Okay, good afternoon. This is the October 24th, 2025 meeting of the Sustainability Framework
Advisory Committee. We have a quorum today. It's one o'clock, so we will begin. And our
first item for individual consideration is approval of September 26, 2025 minutes. Does
anyone wish to approve or disapprove? I move to approve. Mr. Richter moves to approve.
Do we have a second? I second. Mr. Helms? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right.
The minutes of September have been approved. Our second item is to receive a report, hold
a discussion, and give staff direction regarding City Council requests to review a two-minute
pitch for rooftop solar and rooftop garden/wall garden retrofits for existing city facilities.
We have Tom Gremer with us today. Good afternoon. Tom Gremer, Director of Facilities and Fleet
Services for the City of Denver. Background, on November 25, 2024, Councilmember Beck submitted
a two-minute pitch to explore the installation of rooftop and wall gardens and solar panels
with batteries on city buildings. On December 3, 2024, City Council approved consensus for
staff to publish an informal staff report addressing the feasibility of the pitch. On
January 24, 2025, an ISR was published in the fire group. On August 7, 2025, the General
Advisory Committee recommended setting the pitch to the Sustainability Framework Advisory
Committee. We're here. Currently, the City of Denver facilities, that facilities management
operates, is 206 buildings. We conducted a facilities condition assessment in 2020-2021,
which identified the need for maintenance and repairs of our current facilities, what
we call deferred maintenance, those items that were not funded throughout the years
that they needed to be repaired, and we put them into deferred status, which then required
us to fund these in a future date. Currently, because of the City's budgeting and the amount
of work that needs to be completed, we've had to push some of these deferred maintenance
items forward and/or delay them to meet the City's financial expectations. Considerations
for the new buildings is where we're going to get our ROI on the rooftops and solar and
wall gardens. When considering our new construction, the addition of the rooftop and wall gardens
has an estimated $143, $250 per square foot, for that building that we're working on. A
new building installation for solar and batteries will also be considered in the new capital
planning for the facility of construction. Our consideration for our existing buildings,
we have 28 of the City's 206 facilities that have roof structures potentially suitable for
our rooftop gardens. What that means is those are the parapet type of roofs, rather than
a gable or pitch style roof. So there would still be engineering considerations to look
at these parapet type roofs to see if they're load bearing enough for that type of installation.
Any engineering survey would be required before we add any additional weight or we'd even
be able to consider installing additional equipment on top of the roofs. For an example,
even replacing an HVAC unit or adding an additional HVAC unit would require a very similar study
to ensure that the rooftop could support the additional weight and load for that type of
roof. The cost for engineering assessments traditionally range between $50,000 and $200,000
for each building or project that we're assessing for that type of roof. For solar battery installations,
the cost for these improvements is estimated to be between $100,000 and $1.8 million, depending
on the facility type of the energy usage that we expect out of it. The estimate annual energy
cost savings from our solar panels are variable, but we range anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000
for each facility based on the current energy consumption that we pulled from our historical
reports. Through our next steps for the committee to consider is option one, identify and evaluate
our existing buildings for rooftop gardens and recommend to city council for inclusion
in our FY26/27 city budget. Option two would be to identify and evaluate our existing city
buildings for solar panels with or without battery storage and recommend that for inclusion
in the same budget period. Option three would be to consider inclusion of a rooftop or wall
gardens on all of our new construction moving forward when applicable. And then option four,
consider inclusion of solar panels with or without our battery storage and our new construction
as well. And then finally option five would be to not recommend moving forward with suspension.
Our recommendation for current projects, we do not have sufficient funding to consider
our rooftop and wall gardens as well as solar battery installation on our existing city
facilities. However, we will consider these options in design and the planning phases
of all new construction projects when applicable for our vertical construction where these
can be integrated at the beginning of the construction project and built to purpose
to be more efficient throughout the life of that building. Any questions? Everyone? Yes.
