Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission

Memorandum TO: Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commissioners FROM: _______________________________________________________________________ Andrew D. DeCanniere, Commissioner, Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission DATE: November 15, 2022 SUBJECT: October 25, 2022 Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission (SEAC) Meeting Minutes Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers at Skokie Village Hall. This meeting was also streamed live on YouTube. A recording of this meeting may be viewed by going to the following web address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omf3BFyhC1I Present: Chairperson Jennifer Grossman, Commissioners Christopher Buccola, Andrew DeCanniere, Michael Gershbein, Lisa Gotkin, Alma Likic, Olivia Mahoney, Jim McNelis, Rick Moskovitz, Emily Okallau, Charles Saxe, Trustee Liaison Khem Khoeun, Trustee Liaison Ralph Klein, Director of Public Works / Staff Liaison Max Slankard, and Assistant to the Director of Public Works / Staff Liaison Elizabeth Zimmerman Also Present: Johanna Nyden, Community Development Director, Village of Skokie Skokie resident Kimberly Polka Absent: Commissioner Robert Render I. Approval of Minutes Minutes from the September 22, 2022 meeting of the Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission were unanimously approved. II. Community Development Director Johanna Nyden a. Comp Plan Update Johanna Nyden, Community Development Director for the Village of Skokie, proceeded to introduce herself. She noted that she previously worked for the City of Evanston, but that she is a resident of Skokie. She went on to say that she knew, coming into the position, that there would be some work to do where bird-friendly actions are concerned. That’s great, as she was already doing a lot of that in Evanston. They had been working with the bird-friendly community for several years, and one of her last projects prior to her departure from Evanston was to get an ordinance passed to address bird strike mitigation for new construction. So she was happy to bring that experience with her, and to build upon that for the Village of Skokie. Page !1 of !5 First, however, she said that she wanted to begin by talking about the Comprehensive Plan Update. One of the inherited items was a new chapter in the Comprehensive Plan. If there are those who are unfamiliar with what a Comprehensive Plan is, it is the Village’s guiding document for how future land use should be looked at. So, it covers everything from housing, transportation, population growth, commercial and economic development activities, and, more recently, such plans have also begun to integrate sustainability as well, recognizing that climate change is real, and we need to integrate sustainability into all aspects of the plan. Though Skokie’s Comprehensive Plan is quite old, one of the interesting things about it is that it is rather cutting-edge in that it is designed to be adopted in sections. They did not plan one sweeping overhaul. Things tend to get modified and adopted in sections. She said that they will hopefully begin to embark on some updates, which should occur over the next few years. The first piece of this is creating a Sustainability chapter. The chapter that was before the Village Board at their last meeting will move forward and will be added to the Comprehensive Plan. Once the new Environmental Sustainability Plan is adopted, pieces of that will begin to be integrated into the Comprehensive Plan, probably based upon some sort of implementation schedule or prioritization. Ms. Nyden went on to say that in the grand scheme of things, when people look at what Skokie will look like in the future, one would hope that as a city planner you would look at the Comprehensive Plan to see what the guiding vision of the community is. It’s a guiding document of how you want to see things take place in your community. She stated that sustainability must be integrated into all aspects our our Comprehensive Plan. Examples include housing, transportation, economic development. It all has to come together. So far, she has been pleased with her experience here in Skokie, because she thinks that simply by the level of staff involvement at various points, it hasn’t been a siloed exercise as it is in other communities. There has been a very integrated approach to it. She stated that one last thing that she wanted to add, to go back to Commissioner Okallau’s question, is that we do need to make sure that everyone knows that there is a Comprehensive Plan and that there needs to be better communication. She thinks that is another piece of things. Often, plans just sit on shelves. We need to make sure that the Comprehensive Plan is something people can use and is a living document. If you open up the plan, you will see that is the goal. This is a live and active document. It is usable. It doesn’t just collect dust. That’s really laudable. Additional discussion ensued. Page !2 of !5 b. Draft Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance Ms. Nyden then presented the Draft Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance to Commissioners. She stated that, if we checked out their website, we would see that the American Bird Conservancy has a number of different ordinances from around the United States and Canada, meant to provide people with ideas where bird strike mitigation is concerned. So, they created a sort of “laundry list” of what we would like to see here in Skokie and then, a couple of weeks ago, through a series of discussions, they concluded that perhaps it makes more sense to maintain a regional approach. So, the guidelines that are in the document that has been shared are Chicago’s guidelines, which Evanston has also adopted, and which it is now being proposed that Skokie adopt as well, because birds don’t make a plan as to the safest route along which they are going to travel. If we can continue to build on a regional approach, having similar guidelines to other communities in terms of how we manage bird strike mitigation, then this helps for us to effectively be a leader in helping manage this issue. One key difference, is that in Chicago bird strike mitigation is on a “menu” of several sustainability items. It is not required. Her understanding is that bird strike mitigation may become a requirement at some point, but that is not set in stone. Evanston has made bird strike mitigation a requirement