. So on, let’s say you’re talking about the affordability gap early on. And I think it was a couple slides. Even before that when we were talking about the units, the number of units before? Yes. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 41:48
And I’m so I guess what? Yeah, exactly. So this is the Rental Affordability gap here is looking at sorry, the Rental Affordability gap here is looking at the difference between those at different

Unknown Speaker 42:00
levels of like the units versus the actual renters earning that so the gap is determined to be 2173. From that, that’s based on purely Longmont renters actively Right. Like does the methodology or does your analysis able to factor in basically the renters who are outside of Longmont? Who would have wanted to live here or rent here? But couldn’t because of a gap in units? shorter answer is no. Long answer is we talked about that qualitatively a little bit in the report, we don’t have a good sense of really the number of people that that would impact. But yeah, so this gap should should be considered kind of a a low, very conservative. Yeah, very conservative estimate of need this is just to take care of your current residents. This is not I mean, if you are adding jobs, if you would like for some of your people that are in commuting right now to be able to live here, that number goes up signif, we just don’t know how much right?

Unknown Speaker 43:01
Is there any way? Like, is there any? I mean, I know that’s somewhat speculative, right? You can’t know exactly who would have chosen to live there. At what point? Broadly speaking, the best way to answer that is to do a full survey of in commuters and say, you know, what are your factors in choosing a home? Do you want to live here? Would you move here, and that was beyond the scope of this project? It’s pretty challenging to estimate. But you know, you could take a look at kind of at least the volume of computers or how much you’ve grown your jobs and see what that might look like. Got it. So the really the takeaway from this is like that is a very conservative estimate of the gap between Rental Affordability, and those who would like to be able to rent an affordable rate, correct? Yeah. That’s helpful. And just while we’re on the slide, why is the forsale affordability gap measured as a function of percentage versus the affordability is sheer number of units? Great question. That is because we are looking at. So on the rental side, we’re comparing actual renters to actual renter units. So the numbers should be like the same right? Other than vacancy rate. On the for sale side, we’re actually looking at renter households, and comparing that to what was on the market. So the numbers just don’t light up because not 100% of your renters are going to convert into that. And so in that sense, we’re looking less at the volume of units and more at just the misalignment of incomes and prices. And so that’s why we’re looking at first time buyers. And so that’s just a different, you know, number than the actual units that were on were listed for sale. Got it. That makes sense. Thank you. And then my second question here is on the inclusionary housing set aside, so I think you said it was 12% Yeah, if I recall correctly, right. Just and this is pure ignorance on the region. Like how does that compare to those like eight other peer cities that are compared regularly in this report? You are let’s see. I’ve got those are. I’m gonna I’m gonna misquote if I say

Unknown Speaker 45:00
exactly what they all are. But broadly speaking, they range from about 5%, which is little turns, and that’s the lowest probably of any community in Colorado. As a set aside, up to, I think, Boulder is boulder 20%, I want to say 20%. So Boulder is a little bit higher a city of Boulder, the highest in the state are gonna be mountain communities, those go up to about 25%, most commonly 10 to 15% is the sweet spot. So like for examples, Denver’s has 8% requirements and 12% requirements.

Unknown Speaker 45:33
Let’s see brownfields I think is around 10 or 12%. But so 10 to 15 is really typical. So you’re right in the middle of kind of what is most common nationwide? And the Front Range ranges from about 5% to 20%. Mountains range up to 25%.

Unknown Speaker 45:49
Got it? And then do you have any sense of like this, that’s, that’s really helpful. And like for the same for the adu percentage among our peers? Like, is there an expected like, is there an average? I don’t know on the adu front? Okay. I don’t either. It’s a good question, though. And I would like to answer it at some Yeah, no problem.

Unknown Speaker 46:09
Then, great. My last question.

Unknown Speaker 46:12
I’m just getting to the right page here.

Unknown Speaker 46:19
Okay, so my last question is on like, median worker accessibility here. And there’s a line in the report that was sent to a council that was forwarded on to us

Unknown Speaker 46:34
on the Council on the housing burden here, and it really speaks to area.

Unknown Speaker 46:40
So there nearly 7000 households in Longmont are cost burdened. Another 5700 are severely Earth considered severely cost burdened. Maybe you heard that one of the slides there. Yeah, exactly.

Unknown Speaker 46:51
So in essence, their cost burden and severe cost burden collectively effect over half of Longmont renters, right. So how does that translate to so that’s, that’s about 50% of renters are considered severely or somewhat cost burdened, according to the metrics here, yet, we’re only thinking about a 12% set aside, and the the nationwide average is like 10, the sweet spot to use you’re not not too overly quote you but like, it’s like 10 to 15%. I mean, we’re going through a housing crisis in this state and many other areas and affordability of housing crisis. And yet, like, and we’re looking at the data that’s seen about 50% of Longmont house, existing ones not to mention the ones who wanted to live here are considered cost burdened. How do we reconcile that what seems to be a very large gap or like trench, if you will, between like this percent set aside, going forward to try to rectify this? And the number of people who are right now today considered cost burdened? Yeah, great question. The short answer is that the inclusionary can’t solve the problem for you. So inclusionary, and that 12% set aside is in the inclusionary housing ordinance.

Unknown Speaker 48:00
And the challenge with that is that

Unknown Speaker 48:04
inclusionary housing is a tool that cities use to really leverage market rate development. And so because you’re you’re not subsidizing that at all, you’re I mean, we’re giving some incentives to developers. But broadly speaking, we’re saying, hey, developers, we would like for you to change your pro forma. In order to help us solve this problem, you have the authority to do that, because it’s the zoning power, right. So as a city, you can say that you can say, well, we want you’re going to do this. The problem is, if you if you increase that percentage up very much hire developers who say, I can’t make it work, I’m not gonna build anything, and then you get zero units. And so when we’re looking at these types of policies, like inclusionary, that are very dependent on the private sector to help you deliver those units, we have to be really sensitive to the development economics, that drive their decisions of where to build and how much to build. And so that’s why, you know, we can’t just say, well, everything has to be affordable. And we want you to put it in these prices, you can do that, if you’re subsidizing it, right. If you’re saying, Well, this is a city’s gonna give, like fill the gap in terms of the finance cost of that, then you can do that. So the short answer to your question is, we have to keep the inclusionary.

Unknown Speaker 49:20
Market sensitive, because we’re relying on the private sector to deliver it. The other side of that is, you’re absolutely right, that’s not going to solve your problem. It’s not going to fully deliver the level of affordability across a number of units that you need in order to provide stable and secure housing for people that already live here and that want to live here. And so that’s why inclusionary has to be paired with a lot of other both affordable housing programs and policies as well as some zoning tools like ad use or other things where you can increase kind of natural affordability as well. Great. Thank you, Molly. And before I cede the floor here, I just wanted to also thank Commissioner height for

Unknown Speaker 50:00
requested this presentation way back in the fall, I thought it was very informative and very helpful. Thank you

Unknown Speaker 50:09
Commissioner height

Unknown Speaker 50:13
I get to replay the kindness. You asked all my questions.

Unknown Speaker 50:18
As Patrick, thank you very much. It’s invigorating to listen to somebody who’s so invigorated about what it is they do.

Unknown Speaker 50:29
It’s a deep field. I’m gonna ask you, you have a lot of quantitative data, I guess some qualitative questions, though. The 2/3, where I think we’re 64 36% rental versus ownership. Is that a sweet spot? Is that a good spot?

Unknown Speaker 50:48
That’s such a hard question to answer. I would say yes. That that’s a pretty good spot. I mean, the reality is, you want housing to be affordable for your renters. And sometimes renters, you’re always going to have renters, the goal is not necessarily to say, well, we need to be all owners, or we need to be all renters, I think you’re in a pretty well balanced tenure position. I mean, you have some, I think there’s some more comparisons in the city, you know, you have some communities that are more like 80 90% owner, and I feel like that would be out of balance, the more urban, you get kind of the lower that falls. So you know, you look at like the city of Denver, or even Boulder, because it’s got a student population are more like 5050. So you’re, you’re in a pretty representative spot, kind of for the county in the state overall. And

Unknown Speaker 51:45
why wouldn’t it be better to have more 80s Too much? Because why?

Unknown Speaker 51:50
I’m typically, it’s not that that’s inherently bad. It’s that I would typically look at that and say, that’s an indicator that you’re not allowing diverse housing stock. Okay, I can, I can see that.

Unknown Speaker 52:05
We’re kind of geared at is it 30 to 50% Ami, ownership on the rental side, it’s about up to 50% ami. And on the owner side, you’re geared more to like 60 80% ami. Okay? Because the numbers that you posted, I mean, 1700, our rent 1950 rent for existing versus new units. And then the G’s, the new home costs 611,000 hours

Unknown Speaker 52:34
for a detached and 640,000 for a townhome. Those numbers are astronomical. Yeah, that is not a 50% Ami person. And I thought that I read correctly. 120% Ami, or 611,000? Our unit? Yes, that’s about 120% ami. So

Unknown Speaker 52:56
we’re kind of just we bought sweet spot at two thirds 1/3. But that two thirds number is a huge number. How do we get anybody moving trending towards that? is the right way to look at that. Yeah, and it’s a it’s a great question. I mean, clearly, what we’re seeing is that homeownership is further and further out of reach, right. And especially when you think about entry level homeownership. And so some of those solutions are, are latest in zoning related, it’s allowing smaller lots, it’s allowing and facilitating kind of smaller unit sizes attached housing that can be ownership oriented. Some of that is state construction defects has not been solved. And that makes it really hard to build condos that are ownership. And so it depends on who you ask. I should probably not say that so definitively. But there are still maybe efforts we can make on construction defects to make condos a little bit more affordable at the state level, that will also require that there have places to build them that are zoned for that in cities as well. And then there there will continue to be, I would say probably an increasing need for subsidized ownership models. That includes things like land Trust’s Habitat for Humanity type options, deed, restricted homeownership, as well, which kind of fall under the purview of kind of housing programs and housing subsidies that give people almost like an in between step. So you think about a land trust model, which is essentially you you buy the improvement, but a nonprofit owns the land, and that makes your entry costs lower. It also makes your appreciation lower, but it gives you kind of it puts one step in between renting and homeownership. It’s kind of a hybrid that’s managed by nonprofits. So it’s not a predatory hybrid. But because we’ve kind of made that step bigger now between renting and home owning so now we need some different policy tools that are kind of in that middle can rezone to encourage that. That’s that’s not really zoning, the zoning that would encourage that is essentially like allowing for smaller lots and smaller unit sizes so that the housing that they do build in that mod

Unknown Speaker 55:00
All is

Unknown Speaker 55:02
a lower price point. But those generally you’re going to need a cash subsidy, either from the state or the city or philanthropic.