Alright so, is it my understanding that the current budget is 25 million that were moved
from fiscal year 20 to 23 to 25, 26? Yes there was a capital plan for deferred maintenance
that was 30 million dollars over a three or four year period to handle the deferred maintenance
items. Throughout the years of course, budget constraints will limit that and so far we've
been investing almost 25 million dollars into our aging infrastructure just to get them
from the deferred status to a current maintenance status. In your report here, you cite in different
paragraphs, currently significant number of, significant number of, so do you have a number,
for example, how many buildings, city buildings continue to operate beyond their expected
lifespan? Of course, most of our city facilities from when they were originally built, are
operating past their existing life cycle. A building traditionally is meant for 30 to
50 years of continuous operation before a major renovation or capital investment is
needed into the infrastructure. So right now, a lot of our buildings, 150 percent, are at
that 30 to 50 year mark. However, we continue to invest money into them. Okay, how many
buildings? I do not have that number currently, but I'm happy to provide that. Okay, how many
buildings lack the necessary electrical infrastructure to support renewable energy? Currently all
buildings, they were not built for the intended purpose of solar, so any additional solar
would require electrical infrastructure. So that means all the city buildings? Correct.
206? Correct. Okay, so do we have historical buildings in the city buildings? We do, there
are some city buildings that are designated as so. All right, so how about working on
those and install the rooftop and gardens? Have you thought about that? Of course, and
if it's designated as a historical landmark, it would be very difficult to change the external
appearance of that facility to incorporate solar or some other options. And then traditionally
in very aged buildings, when you begin updating infrastructure, the rule is, if you touch
it, you have to repair it. So as we dig into the buildings, if we remove items that are
already, say, grandfathered into how it was built, we also break into having to upgrade
all that additional infrastructure as well. Let alone if that facility can even support
the size, the space, the well-bearing needs for the solar orbit operations. All right,
also in your report, you mentioned that the estimated annual energy cost savings from
the solar panels is about $2,500 to $25,000, depending on the consumption. Did you take
into consideration the fact that installing the rooftops, gardens, or the walled gardens,
they can increase the energy efficiency of those buildings? Yes, we did consider that.
Through our analysis, we determined that there might be a very hard factor of the facility,
which would require less DU cycles on HVAC units. And of course, the solar panels. There
was a matrix of, if you wanted to do the building in full solar panels, you would need, say,
100,000 square feet of space. But the building is only 20,000 square feet of rooftop accessibility.
So to invest the most amount of solar panels to get the best return on that investment
was our calculation. Of course, some facilities won't be able to support a full solar load
unless there's a solar farm next to it, or that rooftop could support it. So it's a very
fluid matrix. All right. And one more question, sorry. This may be a silly question, but I
don't know the answer, and I'm expecting you to explain that to me. How do we increase
the funding for this project? Of course. So this would have to go through the City Council's
budget presentation. We would identify potentially the best buildings for this, for existing
facilities, and then provide an ROI and an expectation of the cost. And then it would
be up to the finance team and the city council to determine this within the priority of the budget.
However, again, the ROI on this would not be just the solar and the rooftop garden. It
would be the infrastructure for the existing facility. Whereas if you took that money and
utilized that for new construction, you could get more bang for your buck when building
it from the onset, rather than trying to renovate the existing facilities. So do you plan to
demolish some of the old buildings, city buildings? Right now, no. No? With our growth expectations,
we're filling our buildings and having to build new ones. So we wouldn't remove current
occupied facilities unless we were building facilities that could support the growth plus
existing occupancy. Are there plans to build new facilities? There are plans to build new
facilities to the capital planning. There's a few considerations of budgeting moving forward,
but we do provide our need to the capital team and the city on our occupancy expectations
over the next 20 years. How many buildings and do you plan to have the rooftops and the gardens?
Of course. So the next, currently they're building fire stations five and six, and that
was before we utilized and we considered rooftop solar. Moving forward, say the new service
center or any other new buildings that are proposed, during the design phase, this will
be a requirement for the architect to build into the specifications so we can assess the
cost and the viability of adding this at that time. Okay. Thank you. Any others? Comments?
Questions? Is the idea for those solar installations, like say the fire station, is it to support
specifically that building or is it just a tie-in? Well, of course, with any solar, if
you are generating more power than your building's using, you would push it back to the grid.
What we really run into is that our commercial properties, which essentially is everything
the city owns, we generate more consumption than the space available for solar. So very
rarely would you get 100% off the grid solar or putting it back on the grid in that renewable
energy. We would just be able to reduce the grid burden. That would be the best case scenario.
