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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 07/17/2003MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N COLLEGE AVE July 17, 2003 For Reference Linda Stanley, Chair 493-7225 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison 226-4824 Sarah Fox, Staff Liaison 221-6312 Board Members Present Nancy York, Jim Dennison, Linda Stanley, Katie Walters, Ken Moore, John Long Board Members Absent Everett Bacon, Cherie Trine, Mandar Sunthankar Staff Present Natural Resources Department Sarah Fox, Terry Klahn, John Stokes, Margit Hentschel, Lucinda Smith Guests Eric Hamrick The meeting was called to order at 5 10 p in Sustainability Inventory Hentschel provided a brief background and explanation of the sustainabihty indicators The Brendle Company has been hired to do the SMS This is a seven month project that will begin in a couple of weeks • York Is the intent of this for the City government, or is it the commumtyy • Hentschel There's so much spill over, it s hard to keep it internal You have to look at the health of the community It's hard to keep it narrow But, we don't want to get too far out there, we 11 never get done There will be community involvement • York Any chance there could be a workshop so the principals could be shared in the commumty9 • Hentschel That s a good idea There's a sustainability living fair in September We wont have it well defined yet, but maybe we could do a workshop with them • York It would be good to get someone trained • Hentschel That s a good future step • Long Have you thought about a presentation with the Chamber9 • Hentschel That s a good idea • York Maybe they could partner, and bring someone to town • Hentschel 111 make sure the final version goes out to all of you • Stanley Is this the final, does it go to City Councih Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 2 of 8 • Hentschel I don t know if it goes to Council It went to John Fischbach last week I haven't heard anything back Approval of Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the June 19, 2003 meeting were unanimously approved Page 3, next to last bullet change to "Twenty two to twenty three thousand a day When College reaches twenty eight to twenty nine thousand a day, it will fail Page 7, to make it clearer change to read fine particles get in between the cells and begin the disease process" Air Quality Policy Plan Lucinda Smith said this year we re doing something different We will have a separate air quality plan, and part of it will overlap in City Plan They deal with land use and transportation issues That's the main bread and butter of the City Plan The rest of the air quality plan we'll deal with later • Stanley Is this the same thing we got from Mark Jackson, but with updates? • Smith We're talking about air quality related policies for inclusion in City Plan Mark Jackson will come with Transportation policies We're still gathering input There will be a public meeting on City plan It's not going for adoption till October 28 Brian Woodruff said there area couple substantive changes You may recall that the policy plan had a statement that we'll rely on an area wide approach to reduce emissions That's how we would define progress There was also a statement about local air pollution levels not exceeding the ambient air quality standards A couple more policies had to do with site conditions The new principle proposed here calls out an area wide approach as the primary approach, but a secondary approach is keeping localized air pollution from exceeding adopted standards A related new policy calls for the City to figure out how big an air pollution source would have to be for pollution levels to bump up against health standards When we have some idea we can disregard proposals that are smaller than that If we can figure out hot spots we can figure out how to address that • Stanley This could be a big place or it could be an industrial s1te9 • Woodruff It's more likely to be a major traffic generator • Dennison You can't test for all the toxins When the EPA hunts them down, they probably do a combination of sampling and educated guesses Is there any evidence there might be hot spots that exceed limits on some of the compounds • Woodruff No, we have monitoring in Fort Collins of CO and fine particles We don't do any toxic monitoring • Dennison It could be a non issue9 • Woodruff Yes it s quite possible • Stanley What about timmg9 Some pollutants have a long term effect, some have a shorter term effect I like the idea of putting it in there, but it seems like it could be clearer Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 3 of 8 • Smith Potentially the adopted standards would take into account the concentrations received The standards try to take into account the dosage received • Woodruff We're not so concerned about people walking by We're more concerned about people in areas like day care centers or nursing homes • Walters We discussed this during our subcommittee meeting We don t want to be too specific We couldn't come up with a phrase, but we re open to suggestions • Moore Could you define receptor9 • Fox From what I understand from the EPA, they are set for the sensitive population The average person will be fine They're aiming at people who will be sensitive If you try to protect those people, the others will also be protected • Woodruff We did a new principal on green house gas reduction It s not really a change because it only talks about things already adopted by the City Council • Smith The criteria we used to sort out which policies are relative to City Plan are the ones on transportation and land use That's why we didn t include wood burning and indoor air quality • Stanley Will that come later9 • Smith Yes, in the Air Quality Plan that will be adopted by Council But, it won't all be in City Plan • Dennison City Plan doesn't code issues at all for residential construction9 • Woodruff No, there are no ordinances or codes, it's vision, goals, principles and policies • Woodruff Another proposed change is the vmt reduction goal The proposed change is we have dropped the language "establish a program to reduce vmt so it does not exceed the growth in population' That has been our policy goal, but it turns out that vmt is growing twice as fast as population People are throwing up their hands in the face of an unachievable goal Transportation staff said to reduce the goal, call out a comprehensive program but not have target objectives The