Unknown Speaker 55:16
The fee in lieu or the dedication has an impact upon the cost. The rest of the cost of the development, it’s going forward. Is there a

Unknown Speaker 55:27
is the 12% or an appropriate number? Or is does that?

Unknown Speaker 55:35
I guess you kind of address that in talking to Commissioner Popkins. Questions.

Unknown Speaker 55:44
What’s the 12 to 15%? I think I’m asking and answering my question is I talked to myself, sorry.

Unknown Speaker 55:53
But the flip side would be to provide subsidies to kind of help that along. My question there is where does a community and entity a governmental body find that money? Yeah. What do you tax? They’re a great question for debate in Colorado even more of a challenge, right? Because that any broad based tax is gonna go to a vote of the people, it’s really challenging to have new taxes in Colorado. And so that is a challenge. One place that you are already getting some of that money is through the fee in lieu. So effectively by raising the fee in lieu, you’re also increasing your capacity to subsidize other developments. And so you know, obviously, as you indicate,

Unknown Speaker 56:37
increasing that fee in lieu also increases the cost for developers. That’s why we’re looking at development incentives to make to kind of manage kind of both sides of that proforma. But that is one source that you already have. Other sources that are used in other communities are essentially like an impact for your linkage fee on affordable housing, a broad based property tax or sales tax, but that requires a vote of the people, a lot of communities just do a general fund dedication, the state has increased some of its resources. And so the city is looking at ways to access some of those state resources as well. So it’s kind of a you know, a penny here a penny there as much as you get can get from any source, and really making making a point to leverage those funds, right. And so the city has done a pretty good job of that in terms of collecting fees in lieu from market rate developments. And then using those not just to build those units, but but plugging that money as gap financing into like a Low Income Housing Tax Credit unit or using a land donation that then gets passed over to habitat that can build affordable homeownership. And so looking at ways to collect revenue, but then really leveraging that with other sources and with some of your nonprofit partners to get even more units as you can out of that.

Unknown Speaker 57:47
I think finally the

Unknown Speaker 57:49
the permit, the precipitous drop off and permits in the last year than that as bad as

Unknown Speaker 57:57
2010.

Unknown Speaker 58:00
That mix of

Unknown Speaker 58:03
mixed use versus single family. Yeah, at the twins going to

Unknown Speaker 58:09
is that healthy for us? It seems astronomically.

Unknown Speaker 58:14
apartments or multifamily?

Unknown Speaker 58:18
It is a lot multifamily you. I will say development permitting is very cyclical. It is it is not kind of an even study. It’s like oh my gosh, the smell the time oh my gosh, we can’t build anything Oh, my gosh, let’s build a time. And that’s even more exaggerated in the multifamily market. And so when you’re looking at whether or not it’s healthy, you got to take a really, really long view of kind of what have we built over the last 15 years? And is that is that what we want it to be? You know, as you start getting close to,

Unknown Speaker 58:49
you know, building out it also becomes a function of what works for infill versus what is greenfield development. And so I would say it’s important to kind of keep an eye on this probably looking at this in a little bit more of a nuanced look as well of how much of this is kind of large structure apartments versus duplex and townhome which we just didn’t we didn’t have the data at that granular level, but starting to look at it at a more granular level, because that really starts to tell you, you know, are not just are we building the right buildings, but are we building the right neighborhoods? And are we building you know, kind of the right diversity? And some of this is ketchup from apartments that were getting built over the previous few years. And kind of the overbuilt building of single family detached which, which is across the country, honestly, even and certainly not just a long run issue. So I wouldn’t overreact to feeling like oh, there’s a lot of apartments. Because again, when you look at your overall housing stock, it doesn’t look like you’re out of balance on that front. That said, you know, location matters, and it’s about kind of what kind of neighborhoods but also what Who are we? Who are we building for and we’re building for you

Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
Hurt residents and people it was lit for a long time. And also to to Commissioner Popkins point, those folks that may want to live here that are working here. And so kind of trying to keep all of those things in tension and a balance is a real challenge. And there’s just not quite a magic number, as long as as long as you’re doing it thoughtfully, but also not not trying to stifle kind of where the markets trying to go.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:23
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:27
Are there any other questions?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:31
If not, I liked Oh, my gosh.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:37
Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation. And I have a question regarding the inclusionary housing, and your numbers and the suggestion to increase the rate or the methodology to increase the number of dollars that kind of makes sense with my personal observation of seeing a lot of developments, choosing the feillu rather than building the affordable housing and supplying that need. So since you’re an economist, can you forecast if this change will make developers build those units rather than paying the fee in lieu? Great question. And I would say it will, my expectation is that it would increase the number of developers that opt into to building the units rather than paying the fee in lieu but it won’t be a complete reversal or flip flop of that, it will still be easier and sometimes more cost effective, even with a higher fee in lieu for developers to pay that fee. But I would, I would also just acknowledge that that that doesn’t necessarily mean the program isn’t working, it just means you want to collect enough fees that you can then leverage that into getting that number of units, whether they’re building it, or you’re putting it into gap financing for other and so we felt like at the current rate, not only are they not building the units, but you’re not collecting enough to get those units built in other ways. And so this helps level the playing fields so that we think you can now get the same number of units or an equivalent number of units, even if they are kind of passing the money to you. And then you pass it to either other nonprofit developers or use it as gap financing. So all that to say, I don’t think it’ll completely flip flop. I do think it will, I think you’ll start to see more developers opting into the build. Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:28
Mr. Boone. Thank you, Chair. Just a follow up on that discussion.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:35
This whole program has gone to council correct.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:40
We have presented to we presented the inclusionary to council. And then on the incentive package, we presented it in a study session, but no formal ordinance or code changes have gone to council on the incentive side. Do we have a time frame as to when new feet fees in lieu might take place? Is there going to be a rush of permits before that happens? I don’t believe so. I don’t I would defer to

Unknown Speaker 1:03:13
Molly, not me, Molly city, Molly.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:17
Always make an attempt to answer that Commissioner. So council did look at the proposed fee changes. I believe ultimately, they agreed to adopt not until the end of this year. So we haven’t seen a rush so to speak. There was also a provision that those projects that had preliminary plat approval, were kind of locked in to the prior fee.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:43
But it would also give those projects ample time to get to that final approval by the end of this year. I don’t know if that answers your question. But again, I don’t think we’ve necessarily seen a true rush, just because of the overall timeframe that entitlements take. Now that answers my question. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:04
Thank you, Mr. Lang.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:07
Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Molly. Do you have any data on

Unknown Speaker 1:04:13
percentage of developers that go ahead and build DFL affordable units based on paying the fee in lieu for either long monitor their communities in the area in Longmont, or the vast majority? I don’t remember the percentage, but the vast majority paid the fee in lieu over the past since it’s been enacted. There. I don’t have proportions on other communities. But broadly speaking, the higher the fee and Lu the the more developers will build the units. So and of the two methods there, you had one that was way more, I guess is the development cost method.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:55
Does any do any communities around here, go with that or do they typically go

Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
The the affordability gap method, affordability gap is more common. There are two communities in the front range that have that I know of that have used the development cost method. One is the city of Littleton. And they don’t assess 100% of the development costs. I think they do like 75% of the development cost. And then I believe brownfields is development costs as well. But again, a percentage, I’d have to double check that I know little tenses development costs, but affordability gap is more common than the development cost method. And from your perspective, development cost method, the danger there possibly is just scaring developers off saying, what there’s no way we can’t afford to develop here. Yep. Okay. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:44
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:45
seeing no more questions, I want to thank you, Molly. That was a very good presentation.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:52
Do we need to take a five minute break or Is everybody ready? They’ll just go keep going. Okay, we’ll keep going. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Next is the presentation for net zero and beneficial electrification Lisa Knobloch.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:25
She has a team

Unknown Speaker 1:06:29
working

Unknown Speaker 1:06:31
on

Unknown Speaker 1:06:47
just never really tries to convince us to

Unknown Speaker 1:06:51
build our way.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:08
I’ll just do a quick intro. I think Lisa will, of course introduce the entire team that’s been working on this. But just as you know, the requested Commission, we brought this team and wanted to give this overview for the commission. Obviously, no decision or recommendations are anticipated with this. But but again at the request of the commission we wanted to walk through and there’s a lot of work and effort that’s gone with this team. So with that, I’ll turn it over to you.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:41
Great, thanks so much. I’m Lisa Knobloch, I’m the sustainability manager. I’m housed in the Department of strategic integration. And I’m here with some colleagues of mine, Susan Bartlett with Longmont power and communications and Matt Pia and BLAS Hernandez with building services. So we have quite a bit of content to get through tonight. If you have clarifying questions during the presentation, please feel free to holler but if you can hold questions till the end so we can get through everything that would be great.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:13
And I’m gonna go through high level stuff. I’m not the technical expert and all of these. So I’m definitely going to lean on my other folks here to jump in.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:22
Okay, so just some background context for you all in terms of why we are looking at building code that supports deep decarbonisation, so things like energy efficiencies, solar ready, electric ready, things like that, which we’ll get into tonight. So it looks like I’m not sure what’s happening with the formatting there. So I apologize that hopefully, that’s not too disruptive. But one of the primary components that are really driving that is in 2019, our City Council passed a climate emergency resolution that called for taking immediate and accelerated action to address the climate crisis. An important component of that was making sure that frontline communities so those folks that are really most impacted by climate change, actively participate in the planning, decision making and implementation of that of climate action. So that really equity, that equity focus. And so in order to fulfill the that resolution, we convened a climate action Taskforce, which really put together recommendations on how we accelerate our action toward our climate goals. And then also adjust Transition Planning Committee which was really focused on how do we do that in an equitable way. And so the Climate Action Task Force developed recommendations in these six areas in this circle here with again, equity at the center focus. So we really want to make sure that as we’re doing climate action work, we’re doing that in an affordable and accessible way. And then all of that came together in what’s called the climate action recommendations report. And within that in the building energy use, energy use category really called for a look at building electrification codes and we’ll get into those in more depth later

