CITY-COUNTY ADVISORY BOARD ON CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY Ald. Nik Kovac and Sup. Marcelia Nicholson, Co-Chairs Pam Fendt, Linda Frank, Julie Kerksick, Ted Kraig, Janet Meissner Pritchard, Supreme Moore Omokunde, Pamela Ritger, Erick Shambarger, Rafael Smith, and Freida Webb Staff Assistant: Linda Elmer, lelmer@milwaukee.gov, 414-286-2231 Legislative Liason: Luke Knapp, luke.knapp@milwaukee.gov, 414-286-8637 Google documents for this body can be found at : http://bit.ly/CCTFCEE Wednesday, May 26, 2021 10:00 AM Virtual Green Buildings Work Group Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87156655349?pwd=Vi9tbStvL0ZqRGJGSFVrZUhIcXdEdz09 Meeting ID: 871 5665 5349 Passcode: 622331 One tap mobile +13126266799,,87156655349# US (Chicago) +16465588656,,87156655349# US (New York) 1. Minute taker for this meeting. Following info to be recorded: • Call to order time. • Roll call • Actions (with votes) if appropriate (including approval of prior meeting minutes) • Appearances • Adjournment time Attendees: 21 attendees Kevin Kane, Victor Nino, Ted Kraig, Ted Wilinkski, Sherman Park Community Association, Rock Ridolfi, Rob Zimmerman, Renee Clair, Michael Olen, Korinne Haeffel, Jill McClellan, Jennifer Evans, Gordie Bennett, Glen Radford, Cara W, Anne White, Akira Mabon, Kathleen Ellis, Erick Shambarger, Pam Ritger, Elizabeth Hittman Pam Ritger called the meeting to order at 10:05am City of Milwaukee Page 1 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes May 26, 2021 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY 2. Approve minutes from 5.12.21 Green Buildings Work Group meeting Jill McClellan makes a motion to approve the May 12th minutes: all agree: minutes are approved. 3. Review draft list of narrowed policies and projects. Pam would like subgroups to start to finalize their ideas. Pam shared the document with the summary of ideas for the subgroups. Commercial Buildings Subgroup 1) Commercial benchmarking ordinance for buildings of a particular size (mandatory benchmarking ordinance modeled by ICLEI). 2) Require certain sustainability standards when developers seek Tax Incremental Financing or develop an incentives program that expands upon Sustainable Design Standards (in place in the Menomonee Valley). 3) Complete study around cost and viability of electrification in the City and County of Milwaukee. 4) Recommendation around reducing Industrial Energy Use? a. From Dane County Plan: High Energy Use Building Assistance – Work with We Energies and Focus on Energy Advisors to identify buildings in the City and County of Milwaukee that fall into high energy-use buildings classes and reach out to them to offer technical assistance and incentives to upgrade energy systems and equipment. The following two actions will be noted in this Chapter, but are not specific projects of the Work Group: • Resolution regarding including updating the State Building Codes to 2021 IECC and ASHRAE Standards without amendments and including energy efficiency experts on the Commercial Buildings Code Council and/or bringing back the Energy Conservation Code Council, whose recommendations would inform the Commercial Buildings Code Council. Residential Retrofits Subgroup 1) On-bill financing program targeted to neighborhoods with high energy burdens, first making use of weatherization funding where possible. 2) Green Box” idea to have the City of Milwaukee remove lead, mold and asbestos hazards for about $8,000 to make them more attractive to contractors. 3) Expand public knowledge and accessibility of energy efficiency financing: • Expand availability of Green Mortgages to other financial institutions or local credit unions • Integrate providing weatherization and Focus on Energy information, along with Me2, as a means for neighborhoods to be designated as ECO-Neighborhoods. • Expand energy efficiency education in general. Learn about and/or expand Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers energy efficiency programs for high energy burden households. Coordinate with the Education and Outreach Work Group. Can someone from SSCHC join our next meeting? • Possibility for Energy Disclosures upon sale? 4) Conduct study specific to Milwaukee (and our low cost of natural gas) regarding whether or when it would make sense to be installing dual fuel air source heat pump systems instead of natural gas furnaces (likely combined with above recommendation from Commercial Buildings) 5) Particular to increasing the number of homes weatherized each year: a) Change the allocation from federal government to Wisconsin to increase the City of Milwaukee Page 2 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes May 26, 2021 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY amount of public benefits funding that goes toward weatherization (up to 25%, but Dept. of Administration limiting to 15%). b) Change the percentage of funding that goes to energy assistance versus weatherization. Governor Walker changed this so that more funding went to energy assistance versus weatherization – Pam will try to find out whether Governor Evers can change this allocation on his own or requires legislative approval. c) Expand income guidelines for those households eligible for weatherization. 