for certain types of developments that are similar in terms of applicability. The only difference is that in Evanston this only kicks in if you have an existing building, and you are rehabbing 100% of the façade. What is being proposed here in Skokie is that this would kick in if you are rehabbing 70% or more of the façade. This would apply to all new construction and to buildings that are to be renovated or rehabbed. However, it would not apply to detached one- and two- family dwellings, or to multiple single-family dwelling homes (such as townhouses) or to residential buildings three stories or less in height above grade. As proposed, there would be two options for compliance. The first option is “Compliance Option A,” which breaks down portions of a building into different zones, and requires that you have building collision threat factors of 15 or less. This calculation is made based upon the types of materials, windows, screening and other things for different zones of a building. It ascribes different values to each of those areas of a given building. For “Compliance Option B,” it says that you are going to build the same kind of building you would have built. However, you are going to put some kind of screens or mesh over the windows in the designated glass areas, making sure that certain external features keep the bird strikes to a minimum, and adds pieces of exterior lighting. Several types of lighting would be prohibited, such as mercury vapor, search lights, upward-directed fixtures, aerial lasers, etc. Additionally, all exterior lighting fixtures would be required to be full cut-off to minimize uplighting conditions. Lighting must also have controls so that it may be extinguished during certain periods of the year, in order to address bird migration. Safety features and security lighting would be allowed. Page !3 of !5 She then discussed the sample tables that were provided as examples of how the calculations that were discussed would be done. The American Bird Conservancy has all of these calculations for all of the different materials. So, they break it down by glass type, brand, manufacturer, so on and so forth, so that you are then able to calculate the threat factor. Those who do LEED Pilot Credit 55 would be exempt from this, because they would be doing some similar calculations. She said that they will change some of the language in the proposed ordinance. Where it says “Total building permit fee,” they will change it to “Total fees associated with obtaining a permit.” So, it will just use some slightly different language, here in Skokie. This would be 75% of the fee. Additional discussion ensued. III. Old Business a. Sustainability Plan Update Chairperson Grossman stated that the Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP) Team met for the last time today to review public comments, as the public comment period recently closed. All the public comments that were submitted have been collected. Public comments were reviewed and, where appropriate, will be incorporated into the Environmental Sustainability Plan. The revised draft of the plan is supposed to be available to the public by November 10th, and will be accessible via the Village’s website. Additionally, there will be a specially scheduled Village Board meeting on November 14th, at which the Environmental Sustainability Plan will be discussed. There will also be a regular Village Board meeting the following Monday, November 21st, at which the Environmental Sustainability Plan will once again be discussed. Additional discussion ensued. IV. New Business a. Waste Sub-committee Update Commissioner McNelis said the Waste Sub-committee met and talked about Village-wide composting, and what it could look like, and Staff Liaisons Slankard and Zimmerman presented three conceptual ideas to them. They talked about what each of those three options would look like, what each would include and what each would not include, what the costs would be, what our Commission wants to accomplish with a Village-wide composting program, who we would want to have included in such a program, etc. It was a pretty wide-ranging discussion. Budget was a very important factor. They discussed what it would cost upfront, and they took a lot of questions back to Staff Liaisons Slankard and Zimmerman, for them to do some homework on various issues. The conversation will have to continue, as there is no recommendation as of yet. The three options basically boil down, from lowest-cost to most-expensive, to Page !4 of !5  the following: a drop-off program (where anyone could drop off their composting, so there would be no restrictions on who could participate), an opt-in program (where residents would get their compost picked up from their homes), and then an all-in program (where all residents would get a compost bin, and would receive service). Those were the three types of programs that were discussed thus far. They also considered what other communities are doing, what their programs looked like, and how successful those programs have been. Additional discussion ensued. b. Public Comments Skokie resident Kimberly Polka spoke, and asked whether fly-through zones are specifically addressed in the draft of the Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance that was presented/discussed. Ms. Nyden said that she never would have imagined that a structure such as the Carvana structure would have been conceived of, and she doesn’t know if, when the guidelines that are being used were developed, that they imagined that a tower of glass such as that one could be built. However, one of the high-risk features that is looked at in terms of compliance in Option A is all exterior fly-through conditions. So, it does look at those things that may look architecturally “cool,” but that are not designed to be safe. If we’re familiar with Northwestern’s building on the lake, she thinks that there was work done in order to put mitigation measures on it, and she believes that the collisions have greatly reduced since they put those mitigation measures in place. It is right on the lake, and the building was built before local government became aware of these kinds of issues, and things have changed since then. So, you are able to retrofit buildings over time. IV. Next Meeting Based on the expected availability of Commission members, the next meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 29, 2022. V. Adjournment There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM. Page !5 of !5