clean air team prefers to keep something in that gives us a goal • Smith A majority of the clean air team feels that having a goal that strives for reducing vmt but has a chance of being achieved raises the bar The subcommittee also discussed this • Walters We didn't come to a consensus • York One of the things pointed out was that since our GMA is going to be fixed, at some point we will meet the goal of vmt not exceeding the growth of population I hate to see it weakened • Stanley I hate to see it too It doesn t set the bar very high • Smith Do you think it might cause staff, or City Council to work harder because it feels like it s more achievable9 • Woodruff I think you raise an important point of how is it going to be implemented There's nothing that commits the City to do anything in these policies They are adopted by resolution and they are guidance City Plan has lofty goals for increasing alternative transportation, but the pace of investment has not kept up We have competing needs on the street side of things It's really important to remember that implementation is where the rubber really hits the road Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 4 of 8 • Stanley Do you think it would ever be the case that if you do greater than everyone else out there, you would stop9 • Smith City Plan is updated every 5 years If we were to get to that point there would be an opportunity to raise the bar again • York Maybe we as a board could have more frequent evaluations of how we're doing • Dennison I echo the concerns and thoughts everyone has had, but I would rather use a goal that is concrete but achievable • Long It would be helpful to have appendices, what items this may refer to What comparable cities you're using, so we know where we stand • Smith It would be like defining a baseline Maybe it would be more appropriate in the Air Quality Plan • Stanley I would like to change the overall goal, and just say our community will continually improve air quality, through comprehensive programs, policies and strategies • Smith I like Jim's comment that concrete is good We sought help on a concrete goal, but didn't come up with anything yet We can keep looking My thought is I'd like to have something beyond just "reducing VMT to push us further What matters for air quality is the total magnitude of vmt • Nancy That comes with the mode of transportation To achieve the goals it's pretty clear we have to develop the alternatives, but our City doesn't implement the alternatives, even though, everyone knows we should • Dennison Are you saying we don't implement any, or we don't implement enough? • York We don't implement adequately When push comes to shove, it's about widening streets and building parking lots • Dennison Are we trying to reduce growth, or reduce the growth of vmt? • Smith That's a big point • Stanley Are there any cities that have vmt growth rates less than population growth? • Woodruff The idea of vmt growing no faster than the population is an appealing one, it's a logical one The fact is that vmt per capita is going up, wildly up We're no different than other places like us • Dennison Maybe the benchmark should have something to do with the national growth rate • York It's a bench mark, but it brings home the need in a very blunt way I think we should keep the old wording • Walters My nervousness about that is it will eventually level out There is a growth management area My personal feeling is that more and more people will be commuting to Denver There are jobs there There are so many educated people in Fort Collins, they'll be commuting to Denver That will make the vmt jump so high we won't be able to do anything about it I think it will grossly exceed the rate of growth and population Our economy can't sustain the amount of educated people who live here • York We all know what we should be doing, and what it would take to drive that point home I really think the policy makers that project onto the populace are the reason we're not pushing and making the alternatives for acceptable and desirable modes I see the planners driving their SUV's, and the traffic engineers driving their big trucks It's the way it is, and it's very frustrating I really like the idea of somehow keeping the vmt and Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 5 of 8 population growth tied to each other to keep that point in front of everyone If we lose that, we lose something • Stanley I agree with Nancy We need to keep that bench mark there even if we think it s unattainable At some point, and it will happen, we'll become gndlocked, or gas prices will get high It's better to be working toward that, even if you think we can't reach it The citizens of Fort Collins drive too much because we don't have enough disincentives • Fox There s a group in Vermont who has been talking a lot about this One thing they focused on is how the public perceives things Data has to be a number they can understand, and that triggers something VMT versus population is so far out there the public disregards it There might be some other form of data that people might be able to latch onto easier The problem with cities is we collect data and don't do anything with it • Woodruff Maybe we could make it real for people by having campaigns, maybe "The Great Odometer Check Each family could look at all odometers on all vehicles and keep track for a year • Smith It would increase awareness • York Oregon is considering insurance at the pump by the mile I wish we could do that • Stanley State Farm has lobbied for that in a number of states, it's a good way to do it And, auto registration should be based upon miles • Dennison It sounds like we have a lot of mixed emotions, lofty or attainable goals I don't know if it's possible to do both • Smith Maybe it's a possibility, especially if in the air quality section we have a principal on vmt, and the principal is quantitative We could say it's our principal to reduce vmt so as not to exceed population growth • Woodruff You might also argue that the vmt reduction goal is such a visionary goal it maybe belongs earlier in the document and becomes more of the vision, City Plan vision and goals • York It should be in City Plan, more eyes focus on City Plan • Moore In my training they taught us to set goals The long term goals are the lofty goals, but how you work toward the longer term goals is to set short tenn goals that are attainable • Woodruff Maybe we should say our policy is to achieve the vmt reduction goal by trying