Hello everyone welcome to the sustainability framework advisory
committee it is March 24th and 102 we are in the City Council work session room
and we do have a quorum today. I do want to wish Adam a happy birthday. We will go
ahead and get started for items for individual consideration item a
committee members will draw straws to determine one year and two year
membership terms. Catherine if you want to kind of go over why we're doing this
before we get started. So this is just part of the establishing ordinance for
the committee to set the inaugural terms we're kind of long in the process to be
setting the inaugural but this is where we are so these will be to set the two
year terms and one year term so there will be four two-year terms and three
one-year terms whatever we draw straws so whichever straw isn't drawn would be
the leftover would be for the vacancy. Okay all right so you're gonna walk
around and we just draw them. Take one pass around whichever. Well we can do
whatever we can make it random. There you go and then there's one leftover so
the the short straws would be the two-year term. Okay so Mr. Stevens and
Adam are long. Yes, long straws. Got it. Okay. Sasha will you make a note of that? Long straw equals long term. And the absence seat is? It would be the one-year term. Okay thank you. So the
interpretation of long straws for the longer term is four years? Six years. The long straw is one year and the short straw is two years.
Is that what you said? Yes. Okay fine. Or is that not? That's correct. Yes. You're gonna reuse it? Yeah. All right so are we good on that item? We are. Okay thank you
everybody and we will move on to item B consider approval of the February 24th
20-23 minutes. Anyone have a clarification for that or is everybody okay with the
minutes from that day? Good all right I have a motion to approve. Bren? Second. All right Paul? All in favor? All right.
Minutes are approved. Now we'll go to item C receive a report and hold a
discussion regarding economic, statistical, trends, real estate, growth
projections, and implementation of the economic development strategic plan. Good
afternoon. Wayne Emerson director of economic development. Thank you for
having me here. Before I dive in here I'll just give you a brief rundown of
myself. So I'm relatively new here to the city. Not yet a year. I have not met any
of you I think other than Mr. Meltzer. But I come to you from the city of Dallas
where I work in the redevelopment section of economic development. Before that I
was with the Allen Economic Development Corporation as a research analyst. And
then before all that I was a teacher of economics and geography and public
affairs officer in the United States Army. So that's been my background kind of
done a lot of things but I'm happy to be here in Denton. I'm a UNT alumni. So I've
studied history here at my undergrad and then got my MBA at UT Austin. That's my
background so thank you for having me. All right I'll dive in here. So I have a
presentation but just like my background in teaching feel free at any moment if
something confuses you, piques your interest. If you have a question please don't
hesitate to interrupt and ask that question. I'll be happy to do my best to
answer it for you. Okay today I'm just going to do a bit of an economic
overview of the city. What we do here in economic development. Take a brief dive
into the Street strategic plan. Take a look at how that strategic plan has
implemented some sustainabilities. And then actually I don't know if we have
return on this in this presentation but we'll see. Okay so what is economic
development? Number one we want to expand on Denton's economy through the
location of new businesses and then the retention and expansion of current
businesses. We want to foster Denton's thriving culture, business technology and
specifically that artistic and innovation that I think it's known for.
And then we wanted to attract develop and retain skilled and talented workers
to support not only our existing businesses but any future businesses we
have. And then of course building relationships with our businesses and
residents through outreach, education, engagement. Helping businesses navigate
and be a liaison to the city. So this is kind of the ecosystem if you will that
we kind of interact in. So one of our primary partners that we're going to see
is the Chamber of Commerce, the Denton Main Street Association. We have
partnerships with our local universities at UNT, TWU. We also have a strong
partnership with Denton County. Stoke Denton, this is our kind of entrepreneurship
hub. And then Workforce Solutions is kind of really where we do a lot of our
workforce development. So this is the partnership that I was alluding to with
the Denton Chamber of Commerce. So here in the city we have the Economic
Development Department. And then the chamber has their organization and
really what we do is we come together which we call the Economic Development
Partnership. And the way that, do we have a slide for that? No I'll go back. So I'll
kind of explain how that works is we kind of have shared relationships. The EEP
is kind of out front and really looking on the business attraction side. They do
some some business retention with us. And then on the city side we're really more
focused on policy implementation, research, and financial incentives. So
what do we do? So we're assisting the existing businesses. So particularly you
know downtown you have challenges down there for a lot of our businesses. You've
got construction projects of those natures. So we're out there communicating,
letting businesses know what's happening. Assisting them if they're having
trouble with permits, construction, all those types of things. Our partners over at
the EEP are attracting new businesses to come to the city. We help startups
through Stoke. We have one particular program there that it's part of their
co-working. We've incentivized a group called Team of Defenders as a direct
result of our our starter program them out of Stoke. So we'll take a look at our
strategic plan. So the strategic plan identified three main goals when this
was adopted in 2021. So this was just in the height of COVID-19. So the first one
was accelerate recovery. Really this is today we're not where we were at that
time but this is really basically our BRE program because really a lot of
stuff we were doing is assisting those businesses. So our main goal and as it
stated here is accelerate recovery out of the pandemic. We're still facing
problems from the pandemic. It's a little bit different. Right now I would tell you
that what our businesses are struggling with is getting enough employees to run
those businesses. The second goal is to foster growth. So our first one's about
keeping our first our businesses that we have here. The second one is about
attracting more businesses into the city. And then our third is strengthening
community inclusion. So to make sure that as our economy grows that we do so
inclusively and that everyone is growing with us. So the strategic plan identified
four strategic areas we call them. The first one being connectivity. So DIT is a
transportation and logistics hub. We're strategically located at the split of I-35
where it goes east to Dallas and west to Fort Worth. And then we have great
access from 35 on to Austin and San Antonio to the south and of course up
north that links up with Oklahoma City. So there is strong interest from a
logistics and transportation hub to locate in the city of Denton. And I'll
have some data here that you can you can kind of see that that interest is
pretty high. And so the strategy here is we want to obviously support some of our
businesses such as Peterville which is kind of two-fold than that. Not only they
manufacture the trucks that are doing a lot of this logistics but they're also a
major manufacturer as well. So we want to continue and attract new investment in
that area. And I don't have any data in this this one but I can tell you I'll
just go ahead and tell you right now. We have strong demand so we just did when I
first came into the city I did an analysis of our industrial class A
product and our vacancy was virtually zero. So it was at 3% which is
essentially zero. Whereas if you look at the broader DFW Metroplex that number is
probably closer to 12 to 15 percent. Now just recently that vacancy spiked to
about 27 percent and that's because we had a 1 million square foot facility
just just come online last week. So typically you know people always kind of
associate vacancy as bad but in this case this is an opportunistic vacancy.
This was vacancy that was not there prior and so if you can imagine if let's
say our businesses were traveling down I-35 before the sign said no vacancy and
so those businesses just passed it and right on by. But now we have vacancies so
we're in a prime position to attract more of those and then after that we're
expecting I think something about another 3 million of industrial product
to come online within the next two years. So we'll definitely have more product
available and we'll want to attract more of those businesses to get that in.
I have a question. Is that 3 million square feet? 3 million square feet yep.
