HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 11/16/2016MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD
Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Ave.
Time: 6:00–8:30pm
For Reference
Bob Overbeck, Council Liaison 970-988-9337
Katy Bigner, Staff Liaison 970-221-6317
Board Members Present Board Members Absent
John Bartholow, chair Katherine de Leon
Drew Derderian
Nancy DuTeau
Bob Mann
Elizabeth Hudetz
Luke Caldwell
Jay Adams
Harry Edwards
Staff Present Staff Absent
Katy Bigner, Staff Liaison, Environmental Services
Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support
Jackie Kozak Thiel, Chief Sustainability Officer
Rebecca Everette, Senior Environmental Planner
Tony Raeker, Green Built Environment Program Coordinator
Guests:
David Tweedale, citizen
Andrea Elsin, CSU student/citizen
Call meeting to order: 6:03pm
Agenda Review: No changes
Public Comments: None
Approval of Minutes:
Harry moved and Luke seconded a motion to approve the October minutes as presented.
Motion passed unanimously, 8-0-0.
AGENDA ITEM 1—Overview of Sustainability Services 2016 Activities and 2017 Plans
The City’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Jackie Kozak Thiel, provided an overview of the activities of
the departments under the Sustainability Services Area—Environmental Services (ESD), Economic
Health (EHO) and Social Sustainability (SSD). She highlighted plans and forthcoming activities for
2017.
Reviewed BFO memo from NRAB to Council. Would like to discuss plans related to enhancements,
priorities, NRAB 2017 Work Plan, etc.
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NRAB ranked core funding for ESD highest—important to maintain core services. ESD completed
reorganization this summer. Oldest department in service area. Council funded FTE around Rd2020
and CAP off-cycle. Coupling air quality and climate meant each weren’t getting enough focus—split
these to align with ESD strategic plan. Now have waste team, air quality team, and climate team.
CAP program manager offer was supported by NRAB. Lot of work on environmental sustainability
in other departments—ESD is in support role for all. ESD was successful with many key
enhancement offers. Local food coordinator was not funded—part of strategic plan so convening
interdepartmental meeting to talk about what already doing: working with Natural Areas, working
with CSAs, support of local organizations through SSD, and local food cluster. Without added
capacity, need to identify capacity. Healthy Homes received enhancement—will create DIY kit and
translate into multiple languages. Electric Vehicle (EV) readiness roadmap was funded. Need to
coordinate infrastructure, Transportation Master Plan, and sustainability education work. Will
continue to work with CSU and other partners. CAP pilot and innovation fund passed—reverse RFP
process to engage private sector in solving climate-related issues. CAP reserve fund not funded, but
heard from Council that may be interest in additional off-cycle appropriations. Road to Zero Waste
(RZW) didn’t get full funding, but did get 0.5FTE. Will look for additional funds. Waste
optimization funds left over from co-gen project at Drake wastewater can be moved to be used for
RZW (Co-gen used public-private partnership). Will come back to Council about organics collection
next year and link into regional wasteshed. Municipal innovation fund was increased—program that
has shown great GHG reductions. Leading by example. FortZED will become part of ESD core
services, but with less funding than it had previously. Determining best niche to advance shared goals
with Colorado Clean Energy Cluster (CCEC). Enhancement for municipal resilience and adaptation
plan—Katy has been leading effort in City. Piloted extreme heat and wildfire response practices this
year.
Social Sustainability is newest department in organization. Affordable housing and providing
services to those in need continue to be important to the community. Will continue to support
Homeward 2020 in goal to have homelessness be rare, short-lived and nonrecurring (have MOU),
Murphy Center received $50K, landlord outreach to help keep people in housing and getting
landlords to accept vouchers, data services, etc. Launching Safe Place to Rest for winters—churches
and nonprofits will be hosting individuals during inclement weather. Flexible, reliable, community-
based model. Put forward enhancement for office of equity and inclusion—offer was not fully
funded, but 0.5FTE to coordinate equity team. Forming community equity group with partners as
well. $100K more to human service funding. Fund had not been increased in about 10 years. Will be
working on a formula to determine when funding needs to be increased. Special Agency Session
used to be executed by nonprofits. If someone who is experiencing homelessness gets a ticket or fine,
can get connected to services and create a plan as an alternative sentence. Have full time person
dedicated to this now.