certain things We're going to pick up the price signal issues I wish that the LUTRAQ team were spending our time talking about how can we move in that direction What's the next step9 It's hard to get the conversation turned around when people are overwhelmed by the goal • Dennison Could we emphasize the fact that different strategies should be tried so we don t get stagnated9 • Smith In the air quality sections there s a policy that talks about that I like Brian's suggestions about trying to adopt more specific policies about price mechanism • Stanley An editorial comment on the first page where it says continually improve Fort Collins' air, as the City grows Strike out, as the City grows It's not necessary It makes it seem like city growth is part of the objective Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 6 of 8 Smith Brian, do you recall why it's in there? Woodruff Yes It was to make it clear that while the City is growing, we're going to continually strive to improve air quality, we won t settle for flat, we'll improve Stanley There's an implicit assertion that we want the City to continue to grow Radon Mitigation in New Construction There's not much to report The radon ordinance went to Council on May 15 The Council members had some questions they wanted answers to There were some conflicting statements about the cost of radon systems, and questions about health affects We have been working on the assumption the radon issue would go to Council in September • York Will there be a staff recommendation9 • Woodruff The staff recommendation will come from the City Manager, but my feeling is passive is the right way to go It provides the balance between government reaching and the health benefits, with the opportunity to go to the next step so the home owner can easily install a fan to make it more effective than the passive system I can only speak for myself, but I think that Felix Lee and the EPA think that active is going too far • Stanley Were the costs you guys originally reported considered to be the valid costs? • Woodruff The City Manager asked us to confine and come with unimpeachable cost estimates We are working on that now • Dennison Is it possible to get access to actual invoices We need an unbiased sample • Stanley I like the idea of going to CSU, construction management does a lot of projects • Dennison Go to a development where they have 3 houses, get the prices for the houses with and with out the systems • Dennison I would advocate that NRD base its recommendations on cost benefits, and not the theory of reaching into and intruding on peoples lives The politics side needs to handled by City Council • Stanley Present the two cases and let them decide I like it when staff gives several possibilities, and the pluses, and minus of each one • Dennison I would recommend the department recommending one step stronger than they believe I'm afraid what the department recommended might not be the optimal from a cost benefit and then it might get further watered down • Woodruff We're talking about the building code, and it's not used as a health mechanism That s a health services approach The building code defines what s necessary in the building process If the owner wants to go further they can • York Neutral is good • Stanley I thought I would go speak that night with our recommendation Downtown Parking Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 7 of 8 • York I went to the Transportation Board meeting They got an enormous document on the whole Downtown Strategic Plan My advice is that they should work on ways that we don t have people parking They pointed out there are two bus routes that come downtown, but one of those routes instead of going back to CSU, goes around City Park We could implement a shuttle or another bus They pointed out the bike lanes sometimes stop, or are discontinued, and talked about the need for signage and striping the street for bikes and pedestrians They recommend parking once, and walking I kind of like the idea to work on the cheap stuff, signage, striping and doing what we can to encourage bikes The bike racks are disappearing from downtown • Stanley There was more in the report than Just parking I saw some other things that sounds good I have a list of things I thought sounded good 1 Reduce the idling of large trucks loading and unloading 2 Eliminate the parking subsidy for City employees If the City believes people should use alternative transportation, they're giving the wrong price signals 3 Better signage 4 The pricing piece is really important Make on -street parking more expensive than the garage 5 No new commercial parking lots 6 The adequate public facilities part bothered me — make downtown exempt when the benefits outweigh the cost to the public • Moore As long as it doesn't economically impact the merchants of downtown • Stanley I agree, downtown is important to Fort Collins The City shouldn't do anything that would negatively impact the merchants in downtown But, there is no parking an adjustment process could be easier • Long At the last Transportation Board meeting they were talking about very expensive ways I think requesting employees of downtown not to park downtown would leave spots open for the shoppers • York They didn't talk about that One thing that came up was about having a shuttle The feeling of staff was that a shuttle would take up room on the street and add to the problems Another element is that any new parking structures be on the periphery so people don t drive to downtown and park, they would park and walk • Stanley A shuttle between CSU and downtown is a good idea People would take a shuttle that runs continuously Linda Stanley made the following motion Recommend the Downtown Strategic Plan with some emphasis on points to be included in the memo, ask for modifications on the adequate public facilities, and more of an emphasis on mass transit to downtown i ne motion was seconded by Jim Dennison and was unanimously approved Agenda Planning August Review Air Quality Advisory Board work plan for 2003 Transportation Policy UM Feasibility AQPP Air Quality Advisory Board July 17, 2003 Page 8 of 8 September Transfort PRPA John Long said the entire City of Boulder fleet will be on bio-diesel by next week The City of Fort Collins needs to get on the ball Linda Stanley said she would like an update on ozone Linda Stanley asked if the board should have an update on the smoking campaign Submitted by TecU Klahn Admm<55ort Su isor Natural Resources Department