And that's coming when? About two years. It's hard to predict but the last I saw
is that we have that either under construction or planned. And these are
warehouses? Correct or could be warehouses could be cold storage it's
just in the Class A industrial piece but the type of Class A isn't that when not
only think about warehouses in the past this can be usually converted to high
tech manufacturing it could be distribution but it is a the type of
facilities that are come on are much different than the warehouses of old so
they're you know. Are they flat roofed? Yes yeah I would say so so they they
typically have about 30 foot clear height so that they can you know
adjustable for whatever kind of operations are going to be in there. Thank
you. I would just say all right my question is so this is a sustainability
committee and when we hear industrial we think like heavy polluters so how how
would that do you do you think that offsets we think high energy users heavy
polluters is that what we're talking about here are we talking about
something different? Well I think so we have zoning in the city and so I don't
think any of this is zone for heavy industrial this is all zone for light
industrial and so you have pretty much what's called clean manufacturing as
well so I don't know the particular zoning of that but this is just a
presentation on the economic development strategic plan and there will be all
spoiler alert our last strategic area is focused on sustainability so we'll have
we'll highlight on that. Okay our second area our target area is creativity so
hopefully as you all know we have a very unique culture it's driven by
entrepreneurship and the creative community so when you have that you've
got some good vibes that these startups like to play off the city it gives a
lot of energy so one of our things is we've actually done this already I've
talked about a stove we've launched our accelerator support these growing
existing companies and then really we want to promote our creative brand so
doing anything we can to maintain that culture and promote that to kind of
recruit a lot of these growing startups in the DFW region because there's a lot
of startup capital that is flowing to DFW. Our third strategic area is
competitiveness so this is really kind of more focused on our development piece
is making sure as I said before if for businesses and you know cities are
really nothing but collections of people all right and people need places to go
and they need places to work so if you don't have places for people to live you
don't have people in your city and if you don't have places for people to work
you don't have or for places you don't have places for people to work they
can't work there right so being competitive means that we we have
development for a city to give our citizens an opportunity to work and then
lastly is our oh yes is that is that still true is the office space market
coming back kind of cratered for a while didn't it it depends so what we're
looking at is what it's called flight to quality and so certainly there are jobs
that you if you're a manufacturer can work from home right you get you got to
kind of be there you got to be on the line to make that product if you're a
white-collar worker some of those jobs can be done at home but what we're
seeing is especially in DFW if you're an office and you're highly amenities your
class a and you're located in a walkable mixed-use district and people want to be
there people work there if you're in a office building and you're off a highway
and you're in a sea of parking lot and there's no place to walk or eat they're
struggling right so it's kind of this the ship the flights of quality and
we're seeing it and so if you look you look at places like legacy West the
Frisco South Frisco area the star area the amount of office space is absolutely
exploding Los Colinas there there have high occupancy uptown downtown Dallas is
seeing resurgence equality is walkable walkable play yeah amenity base right so
it could be could be lots of things but generally yeah the walkability is is key
there and just even here our Wells Fargo building is is not the most beautiful
building but it is nearly fully occupied at this moment because you know our
our downtown is a great amenity okay sustainability so this is our fourth
target area so major strategies that we're looking to do here is integrate
some of our economic development efforts and incentives into sustainability plan
and we we've done that to some extent and I will I will show that to you we
want to target some environmentally conscious businesses for attraction and
recruitment one of these strategies is adopting the SDGs the sustainable
development goals and then incorporate some sustainability efforts into our
marketing materials oh and this is I this is ours some of the things we've done
strategically some of our strategic implementations I'll go back to the
sustainability piece in just a second so the big thing that we did when I first
came on is established the Denton Catalyst Fund without getting too in the
weeds on this essentially this is a little different than the way we've
incentivized projects in the past in the past all of our incentives sort of came
in on the back end of projects which doesn't really move the needle for
startups and projects that that are having facing cost of capital issues it's
really kind of shows up on the back end whereas a catalyst fund kind of can kind
of help some of these startups these smaller businesses that face financing
in the traditional sectors the catalyst fund can kind of help us get through
that we also updated our infrastructure financing policy with our utility line
fund which included mixed-use development so before mixed-use development was not
eligible so really trying to get some more of that walkability in there we did
a rewrite of the tax abatement and our incentive which is our technically our
caller 380 policy which you'll see here in a second but implementing some of
these target areas and to make sure that our incentives are aligned there and then
of course the tech and entrepreneurship program so that I've mentioned multiple
times so this is some of the things we've already implemented here I'll
let you just your eyes kind of gaze over that for a little bit I'll point out
some of our own here so we're marketing didn't sustainability is a business
advantage we're targeting some environmentally conscious businesses and
let me just kind of show you through here how we're doing that so this is
some just general economic numbers so you can see our unemployment rate is
super low so this goes back to what I was talking about one of the greatest
challenges our business are having is they're just not enough employees right
so what's the healthy number I don't know back when I was like in school they
said five percent was a healthy low unemployment but I think over the past
years it's been you know much closer to you know three four percent and so I
know we are a historically low unemployment rates sales tax collections
have been up in 2021 I think a lot of that might have been inflation driven
but we're we're doing well our sales tax have grown and we're recovering from
the pandemic go back I can go back yeah yeah just like checking in that as I
recall in the past pre-pandemic debt and unemployment rate was also low lower
than the rest of the state which is lower than the rest of the country but
our wages were not high mm-hmm and that the goal of economic development explicitly
was to increase wages do you have any insight into where we stand on that so I
know at the county level we're about 65,000 for household income I actually
get you're getting it next slide maybe I heard let me see there's there's income
okay I guess I was off there yes okay so all right yeah so per capita you have
worth 43,000 medium families at 112 so you can kind of see you know the city
lagging behind in the county there and lagging behind in the state on a per
capita population growth percentage were projected to grow to about 146,000 by
2025 so about a 2% I think the numbers just came out yesterday and actually
this this number 2% actually I think came in closer to like 3 I think I was
looking at that yesterday all right so here are some of our top employers so
obviously UNT we're all well well aware of there are largest employer but there
are also a our public employer Peterbilt over on the private side and then we
were strong in the healthcare regions that Texas Health Presbyterian Medical
City of Denton and of course Denton ISD is always the ISDs are always one of your
largest public employers no matter what city you're in okay so this is an
analysis I like to do this is called our employment gaps so basically what this
is showing you is if we look at all of our occupations we see that in the City
of Denton we have about 86,000 residents who are living in Denton and are working
and then over on the left column we see these are the folks that are actually
just working in Denton and so there is a gap of about 13,000 so that what that
tells us is that we do not have we're exporting jobs to other cities right so
doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who lives and works at all and all in
the city so some of it some of it comes in some of it goes out but on a net
we're exporting about 13,248 jobs and so for us this this you know represents
loss and potential taxable value because folks are going to other cities to work
they're they're spending their their sales tax dollars elsewhere they're
driving further they're they're spending more money commuting whereas if we had
more jobs here in the city they could be living closer to home and not having to
go to other cities and we wouldn't have that that economic leakage so I did that
this is something that I found we have some job analytics software so as I was
putting this presentation together I found a job cluster called green jobs
and so green jobs are defined by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and so I'll