Discussion/Q&A:
• CAP is the same as Road to 2020?
o CAP is the brand of the plan. Heard that it wasn’t resonating with the implementation
phase. Creating branding to connect with audiences about actions. As work with
focus groups and engage the community and will be developing other language that
will be more compelling for change. Ex: Heard from a citizen that upset that spending
so much money on CAP when need more bike lanes. These are interconnected—
more bike lanes are part of CAP.
o Changing the name makes it seem like CAP has gone away.
o Need to determine inclusive language that can connect CAP to bike lanes and local
food and other elements.
• In contact with Veteran’s Association and County around homelessness?
o Key partners for Mayor’s Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness. Key part of
housing first model is getting veterans into housing.
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• Find that staff members are on many task forces—how many is the average employee on?
o Just went through Baldrige award process. Recognize that do a lot of cross-functional
teams. Looking at who is selected to be on teams, workloads, etc. Sustainability is
often the one convening these teams—providing coordination between departments
to achieve goals. Trying to do better on limiting timeline/commitment, so as not to
overburden staff. Just formed integration team to fully integrate the three
departments. Joint positions/joint projects. Sustainability Assessment Tool pilot
ended—will have a team create next version. Will determine how Council will use to
make decisions. Opportunity to add resilience, equity and inclusion to SAT.
Appreciate board participation in superboard meetings.
AGENDA ITEM 2—Review of Draft Downtown Plan
Rebecca Everette, Sr. Environmental Planner, provided an overview of the recently released Draft
Downtown Plan.
Draft plan is open for public review until December 11. There will be open houses and coffee shop
chats. After public review period is over, will do revisions then go to Council in January. Downtown
area addressed in plan is larger than historic center—from CSU campus on south, to Vine on north,
out to Woodward on east. Plan is structured around six topic areas and character sub-districts. 3D
model created to test different development scenarios. Have four categories of action items—
immediate, short-term, mid-term, and ongoing programs and actions.
Discussion/Q&A:
• Availability and enforcement of ADA accessible and/or disabled parking is not in the
transportation section of the plan.
o Have discussed this with staff. Have not been enforcing 2-hour time limits
consistently. More information will be added to the next version of the plan to speak
more directly to ADA parking.
Concerns were about number of spaces as well.
• Bob Overbeck told Jay to talk to Parking, who sent him a map of all handicapped parking.
However, there is not adequate parking in downtown area on College Ave—they will not be
looking on sidestreets for parking spaces. Heard that employees in downtown are moving
their cars every two hours.
o Parking services is supportive of creating a downtown zone to avoid that situation.
• Employee parking is a different issue than shopping/visitors. May need different strategy for
employees.
o Trying to better manage parking based on length of stay. Should be directing people
to park in different areas based on length of stay. Ex: employees get directed to a
parking garage. Right now having free on-street parking incentivizes circling for a
spot.
o Solutions?
Package of phased approaches—monitoring/data collection, upping
enforcement, evaluating on-street paid parking system options.
• In order to encourage alternative methods of getting to downtown need to know where they
are coming from. Looking for that information?
o Policy about monitoring travel behavior, includes driving, biking and pedestrian. City
can buy locational cell phone data to track where people are coming and going in the
city. There are privacy protections, but can use to see how far travelling, how many
stops, etc.
• Have you considered making some 2-hour spaces 1-hour to get more rotation?
o One consideration. Looked at other communities’ systems. Plan doesn’t recommend
any specific changes, but parking services looks at and adapts regularly.