Yeah. I think I have two questions. One's related to what you were asking, is when you've
worded this, current projects do not have sufficient funding. And I'm not understanding,
wasn't the two-minute pitch partially about increasing the funding so that there would
be more funding for this? Isn't that the ask? I believe the ask is, are there buildings
capable of and should we increase funding to assess it and potentially move forward?
Right. Should we increase funding for it? That's why I'm confused about the way this
is worded because I think it's obvious there's not sufficient funding now. I thought the
ask was, should we get more funding for this? Yeah, I believe that's what Council Member
Speck's intent is to invest some sort of funding into looking at the buildings, the engineering
assessments, and the potential of making this happen. And so your recommendation, what if
you could go back a slide to the options? Your recommendation would be through three
and four, I guess? Just the new construction? Yes, the new construction of all the bond
projects that we've established and things that are being in the design phase currently,
adding that requirement to the specifications package that the architect will build out
of any facilities moving forward would be considered for this type of project. And that's
for essentially cost effectiveness and ROI reasons that these retrofits are just cost
prohibitive, you think, essentially? If I could jump in here briefly to Adam's question,
you foresee option three and four coming out of capital improvements planning, or you see
it as a supplemental to the existing 2019-2014 bond program? It would definitely not be all
the '23 bond program. It would be all the projects moving forward. Now I would say that
if there's an opportunity where we have not started the design phase of some of these
projects, we would ask the architect to grab a proposal on this and see if it could fit
in the current budget. But then, of course, if we can't, just like any other additions
in the architectural drawings, we would have to start scaling the proposal to meet those
budgeting expectations. So projected larger facilities like the new South Branch Library,
the new senior center, both the fire stations you mentioned, the Lynn-McMahon project, all
of the '23 bond program, none of those projects are considering eligible for options three
and four? I would say it's not. It wouldn't be eligible. It would definitely be a conversation
with the architect. If we find that costs are driving down, where we budget our expected
buildings, and we have contingency or other opportunities, then we can do it. I think
it's worth putting in the bid drawings and seeing what that ROI is. However, some of
the buildings like fire station five or six may be already at the 100% design review or
groundbreaking. So to go back and change all the architectural information or change the
specifications over the increased costs wouldn't be appropriate. So it's really about where
the buildings are in their design phase and the future moving forward. So I know one of
the asks from staff on the '23 bond program was a large facility or potentially an upgrade
to this existing facility for additional staff offices, which would be a significant build.
You're saying that options three and four, it would be a new policy for your initial
bids for that architectural design to include these two features or at least one of the
above? That is correct. Facilities management provides standard specifications of what we
expect to see in the first design renderings, where that would be the certain type of HVAC
that we use, the type of doors, our hardware, our plumbing expectations. This we put in
that original bid where we would like to see rooftop garden options, solar options, what
the electrical infrastructure capacity is for it, so that it can be considered at the
very onset of the project and be awarded that award. If we start reducing costs, we'll find
what the best option is to still get our building built to the intentions but under the budget.
I read your report and I looked through the building feasibility study that you conducted
this past year and I hear you saying a lot that it seems fiscally limited and even practically
on an engineering level limited in our existing portfolio to add some of these options to
those existing builds. I'm curious just to try to satisfy the ask here of Councilor Beck,
what seems to maybe be the intent of this two minute pitch is a question about how do
we improve facility resiliency, how do we potentially improve the thermal envelopes,
how do we potentially improve its energy efficiency and are there other ways that we might be
able to supplement maybe some of the impacts of we could consider impervious surface runoff
and things like that and so I'm wondering beyond the vertical build analysis that you
did, was there any consideration to utilizing not the structure itself but perhaps available
adjacent land and I only say that thinking I know rooftop gardens and rooftop solar is
kind of the hot thing that maybe if you're in Brooklyn, maybe if you're in Detroit, your
spatial limitations only allow you vertical builds, right? We don't necessarily experience
those same limitations, we do experience fiscal limitations and you identified where that
hits our existing portfolio. So I'm just curious if we're not vertically limited, we're
quite spatially available, we're just financially limited, are there options beyond the building
envelope or the building portfolios themselves, I'm thinking the parking one, where maybe
some covered parking with solar panels or adjacent curbside biosquales that could service
some of those retention buffers might satisfy part of this ask without influencing the building
envelope itself. Absolutely, so that's a great question and what we do to limit the environmental
impact in these older facilities is when we're investing our capital funding into replacing
windows and HVAC units, we ensure we're meeting the most energy conscious items that we buy,
so if we're buying windows, they're going to be double painting our unfilled to ensure
that they're the most efficient. When we're renovating an office space, we're insulating
walls better than they were before, we're moving all of the fluorescent lights and moving
to LEDs to support that. So overall, while we may not be able to reduce the energy consumption
with solar at rooftop gardens, we are reducing the energy consumption in other means to meet
that goal to make our buildings more efficient and sustainable as we renovate and touch that
without major infrastructure. If we already have the thousand dollars to replace the window,
we're going to replace it with the most energy efficient and maybe not the in kind from 1925
that doesn't support that artifact that we like. So we're still doing things to make
them more efficient, but also without having to do that major engineering studies and renovations
and potential clearing the top of the building off and putting any roof on or occupant impact
as well. When we talk about doing some of these projects here, when we're doing electrical
infrastructure work, the buildings are going to be shut down, so that's a severe impact
to city operations as well for the duration of that construction project where either
the services that provide for the citizens will be impacted or the staff will have to
be displaced for that time. So we try to just find all those other energy efficient options
when renovating that support the goal here to be more efficient.