just give you some of these examples of what's what's kind of considered green
jobs once again you can see we have the same problem we have an employment gap
so folks that are in green jobs they're they're getting those green jobs
elsewhere right so we need to do a better job of providing them here in the
city so some examples are our refuse and recycled material collectors wind
turbine service technicians solar photo I don't know how to say this installers
photo belt installers farmers and ranchers are actually I guess considered
green jobs and that's actually our largest green job employers environmental
scientists and then architectural and engineering managers are some of the
examples that we have on here we're also projected to have about 20,000 total
green jobs by the year 2030 so you know that's a projection and I think that's a
good baseline for us to look forward as we go so if we're the goal right would
be to shoot we'd want to push those projections up over 20,000 because then
that means that we're actually closing that gap yes oh yeah I was just curious
how important do you think that DME's green sense from renewable energy
incentives how important are they where did they fit in this can you can you
give me a little background the structure of them well it's people who
want to get solar panels and get a significant credit from the city yeah so
I I can dive into a little bit when I when I talk about pace financing but you
know without looking at the numbers to me it's one of the main problems you're
gonna have and I'll talk about this more with pace is you have this you know it's
a cash flow issue right so typically greener sustainable things are more
expensive right so there's a there's a higher on whose card first for someone
who's making those investments right so if if you're if I got solar I'd be in
trouble financially I'd have to pay more well currently it's so like right now my
house doesn't have solar panels on it so right now I can get power but if I were
to install solar panels that would that would be an extra cost and then there
would be take there to take time for me to recover that cost yeah it starts
making money for you anyway it's like a certificate deposit but I was just
wondering if that sort of incentive was a selling point for the city I think it
is thank you yeah
part of this is targeting environmentally conscious businesses so I
just recently got to go to Peterbilt our largest manufacturer and they are
starting to produce electric vehicle trucks so right now they represent 15%
of the market in the semi truck market just as you know I'm sure Tesla has
pushed the whole industry we're really starting to see a tipping point with
Tesla entering the market the other manufacturers were lagging but now I
just read that I think 10% of all cars right now are electric vehicles and so
we're starting to see that more in the truck game and so Peterbilt is looking
to be a leader in that and so to me this is exciting especially when I think
about attracting green jobs because a lot of our other businesses out in the
manufacturing area are suppliers to Peterbilt so this is going to be a
target for us is identifying the supply chain for these electric vehicles and as
Peterbilt ramps up its its manufacturing of electric vehicles bringing in those
employers suit to supply them leading that electrical transformation yes
question I got several questions with this one targeted to this particular
slide or process do we have or how are we producing those potential employees
for this targeted new business or do we have any partnerships universities yes
develop folks and that 13,000 you know the gap that you had mentioned how can
we target these individuals or or even our young students come on I really
believe that our young people are our future obviously and how can we target
them I'm drawn from my own high school experience well we were targeted to get
into technical school programs to learn welding and carpentry electrics I do
understand markets are coming back to that kind of thing but specific to this
do we have a partnership plan we're working to produce our own potential
employees to get into this business yes so we obviously have partnerships with
UNT and TWU NCTC is our partner as well and so that's not going to be your
degree programs but maybe more so these these technical these manufacturing
line folks right so really the way that that kind of works is the the education
looks to know what labor is doing to what employers are doing right so
they're not in the game of creating programs and educating students who can
no longer have a job and so they're asking industry what is it that you need
where are those gaps and then they're they're filling those gaps so the way
that we get more of those types of programs into our schools is by
recruiting the types of industries that require those skills it where is that
document how many do we project that we would need in order to make sure Peter
Bill you know is in great shape we can present to them through this process and
I'm thinking part of total transparency former consultant to the workforce
development for the state of Missouri okay this were some plans that we put in
place to really really help protect the sustained I use that word to sustain the
employers that were in the state as well as to invite and market to companies who
were planning on coming we have a solid plan and we can show them the employers
that is going to help meet that gap that may exist in order to sustain the
company so that's what I'm looking for now yes so is that can you summarize
your question is do do we have a document that it states the type of gap
for for these types of jobs right now yeah pretty much starting with to start
with the company and says hey you're going you know you're leaning towards you
know this environmentally yes so it's a question I don't think that document
exists but that's something I think we could research and look into I would
really recommend that we start with the employer what does the need look like
and how can we help you get there okay so that we can help to sustain the
business and keep it here it didn't because the reality is companies look
for educated people train people and will move cover I've seen it happen move
companies out of state across state lines because there's a state right
government that is willing to address that and so rather than just being this
a topical overview of what we want to see I would really like to see the plan
that will support that there is an end goal here we're not just stating this
but we have this plan and probably have partnerships workforce development
partnerships with the UNT's TWU's what do we have a plan you know that is going
to put more teeth to let me put it like that you know because as I see this now
it's just a presentation we'll talk about this ten years from now I believe
we need a plan the further drill down what's really going on how many
employers they're going to be can universities help us train develop that
number of people over the next five years whatever the case would be to meet
that corporate need to sustain them that business here in the community Tetra pack so Tetra pack is a
pioneer and sustainable packing solutions and so my specialist who she
specializes in the economic development over here Matilda she helped me with
some of this presentation and she added this little line here says you may even
have a Tetra pack carton in your fridge right now and I said you know I don't
know about that sure enough I went home I was looking at my kids they've got
these juice boxes and stuff in there turned over it was Tetra pack so you were
right about that Matilda so this is a company that we they received an
expansion of payment from us in 2015 and so when you think about these types of
cartons right so these are more environmentally sustainable products then
you know made of that paper carton instead of your plastics just a quick
note on Tetra pack we didn't recycle cartons until our relationship with
Tetra pack they initiated at the city didn't oh really we also we also had an
open house for their solar panels that they install okay ground breaking
something yeah so they have solar panel I didn't I didn't know that so the other
thing that I noticed when I first came in I guess it was ten months ago is we
started looking at our piece and I came around everyone told me was talking
about DME said hey did you know that DME is 100% sustainable energy I said no I
didn't I didn't know that and so I started googling things and apparently
nobody else on the internet do that because it's you really can't find it so
this is something that I want to start doing this is a big push for me as I go
in to the new fiscal year is we started putting marketing putting these things
on our own marketing pieces but it's really going to you know we can talk
about ourselves all we want it's not so other people start talking about us that
the message is really going to get through and to me this is probably the
big single biggest asset we have to position ourselves to be a sustainable
you know community moving forward because there are many companies that
have sustainable energy into their their policies right and so what they're doing
already is they're paying they got to pay to offset that energy and we're
already doing that for them and so we really need to communicate that value
market ourselves as a 100% percent sustainable energy city and push that
out to the market so do you put it in there that we're a hundred percent
sustainable by the purchase our energy of wrecks of renewable energy credits
not actual energy yeah so I'm not an expert on that by any means so when I
did the research because I think you're correct right is that when we flip on
our switch right all the energy kind of goes into one big bucket right and kind
of gets mixed up but the idea and this is just my research that I've done on it
is especially out in West Texas where most of our sustainable energy is being
produced if no one buys it then we don't get more of it right so someone's got to