Unknown Speaker 1:09:59
on

Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
And why is that important? So when we look at our 2021 emissions greenhouse gas emissions inventory, you’ll see on the left, this lighter blue area here is our emissions from natural gas, which is a pretty significant portion of our greenhouse gas emissions. We have a target of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions 66% by 2030, and 69% by 2050. And so addressing our electric, our energy production through our transition to 100%, renewable energy, and that building electrification component are pretty significant needs in order to help us meet those greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:38
These efforts don’t exist in isolation. So this is just a slide that really shows you how one of the founding documents that that guide our work is the Envision Longmont comprehensive plan which was adopted in 2016. That call for putting together a sustainability plan, which was also done in 2016. We did our first greenhouse gas report, which let us see really, what are those primary sources of our greenhouse gas emissions, we had the trend, the resolution committing us to 100% renewable electric energy supply by 2030. The climate emergency resolution as I mentioned, 2019, the climate recommendations report in the beneficial building electrification plan, which we’ll talk about in a minute. And this is just to show that all of these things really work together to help us achieve our sustainability and climate action goals.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:27
Can I hand it to CSUN from it

Unknown Speaker 1:11:30
was a nation involved? I know that that makes it so much better.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:36
There we go. So the the beneficial building electrification plan was one of the climate action recommendation reports, or recommendations, as Lisa mentioned, and we convened stakeholder committee to develop the plan. And it has 13 strategies Council gave us the green light on that in October of 2022, we’ve been working kind of diligently on all 13 strategies. I don’t want to go over all of them tonight, I encourage you to go to our website and take a look. But I wanted to give you some highlights tonight. One is that it’s really important as we start to electrify to understand the impacts on our grid. And one of the tools that we have to do this is our advanced metering infrastructure, which which has been implemented this year, we should have it all deployed by the end of the year so that we have a little more visibility into when people are using energy, how they’re using it and energy were about in our city, do we have vulnerable vulnerabilities are constraints. And so that’s just one of the tools that we’re trying to

Unknown Speaker 1:12:49
bring to bear on understanding how electrification, both with transportation and building electrification are going to impact our utility grid over time. And we’re looking at a forecast of adoption of these types of technologies, and want to make sure that we can accommodate those technologies over time as we work toward our goal.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:16
Another thing that we determined was really important was to educate consumers and contractors and internal staff on what building electrification means and

Unknown Speaker 1:13:31
how it can be done effectively, if you include it with weatherization and building envelope improvements, so that we’re not asking people to do something that increases their bills, while also electrifying their homes. So we’ve been working with partners, we’ve been working internally with the city to provide some of this education. We continue to point to credible resources within our region, that are also working to provide some standardized information for consumers. And

Unknown Speaker 1:14:07
we’re also working with partners like the Front Range, beneficial electrification network, to pull together these resources and also to develop some workforce development tools and practices that we can use regionally so that we have some consistency and how folks are looking at building electrification.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:32
We continue to collaborate with the other owner communities of Platte River Power Authority, as well as Platte River Power Authority itself. They administer our incentive program and have since 2014, where we have efficiency incentive incentives, but we’ve also implemented electrification incentives for heat pumps and heat pump water heaters and panel improvements and weatherization again,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
to kind of bring a whole package to folks that are interested in looking at electrification in their homes.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:07
Boulder County has electrification incentives as well, we can stack those sometimes. And we’re trying to point customers to areas where they can get the most, the most bang for their buck, if you will. And we’re also plugged in to state incentive programs that we expect to come in 2024. And we want to be able to provide our customers with resources to stack all the available incentives to be able to make this work for homes and commercial buildings to

Unknown Speaker 1:15:41
we’re working on a couple of demonstrations within the community with sustainability and housing and community investment. We have a program called Whole Home Health. And this is giving us an opportunity to work with income qualified customers, and we’re looking at their home

Unknown Speaker 1:16:03
holistically. So health and safety concerns, cooling if they hadn’t had cooling before weatherization, air sealing, and then we’re trying to electrify where possible, so that those homes get a lift on all of these levels. But also, you know, it could be cooling or they didn’t have cooling before. And we’re trying to gather as much data as we can, so that we know what the cost implications are for homeowners. And we’ll be able to, you know, share that with our regional partners as well. But it’s a it’s a good opportunity for us to work within our community gather data and build out, hopefully a program that we can scale. On a much smaller scale, we’re working with Boulder County, on an induction cooktop lending program. And that’s where people can borrow an electric induction cooktop before they buy one for their home, just to get the sense for what cooking with induction is like, and that’s been pretty popular so far, this year. And then finally, what we’re here to talk with you about tonight is a strategy for phased building codes. And what the committee and what the plan proposes is that the city always stay current with the latest IECC. So the International Energy Conservation Code, and we have a policy a city policy to adopt that code every time the cycle comes up. But we also recommended that we follow the Department of Oh, no, I can’t think thank you local affairs. They pulled together a regional cohort of communities in our area to explore some consistency among building codes that include electrification components. And Lisa and Matt and blahs all participated in that cohort. And were able to bring long months concerns to the table. And I believe those recommendations came out late last year in the fall. And Lisa is going to talk a little bit about what those look like but the plan the the electrification plan, and the committee and our strategy. And the plan was let’s follow these recommendations once they become available. And so I’m going to turn it back to Lisa, and she’ll kind of walk you through what those recommendations look like.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:25
Okay, thanks, Susan.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:27
So just a quick aside, before I get into those, I just want to highlight and I think you all maybe received an email with this. But the best place to go now is our recently launched Longmont indicators website that has all of these sustainability replated plans all of the actions in those plans, our targets and our progress toward those targets. So that’s indicators.longmont.gov. And sorry, this is this is quite small. But I just wanted to highlight that there’s a feature in here where you can go to either actions or indicators. And there’s this overarching theme option here and there’s a drop down menu, energy transportation, some of those more common ones are in there, because we have strategies and indicators across multiple plans that touch those topics. So for energy, you can search that and all of our indicators regarding that particular topic will pop up and you can see where our current progresses that and then you can click on those and go into the details as deep as you want to go in there. So just want to highlight that it’s a really great resource for you all.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:29
So I’m going to get into the Dola code cohort that Susan mentioned. So just a little bit of background. This was the grant that was awarded to Boulder County to work with neighboring communities. There are two phases of the grant. The first was to get all of the participating communities to adopt the 2021 IECC with some strengthening amendments for electric vehicle ready solar ready, electric preferred and energy efficiency. So as Susan said, we already have a salute city policy that we adopt the new code cycle every time it comes

Unknown Speaker 1:20:00
through. And we had already done some of that work on the residential side. And then the second phase of that was the roadmap to net zero construction.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:11
What does What does electric preferred mean in this context?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:14
What does that actually look like?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:18
Um, goodness, thank you. Now you’re gonna get me caught up in one of the definitions of electric preferred from what I’m recalling and Susan or blas and Matt, jump in if I am Miss speaking here is sort of a pre electrification. So it’s like trying to encourage folks toward building electrification rather than gas use. And I cannot remember off the top of my head what all of the details of that are, but there’s essentially a Go ahead season, just, it makes it harder not to go electric. So that developers are encouraged to choose the electrical preferred options. So it just there are more requirements, I think, related to having fossil fuel.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:04
Yes, I can pull it up, or I can share with you the plan later. But yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:11
But it’s a little bit at this point, kind of moot, because the recommendations, and there’s new state requirements that essentially surpass it anyway. So

Unknown Speaker 1:21:20
these are the participating communities. So you can see it’s a pretty good swath of our region, folks that participate in this process. So the Phase One goals, again, was to get everyone on the 2021 IECC. That creates consistency for for builders, and for building departments, it creates an opportunity for joint collaboration across building departments and sustainability. And then it aligns with a state law

Unknown Speaker 1:21:45
that was passed in 2022. So that’s 1362, which is a requirement that local jurisdictions must adopt the 2120 21 IECC and strengthening amendments when they adopt other codes. So between that 2023 and 2026. And then there’s a requirement

Unknown Speaker 1:22:04
beginning in 2026, where local jurisdictions will have to adopt a low energy and carbon code when you adopt other codes. And that timeframe, those model codes haven’t been developed yet. And the code advisory board is the ones that are tasked with developing those model codes. And at the time,

Unknown Speaker 1:22:24
the code cohort had we weren’t done with our process, but we’re anticipating that the amendments would comply with that state law.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:34
And then the purpose of phase two, really was developing that roadmap to new construction by 2030.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:42
So the phase one process was reviewing a lot of plans and what was kind of what kind of council board directions and goals that communities had already. What amendments were already adopted are underway, again, calibrating with that state law, screening and paring down those recommendations based on impact cost and simplicity. And then we refined and reworked those based on input from residents and builders.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:10
The final recommendations for phase one was the 2021 IECC adoption and the strengthening amendments. Were including Evie ready solar ready, the electric preferred, and then some energy efficiency requirements for cool roofs and horticultural lighting.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:26
This is just a chart showing the participating communities and where they’re at in adopting each of those code requirements. And so you’ll see Longmont here, we had already adopted the residential strengthening amendments, we have not yet adopted any strengthening remember amendments in the commercial sector. Again, we are reviewing the electric preferred option and we haven’t done anything with the cool roofs and horticulture efficiency requirements.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:55
And then in phase two, the roadmap to net zero new construction, again, a very similar process in terms of kind of reviewing what’s already out there discussing policy options on the commercial and residential side. We discussed some non energy policy opportunities as well, which I’ll talk about later. equity considerations. So again, I mentioned this earlier, but it’s really important for us as we’re doing this work to make sure that we’re not having adverse impacts from an affordability or an access standpoint, and then developed that roadmap.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:27
For the purposes of this process as a group that cohort defined net zero as by the end of 2030. Newly constructed homes and buildings will be net zero with regards to operational energy with accomplished with a combination of highly energy efficient construction, renewable energy systems grid interactive demand flexibility and the elimination of fossil fuel combustion on site.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:51
So this is really the substance of the recommendations. So there’s broad categories the Renewable Energy Energy Efficiency

Unknown Speaker 1:25:00
electrification demand flexibility and energy storage. There’s two compliance pathways, there’s a performance pathway, or sorry, a prescriptive pathway which gets increasingly prohibitive as energy efficiency requirements increase, and then the performance based pathway as well,

Unknown Speaker 1:25:21
on the residential side, so that this is a lot, and I apologize for this. So I’m just trying to kind of get everything in one spot so everybody can see this. But so on the left, you have those categories that that I talked about earlier. And on the top, these are the years of the code cycle. So we have 2021. So with regards to electric vehicles, you’ll see the code cohort recommendation was Evie ready. And then same with that state law that was passed, have Evie ready requirements, we already had that in place for the residential sector. And then there’s nothing moving forward, at least as of now for 2027 and 2030. Energy efficiency for the residential side is just following what’s in the 2021 IECC. And then slowly getting to some more