6) Who determines the income guidelines? Determined federally or by the state? d) Allow people to sign-up for weatherization without requiring them to sign-up for energy assistance. - Who determines this? Talk with Community Advocates about this. Residential New Housing Strategy 1) Energy efficient, modular and pre-fabricated new homes, manufactured in the 30th Street Industrial Corridor/Century City Business Park. 2) Subsidy or incentive program for electrified space and water heating systems in new housing? a. Pam Ritger believes Focus on Energy has incentives but are they large enough? Is there something the City or the County could do? Discussion: Jennifer Evans thanked Pam Ritger for putting together this comprehensive list. Erick Shambarger stated that we have spoken to NREL about heat pumps. Glen Radford asked if anyone from the Focus on Energy program could speak at a future meeting to see what their road blocks are or how our efforts could be better focused to collaborate with their goals. Pam asked Glen if there was anyone in the weatherization space that we should also reach out to? Possibly SDC or the person who runs the WI CAP program. Pam Ritger asked Glen Radford if he could find a contact who could speak with us. Rob Zimmerman commented in the chat that Focus on Energy has water efficiency kits already--showerheads, faucet aerators, etc. Let's make sure that if we're creating this energy efficiency package for residents that we build water efficiency, especially hot water efficiency, into the mix. Sherman Park Community commented in the chat that maybe we could start with, SDC- Ron Klafka Residential Service Manager Erick Shambarger commented that Focus on Energy keeps cutting back incentives and he doesn’t think the current levels are high enough for low income residents and they have to send in their proof of income to the State; many low income people won’t do this. Can Focus provide bonus incentives to folks in certain zip codes; the City IT department is working on an online resource for all City housing resources. Erick Shambarger also said we got data back from ICLEI and it shows there is not a lot of energy savings with residential retrofits, unless it’s a whole building, deep retrofit is done. 4. Briefly discuss Green Buildings Work Group following completion of Climate and Equity Action Plan 5. Discuss narrowed policy/project ideas in Break-Out Rooms for Commercial Buildings, Residential Retrofits and Residential New Housing Strategies. 6. Report-out from Break-Out room discussions. City of Milwaukee Page 3 CITY-COUNTY TASK FORCE ON Meeting Minutes May 26, 2021 CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY Commercial Break Out Group: Victor thinks we need to have an inventory of building stock – square footage and age; he is looking into some software that might be able to do this for the whole City Can we sit down with the owners of high priority buildings to talk to them about incentives and programs? We need advocacy on benchmarking Long Term Goals: Path to reach goals of 45% of 2018 emissions by 2030; carbon neutral by 2050 We need to do three things: 1. Organize data 2. Organize incentive programs 3. Work with the utility Victor will share his working document with Pam; it adds details to what Pam provided Residential Retrofit Group: They really liked the program in development of automatically registering for households what programs they are eligible for because it removes the burden of paperwork; the group thins we should highlight those neighborhoods with the highest energy burden Run these ideas past groups like SDC to talk about the primary barriers for households that need the most assistance; Pam will reach out to SDC They talked about looking for additional funding sources (stimulus funding, foundations, State incentives) Email any thoughts or edits about the Green Box document Pam emailed out before the next meeting 7. Future meeting agenda items. Pam Ritger and Kathleen Ellis spoke earlier this week and appreciate this work group and talked about the value of keeping this group meeting in the future on a quarterly basis to help with implementation. If you have thoughts about this, let Pam Ritger know. 8. Adjourn. Pam Ritger adjourned the meeting at 11:14am Minutes provided by Pam Ritger. City of Milwaukee Page 4