I couldn't agree more, but if I may, to my direct question, are you amenable to the idea
of building adjacent structures like option one or two, not using the existing envelope,
but adjacent land to satisfy these asks?
Absolutely, so facilities management just this year took over the renovating and maintenance
of parking lots, so this will be considered as well when we're doing parking lots, is
there a time to put in EV chargers while the ground's ripped up? Can we do over at parking?
Is there grants available for solar power that can power the EV? So we do take all of
that into consideration when we touch under one of our projects, is what can we do here
to be the most cost effective and efficient with our space?
Any others?
I saw that DME was included as a participant. Do they have any specific recommendations
for things that they want to see or don't want to see?
I'm not sure I have to ask DME specifically. We just took their building portfolios in
because they were the type of roofs or buildings that potentially were flat, but they provided
us the electrical data, the consumption data over the last 35 years.
Okay.
Thanks for the presentation.
Of course.
Tagging on what Mr. Holmes said, I would like to see DME brought into this discussion,
especially in regard to say solar panels and parking lots and that sort of thing, but I
think since so much of this deals with what they are doing that they should definitely
be an active participant in the planning of all this. Basically it looks like your second
staff recommendation. Staff will consider these options in the design and planning of
new construction projects, those options being both solar and the gardens?
Yes, sir.
Okay. Well, is it possible then to make that second staff recommendation one of the options
here? Because as it is now, it's an either/or situation, whereas the staff recommendation
is for both type projects on new construction. So what I'm getting at is can we consolidate
one, can we add another option six to this?
Of course we can.
Yeah.
And I believe with the staff recommendation, regardless of what we determined today that
we will be moving forward with looking at efficiency options in architectural design.
So we've done that year over year when we look at different type of HVAC units, solar
units, solar panels, solar panels. So we're already doing it and I believe we will continue
doing that as part of just the standard design and review phases of building part of construction.
I believe that's why we didn't have it listed as an option because it's already ongoing.
All right. So in that respect then, you need to know from us whether to move ahead with
this pitch?
Correct. Correct. To identify funding so that we can begin the evaluating the engineering
assessments on the buildings to see if it's even applicable to install a rooftop garden
or solar on some of the buildings that are existing.
And that consideration for all new construction as well?
Yes.
Anybody have any remarks about that?
I would suggest at the very least it sounds that both from the staff recommendation and
from the conversation in this meeting that option three and four advancing those as a
recommendation sounds like a good starting position. But I'd like a little more discussion
over options one and two.
I agree with that. I mean, maybe this is a question of clarification. You had said earlier
in the presentation that options one and two, the evaluation itself is some of the numbers
you were throwing out just with like $200,000 just to evaluate. That wasn't actually to
build anything.
Correct. So the first thing would be to propose this into the inclusion for the FY26-27 budget,
allocating funds to have an engineering assessment done to these facilities that we as non-engineering
people have determined that are plausible to be done. And then for them to give us a recommendation
back of yes, no, if yes, what is the cost of actually implementing with the construction?