buy that energy and bring it in and Sierra Club was one place you know did
a lot of my research and I said you know it's like is this really sustainable and I
guess the Sierra Club thinks it is so I I assume that the energy community does
and that's how we market yeah there's a bit of controversy about this because
wrecks actually do not curtail fossil fuel usage and they certainly don't
limit their production and it's as you say it's not like aircott has two big
transmission lines one which says green energy renewable energy and the other
one says fossil fuels take your choice we are dentin is burning fossil fuels
works takes that so I'm just I mean just the idea what would I would think it
would be important to to really take a deep look into this so if somebody does
come to you and say do you have your own solar farm do you have do you have a
community solar is that where it's coming from no you say no it's from
renewable energy credits because there's a big difference yeah and I think I would
if someone were to ask yeah I mean we were talking about this and you showed
an old email that 98 percent 99 percent is from power purchasing units not
renewable energy credits so that's the big difference so yeah that you keep
saying that's not it's we're on I just I know we're being recorded no I get
squared we're not we're not on wrecks they've got the best kind of wrecks you
can buy which are bundled wrecks and through power purchase agreements I'm
not arguing about that I'm just saying that dentin still is reliant on fossil
fuels the aircraft grid is predominantly fossil fuel full of fossil fuels that's
all I'm saying right then we're putting the equivalent amount of energy onto the
grid that's green to offset our demand that would not be on that's we can talk
about this all right any further okay um okay wait yep let me go back so I want
to look at some of the green prospects we have so I'm creating this chart and
these are the businesses that are coming to didn't right now saying hey we'd like
to do business and didn't we'd like to move to didn't doesn't mean that they
are coming but these are the types of businesses we're recruiting so I think I
want to look at this first chart and you can see my eyes are kind of messed up
here but that's purple which is are connected right so this is these
industries they're related to us being a strategic logistic and transportation hub
and then these are all of our other areas so as you can see it's really not
even close as to what the market thinks of did define what we're saying is a
prospect are those businesses who are committed to developing here are there
people who you approach so they approach you um it's a little bit of both so we
have you know when you look at the you know that businesses that are looking at
it right those leads come through various places come from site selectors
they come from brokers they come from the regional chambers it could be direct
you know an actual business calling up so it could come from a multitude of
channels and it doesn't mean that they are saying yes we want to be in didn't
they're saying hey we're looking at it right so that the goal is right I would
like for every single one of these prospects I want to convert them all
right probably not going to happen the reality is is maybe we convert five
percent you know five out of a hundred of every prostate is actually going to
come to us because generally the way it looks is first they want to you know
decide a broader market so if they're talking to us they're probably talking
to quite a few other cities in DFW and then our job right is to give our value
proposition to why they should choose Denton over any other city in DFW
yeah so part of our charges is the resiliency aspect of both like
development and also like urban form and the physical conditions of how people
live in town and so I guess since all four of these categories are goals for
your department do you see this breakdown as something to keep pursuing
and I know that you don't get to select who comes to you or necessarily who you
can talk to but with this sort of really uneven distribution of the types of
sectors or these different subcategories you've defined that are interested in
developing here do you see that as kind of a long-term problem that we seem to
be kind of clustering into one of those sectors you've defined so what this
tells me is that when I look at recruitment and attraction this tells me
I don't need to spend a lot of my staff time or a lot of my efforts into this
right because I think there's just we have natural geographic competitive
advantage in this area so when I'm trying to push the needle when I'm trying
to look at how how what are the things that you know when we look at incentives
right because what is an incentive it's I'm going to give you an incentive to do
what I want right the development I want the jobs that we want right the city and
then the City Council wants when I don't get this type of data and I go back to
even I told you about the industrial piece our vacancies near zero so what
does that mean if it gets built people come right now we still want to market
that we want to do that but I don't think we need to focus all of our
efforts strongly this here this tells me hey these are the areas that my me and my
staff should really be taking a look at because these are the ones that need the
most help with this is the ones we don't necessarily have the greatest competitive
advantage but I go back to you know our lively discussion we just had and to me
that is the single not we're the only city not just in DFW but in the state of
Texas that they can make that contested claim right so Georgetown at one time I
think they were the first but then there I think their futures contracts or
something blew up on them and they can no longer make that claim so to my
knowledge we're the only one they can right so to me when I think of resources
if I want to put some resources in the marketing I want to put it here when I
want to think about creative I want to preserve the culture I want to think
about like downtown didn't I want to put my focuses there right I don't you know
to some extent it takes care of itself over on the other side of the freeway
and then competitive is really just going back to our our development stock
right same thing if we don't have any buildings from for people to work then
they're not going to come so making sure that we're getting those types of
things just as a reflection number of businesses not necessarily number of
employees or dollars invested and so I get this is just like one way to present
what you're looking at but I appreciate your feedback on that so you're saying
data that maybe if the you know tracking of the prospects with a number of
potential employees my initial question was kind of spurred from that group that
it looks like a lot of that development sector was leaning toward those
transportation connectivity related businesses and then it seemed a little
uneven as far as the distribution and it's very yeah you know your intuition is
very quick the way that we weather those economic changes and still allow people
to live here and that was where that motivation was coming from but again to
this is just a number of business not necessarily the number of dollars
invested in our city or the number of employees that they're hiring so I guess
it's just one way to represent that brain yeah and and carrying that's
helpful because we have the data so for the same reports that I pull this I
could pull how many prospective employees that could have been right
then you know hopefully we have the data then says how what those wages were so
those are different ways I could definitely pull the same report and make
it more for future presentations yeah I just wanted to throw in a comment
there's a difference between what should we be doing the question of what should
we be doing to improve our actual renewability of our energy and that's a
very important question and a different question of how do we communicate that
we actually have that commitment because the other places they're buying Rex or
anything right they're not increasing the returns on renewable energy you know
so you know this is about how do we attract employers that would share that
commitment it would probably help bring the resources to actually prove where we
do buy our mills so I you know I'm just separate that those issues this is about
I mean I think that's quite chocked as I mentioned you were to find that this
thing that we've you know really hitched our wagon to is invisible to the rest of
the world no wonder the numbers are so small do you are you familiar with our
simply sustainable plan very high level well I mean just it's another thing to
throw in there you know when you're sending packets to perspective people
that are sustainability interested companies that's very I did actually
since we're on this topic I did write down a question that on one of your I'm
sorry I can't reference the number but you had said that you wanted to align
development goals with help integrate those with the sustainability plan I
wonder if you from at least your perspective and the way you would
approach that conversation how you see that overlap mature I believe yeah hold
on let's see I think yeah I there it is I can talk about it if you wait just a
few more slides here okay so lead buildings in Denton so as it turns out
probably the single largest incentive and investment the city has made has
been in this in the embassy suites hotel and convention center and it is a lead
gold gold certified building it's only one of do we have was there three is
that right of lead buildings in the city there's six okay so one of three of
private yeah I'm sorry I was just I was I was asking her so so it's one of three
of privately owned businesses is lead certified and so I know then there's
gold and platinum we know this one's gold because I was able to go to the
website but that the database we have doesn't really break it out to there but