Unknown Speaker 1:26:12
can restricted kind of compliance pathways and 2030.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:18
The electrification piece, so again, the code cohort was recommending electric preferred, the state law is requiring electric ready for residential. The code cohort recommends that in 2024, so this is a phased in electrification approach is 20 is electrification of space and water heating being required. And then in 2027, all electric requirements with broad exceptions, which it says broad, but those are also very defined at the same time. And then in 2030, all electric report requirements with very rare exceptions. And then with renewable energy, the CO cohort was saying solar ready again, then the state came in with their state requirements also, still showing solar ready. So and we already had that in place as well. In 2024, the code cohort is recommending on site PV or a fee and lieu and required to rate is required to offset exterior energy uses only so things like pools, spas, snow melt things that we are not very common in Longmont. And then, given that the 2027 electrification requirement is all electric with broad exceptions. This is where a PV would kick in to say that you would need to offset any remaining onsite fossil fuel use that would remain in place for 2030. The energy’s energy storage ready would be a requirement in 27. And energy storage installed in 2030. And then demand flexibility for heaters and or for water heaters and H back in 2027.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:58
And then I just want to note here and Susan mentioned this earlier, that one of the things that we need to be cognizant of, as well are the grid implications of some of these electrification requirements.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:11
On the commercial side of things, again, so on the electric vehicle side of things, we did not previously adopt any commercial Evie requirements, but with the state law. There are Evie ready code requirements, those actually just were passed by city council those they were just developed recently, and they were passed by city council in the last couple of weeks. Those go into effect on March 1. And I have another couple of slides that detail what those requirements are.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:40
The energy or sorry, efficiency requirements, again in 2021, were the horticultural lighting and cool roofs, code cohort requirements. And then in 2024, using an N EY performance standard, setting some standards for common building types. We haven’t done that work yet. That’s part of the code cohort work in 2024. And then those requirements, increasing and stringent and stringency over time. The state also put into place a requirement for building performance standards through benchmarking and so there’s some notes there in terms of the buildings that are required to follow that benchmarking rule. The electrification requirements, so those the code cohort had electric preferred and the state is requiring electric ready. The code code and 2024 is requiring electrification or recommending electrification of space and water heating, and then that would be maintained in the commercial sector. So at least currently, the code cohort isn’t recommending anything additional for the commercial sector. Renewable energy again, solar ready requirements. The code cohort was recommending on site solar installation. This is one that as staff we would really need to evaluate the

Unknown Speaker 1:30:00
cost versus the benefit on that one for our community, given where we’re at with our renewable energy goal and our transition to 100%. Renewable energy, this is a pretty significant requirement for the commercial sector. So we’d really want to evaluate this one, before moving forward with that, on the energy storage side, storage readiness would be required in 2024. And then installation and 2030, demand flexibility capability for water heaters and each back in 2027. And then again, as I mentioned, that state requirement that would kick in later around a low energy and carbon code, which as I mentioned, we don’t have the details of what that would look like at this time.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:43
The Eevee charging requirements, again, that’s going into effect this is a state requirement. As of March 1, this is just some details of who that applies to. This is what the requirements are. So this is for the commercial multifamily sector. So 10 spaces or less, you’d have to evey ready, which is essentially just the electric panel capacity and the conduit required. commercial uses would require

Unknown Speaker 1:31:13
2% Evie installed. So that’s actually with the charging station there. 8% Evie ready 10%, Evie capable, which is the electric panel, the conduit and the outlet. And then a new state kind of definition of Evie capable light, which I will tell you I can’t remember what that means. So

Unknown Speaker 1:31:34
it’s like very bait something very basic multifamily, again, some similar requirements there for 10 spaces or less. And then more than 10 spaces is a percentage based requirement in terms of evey installed Evie ready at uvk capable and capable light.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:51
And there is some flexibility in terms of what you can

Unknown Speaker 1:31:55
substitute it doesn’t specify in terms of what level of EB charging is required. This is also has some vagueness to it that is also kind of from the utility side of things, creating some questions around what the the load requirements and whatnot would be for these. So we will see what happens is move forward with this one.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:18
And then some non energy considerations as well. So really looking at the building as a whole throughout its lifecycle. These are just some other considerations for communities. And these are much

Unknown Speaker 1:32:29
less defined as the energy related ones, but looking at embodied carbon waste, existing buildings, and then water use. Oops, if you’re not familiar with the term embodied carbon, essentially, it’s just looking at the impact of all of the greenhouse gases emitted from all of the materials from extraction through end of its useful life. So not just the operational energy or emissions associated.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:56
And so this has some similar requirements in terms of embodied carbon.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:02
Looking at using what are called EPDs, or environmental product disclosures for specific materials, and then applying some specific carbon limit limits to those materials, making sure there’s adequate waste for space for waste receptacles with which Longmont already does, requiring plans and specific targets for commercial or construction and demolition waste. And then in 2030, looking at actually requiring that buildings be fully deconstructed existing buildings. So this is one this is when we look at our greenhouse gas emissions inventory. The the natural gas emissions from existing buildings is pretty significant. So new construction is a smaller slice of that emissions pie. So this is one that we will want to be considering at some point in time, but really need to understand to what Susan was mentioning earlier in our whole home health program. What are the cost implications of having any electrification requirements for existing buildings, because there’s a lot of considerations to be made there.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:07
indoor and outdoor water use, just having some efficiency requirements there stormwater management, and then indoor environmental quality. So that’s things like air quality and creating healthy indoor spaces.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:21
So as I mentioned, affordability and equity considerations are really important, again, apologize for the formatting there. So just a quick kind of primer on on equity. This is a graphic that folks may have seen different variations of. So on the left you have kind of the idea of equality. So this is the assumption that everyone benefits from the same support. So kind of that equal treatment concept. So you give everyone the same thing. Equity is recognizing that everyone’s coming from different places. And so the needs that people have, or the supports that you give are really dependent on what the needs people have are. And then when we’re talking about getting to a place of justice, that’s actually

Unknown Speaker 1:35:00
Starting to remove what those systemic barriers are that are creating those inequities in the first place.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:08
The Colorado Energy Office, I’m not going to read through all of this. But this is just to show that there’s efforts on a lot of different levels to really understand this equity component, the Energy Office has developed their own definition, which they’re using a lot in a lot of their work as well as other state agencies. And the policy administration has a big priority that federal government also if you’ve heard of their requirements, as far as justice 40, for a lot of their grant,

Unknown Speaker 1:35:34
grant opportunities. So there’s a lot happening in this in this space. What are the concerns and benefits? So really thinking about what are the upfront costs for developers? And so kind of to the presentation, you heard earlier? What are those potential implications for housing, affordability, operating costs, making sure that we’re really engaging folks in the right way, understanding what infrastructure gaps and resiliency concerns that people might have? And then how are we incentivizing affordable housing and really prioritizing folks that have been disproportionately impacted

Unknown Speaker 1:36:10
in the past, and continue to be so some of the recommendations from the code cohort. Again, not going to read through all of these, but really understanding what those needs are making sure that we’re doing

Unknown Speaker 1:36:24
really robust and equity based community engagement so that when we’re designing these codes, and policies and programs and things like that making, making sure that they’re

Unknown Speaker 1:36:34
accessible, and that we’re being transparent with our processes and our timelines,

Unknown Speaker 1:36:40
shifting some of those burdens to higher income folks, and making sure that then we’re really prioritizing some of those benefits for lower income households. And looking at some of those financial assistance and financing options, and our allies for building owners, developers, and whatnot.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:01
So I’m going to pass it to Matt and BLAS to talk about the code adoption process.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:09
Good evening.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:12
We are currently waiting for some of the code books to be published. They’re not all ready yet. And the bad part is, the two code books that we’re most anticipating that we’ll have changes is that are the code books that we’re waiting for the International residential code, which covers residential construction, and the International Energy Conservation Code, the last time I checked, there is an appeal process for the consensus that is used to to

Unknown Speaker 1:37:49
build the code books. And that process has not concluded

Unknown Speaker 1:37:54
they have told us that these codes will be ready in March, I think, I hope the first quarter is what ICC website says right now. Right? So so we will be adopting the 2024 code books. And I anticipate some major changes or or significant changes, should I say, for the residential in the energy code, the inner energy code is getting stricter and stricter. I’ve noticed

Unknown Speaker 1:38:22
more and more prescriptive requirements for building envelopes, window efficiencies, insulation, you know, wasn’t that long ago, you could you could put an R 38. In an attic. Now it’s it’s our 60 and probably going up. So you know it, they keep increasing those requirements. So we will review those code books. And we will have stakeholder meetings with our builders and, and developers for any questions that they might have. And then we’re also going to create any amendments that we will need to make to change anything that the stakeholders have issues with. And of course, include any

Unknown Speaker 1:39:08
electrification guidelines that are passed to us that we will enforce when we adopt these code books. Do you have any other questions or any issues but

Unknown Speaker 1:39:21
we will be adopting the 2023 nec before August 1 for the state electrical board guidelines. And requirements, as we haven’t touched on yet is the National Electrical Code.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:42
And then, so moving forward as well. So the code cohort is continuing to meet and so a couple of our next focus areas are developing those you type UI targets for specific or specific to come and building types, creating some case studies evaluating that cost of different things

Unknown Speaker 1:40:00
Load updates. And then looking forward in 2027, doing some market analyses on lifecycle analysis tools, and some stakeholder engagement for construction demolition recycling programs,

Unknown Speaker 1:40:13
continuing to meet as a cohort with each code cycle are actually meeting in between then we the code cohort has also expanded to other communities that are really interested in this process as well. And then a focus is really that that deeper stakeholder engagement, so these are some pretty significant changes. And we want to make sure that we’re engaging a lot of different folks in the process to really understand, you know, what those impacts are, what the implications are, and how do we make sure that we’re, you know, doing this process in a way that’s going to have a good outcome for all of us and help us to meet our goals.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:45
So that was a lot for y’all to process. But Do y’all have? Questions, comments?

Unknown Speaker 1:40:57
Do we have any questions?

Unknown Speaker 1:41:04
Commissioner Popkin?