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• If provided free parking to downtown employees by working with employers, then
employees don’t have to be moving their cars every two hours. Limited cost to City. Have to
provide incentives to employees.
o Some employers do that already. The City might have to incentivize.
o Would get opportunity to see what difference it makes, for low cost. In downtown a
lot, and seldom can’t find parking in a garage (only during big events). Would like to
see more specifics in Parking and Transportation section of the plan.
o Agreed. Would like it to be action-item oriented.
• Any parking requirements for businesses in downtown?
o When development project comes in, depending on use, there are sometimes off-
street parking requirements. However, if occupying existing building, don’t have
those requirements. Also not sure what to do about self-driving vehicles—unsure
how that technology will change patterns. Cautious not to overbuild parking that will
become outdated.
• Cleaning up alleys for employee parking?
o Remember discussing alleys as additional means of moving pedestrians and bikes.
More supportive of bike/pedestrian use.
o Some alleys are narrow and won’t have room for parking, but some might already
have space.
o Definitely opportunity to clean up some of the parking behind businesses. DDA has
program to upgrade one alley per year.
• Working with employers—some of downtown businesses used to pay employees extra if
didn’t bring a car. Was a BFO offer for a transportation demand management program. Many
ways to incentivize employees to reduce trips. Parking related collisions are most common
type of crash in downtown.
Bob moved to approve the memo to Council as amended. Jay seconded.
Motion passed unanimously, 8-0-0.
• Free to make specific suggestions to Council via the memo. Concerned that transportation
section is not as strongly action-focused as the environmental section.
• Looked for and did not find a section on coordination with CSU. CSU is major engine of
growth in the city. 35K students there now. Expect that to grow. Good if the plan that is
approved takes into account growth of CSU and need for services and parking.
• Campus is southern boundary of Downtown Plan. Football games will create additional
parking and other issues.
o There was a lot of discussion about traffic issues related to the new stadium.
o CSU recently built a new parking garage and has plans for additional, but none
directly related to the stadium. Working on game day traffic management and parking
plan.
o Would be interesting to know use of downtown by students and whether Max takes
pressure off.
• Need more detail on timeframe. If looking at on-street paid parking in three years, that is out
of line. One year is sufficient; it is needed now. If there is too much parking when
autonomous cars come along, the spaces will get reused for other purposes.
ACTION ITEMS: Bob will revise draft memo based on input from board and circulate for final edits.
Rebecca will take comments back to team to address in next revision.
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AGENDA ITEM 3—Overview of the Citywide Green Building Program and Activities
Tony Raeker, Green Built Environment Program Coordinator, provided an overview of 2016
activities and emerging programs, specific to achieving identified goals for the Road to 2020, energy
efficiency and collaborative partnerships.
Roadmap policies include mandating minimum performance, removing barriers, encouraging
innovation, rewarding success, and building internal capacity. Surveyed incentives provided by other
municipalities. Every city that had financial incentives for green building scrapped them. Still
looking at process incentives. Working with Building and Utilities on code updates. Strengthening
codes around waste and energy efficiency. Utilities is working on energy efficiency benchmarking—
finding out energy use of specific building so can determine upgrades. Establishing as voluntary, but
will move toward mandatory. Will require energy disclosure , but still a market signal—gives people
more information about actual cost of occupying the building.
HomeWise—Loan program through employers and a credit union to get home energy efficiency
upgrades. Piloting and getting good uptake. In normal process have to get audit, get bids, make
selection, determine payment, etc. With Utilities program, have energy assessor who does
assessment, gives 3 options, sign contract, and contractors are sent to do the work. Program is
presented at place of employment—neutral ground. Utilizes social network to reach more people.
Before presentation, send survey to all employees on all sustainability—can tailor presentation to
those interests. Goal is to add an array of City programs to this. Ex: Can add information on
xeriscaping.