reducing 57 metric tons of co2 annually and they do use this as part of their
marketing when they're trying to bring in corporate clients letting them know
that hey we have a lead building and if you want to stay in North Texas that
this is a sustainable option for you yes I learned that I learned that just
probably last week because I was talking to the general manager and he told me
that they had be high so it's a complaint from a guest okay so when I
look at and so when I came from the city of Dallas I did redevelopment and
really redevelopment is kind of like my passion when I look at economic
development and this was I was also was called a pace manager property-assessed
clean energy and so I didn't get into economic development I'm not can't say
honestly I'm like most of y'all on here have a passion for sustainability for me
I was always interested in finance and so when I came in they said oh you're
the finance guy you're gonna be doing pace and I was like well I don't quite
understand this and it took me a while to wrap my head around it but to me this
is probably our single greatest tool that that we have as an incentive to
reduce co2 within the city I've read a report and I tried to find it to put in
this presentation but at one time I came across that said something like 60% of
all carbon is associated to buildings older buildings within cities and that's
due to the energy consumptions and those types of things so to me retrofitting
some of these older buildings is key okay but there's there's the problem
right and so if you look at this graph right here this kind of talks about when
we said hey is it you know we're having this discussion earlier right there it
just you know sustainable systems are more costly or if I already have an
existing system if I'm just upgrading to a newer system I'm saving more energy
but once again it's more costly right and so the problem that has business
owners property owners is if they make out they put in this this this
investment out front right well they immediately are cash flow negative which
is not beneficial to a business when they're when their cash flows go down
and so what do they do they don't see the the breakeven point or the return on
investment so sometimes 10 12 20 years out so they just never make that
investment that never happens what pace does pace is a unique financing tool in
which the city or the county places in its an assessment equivalent to a loan
on these sustainable investments and because it's an assessment and it uses
the power of the government to make that assessment it stretches those payments
out to about 25 years which results in an immediate cash flow positive
investment thereby incentivizing buildings and businesses to go ahead and
make those and so right now the county has a program unfortunately it's kind of
same thing as we have with our 100% energy number one hit the pace program
is just new to Texas in general it's been out in California for quite some
time it does have some limitations to using this it's not a cure-all so one of
the things is you got to find the lenders who want to do these types of
loans and typically it's not financially beneficial to them unless the loan is
five hundred thousand and then there's legal requirements that a pace loan
can't represent more than 25 percent of a building's total value so then your
building needs to be at least two million dollars or your improvements and
so that it turns out most of the older smaller buildings are ineligible so
there are some issues with that but I think there's the Texas Pace Authority
who really kind of led this legislation in Texas they're working on some of
those things they're looking at bringing more small lenders in to kind of solve
that problem and then with the county as well you know I call the county to say
hey I want to know about your pace program and they're like I don't know
what that is and let me find out who that is and you know I still haven't
really found out who that is who's running the pace program they do go to a
third-party administrator but it's just one of those issues if there's not
someone out there marketing it and putting it out there then we don't know
about it sounds like you had quite an issue Catherine has been trying to get
that information for us and you know and to me is like you know one issue that we
could look at is it maybe the city does its own pace program right so you can
you can have competing programs that the city wanted to do its own pace program
you can even it could be a revenue generator in Dallas we charge the
origination fee to run that program so it does make you less competitive if
you're charging origination fee but then again if no one you know no one else is
really competing against you but yeah just I see its property assessed clean
energy the emphasis seems to be on you know kind of an energy energy use
reduction which is very important for sustainability if it's if they're on
fossil fuels but would it also apply with the existing pace program for for
switching to electrical which has the potential to be sourced through
renewables you're saying if there's like something that's like fossil fuel or
like a gas power yeah let's say like electrocute versus gassy right so I'm
using last I think it's long so what they'll do is they'll send out an
engineer right you know this is where it goes above my pay grade but they'll send
an engineer out and if it reduces energy right or it reduces water you know so
this is the point reducing energy evidently a good thing especially if
the energy you're using is some kind of fossil fuel let's say you're eating with
natural gas okay so reduce energy reduce use of natural gas but if let's say you
didn't reduce energy probably better if you did but even if you didn't but you've
made the investment with the pace financing to switch to electrical are
you saying it's like something's like okay gas power versus electric power so
that so the other thing that they do is that there is what's considered to code
and that in that instance like hey here's what the code says the standard
and so if you make these investments and they're above and beyond code then they
are eligible as well the other key thing is that those savings have to actually
be a net positive over whatever your debt service is so I mean we could we
can go into the nitty-gritty of it but that's I think that might actually say
your money and utilities you have to actually save money versus what you're
paying you have to actually say that you can't just make all these things and
then actually not be saving money okay so an opportunity for a Denton specific
pace knockoff might be something that would you know help finance you moving
to more sustainability whether or not it's necessarily a lower cost well it
wouldn't be a knockoff it would still be a pace program it's just it would be the
city's oh yeah yeah it would be under the state the same statutes and
everything that the state's program has yeah so in the interim of more
legislation bringing on smaller banks in this banking industry right now that's
not going to happen to well thanks failing and examiners looking at real
risky ventures is that an opportunity where we can educate our this
particularly where a small business owner had a retired business person can
we add a component to the plan that particularly in lieu of businesses that
cannot take advantage of this can we add a component that looks simply like we
still do the assessment energy assessment on your business and help
them determine from a cost perspective how they can save money because that's
the key word saving money when I did similar type programs in the several
businesses that I own and I was able to reduce energy cost by as much as 50
percent it meant less energy usage less co2 carbon emissions so we can achieve
the same goal but from a small business perspective if you can present it in a
way that individual or individuals can save tremendous amounts of money now we
can see them being able to finance or better finance a larger plan you know
installing you know completely new you know electric panels and so forth so is
that a is that possibly something we can consider we can have some greater
impacts can you clarify your question about what's possible because I'm not
okay I'm not I'm not understanding how that way you're suggesting is outside of
what the pace already does yeah I ran a program in McDonald's I'm a former
McDonald's restaurant franchisee I owned and operated six franchises we
implemented a plan that the goal was to reduce energy usage and we were able to
quantify that with the dollars or quantitative information with actual
dollars yes so that's that's what the engineering does when you do the pace
program you bring in an engineer who does an engineering assessment right yeah
and so then so then the the Texas Pace Authority and then Lone Star Pace is
actually who the county uses right so then so you've got two sides we've got
the engineering who says hey here's here's what's possible and then you got
the finance side so here's I'm just gonna cost you and then they you know
they they do that cost benefit analysis and say and then then they go out to
market right and they go to the banks and say here's here's what the package
here's the improvements they're looking for what can we do right and so to your
point you know there's an arguments made that these these these loans are
actually more secure right then than any other loan right because it's that the
assessment stays with the building and you do see the rates are actually and
then this is the problem to speak of is that the rates are actually higher right
debt service is lower but the rates are going to be higher than you would see in
a traditional loan because it is technically mezzanine financing so that
so that's kind of what the program does if that yeah if you could clarify yeah
we're both you're not on the same page up to the point where the bank says no
yeah for its reasons what does the business owner do at that point so are