Unknown Speaker 1:41:07
I can kick things off.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:09
First of all, thank you blahs, Matt, I don’t know if we’ve had a chance to meet in person. Susan. Lisa, pleasure to see you both. Again, thank you for staying late today.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:20
I guess one of the things I really appreciated about your presentation, and something that we’ve talked about a little bit as a group here in the fall was the intersection, or really the relevance of the building electrification plan, the code updates, that tie all the way back up to envision long mountain, the comprehensive plan for 2016, which predates me in this region. So I know that’s been kind of part of the journey here, the equitable carbon free transportation plan, different side of a lot of similar coins here.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:50
I mean, reap reap, in reality, this is a major shift and a major evolution of kind of how our, how we build, where we build for whom we build, and with what materials we build.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:05
Some of this, these code updates are really exciting. And I also know they come with a lot of challenges and many conversations. And so maybe I’ll kick things off with a couple questions here. We’d started to clarify electric preferred earlier. And I just wanted to also understand the distinction between electric preferred and electric ready. And and part of the reason I asked because it seems like that was part of the

Unknown Speaker 1:42:27
code, the code update from 2021, that that language, at least as part of that in some way, and maybe there were some local amendments here, and how that was actually adopted. But I guess part of my question here comes from the fact that we’ve, I mean, we get presentations from developers regularly about what they’re planning to build. And so I’m talking about new build prospects here, not conversions.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:53
And so when we’re getting, they’re getting their update, they’re talking about their efficiency updates. That’s great. They’re talking about meeting our code. Very few of them are talking about what it means to be electric ready. And I know that there’s no requirement in the code yet for them to be electric or zero emissions appliances. But what does that really mean to be electric ready? Because if you build a mixed fuel building, that’s technically electric, ready, maybe based on panel capacity? Are you really building something that’s electric? Ready? Yeah, that’s a good, that’s a really good question. That that the details.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:30
The details are, I would say high level in the code cohort recommendations. But in the new state law requirements, they get much more specific in terms of what that means. And that really, is that the panel capacity having the panel capacity for full electrification, I have it that I could I’d have to pull it up to reference all of the details of what that includes beyond that.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:53
But it is a good question that I think kind of warrants like what sort of the threshold that they’re going to consider electric ready, if it’s a mixed fuel, building beyond that, and and I’d have to look up the details for you. Unless I don’t know if any of you have that kind of Top of Mind. But I have the document pulled up and I can grab it and my namesake might have some thoughts too. So for my understanding, electric ready is more than just power capacity. It’s having the circuit and the receptacle ready for electric appliances. So that being the stove, water here, and the furnace, being able to convert those at any time without having to rewire the house. That whereas electric preferred is more, we encourage you to do this. So the electric ready would be basically all that’s left is plug and play. So it’s basically making sure the skeleton of the structure is ready for whatever you want to plug in. Yep, exactly. Okay, thank you, Matt. That’s really helpful.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:57
Maybe a process question.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:00
I guess a lot of my questions are going to relate less on conversion, since that’s really not in our purview here and more on new builds. Since those are the types of proposals we’re reviewing developers are coming to us and talking about what they want to build. We certainly had the housing presentation before they talked about the new unit demand the need for new units. The shift, I think it’s like 71% of new units are going to be multifamily housing, or expect it to be multifamily housing in Longmont.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:27
And so, there are inherently challenges for electrification and weatherization for existing buildings, existing homes and structures. Let’s put that aside. Now, I know we can’t put that aside, generally, but like, for the purposes of the conversation we’re having tonight.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:46
You know, working with that assumption, in some ways, the housing study that we got right before this as a presentation is actually a really nice segue into this conversation because it speaks to the growth not just in population units, but in terms of electric demand, energy demand overall.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:01
It was estimated in that report, and the presentation that we got that they’re about just over 1500 new units that are approved are under review. in Longmont alone. If you look at the kind of development review process, there are quick math

Unknown Speaker 1:46:21
over I think 80 projects that are actively under development review, pending, resubmit all public hearing under construction are approved. And these are new buildings that are coming online. Maybe not all residential, maybe not all mixed use, but new buildings that are coming on that are going to add to LPCs portfolio.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:41
And so I guess my question here comes down to, we have these goals that we’re trying to reduce both in terms of the growth of our emissions, the growth of the energy intensity that we have, and the energy that we’re using period.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:55
And certainly the shift from the the shift from

Unknown Speaker 1:47:00
gas to basically zero emissions.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:06
Anytime we’re not growing, or anytime we’re growing and increasing that portfolio, or making it even harder down the road to convert these structures. And maybe grant a quick question for you like, some of these projects that are in the pipeline. I mean, these are 50 to 70 year, like people are developers are building projects with that kind of multi decade timeline in mind, right? These are not like 10 years in the building is going to be completely gutted. Right.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:35
I’ll give you a quick answer. Yes, we hope so. Undoubtedly. Yeah. Not that short of a timeline. Yeah. So I mean, these are, these are buildings that are hopefully gonna stand the test of time for at least a decade, Cent century or so for the future of Longmont.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:52
When we are thinking about the goals, and I know we’re getting close to the code updates, but there are very active projects in that pipeline right now. And so in some ways, you know, there are projects that are coming to us that we have to follow the current code for.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:09
And yet, we know where this is going, like literally the writing on the screen is showing where the code direction is going. So how do we start to? I mean, this may not this may be outside of our role and purview directly. But from the sustainability perspective, from LPCs perspective, how are you guys thinking about the growth in the portfolio and building stock? At the same time, we’re trying to basically eliminate that growth? Yeah, that that is one of the

Unknown Speaker 1:48:38
central conundrums that I would say we face on a day to day basis. Right. And so and just from a sustainability and an embodied carbon standpoint, you would not want to build a building and then tear it down.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:51
From now, none of us would be advocating for that. But you’re but you’re right there, every time a new building goes in, and we’re not there yet, with the codes. That’s another building we are going to have to deal with later from the fuel use standpoint. And at the same time, the process that we’ve been trying to follow is to be kind of in step with our regional communities, to do the engagement and to follow the process because we we don’t want to rush something through and risk some of those adverse impacts at the same time and to work with our development and our contractor community. And create that consistency across the region to really say like, okay, no matter what community you go in, these are the requirements that you’re going to have and that, you know, creates that efficiency also for the development community. So, I the

Unknown Speaker 1:49:51
the direction that we have currently is to follow that process and follow that path that came from the, you know, the building electrification plan.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:00
said to follow the code cohort and that being close to the 2024 code cycle. So that’s the process that we’ve been following City Council can always direct us to do something differently. And so that would really be within the purview of city council to request something to go faster than that.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:18
You know, I would say

Unknown Speaker 1:50:22
yes, every day, there’s projects going through. And also kind of we we are looking at within the next several months that these codes kind of would be in place at the same time. So as blas said, I think the challenge and and I’ll let you all speak to this more so but also, we don’t know what those code books say yet, either. And so I would, I would think there’s some value to seeing what those code books say first before, we also come out with kind of our own requirements, and then potentially have to modify our back, backtrack because of those code books saying something else. But feel free to jump in there. If you have a different kind of perspective on that.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:01
Now, it’s Thank you pretty much got it. I know that the energy code has been getting stricter, by roughly 10% Every year, or every cycle. So every three years. And so we kind of expect the 2024 one to follow the same suit, and just be more restrictive and a little more

Unknown Speaker 1:51:19
climate friendly.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:21
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:23
Things I’ve one more comment, then I’ll let my fellow Commissioners ask questions here. You know, it’s more of a comment at this point. I just want to say, you know, over the last year,

Unknown Speaker 1:51:33
we’ve had a number of developers kind of share just kind of what their plans are about efficiency for structure design on site solar.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:42
You know, electrification, ready electrification.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:45
And so, you know, what we’ve started to hear and some of the developments in prospect Newtown, in Habitat for Humanity. And I think the planned modern, less development are all already looking at becoming, you know, full net zero there, or at least zero emissions appliances, or all electric, depending on exactly how they define that.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:08
And generally, what we’ve, you know, we’ve heard from a couple developers who’ve said, Yeah, not a problem. We’ll build to that. And some others are still kind of figuring out what the market is presumed that’ll shift as well as the codes update. But the good news is that developers are seeing the writing on the wall, as well. So hopefully, if it’s if it’s at any, any help along the way, in the conversation there.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:32
You know, the development community has been reacting to this. And in many cases, seeing no objection there. Obviously defer to the planning staff to weigh in on more of an aggregate basis. We just see the ones that come before us.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:46
And

Unknown Speaker 1:52:48
so I offer that as hopefully some solidarity along the way as this moves forward, that the market is moving in that direction, at least for the developers who are paying attention there. So I’ll pause there. Thank you, Chair. Mr. teta.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:06
To continue Commissioner Popkins thoughts about that, from your interactions with developers, builders, contractors. What are their concerns? And what are you hearing? I’m going to have Matt and Blasco step in there.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:24
So for the most part, most of developers and builders are obviously most concerned with construction costs. And whether or not it’s going to be it’s going to hurt their bottom line or not.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:35
That’s mostly what we hear as far as complaints. As far as

Unknown Speaker 1:53:40
pros on it. We don’t really hear a whole lot of people praising the process from the builder side.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:48
I’ve we’ve had some residents sound excited about it, though.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:58
Thanks, Jer.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:01
Are the costs associated with every aspect? Is it the Evie charging? Is it is it hot water heat? Where do you see the costs most impacting a developer?

Unknown Speaker 1:54:19
Probably the heat and the furnace, the Eevee ready for a new build.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:26
Talking to a few electricians around town that ranges from 500 to $1,500 a month or sorry, total to put that in there, depending on where their panel is.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:37
Whereas I think as of right now, the electric appliances are a little bit more expensive than your fuel fired appliances.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:45
That and obviously the homeowners

Unknown Speaker 1:54:49
being wary of electrical prices. You mean like a furnace? Right? Yeah. Okay. Thanks, man. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:55:10
some feedback that we’re getting from developers on the electrical side where they’re having to

Unknown Speaker 1:55:16
add capacity for certain features is they just want a little certainty. They know they know something’s coming. They don’t know exactly what it is. And I think it speaks to what Lisa was talking about with consistency if we can align ourselves regionally so that the developers know what to expect. And they can anticipate kind of when things are coming, we’ve we’ve tried to do a little pre emptive education with, you know, these recommendations are going to be before counsel, and you should become familiar with them. So you understand what what might be on the horizon? I think they really are appreciative of, of certainty. And you guys work with them, certainly more than I do. But that that helps them build their project and understand what the pro forma looks like. And it’s good to have that certainty.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:13
Oh, and also when it’s going to happen, so they know where they are in the process. Grant, you could probably talk to that a little bit. Does this apply to me, depending on where I am in the pipeline? And if we can provide some certainty there, that would be helpful.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:29
I’ve been I’ve been working in building departments.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:33
Since I was as tall I spent about 35 years, I think, and one thing I can assure you, from my experience, is that contractors want consistency. They they don’t like it when one city enforces this, another city and forces that that was the concept of the Boulder County cohort, I thought was

Unknown Speaker 1:56:57
very well planned. And that will try to even it out so that the communities in the county are doing the same plan, moving at the same rate of speed. Some may be faster than others. But I that’s the number one complaint I get from contractors is can you guys just be consistent. I have to build in this city, and then you guys require this. And then this city requires that. And I understand that. So if we can maintain consistency, I think we will see less complaints from the building community.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:36
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:39
Commissioner Popkin?