But your sense as a non-engineering person but an expert in what you do is that that's
not a wise use of our funds because we think that even if we could retrofit these buildings,
it wouldn't do a whole lot of providing the values that we want to get out of a project
like this.
That is correct, yes. While I can't stand engineering drawings, the experience of facilities
management, we can determine what is plausible and what should move forward with some planning
and then what requires, you know, like a license PE to verify. So what we're asking for or
what the options are not necessarily asking for is if we'd like to move forward, we will
need to identify funding in the FY26-27 budget for an engineer to come out and take our plausible
options and either prove them correct or determine that it's not possible to do that at all.
I do have one more question. So I basically, in agreement with these options three and
four, that seems reasonable to me, of course. My question is about that, though, if there's
a brand new building that hasn't been imagined yet, let alone designed, and we've decided
on this, it says consider the inclusion. I understand you say that we're going to have
the architect build that in. When that comes back, in my mind, it's sort of like asking
for the higher-model car. Greg, it's almost inevitably going to be more expensive maybe
up front. What does staff then do or who decides whether that additional expense, if it is
one, is worth paying because maybe it has a better long-term payout in terms of energy
or, you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Can you walk us through that decision-making?
So currently, the way the construction phases work is that the users of the facilities,
I would say fleet services, has a building, and we determine what operational need is,
and we propose a budget. We also bring in all of these other considerations of sustainability
and the environmental impact, things of that nature, and build up one full design. If that
design is over budget, we sit down collaboratively as a team with finance, capital projects,
facilities, fleet services, and determine where can we start reducing the cost of this
building. Is it taking two bays off the service shop and leaving the rooftop solar and wall
gardens? Is it removing solar but keeping wall gardens and having operational space?
It's a collective effort in the city to determine what the best use of the funds are to meet
the operational goals and of course all the council priorities on building these new facilities.
Well, what this does then is it guarantees that these are part of that conversation.
Correct. Right. So basically you're saying there will be cost-benefit studies done with
each project. Of course. Yeah. So do we need to give you an official declaration here?
Yes. Okay. So are we all agreed on a combination of options three and four?
Yes. If that's what you would like to see the city pursue. Thank you.
Absolutely. Thank you for your time everybody. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. Next on our agenda.
Okay. So we need to vote on what we just agreed to.
I move to advance the recommendation to approve options three and four as presented.
All in favor? I second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Passes.
Okay. Thank you.
Now we have received a report and consider a recommendation to city council for adoption
on the final draft of the Simply Sustainable Framework.
I'll hand it over to Lisa back with us for this today.
All right. Good afternoon committee members. My name is Lisa Amador.
I work in environmental services and sustainability as the senior program coordinator.
We're going to touch base again on the Simply Sustainable Framework draft.
So it's a draft that was included in House backup. So we're going to review the draft
and receive feedback and go to some next steps.
So just some background. The Simply Sustainable Plan was originally adopted in 2012
with it being re-updated in 2020.
We then created the Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee to help in assisting with implementing the plan.
And the revision of the Simply Sustainable Framework happens every four to five years
just to make sure it's not just a living document, but it also kicks up with a lot of the things
and a lot of the growth that we're experiencing in that.
So some of the plans that were adopted following the 2020 Simply Sustainable Framework.
You guys are familiar with some of these plans and we've talked about them before, but Urban Forest Master Plan,
Ben 2040 Plan, Mobility Plan. So it is just to say that we do keep these in mind whenever we're creating a,
whenever we created the draft for the Simply Sustainable Framework.
And of course, you guys are familiar with the Climb to Action Plan, which was adopted in 2024.
And we have a link under our belt with that.
So feedback that we received from aspects from you all and then also the Committee on the Environment
was providing a vision, guiding principles.
We did get a mention of the Hazards and Vulnerability Risk Assessment,
Greenhouse Gas and Mentory, Defining Renewable Generation,
and then exploring incentives for battery storage, which staff did take into consideration.
So with that, we are wanting to come to you all to see if you guys are requesting
any additional changes or if you consider recommending the adoption of the Simply Sustainable Framework to City Council.
And with that, I will take questions.
Questions?
So, are you requiring, so if we go to Goal 1, Renews, and then Goal 2, I think, the same.
Are you requiring developers to incorporate green infrastructure?
Are you on, okay, land use?
You're on page 10, right?
Yeah.
So, I don't think we would require, but we are going to explore the opportunity to be able to encourage.