you saying it's a possibility for the for the city to step in and fund
something like that no what I'm talking about is a component where the city has
a plan where we can do the energy assessment and then be able to help the
business owner understand that if you can reduce this cost you can say X
amount of dollars the reality is business people make decisions based on
money these are some field goods you know energy energy make your business
energy efficient but if it doesn't put more money on the bottom line you're
gonna have a very difficult time selling and for a bank to say no what does the
business hey I tried what I'm saying is our goal is still to reduce that carbon
emissions that have been admitted by reducing energy can we look at an
additional component to the pace plan where okay when the business does not
qualify you know for the phone for the loan when the bank is denied it let's
take this option and not to dive into the details of the right now but my goal
the hat that I wear from small business owner perspective is how can I help that
business owner save money put more money on the bottom line and achieve energy
efficiency yeah I think the short answer to your question you know without getting
you know getting too off of it yeah if there's an opportunity to save money to
affect the bottom line and say you know get clean energy and be more sustainable
then I think it's something we should definitely be looking at yes so what do
we do tingle back and look at that as a possibility how do you guys well I guess
and that process once again I think I don't know you run into I don't know what
that looks like because that's the same problem right is it the bank says no if
we can't get this type of financing then then the owners got to make that
decision right on the bottom line when do they make money right so I think we
could go back and look at it but I can't answer to you right now I don't yeah
that particular doesn't but something we could definitely look at something yes
that's what I'm looking for is there's something that we can look into and then
come back and present you know to this body you know here's here's how we want
to speak to what I believe is very valuable you know concern that you're
going to run into we won't achieve the goal under this current plan and the way
it appears the way it's been presented to me today all right and then the
economic growth writer deep this is a program that DME has and we put this out
with all of our prospects as part of the clean energy we partner that with that
to say hey if you come and you choose didn't you're going to get the clean
energy and you're going to get these these reduction in rates over over five
years with that clean energy so you're actually here you're saving money by
choosing DME over other options okay so back to your question about how we are
aligning these types of things so when we do an application for a tax abatement
or 380 we this is basically part that we put in there is like what are you doing
is that part of are you engaging in sustainable practices so we have a few
things here then we're going to actually put that into our scoring metric in our
application so when we're evaluating companies we have all of our growth
areas and so we try to add up all those points and to get to our targets and so
really what we're using this is kind of gauge what type of companies are coming
in once again to go back to that that data that we're collecting earlier okay
now this one this is our SDG suspect sustainable development goals by the UN
United Nations thank you and so this is the strategic plan there were like 15 of
them if I believe and the strategic plan said that this city should call out
these four so you guys might know more about these than I do but these are the
four that the strategic plan challenge us to have the city adopt as a priority
through through here so that's affordable and clean energy so I think
we're moving along there decent work and economic growth industry innovation and
infrastructure and sustainable cities and communities all right so that's it I
have for you today any further questions for me
very important part of the presentation I would like to see is return on
investment what would this thing cost us what would the projected return look
like I see you don't have that that would be something I would definitely
like to see yes so the the ROI so I think that was a holdover from and I
apologize I apologize for that from another presentation so what that is
that's the ROI on the incentives that we put out Jason worked on that so we're
working on that updating that at this moment and we're gonna have that new
report out and I can send that to Michael and basically it's not anything
specific to this presentation it's just the ROI on any of our incentives that
we've done in the past but I'd be happy to share that with Michael and he can
share that with you as well all right just one additional question and then
I'll be out the way from the mindset of the sustainability perspective with
regards to the small business operations do we know how many small businesses we
lost pre-code and the reasons why we lost them and can part of the
sustainability program address those kinds of things that my business
operation the best way to to increase the revenue is saying you know expenses
and so we can save companies that are going like you will cost a factor than
even spending big bucks trying to generate so the question is do we know
how many small businesses failed pre-code pre-code is an anomaly yeah it's it's
actually we know the business has failed right so what we can really see is on net
and so on a net we've actually gained businesses right but we know we've lost
some and in particular if you look we're gaining the the gains the losses have
not been equal right it's been there's distribution geographically right so for
instance if I look we look over to the square I've seen they can see rise where
a lot of our small businesses are but if we look north we see more businesses
right and so on a net we we've gained right but to answer your question it's
kind of muddy on that and so your second question what was your second one well
the first question is do we know the number of and then more importantly do
we know why we lost those businesses there's something that we could have done
to help sustain that business that that you know primarily is what what I'm
looking at therefore can we oh we developed you know any type of plan to
address why we would lose whoever we lost from the square yeah and then the
second I actually had a point for your second one and the other problem we have
is this is a split incentive right is so you have typically with small business
owners they're going to be renting their space right they're not going to be
owning and typically here in debt and your smallest business owners are going
to go over the reap the rents the cheapest and so that's typically your
older business your older buildings with out the investment in there right and so
that is a problem right because they're they're the ones paying for this high
energy cost right if you go especially some of these older buildings I've gone
in there in the summertime the AC blasting yet it's still hot in there right
so it's just constantly running but the property owner right as long as he's
collecting that rent he's got no incentive to make those improvements
whereas the business owner is the one paying the bills so that so that is an
issue that we are aware of what we want to do is we want to create a program
where we incentivize businesses to be property owners right so their owner
operators right that's what I would like to see because if it kind of goes back
to the pace right is that if they're they can show to a bank hey look I'm
making these rent payments right I'm making these utility payments and if I
have a business plan and I want to make I want to purchase this building I want
to make these improvements and I'm actually going to lower you know my cost
and rent I'm going to lower my cost and utility they've already proven that they
can make these payments as is and so maybe setting a program which we could
do that yeah that's what I'm looking for is how can we help sustain businesses to
stay in business where they may need it how to clean condensers on a regular
maintain equipment would be the headliner to reduce that utility cost
win-win for everybody I'm a living example of it cut by cost 50% in six
restaurants it was phenomenal I just think it's education opportunity
I'm sorry I just want to say this is really a great presentation well thank
you yeah full of information I didn't know and I appreciate you sharing your
expertise with us I just had one question is there an actual schedule of the
amount of abatement based upon a specific sustainability initiative there
is not no could that would that be a possible um it's possible so I'll say
that for me the way that I look at incentives I look at incentives on a
gap-based financial gap-based right so number one well because we're talking
about real estate we're talking about bringing in a business right that
capital is flighty but we're looking at real estate right it's here it's not
going anywhere right and we look at development I want to analyze that on a
gap basis so gap meaning I'm so when finance so we have if I want to go get
a building I've got to the banks gonna say hey you you need to your cash flow
needs to be 1.2 for 25 percent higher than then your debt right then your debt
payment so that's number one and so what could happen right is we could want to
put in these sustainable improvements and what that does is then that that
means now we're eating into that cash flow and now we're like one point one
and so to me I think it's more effective to say hey if you put in these
sustainable improvements we'll help bridge that gap right we want to bring
that gap to one point two five whereas if we have a schedule right we could be
doing two things we could be not incentivizing at all like hey this does