Unknown Speaker 1:57:41
Thank you, Chair.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:44
Because it’s a really good point. I appreciate you sharing that. And just the update, Lisa, on the kind of whole regional coordination process. I mean, that makes a lot of sense from not just a consistency in code, but also in terms of like a workforce development standpoint, and just getting the region up to speed there.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:00
And, you know, the cost conversation here is really interesting, because, and part of the reason, you know, new builds are on the

Unknown Speaker 1:58:08
top of the list here is because the easiest to build to something, you know, from scratch, the cost of conversion is, well, actually, I shouldn’t assume this is it, you know, to the people who have been looking at this in the region is the cost of conversion more expensive, generally on a unit to unit basis than the cost of a new build.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:31
I would say without a doubt, it’s more expensive. I mean, trying to update a electrical system that was built in the early 1900s to 2024 standard is going to be quite a bit, right. And so when you’re looking at stepping back and looking at that whole skeleton, you’re building that skeleton to support the new, you’re building that electrical skeleton effectively to support the entire new

Unknown Speaker 1:58:53
appliances that are used interesse case versus having to retrofit go and dig behind the drywall figure out, you know, update the wiring, all of that. And I’m looking into and talking to a couple of electricians about the Evie chargers in existing homes. That bumps it up to between $1,000 up to 5000. Again, depending on with the panelists. Yeah. And then generally speaking in the industry, if you know, if someone is, you know, who generally bears the cost of conversion? Is it renters? Is it you know, homeowners, is it developers, some combination of all? Yeah, so just to go back to your first point. The other thing that you’re going to face in existing buildings is kind of to what Matt said earlier, the efficiency requirements for new code keeps getting higher and higher and higher and higher. And so also the older building stock is less efficient. And so if you just go in and replace, you know, a gas appliance with an electric appliance and don’t do anything else, as far as you know, the weatherization and building envelope components, you’re also you also do

Unknown Speaker 2:00:00
Those are also really important components of that retrofitting process. So that you don’t have an inefficient building running a heat pump and running up somebody’s electric bill, you know, because of because of just the electric versus gas prices and the way those technologies run.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:17
So that then just adds cost. And what we’re seeing in the whole home health program is sometimes there’s other things that have to happen. Before you can do those things. People have a leaky roof, or they have, you know, significant repairs that need to happen before you can even do some of those things, too. So they’re all those are all things that are not insignificant costs that are associated with retrofitting existing buildings, and just adds to the complexity of that, right. And then generally speaking, on a conversion basis, you’re kind of doing a one unit by unit conversions versus when you’re building up front. And you’re building anything beyond a single family house, right? Sure, yeah, start to shop at Costco versus Whole Foods. Yeah. And then as far as who bears that cost, you know, that is part of, you know, the whole home health program, again, is part of the process that we’re trying to go through with that data collection, and to understand those cost implications. And so we also have, you know, one, we’re trying to get at that kind of extreme heat resilience, right. So we’re also looking at the extreme, we’re looking at more extreme heat days, we’re trying to bring cooling into homes that haven’t traditionally had cooling for folks that are more vulnerable to heat. So that’s really kind of the primary focus of that program, but also looking at, you know, having a really long runway to build out and budget for when we do anticipate code requirements that would come in for existing buildings, because we know that’s a significant cost. And that could push people out of their homes or out of our community. And that’s not what we want to do. So, you know, understanding some sort of approach to some sort of financial assistance for, you know, property owners or home owners, and then some sort of agreement, if you’re working with a property owner that says, if we’re going to help you with some level of financial assistance, then we’re going to require some level of rent stabilization for that renter, so the costs don’t get passed on to the renter, and then again, also kind of, you know, push somebody out of their living situation as well. So there’s not an easy answer to that those are things that we’re trying to figure out in this process. So would it be? It sounds like it gets infinitely more complex, the more into the conversion process you get? And so would it be fair to say like, you know, building it as a building right from the start is kind of the most cost effective process long term. When you actually yeah, yeah, that’s

Unknown Speaker 2:02:41
fair. But we can’t ignore the existing buildings.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:44
No, this is not existing, ignoring the existing buildings. It’s just looking about what what are we adding to the growth of the region? And are we building it to create even more complexity down the road? Sure. Right. Yeah. Yes. So again, separate separate issues, the new build versus the conversions.

Unknown Speaker 2:03:00
Great. I think my last, I just have a question on process.

Unknown Speaker 2:03:06
And maybe it’s

Unknown Speaker 2:03:09
Yeah, I guess maybe first, for grant.

Unknown Speaker 2:03:13
For all the projects that are going through the review process, whether we’re seeing them or whether Council seeing them, or whether they’re just going being reviewed by planning staff? How are how is this kind of code transition conversation happening at that level? Or is it and to what degree is it actually happening? And, you know, to what degree is planning staff having conversations with developers or applicants, kind of behind what we’re able to see here, about

Unknown Speaker 2:03:40
what we’re talking about the efficiency standards, the electric grid, the electric preferred, and eventually kind of where this is headed?

Unknown Speaker 2:03:47
Sure. So honestly, the conversation starts even at the pre op level, at least to some degree. The more we know, of course, as mentioned before, about that implementation timeline, the more information we can give prospective developers and say, Hey, this is coming down the pike, you can expect this in terms of an actual implementation, you know, again, a specific date. But there are conversations during the development review process about again, if we know something is imminent, we will let them know. There’s also outside air level discussions just in terms of encouraging those aspects. As everyone knows, you can only encourage, if it isn’t on the books, if it’s not code, if it’s not a regulation, but that is part of the process. Many members of this group here provide commentary and input during that development review process. So again, I think most importantly, when we do know, a specific date of implementation, we’ll let the development community off so they can prepare. Great, thank you. And then just other side of the process point. Maybe Susan or Lisa you can share to what to what extent do you have clarity on what the local

Unknown Speaker 2:05:00
I think he mentioned it was a local amendment process situation that could come up like after the

Unknown Speaker 2:05:06
updated code language is released in the next couple of months, then it goes through like a discussion at the regional level. Or it can be, maybe I’m misconstruing that from the presentation, but I thought there was some kind of local amendment process. And I’m just wondering if you guys have clarity as to what that looks like.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:23
Fantastic. Every code we adopt has amendments. And there’s various reasons for the amendments, it may be something that

Unknown Speaker 2:05:33
is not really desirable.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:38
It depends on the what the contractors can work with.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:46
I would give you some examples, but I probably don’t really memorize them. But if you go into the city, our city website and go to the building services, just pull up the building code, all of that all of those are amendments pretty much. And we make those amendments every time we opened a brand new codebook, to see if something is needed or not needed or will greet confusion

Unknown Speaker 2:06:13
that the codes tend to self adjust. And we have got rid of amendments, because they’re no longer needed, because of the requirements have changed, and are now in the code books. So amendments is just, there’s no city that doesn’t amend the codebook. And so we have

Unknown Speaker 2:06:34
multiple amendments that and that’s that’s what the real work of it is, is to review the code and then suggest those amendments, they have to go through the legal process, and, and then they get codified. So that that is the real, that is the real work when we adopt new code books, and Matt’s gonna be helping me

Unknown Speaker 2:06:57
with that process. And so it’s a lot of fun. It really is.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:04
And speak a little bit to the process, Commissioner.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:09
Our amendment process, like I said, we go through the books. And then during public hearings, we review the amendments and even some significant changes to kind of let the builders know what’s coming down from our code, and our amendments. We also meet with our masterboard to see if they have any what they have to say about our amendments and the new codes.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:34
And sometimes they suggest something that we adopt.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:39
That answers the question. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate all the work that’s gone into this at the local and regional level.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:48
Commissioner height.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:51
Thank you, gentlemen, following up on your code amendment or your I guess, code adoption.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:59
That process is legislative I guess you presented to city council and they adopted

Unknown Speaker 2:08:06
in we’re a whole new home rule municipality, and this is a stupid legal question. The state statute that mandates cities adopt certain ICs are certain codes, how is that met by you as the folks that have to implement these codes and then present them to city council that I presume has the option to adopt or not adopt?

Unknown Speaker 2:08:34
How does that mix with a state law that says Thou shalt adopt? Yes, an example of that would be the plumbing code, the

Unknown Speaker 2:08:46
the electrical code, we pretty much have to adopt those codes as is. In other words,

Unknown Speaker 2:08:54
we cannot make the code less restrictive. But we can always make it more stringent, because the state has authority over that code. And we have to use that code. With the other codes. We can make as many amendments as we want.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:13
Building Code, the energy code, plumbing code, mechanical code, all the other codes, we do have quite a few amendments. The we do have a few amendments in the electrical code. And I believe those are mainly for clarification or minor minor issues that are just not very clear. But you are correct. The state does mandate that we adopt the codes and we don’t want to get caught in a situation where we’re making the code less stringent than what the code was published as and so we do have to comply with the state mandates.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:51
Thanks

Unknown Speaker 2:09:56
Lisa, and just to kind of tie those back into the

Unknown Speaker 2:10:00
Planning and Zoning Commission. So we really work with the land development code.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:05
Do you anticipate any changes to the land development code to support any of these efforts?

Unknown Speaker 2:10:13
That’s a That’s a great question that I wasn’t prepared to answer. So I’m gonna answer a little bit on the fly and say, we, most of the code requirements that we’ve been looking at from a sustainability and climate action standpoint, have been on the building code related side, the Eevee code requirements crossover into some of the land use code areas.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:40
There’s other opportunities to look at climate friendly land use policies and things like that we don’t have anything kind of

Unknown Speaker 2:10:49
on the horizon. In that regard, we have been

Unknown Speaker 2:10:54
hoping to do an update to the Envision Longmont comprehensive plan and the sustainability plan in an integrated fashion at some point in the not too distant future where I think we would look at some of those opportunities, but nothing specific that we have kind of right away that we’re looking at.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:13
Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:15
Are there any other further questions, comments from the Commission?