Encourage.
Let's use the word encourage in this case.
Yes, encourage, yes.
All right.
And to adopt this ecological-friendly practices.
To explore those opportunities.
All right, like green roofs, rain gardens, and permeable pavement, storm water.
Those are going to be opportunities that we can have with discussions, with planning,
on how they're looking at those things.
So, we'll just explore opportunities to be able to encourage.
All right, bear with me a little bit.
It's a long document.
And I think on Goal 2, yes, on Goal 2, it's the same thing for land use.
Goal 2.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I have a question though, because I'm not familiar, and I would like you to explain to me.
What is this?
Denton Chill Street.
So, that was included in the Denton Downtown Plan.
They were looking at opportunities to have areas of downtown that would be well shaded.
So, that was looked at within that plan, yes.
All right.
Thanks.
Anyone else?
No.
Can I just ask a question about your experience with this framework that's been in place now for five years?
Can you explain to us what function does this serve?
Is it helpful?
Like, when does it get taken up?
You know, can you kind of shed light on -- there's all these plans.
Right.
Practically, when it comes time, we're making decisions about new construction and all this stuff.
Does somebody actually pick this up and say, well, the framework says we should be thinking about this.
Like, does it really come into play, is what I'm wondering.
Is there more we can do to make it effective, I guess?
Well, I know that that is the role of the Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee to help kind of guide the framework.
But this also comes into play when we're having conversations with other internal departments.
You know, we talk to them about what they're already doing.
And with that, that's pretty much included in here with some of the strategies and metrics and the goals.
Those are conversations that we're already having with them.
So, they have it top of mind that, hey, we're working on this.
What do we want the goal or what do we want that to look like within five years?
You know, what do we want to accomplish?
So, we do have those conversations with them.
So, it's also, I guess, I wouldn't say a responsibility.
But we also keep in mind that it's always good to remind and check in with those other departments to make sure that we're all on the same page.
And then we all have the same goal in mind.
Okay, that's interesting.
So, it's coming up in these internal departmental meetings?
Yes, yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
And Catherine has done a great job with, you know, making sure that we are having those conversations,
that we're having those conversations ahead of time, too.
Just because that way they also keep it, they keep, departments can keep it top of mind.
So, upper management.
Last time we got a staff recommendation.
I didn't see one here.
I don't know if it's not appropriate for you to say, I mean, you're presenting it as the final draft.
So, I guess that's implied in the language.
But from y'all's perspective, this is, how's this looking?
Can I ask that question?
Well, it's, we don't have a do nothing option for our recommendation.
Consider recommending it to the city council.
Okay.
Thank you.
I know we've had performance indicators in all of our plans and I know sometimes we jump back on that maybe,
like our recycling goals were doing great, you know, or our education goals were meeting all these new people.
They do seem to be kind of off scheduled conversations.
I am curious for, since we're talking about this plan or considering recommending this plan,
could we formalize maybe an annual check in about how we are doing in meeting these indicators in the way that the,
because I remember we've had some modifications over the years between plans where something's just not realistic or it's not phrased in a way that's trackable.
Yeah.
It would be nice, especially because this is only roughly a five year opportunity, that if we check in annually to see how we're doing or what are the ways our programs are responding,
it might give us a little bit more granular, we can magnify our impact in a bit more of a targeted way.
Maybe seeing that prior to any fiscal conversations particularly would be helpful so we can make sure we're targeting our,
what little letters we do have to make sure that these programs are actually meeting the adopted goal.
Yes.
And just like we have the climate action plan dashboard, we are also looking at having a simply single framework dashboard.
And hopefully that provides insight on more of a regular basis for people that are wanting to see the progress on specific strategies and metrics.
And that would provide, I believe, also like end of fiscal year data, so that would be able to provide you guys updates with that information.
I think that could be a really rich conversation going forward.
Does anyone have anything to add?
I didn't see anything in this plan that says anything about why we need to pursue these things.
And we need to provide justification for what we're trying to do and economic, social, and environmental benefits of what this plan should produce.
I couldn't find any mention even in passing of climate change and it's, I think that should be mentioned just as it's alluded to in the CAP plan.
But I think we need to present a justification, an explanation as to why this is good and why we need to do it.