Building Performance Project—Staff from 7 buildings moved into new UAB. Did pre-occupancy
survey about lighting, air quality, thermal comfort, health effects, etc. Want to demonstrate financial
case for green building. If increase productivity with building, then improving bottom line. Big value
of green building is improving environment for occupants.
City Energy Project—Program to help cities reach medium to large businesses for energy efficiency.
City provides $100K in matching funds and gets a full time advisor for 2 years, access to main staff,
and other support. $480K value. Key components include benchmarking, phased-in improvement
schedule, green financing, green leasing and split incentives (owner of building doesn’t have
incentive to upgrade due to inability to pass cost on to tenant—tenant gets advantage of lowered
utility payments), training for business community, contractors and realtors, and behavioral
science/choice architecture. Choice architecture is about how you frame a choice and its impact on
selection. Also working on updating green building website to provide better information.
Developing long term goals in 2017 and coordinating with City Plan and Transportation Master Plan.
May reconvene a small internal team for green building.
Discussion/Q&A:
• With benchmarking assessment how do you determine difference in behavioral use vs.
structural issues?
o Portfolio manager estimates based on mechanical systems, lighting, insulation, etc.
Can estimate baseload with no occupants. There is software that will help building
owners understand this.
o Interest from business owners?
Business efficiency program manager said reach about 40% of business
community, but result is often single changes. Harder to get comprehensive
retrofit. Looking at which mechanism is best, full retrofit, or helping
determine long term plan.
• Institute for the Built Environment pointed out that part of LEED certification includes
processes like green cleaning products. Once certified there is no monitoring for re-
certification.
o New version of LEED will require assessments for re-certification. Well certification
is for health of buildings, and requires recertification.
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o If not following processes to maintain, what is impact on performance?
Minor to catastrophic. Depends on how many systems are controlled by
tenants, and what range of control they have. Ex: Lighting that is LED and on
timers will have little impact. Bringing in space heaters will have much more.
Ex: Want to control where air comes into a home (furnace or windows). If it
is coming through the walls it will bring pollution. Also, if using air
fresheners they have VOCS. Need to remove sources of pollution from inside
of home. Control transmission and sources. Working on maintaining through
behavior and building management.
• Programs within the City Energy Project?
o Individual elements, but already doing many such as audits, upgrades, etc. Want to
make the process seamless and as easy as possible for building owners who are busy.
Have to do many of these things anyway, like green financing.
• Worked on green leasing in another city. Learned that 10-20 year leases, both owner and
lessee would be agreeable. Needed to be long term. Don’t miss education piece at employee
level—don’t make assumptions that employees know more than they do.
o Community based social marketing for how people behave day-to-day. For one-off
decisions, related to behavioral economics. Large investments require different
strategies.
• Current process for existing structures vs. new structures?
o Standard process is that architect designs building and passes on to engineers. Don’t
get good buildings. Integrated design gets all people in room together at the same
time to determine all things the building needs to achieve. Need to reach people a lot
sooner on new construction so they do integrated design. For existing construction,
can sell single services like lighting. Would like to help businesses develop a plan for
comprehensive energy efficiency improvements.
• How do people find out about Tony’s work?
o Disadvantage in Fort Collins is that have tons of small owners, so harder to reach
them all. Getting better at reaching out to architects. Don’t have exact solution yet.
AGENDA ITEM 4—Other Business
Updates/ Announcements
• Jay: Met with Dan Evans in Stormwater who gave him executive summary on master plan
for stormwater.
• Elizabeth: Has arranged two presenters for next month to talk about how green (or not green)
natural gas is. Tomorrow presentation at CSU: Water in our Future, behavioral sciences
building, 6:00pm.
• John: Harry’s last meeting is next month.
• Bob: Katherine had her baby.
• Drew: Will not be in attendance at next month’s meeting.
Meeting Adjourned: 8:15pm
Next Meeting: December 14
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