nothing for me in this particular instance or we could be giving too much
on the table and thereby missing out on other investments so to me I would I
would prefer to do it on that gap basis as opposed to a schedule
this is on topics I know ROI was not a component of this presentation since we
discussed incentives I would like to dig into it a little bit I guess since we
are talking about these sustainability goals and I like read a couple of those
ROI documents that you put out and I know it doesn't always account for some
of the goals that you know our committee is chiefly interested in especially in
terms of these sprawl prohibitive development forms that I wondered like what what
would make it a more accurate reporting in terms of the incentives that we're
putting putting down from an EV perspective that would account for
things like infrastructure maintenance that would account for things like
assumed liabilities that would account for for fire and the other services that
we pay for for these projects that would it still encourage the economic
development particularly in the in-pill setting but that also helped me some of
these environmental and preservation and open space goals that our committee is
interested in so it's the first party quick can you just clarify so yeah what
residential development and for these commercial projects as well like where
we're we're putting money down for a project that that maybe geographically
isn't necessarily where we want it to be because if we're not accounting for
those types of connective services that we have to put up to it like water and
wastewater roads maintenance fire services does that get factored into
those ROI reports so I don't I don't think so as the way the ROI report
right is this is basically saying hey here's here's how much investment we're
putting in here's how much revenue we're getting back but but we are starting to
track we just launched today actually our our strategic dashboard and we have
these initiatives right it says hey do this right it's like check we've done
okay that's great but I think to your point there needs as we check these
things off and they're ongoing we need to develop and that's what it says right
that's where we're in the state time develop metrics on this right and so that's that's
something that needs to be done right so we're the strategic plan is adopted in
2021 we're 43% through so we've got a lot of stuff we got to do and as we
build out to 100% we've got to check those boxes but then we've got to
develop ongoing metric metrics so that we know hey we've done this but are we
succeeding or are we not and then within that we have those sustainability pieces
and then even in the competitive I think it's kind of where you're talking about
because we can talk about mixed use development walkability development so
that's actually in the competitive it's not in the sustainable section and so
those are things that that we're not tracking but we are going to start
building in metrics to do that
just one I guess on that because you mentioned mixed use a couple of times and
I know that in our city all of our planning documents call for that
everybody likes it but I don't see a lot of it actually to be candid if you look
at the development it almost seems like where we're going is what I would call
high density car dependent development which is bad and I think that both counts
so you're building more multi-family housing but it's segregated from any
place they need to get to so everybody still needs a car so we're packed in
more tightly with with the same need for cars so I'm just wondering if there's
anything and what you all do do you well two-fold questions you get feedback from
people that they want mixed use moving and you all have any leverage to make
that happen yeah so so yes so key remember right economic development and
we have the incentives the incentive is this is the type of development we want
to do and then there's the United States of America this is what you can do right
so the two the two things to different differentiate there right so do we get
feedback yes and that goes back to Paul your question is hey isn't office and
all this taking a meeting well what is succeeding is the mixed use development
we had I had a meeting gosh six months ago with a pretty large employer there
was looking in the area and they pulled me in when we got to get this company
and you know I knew there's no we didn't have a shot at getting this company
because we didn't have the product right we did not have what they need and then
I went so well you know I'll go to the meeting we'll do it and then the the
decision-maker you know looked at us and said here's the deal you're not even on
the list and then they just ticked off you know you don't have enough you know
apartment housings within proximity to an office you don't have class a office
you don't have the you know everything all located that our employees are
looking for so to answer your question we want to incentivize my department
wants to incentivize that type of development and not say not because it's
not sustainable because it's sustainable it's because it's what's competitive and
it's what the market wants right and so but and sustainability to me is this
is another added bonus right so it's just part of that circular piece it's
competitive it's sustainable that's what the market wants and then we have
incentives for that and then the option then of course what else can we do to
make it greener right you know you know put in knowing that we're going to this
this building is going to be here 20 years from now let's let's put in those
green those car electric chargers right so that we're getting that
infrastructure built in and those are type of things that we look at Paul yeah
couple questions for you I don't remember if I hectored you about this
when we first spoke sure you did but on the theme of you know what I was asking
about and what you're saying the market wants is heck for on your radar is
something to advocate for I will translate taking the area south of the
square out of the floodplain so that it could be densely built with public space
live work play walkable accessible extension of the square experience yes
so I mean peck for right is and I think there is a bond it's going through the
bond package for that so I don't know too a whole lot about it right but the
idea is you bring it out of the floodplain which would make that land
more developable you could be a vertical structure
yeah we're getting close to the edge of getting outside okay so my other
question is in the areas where your to-do list you shared at the end overlap
with the objectives of the sustainability committee what would you
like to see as next steps what's your ask well I think first of all this is
great hearing hearing the types of feedback going back to metrics right
what what's important to y'all what what actually moves the needle right because
then we can start to have these deeper conversations about you know because it
could you say so it all comes out of the bottom line right so what how can we
bridge the gap like that I'm a gap type person let's identify those gaps y'all
probably know them better than I do and then what can we do to a create those
baselines and know where we are so we can start tracking them and then
figuring out is there an incentive that we can provide to move the market to
fill those gaps so so you'd like ideally you like this committee to define some
objectives that could become that could have incentives built around them yeah
and I can share all of our I think we already have shared those with you but
those are within the strategic plan so it would be beneficial to me right
because I've got to do those types of things so how can I do better about
those and then certainly if you got other ones that's great but for me you
know that's what council has set as their priorities and their strategic plan
and those are the things that I'm testing but I think more importantly it
would fit with meshing the goals with the simply sustainable framework and I
believe actually simply sustainable is mentioned in there or yeah okay and so
the idea is to try to figure out how we could have a look at our greenhouse gas
inventory are you aware that we have that so I know the EPA and I looked at
this in the pace on this is the exact same thing but it was this is for our
committee oh yeah so like transportation is one of the highest polluters and so
when we're talking about all the incentivized I guess the buildings the
warehouses the logistics so that's why I brought my comment up at the very
beginning just so you may want to take a look at that that might be helpful for
you and then we have climate action plan and carbon reduction goals which may be
also helpful for you as you're going out looking for these sustainability
sustainable businesses and then we have our green business program that you may
or may not be familiar with as well that might be something for you to look into
and then just a comment we obviously our committee and economic development have
several overlapping goals so I appreciate you coming and speaking with
us and I think we have a lot of opportunities here all right well thank
you once again for having me and I had not planned on speaking this long so
thank you for your time thank you all right
all right so we will move on to item B stack reports Bird City Texas update
data center the electric memo and the matrix yes and you have a memo from Dan and your
backup about Bird City Texas update close but not yet interesting follow-up
conversation with them and I think we're set for next year I think we're in a good
position for next year and then you have the memo about the data center electric
usage request and the matrix so any questions yeah on the data center one
have we asked core scientific or if we told course scientific that there was
this request and that we that the information will only be shared if they
requested it to be shared do they know that there's an interest in having this
information I mean I think we could have probably saved a month if we didn't ask
them that question right we could have just asked them there I don't think so
we don't go and ask because when we we get records request for people's records
utility records on a somewhat regular basis we don't as a practice go and ask
them you know you haven't consented before before your for your information
to really be released you know will you consent now so it's it's not a practice
and it would in this case to stick with practice would it be a bad thing to do
something different than the practice it would be well I do think it could be
with the things that are that are going on with that so that's not something I
would advise any staff to do is to go outside with the city Lee normally does
when a request like that is made
was my ass but I just read it like it seems like kind of bureaucratic answer
it's like a dead end when there's a legitimate interest in knowing the
information okay anybody else not about this Bird City matrix go ahead yeah have
a few specific things and then kind of a broader thing we've talked about at
length about the solar rebate and one thing that occurred to me and had
conversations with that about it tough with Dominus the set battery walls may
play an entirely different role I'd be very interested in staff's assessment of
that whether battery walls because they enable the use of renewable energy at
times when it isn't otherwise happening that might have a differential impact
might be worth subsidizing that just because you're you know you're then
shifting we're doing with usage in time and in fact California and as pointed
out to me has a rather elaborate program based around that premise their needs
may be different but some indication that it's not a totally unique thought
anyway so that that's the items it's would there be any sustainability point
to subsidizing battery storage even for people already have solar panels who
didn't invest in the battery walls so that's one
yeah a second are we I think you might just tell me we'll take this up when we
get to water which is coming up I see on the matrix but the question is have we
looked at and could we look at what zero scaping incentive plans have worked in
other areas if we end up saying that from a resilience point of view that
water usage is important objective yeah so zero scaping incentive plans which
have worked I see building culture on the last two canopies on the list I have
a oh okay one to put on the list of transmitting from bike ten is there
interested in consideration of whether there be merit to subsidizing electric
bikes as you know more efficient means of transportation and it might it might
be people wouldn't necessarily get into a car they might know that's the
question is there is there's a sustainability merit to incentivizing
electric bikes and then I have a broader question which really just comes to the
fact that I'm late to the party and I don't know the framing conversations
you've all had but it isn't obvious to me on my third visit that there is that
there's a process with a clear goal that we're going toward my what I imagined
having been on council and then Councilmember Briggs and I urged the
formation of this group was that this group would be moving methodically
through the sustainability framework each of each of the categories to
evaluate the tactics you know and to prioritize and you know then prioritize
against each other you know in order to make a recommendation to council but I
don't know if there's a time certain that you're trying to get to or that we
are trying to get to so if that is the goal if I've actually described it right
then my secondary question is are we moving a pace toward that goal or now
I asked this with some trepidation like the kid in school says teacher you've
got to give us the homework assignment but you know if we're not moving a pace
toward that goal we meet every other week instead of once a month or even if
it's just not to put an extra burden on staff but just to allow this group to
discuss the areas that are the pillars of the sustainability framework so said
a lot now pause they say step back well I think that was just up to add to the
matrix correct well yeah then there was like the broader that kind of process
thing but you know okay that could be done just like I think in that matrix is
are we moving toward a goal should we meet twice as often anybody else have
anything to clarify take off add to the matrix yeah I just want to reiterate the
importance I think I know it's on their transportation and hoping that and the
more I've been thinking about this and I'm not sure if this is reflected in the
matrix but it would be nice if you could hear from and think about this from a
city planner perspective it's the I don't know if we we've had that conversation
about the way things get zoned and built it cuts across so many of the pillars in
our plan that from transportation to building codes you know air quality you
name it would I think it might help us like say it was a climate action plan to
know how high level planning decisions are made about the way the city develops
this was useful but when we got to like zoning things I could see that that
wasn't his you know cup of tea or bailiwick so that's I'd like to see we
could add that I think at one point we we have development services coming
again this summer to talk about some of the building codes and development codes
and parking minimums so we can refine that yeah I would like to ask for a
special call meeting with DME for some further discussion actually some
unfinished business regarding the green sense program and the reason why I'm
requesting this is my approval of option four was contingent upon further
discussion about grandfathering options and this was also recorded in the
minutes of January 27 23 and I can give you the times if you wish for when this
happened in the meeting and also I can give you the chairs summation of what
went down in which it was said that it was the final vote from myself was
contingent upon further discussions about grandfathering grant what what the
status of grandfathering was so that's why I would like to have the opportunity
to discuss that because it has not been addressed and to me right now my vote
really is inconsequential because I've not gotten the information that I asked
for so if we could I don't know if we could do a staff report on the
grandfathering or if they need to come back but if we could add that into the
matrix somehow to answer the questions that we had from the previous meeting and I
thought that the recommendation from this committee was option four with
further discussion about grandfathering but I didn't hear come back to this
committee with great mother I think what we're asking for is if we could hear
more information on their thoughts about the grandfathering because we left it
off at that is that what you're saying yeah and I would like what I would and
until that discussion happens I would like my vote to be rescinded or put on
hold for option four that first of all it's not on the agenda to do I understand
and that's I mean the minutes will reflect what was made in that meeting
yeah so you know a vote at that meeting can't be rescinded okay thank you so is there any any
opportunity or chance that we can have a meeting on this a timely meeting
do you want to get would do me and then email us yes we can talk about how we
can address that okay thanks thank you I just would like to see if we can have
there was a lot of talk about the pace program today if we can have just a
presentation so that we can have discussion and questions more so on on
that or have someone from the county come and talk to us or the state of Texas
I'm not sure but that seemed to be a very important topic and new information
for us and so that would be helpful it's a good tool yeah
and that was going to be exactly my my ask is that we can get more presentation
on the program by his own testimony it currently is ineffective in terms of the
problems that they're running into getting banks to support it and half a
million dollars in value of the property and it can exceed 25 percent of you know
so forth so long it sounds like that plan is not working in its present state
so I would like to get a deeper presentation to include what does a
secondary plan look like that can help even the small business owners who
wouldn't qualify under the current presentation you can if we can make that
happen then one other item I had is that over a year ago there was a presentation
of the LG SW project and one of the questions that I had was the amount of
greenhouse gas that would be produced under that new project and we haven't
gotten that answer as of yet it was scheduled to come today from the staff
we didn't have the update yet okay I want to third the pace thing along with
mr. Stevens because it's that was I thought the most important thing of this
presentation so if we could find because in my mind there's so many people out
there that would like to have efficiency upgrades or to electrify your home but
the upfront costs just make it not work but if there's a way to do this the
commutable game-changer so I think it's definitely working soon the other thing
and I don't know if this is concluding item or matrix but last time mr. Stevens
had this clarity of training the trainers or talking about the presentation in the
box I'm just wondering if there's any updates on that I'd like to start doing
those presentations at first just with my students but then more generally so I
don't know that's not necessarily a matrix item but we'll just close the
this item and move on to last number two concluding items and kind of just
reiterate that training the trainer for concluding items is that something that
we can get started on it's available now so just one real short thing can we get
an update on the response to the survey yes all right we will conclude our
meeting thank you everyone for joining in 242