I also have a problem, not a problem, but I think we're severely handicapped in our evaluation of the overall situation here,
especially in terms of renewable energy, because of the failure of the value of solar study that was done, the failure of it to take into account the social benefits of renewable energy and debt.
The environmental benefits were not quantified, the economic benefits were not assessed, the grid benefits were not alluded to, and that's just not right.
And that hinders any future progress as far as I'm concerned. So I would be adamant about, from my standpoint at least, that we need a value of solar study that doesn't discount these things,
which the previous and the only study has done, without justification. So I know that's going to take time.
But on the other hand, the justification and the benefits of doing what are proposed in this, I think those should be added, either as an introduction to the plan, why we are doing this.
Something that simple would be very, very good, because we can't lose sight that we also have a duty to educate, and just the recycling program is the best example of that, what education does.
We need to do the same thing with this, I think. So that's my tenth sense.
If I could, I actually echo that a little bit, because I remember the last time we touched on this draft, I had also requested kind of a cutout about guiding principles, and to Ed's point, the justification of, even Adam said something like this,
why does this document need to exist, what's it do? And I think strongly calling attention to that might satisfy some of these reservations, members of the committee have.
But I did also just look, because I haven't done that. Climate change is mentioned several times in our document under sustainability and resiliency, and so I think that is echoed pretty nicely throughout that document, and in those performance metrics as well.
But I would agree to Ed's point that having just a really clean headliner on what motivates the production of this document and what it seeks to achieve as a guiding principles or a mission statement almost, would be really effective in helping us translate this document across departments, as you said earlier.
And I revised it, I included mission in one of those sentences, but I don't think it was enough. Any other discussion? Do I need to vote on this too? So, do we all agree on...
You can ask for a motion to, you can ask for a motion on the item, recommending, not recommending.
Well that's, are we in, how many are in favor of adopting the document as it is now written?
So you would, the procedure is you would ask for a motion on the agenda item.
Okay, do I have a motion on the agenda item?
Yes sir. What you can do is ask each member as well if what their feelings are, what their guidance is towards this document, and we capture that and we can move forward on that.
So in other words, we've heard some feedback that there are some changes that are being requested, so if each member would just give their direction in that regard, that should be sufficient.
So could we get direction from everybody? I at the moment would like to see those requested changes regarding the heading principles and effectively mission statement within the document, and I would be comfortable adopting that document with those changes.
And I would like to include you, to include a line either in Go 1 or 2 at land use, about what we talk about the businesses, encouraging them to incorporate green infrastructure in their activities.
I like it as it is, but I'm fine with these changes.
I'm fine with the changes that the other members have recommended and also recommend adoption of the document as it is.
If I could make a motion to reject the adoption of this document as presented so that it has the opportunity to return with the requested changes at an upcoming meeting?
We have a motion to reject the current document until specified changes have been made, which have already been expressed by everybody.
How many are in favor?
Do we need a second?
What?
Do we need a second?
I second.
Will you second?
How many in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
It's good, it's good.
Passes.
Anything else we need to do?
Thank you for the presentation.
All right, next we have staff reports.
I was curious as to the size.
I don't think that was mentioned in the acreage.
I asked for that to open up a future discussion perhaps with DME of using that land if that thing is off, if it could be used for a solar installation.
Any other comments on that?
Thank you, Kathy.
You're welcome.
And then we also have the matrix.
Anybody have anything you want to add to the matrix?
I have something.
Okay.
I would like to initiate discussions on having a new value of solar study done.
In combination, in regards to our discussion about the plan, the Simply Sustainable Framework Plan.
Any other comments?
I do have a question regarding the structure of the matrix, if I can.
Our previous formatting had included a pending date scheduled when the item would be presented.
That was really helpful to kind of think about when those conversations would occur.
The new one is great because it still obviously includes when the initial request was made, but it does make it seem a little bit more difficult to track how we're working through each of these items.
So I'm always a little just confused as to what the formatting changed, and that's a question you can answer.
I know that some of the dates that we had entered in the matrix got a little bit difficult,
because we had multiple meetings cancelled and liable for them, so that's why we went to the short meeting long term, rather than assigning a date to it.
Any other comments?
Okay, with that, we shall adjourn.
Do I have a motion to adjourn?
I move to adjourn.
Second to that motion.
All in favor of adjourning?
Aye.
Thank you very much.