Unknown Speaker 2:11:21
going once going twice, Leeson group, thank you very much. That was a very comprehensive presentation. Very informative. And I believe we all appreciate it. So thank you very much. Thanks all for your time.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:37
Okay, we will continue to move on. Next is public invited to be heard final call. This is

Unknown Speaker 2:11:47
this is the last chance. going once going twice. I’m opening it and seeing nobody come up. I will go ahead and close final call public invited to be heard. Next is items from the Commission. I believe there are going to be a couple items.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:05
Commissioner Lukasz.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:08
Thank you Chair. I wanted to give an update to my fellow Commissioners on the long run transportation mobility plan that I’m representing the commission on that steering committee. And you you’ve seen an email going out with a survey that is currently active from the city staff to gather input on the safety or perceived safety of the residents in Longmont. So if you haven’t filled out that survey yet, please do so is still available until March 1. And there is an interactive map also where you can pinpoint specific locations intersections where you would like to see improvements. As far as the commission goes, the Planning and Zoning Commission. Eventually sometime perhaps towards the end of the year, you will see

Unknown Speaker 2:13:00
the staff coming with an amendment to the Envision LogMeIn plan. And they will focus strictly on the transportation and mobility side not land use. So that will be coming sometime towards the end of the year. But in the meantime, they’re right now they’re gathering feedback from from everyone from the residents. And then

Unknown Speaker 2:13:28
I assumed there might be a meeting in April where we’re going to hear a summary of all the information that was gathered and go from there and see what staff and the consultants propose as far as changes. So I will come back further with updates to you and you know, probably questions and suggestions from you all.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:51
Yeah, I did happen to head a couple of weeks ago over at the library. They had the presentation. I did attend that it was very informative.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:58
I liked the interactive part. They had all the different maps, you could go take your little sticky dots and kind of put them where your points of concern were. So it was very good presentation. So it was very well attended to Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:13
Next is Commissioner teta.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:19
A quick question for council member Rodriguez about the fee in lieu change. What What can you tell us? What did Council think about that? What are the what’s the new number? That kind of stuff?

Unknown Speaker 2:14:37
Thank you, Commissioner. While we have not set a new number we have, I believe agreed in principle to that we are interested in raising that number. And that’s supposed to be coming back to us. The other thing that I remember specifically from

Unknown Speaker 2:14:54
Miss Fitzpatrick’s presentation to council was the

Unknown Speaker 2:15:00
portion talking about the exemption for the

Unknown Speaker 2:15:04
multifamily units, where we have the 2020 unit exemption right now. And so I specifically remember making the motion saying that I prefer no exemption to, you know, capitalize on as many units as possible. But that at least have a starting point to talk about of raising it to the 35, as was presented tonight to you as well. And so those will be coming back to council. So we have not said anything yet, specifically, but we are bringing those back after having that same presentation that you will have.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:39
Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Popkin. Thank you chair.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:45
As my fellow Commissioners, no, I was not able to attend the last meeting, when the bylaws were discussed. For the 2024 year, in conversation with the chair, I was told that this would be an appropriate time to bring a couple of potential amendments to the Commission for consideration.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:02
And I guess at first just a process question for you, Chair. I, I would like to, we really we rarely have amendments to to they’re not conditions, to things that come before this body. And typically, according to Robert’s Rules of Order, you could propose them one by one, or in bulk, like how what would the what would you prefer? What I would prefer knowing the conditions that you have correct, I believe you can wrap three or four of those into one condition. And then the last one,

Unknown Speaker 2:16:34
do that separately, because that might be the one that would need some discussion. Great. That was that’s that’s the guidance I was hoping for. Thank you. So then I would like to bring five potential amendments to the bylaws to the commission, I would personally characterize three, maybe four of them as non substantive, mostly structural or for improved clarity, for our benefit and for the public. And then one of them, I think, is I would characterize as substantive. So unless the commission has any objection, I propose bringing four of them as the non substantive first,

Unknown Speaker 2:17:11
for consideration, and then bring the substantive bylaw to the table, or proposal, I could also just share all of the ideas, and then we can discuss how we want to handle them.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:22
I would welcome let’s start with the first let’s do that. Great, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:30
So again, the majority of I might argue all of them, but at least the four that I’m about to raise are intended to make the bylaws from my perspective, more accessible and clear to new commissioners and to the general public. That’s the spirit in which I offer these first four, Jane, for your purposes, these are the same ones that you got via email back in January. It’s easy to copy that. So the first amendment that I wanted to propose was to revise all references to chair man and vice chairman and the bylaws to chair and vice chair. There’s actually an inconsistency already in how that’s referred to in the bylaws. So I figure, why not make it chair and vice chair just from throughout across the board.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:10
I think it would have a benefit of also being potentially more inclusive to our leadership.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:15
That’s the first, the second amendment is to relocate section nine, which is on study committees to follow section five, which is on special meetings.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:25
The rationale here is just this more seamlessly reflects the flow of the bylaws in terms of regular meetings, special meetings and and study committee study committees. Rather than like spread those all out throughout the different parts of the bylaws that are presumed they were added inconsistently at different points.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:39
So just make that sequential.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:42
amendment three is to remove the retention of tapes from section 10 and section section 10. A and Section 10. B.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:50
I’m not sure we really retain tapes, I don’t know what that’s referring to. But if there’s a practice that I’m not aware of, I’d be happy to be informed about that. Thank you Commissioner height.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:01
So if that is if that is something we need to discuss, I’d be happy to entertain what that looks like. And whether that still matters here is technically considered an official agenda item as well.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:15
And then amendment four is to revise section 11. line six to remove accepting and to now read all motions to postpone except a motion to postpone indefinitely, mostly just to grammatical thing, but I think it’s a little bit arcane in language and makes it a little bit more accessible. So it really is changing the word

Unknown Speaker 2:19:35
accepting to accept.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:41
So those are the first four that I’ll offer in the spirit of accessibility. And that was made as a motion right? Yes, I would motion to amend the bylaws and those four different ways. Okay, do we have a second or do you have Okay, do we have a sec. I’ll go ahead and I will second that and then open for discussion.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:59
Commissioner Hi

Unknown Speaker 2:20:00
I’d

Unknown Speaker 2:20:02
like to ask James because, as

Unknown Speaker 2:20:06
I pointed to this recording device that sits in front of me every minute, every minute that I’m here, this recording device sits in front of me. And I don’t know that it is or isn’t a tape? And if it is, or isn’t the tape that’s referenced in the bylaws that that commercial pocket was

Unknown Speaker 2:20:24
suggesting that that we do away with.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:27
In speaking to Jane a little, I’m not going to, I’m not going to paraphrase. I’m gonna let Jane speak to what this in this instrument is, if I can, thank you Commissioner height, we do have a retention policy to retain recordings

Unknown Speaker 2:20:44
of that was probably old language that they were using tapes because we used to have a tape.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:51
I would imagine that’s what it’s referring to, we may just need to change the language from retention of tapes to retention of recordings, because I believe we do have a policy that we have to retain these recordings. I think it’s until the minutes are approved.

Unknown Speaker 2:21:08
I’d have to I’d have to verify that in our retention policy to be sure that we’re retaining this

Unknown Speaker 2:21:15
for the time, we’re required to retain it. So I don’t have that information right now, I’d have to review those records before we make a decision on this to remove that language.

Unknown Speaker 2:21:27
I want to clarify what our city clerk’s office

Unknown Speaker 2:21:33
and how they would describe that.

Unknown Speaker 2:21:38
And if I can add more than once I have contacted Jane about issues that have come up in the minutes, and she has referred back to the recording device. So as a friendly suggestion, possibly we hold off on that to determine

Unknown Speaker 2:21:55
exactly what this thing is and what our retention policy could be or should be to be consistent with whatever city ordinance might otherwise be out there.

Unknown Speaker 2:22:06
To Mr. Popkin? Yeah, thanks. That’s very clarifying. Good to know, we have upgraded our technology to some degree. I think actually the the intention here of my amendment. And so I welcome that clarity, clarity there. And in fact, if I can offer a friendly amendment to my own amendment, it would be that we remove the retention of tapes from the agenda order of business, and that we just added as a clause in the bylaws separately, as just part of our procedure. I think really, the confusion comes in, we never follow that from our agenda. And it’s literally listed in Section 10. A and B as like, items from the Commission items from council representative items from planning director retention of tapes, adjournment, and we never follow that as an agenda. So we might as well not include that in the agenda, we can still include that to respect the policy. I wasn’t trying to change the policy of retention. Well, I guess

Unknown Speaker 2:22:59
that brings up the question, the bylaws versus the retention policy of the city?

Unknown Speaker 2:23:13
I mean, if this is going to be a really big headache, we can strike that not looking to do Yeah, I don’t want to get into that.

Unknown Speaker 2:23:22
Probably without the legal Yeah. To help us through that. I don’t want to be making any decisions on my side, without consulting with them first. Then out of respect for that I will remove that amendment from that from consideration right now. And I look forward to the agenda item pretension of tapes when we get there later. So now we’re down to three. Now we’re down to three non substantive amendments. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 2:23:49
And so just to recap there, it’s chair and vice chair, or chairman and vice chairman to chair and vice chair.

Unknown Speaker 2:23:58
Accepting to accept and

Unknown Speaker 2:24:02
thank you and then just reordering the study committee to follow the types of meetings that we have

Unknown Speaker 2:24:06
up to yeah, there’s language. I’ll just read it for everyone. I was reading through this and I was like what is so section 11 Rules of Procedure states online six. All motions to postpone accepting a motion to postpone indefinitely may be amended as to time to include the next three meetings. Maybe this is just personal preference, but it feels very arcane language and for people who are trying to access this, no one says accepting something. In that context, they say I’m accepting a credit card, but they won’t say accepting as an exception type situation.

Unknown Speaker 2:24:42
It shouldn’t change the the meaning in any way, shape or form. Just think it makes it a more reasonable word.

Unknown Speaker 2:24:50
Commissioner height

Unknown Speaker 2:24:51
is I missed it. I think I clearly understand Chairman the chair and vice chair Madam Chair,

Unknown Speaker 2:25:00
And don’t think I understand item two, which was accepting, say, repeat your motion again. Yeah. So it’s accepting EXCEP t i n g. So accepting is like an exception. Okay. The current phrasing is all motions to postpone accepting a motion to postpone indefinitely, may be amended as to time to include the next three regular meetings. I think what it’s trying to say, in least in modern terms, and not like Gen Z lingo, like modern terms is all motions to postpone except for a motion to postpone indefinitely, can do that. That’s all I’m proposing to change, because already we’re scratching our heads a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 2:25:43
So just taking the ing off of exactly, it’s

Unknown Speaker 2:25:47
purely a form of the word change, could I think number three?

Unknown Speaker 2:25:52
That’s a PDF.

Unknown Speaker 2:25:55
And number three,

Unknown Speaker 2:25:58
where was the other window?

Unknown Speaker 2:26:01
And the third one was the study committee. So it basically, it would change the order to regular meetings, special meetings Study Committee, in just to show the types of ways we convene in sequence.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:14
Gotcha.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:17
Okay, without any further question, Jane, let’s take the vote.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:23
Commissioner high. Commissioner teta. Commissioner Boone, Chair Polen. Commissioner Lang, Commissioner cat I Commissioner Popkin Chairman that passes seven zero. Thank you very much. And now Mr. Popkin on to your last item, I know offer a substantive amendment to the bylaws, and appreciate your consideration of the non substantive ones already.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:48
So under Section 17, amending the bylaws, I’m proposing that we add the following any amendments restricting public invited to be heard or participation by the public shall not take effect in the same meeting, if that is approved, it is approved. So I’ll read that one more time. Any amendment so I’m proposing adding this amendment.

Unknown Speaker 2:27:12
Any amendment restricting public invited to be heard or participation by the public shall not take effect in the same meeting, it is approved.

Unknown Speaker 2:27:21
And this and so just to briefly give context, especially for new commissioners. This emerged from a meeting actually that I was not present at last summer, where we were the Commission decided to adjust the rules of the meeting in terms of who gets what the in terms of what could be discussed during public invited to be heard.

Unknown Speaker 2:27:42
I’m not arguing what was decided at the time.

Unknown Speaker 2:27:49
But I am saying that going forward, I think it would be responsible for this commission to not change the rules for the public to participate in our meetings, on the very same meeting that we’re doing that so that we are not changing expectations for the public who is coming here to speak up on an issue.

Unknown Speaker 2:28:09
Commissioner height

Unknown Speaker 2:28:12
kind of thought is gonna follow you, but I’ll go first.

Unknown Speaker 2:28:16
Might there be exigencies, though, during a meeting wherein you might need to change? What’s going to happen with respect to do duplicative presentations, you have an overwhelming number of participants that want to speak, and it’s now past midnight, and maybe you’re going to cut it to three minutes from five.

Unknown Speaker 2:28:46
I don’t know that that’d be a change to the bylaws that would just be changed to how that meeting is going to be conducted.

Unknown Speaker 2:28:54
The authority for which I think is vested in the chair.

Unknown Speaker 2:28:58
Yeah, I’m going to turn your app because I think this might, you can keep your

Unknown Speaker 2:29:04
I think my concern is that there may be legal reasons. And this is what stem from the other. There are legal reasons why we may be asked to make a change such as that. And I can tell you it was not taken lightly by this commission. We had a vigorous discussion about it.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:30
But there were some legal reasons why we made that. And if it happened once and I believe that they were valid reasons. And

Unknown Speaker 2:29:44
we were

Unknown Speaker 2:29:46
given counseled by legal on that. I would not want us to put something in the bylaws

Unknown Speaker 2:29:53
that would prevent that from being able to occur in the future should it be necessary

Unknown Speaker 2:30:04
So

Unknown Speaker 2:30:06
I don’t believe that this planning commission or any future planning commission would take away the rights of the public to speak, except for a very

Unknown Speaker 2:30:20
serious reason, like the legal reason that could come up. So

Unknown Speaker 2:30:25
I’m not afraid. I am not afraid of a planning commission abusing that in the future.

Unknown Speaker 2:30:34
That’s why I would not be for that amendment.

Unknown Speaker 2:30:40
Anybody else, Commissioner, hey.

Unknown Speaker 2:30:44
I’m kind of recalling what that issue was now back last summer, because someone reminded me.

Unknown Speaker 2:30:50
But more broadly,

Unknown Speaker 2:30:53
back to what I think I tried to raise this appointment. Is it a bylaw that governs the public’s

Unknown Speaker 2:31:02
right? The public’s right to speak is kind of in our bylaws, the manner by which or the means through which they’re allowed to do so

Unknown Speaker 2:31:13
could change and or the subject of what they’re going to talk about could change. And I think that

Unknown Speaker 2:31:21
I don’t know

Unknown Speaker 2:31:23
how that becomes vested in the chair to make those determinations. But I’m not sure that

Unknown Speaker 2:31:33
the procedure by which the public is invited to speak is set forth in our bylaws. I’m not aware of that.

Unknown Speaker 2:31:41
So why do you think it needs to be dealt with in the bylaws?

Unknown Speaker 2:31:46
Is my question to you? Yeah, that’s a great question. I want to address that question, as well as the chairs point before.

Unknown Speaker 2:31:53
I don’t think we need to govern how and what the public does in our bylaws. But the amendment here is, if we are going to make an amendment that does if we’re going to do a procedure that infringes upon or hinders or changes or alters in some way the public’s participation, that that should not take effect in the same meeting. So it’s more of an overarching, like, if some changes to procedure happen, it wouldn’t take effect in that same meeting, that it is being proposed in.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:23
That was the intention of how because I respect Commissioner, I respect exactly what you’re getting out there, which is like, are we overstepping procedure versus what governed in our bylaws? So I respect that, to the chairs point.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:36
Yes, that was a legal reason to consider that issue. Last summer, I could envision other legal issues potentially coming up, I can envision non legal issues that might be raised.

Unknown Speaker 2:32:48
And I think that our responsibility would be to get ahead of that. And so it’s not saying that we can’t change the public invite to be heard. It’s saying that we can’t my proposal here is that we can’t change it to take effect in the very meeting that people were expecting to be heard.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:09
So we effectively have to get ahead of it by one meeting. That’s That’s all this is asking if we’re going to make a change to that. But if we have 10 people who were planning to speak under guessing procedure, and that suddenly changes, I feel like that is unfair to the public, who we are, in some ways accountable to.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:33
Have it.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:35
Okay, Commissioner height.

Unknown Speaker 2:33:39
So that will have to go back to exactly what did happen last summer, which was that,

Unknown Speaker 2:33:45
in the view of some commissioners maybe made

Unknown Speaker 2:33:49
the matters that were being discussed, and it had become

Unknown Speaker 2:33:53
I want to say routine, but it happened more than once. We were being lobbied for matters that had not been brought to our we’re not on our agenda. And we’re not necessarily on they were on somebody’s agenda. But they were

Unknown Speaker 2:34:08
pre agenda matters that were being discussed and argued to us before a public hearing. We were being lobbied outside of

Unknown Speaker 2:34:19
the for opportunity for everybody to lobby us. And I think

Unknown Speaker 2:34:26
your point being that we should get in front of that

Unknown Speaker 2:34:30
is well taken. But when

Unknown Speaker 2:34:33
it again, I’m going to use the word Excellent. But when that issue comes up, and it has to be addressed forthwith, I don’t think

Unknown Speaker 2:34:45
your point is well taken but I don’t think I can sign on to it because if there is a matter that needs to be addressed, then in there and cut off then in there, we should be able to do so.

Unknown Speaker 2:35:02
Commissioner Popkin?

Unknown Speaker 2:35:07
I agree with you, Commissioner height, I guess I would question whether we are?

Unknown Speaker 2:35:14
Are we cutting someone off for overstep like is this to what degree is this vile like infringing on the flexibility and discretion of the chair, versus the commission making a determination on how a part of our agenda can be run. And that was what happened last summer, it part of our agenda was fundamentally changed on a certain topic. Now, I think there was validity to that. I’m just saying we should, as a commission, as a city be ahead of those types of issues.

Unknown Speaker 2:35:44
I mean, those types of issues, were coming up for multiple meetings as you as you said, and we eventually decided to make that point. But this is like, but the public was showing up to the Superbowl expecting one set of NFL rules, and they got changed the day of the in the middle of the Superbowl is basically what happened. And I don’t think that’s fair to the players who showed up to participate in the process that they were planning for. So I have no concerns with I actually fundamentally agree with the chairs point, I fundamentally agree with your PowerPoint, Commissioner height, I just think we need to be one meeting ahead of that.

Unknown Speaker 2:36:16
Except there’s going to be an occasion where it comes up and for whatever, whether it’s illegal, or some other reason, that

Unknown Speaker 2:36:30
to protect the city. Something has to get acted on

Unknown Speaker 2:36:36
at that before, before it happens. And therefore we did change even the order, which we could because Robert’s rules allowed us to change your order so that we could enact it before the meeting, because of a fear of the what’s word, I’m looking for the city’s liability?

Unknown Speaker 2:36:57
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:36:58
I think there was a fear that the city was open. And I think I think that’s entirely again, I totally agree. And I entirely want to protect the city from liability here. The only part that this is referencing is the public to be in the public participation. And so if there’s any

Unknown Speaker 2:37:16
there’s debate going on something that’s not been moved.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:20
You technically should move something before you hold debate on it. Unless this is purely for discussion.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:29
You did make a motion we have? No he didn’t make a formal motion yet.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:35
So if, if, if you want to and

Unknown Speaker 2:37:40
we don’t have our lawyer here.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:44
I will respect parliamentary procedure. I will motion I will motion that we

Unknown Speaker 2:37:51
amend the bylaws to create us. I think it’s create a section 17 called amending the bylaws and add the following any amendment restricting public invited to be heard or participation by the public shall not take effect in the same meeting. It is approved.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:07
Thank you. Very we have a motion. Do we have a second?

Unknown Speaker 2:38:18
We do not have a second. So the motion fails.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:25
But it was a great discussion.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:31
Okay, any other items from the Commission?

Unknown Speaker 2:38:39
Items from council representative Rodriguez.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:45
Well, thank you Chair polling. Just to go back to the presentation on electrification. It was kind of glossed over a little bit that one of the biggest priorities and moving forward with this is the rollout of the advanced metering infrastructure. And as you know,

Unknown Speaker 2:39:02
there’s been a very small, but very vocal group, who inundates the sustainability advisory board, as well as the city council. And I don’t know if they’ve come very often, I don’t think they’ve come to you very much about it.

Unknown Speaker 2:39:16
And that’s something that other communities don’t necessarily have to deal with, because they might be serviced by a private company, like Excel, for instance. And so Excel can just roll that out. And so we’re very excited that we’re actually getting the more fast tracked rollout of the the AMI, to help us really build, you know, the macro infrastructure city wide, that will support the grid that will support much more aggressive electrification in our development process. And so as we see that I believe the timeline is that it should be finished city wide by end of year is what we were told. I know that my house has been transitioned to the AMI system for months.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:00
is now and the worst fears of some of this small vocal group is not coming to fruition with my bill, for instance, and they definitely the city hasn’t randomly turned off my electricity if they needed extra bandwidth somewhere else. And so I just want to say from personal experience with that, I think these are somewhat unfounded fears, but I think the city council is very excited to finally get that process taken care of so we can move on to the next steps for more aggressive electrification process, so I just wanted to bring that up because I didn’t feel like it was touched on a lot during that presentation outside of that as always,

Unknown Speaker 2:40:41
great debate and thank you for your service. Okay, thank you. Items from playing director grant Penland nothing this evening for the commission. Okay. And then we are in adjournment.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:59
Jane retain the tapes.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:01
Now we’re in adjournment.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai