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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 08/09/2011 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY,AUGUST 9, 2011 8:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Prashant Shrikhande, Anthony Pini, Kurt Lawton COMMISSION STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Janet Jeremiah, Community Development Director Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary GUESTS: John Aune Brad Hanson Stuart Neville I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 8:07 p.m. Brown, Olson and Shrikhande were absent. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Daniels added Item VIII.A. Birch Island Woods. Motion: Daniels moved, seconded by Lawton, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 4-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of Minutes for the July 12, 2011 Conservation Commission Meeting Motion: Pini moved, seconded by Daniels, to approve the minutes of the July 12, 2011 meeting as published. Motion carried 4-0. IV. SPEAKERS A. Blue Horizon Enemy--PACE Legislation CONSERVATION COMMISSION August 9, 2011 Page 2 Rojas said representatives of Blue Horizon Energy met with her and Mike Franzen to talk about their company and the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program. John Anne, Blue Horizon Energy, said his company focuses on renewable energy, particularly solar energy systems. He said Eden Prairie has an opportunity to pass an ordinance to help finance renewable energy options. PACE is a financing mechanism that would allow property owners to make small scale improvements to their buildings. He said after they gave their presentation to Edina in hopes of working with them to pass the required ordinance, Brad Hanson was invited to be on the Edina Energy working group. Blue Horizon is trying to make solar systems affordable to commercial and industrial business owners by having the cities allow and use the PACE program. It is a mechanism to allow the City Assessor to direct payment to the energy provider, and it helps people remove some of the financial barriers for renewable energy systems. The property owner elects a Rule 429 special assessment on the property. The municipality either allows third party financing or issues micro bonds for the projects. The debt is repaid through assessment on the property owner's taxes. Anne said PACE makes energy improvements more affordable to all. The cost to the city would involve the time for the City Assessor to make sure the improvements are made. It would help reduce energy costs for business and residences, would attract private capital to Eden Prairie, and would promote clean energy and efficiency. PACE is one of the best practices in the GreenStep City program, and it shares the same goal as the City's 20-40-15 program. He reviewed a hypothetical case study showing the energy savings and the payback for the system. Pini asked if the financing strategy is similar to TIF. Hanson said it depends on how it is financed. He said the model for the third party financing has a couple of rules: the net price of the system cannot exceed 10% of the value and there is an annual assessment. Jester asked where Edina is in the process. Hanson said it came up for discussion at their City Council meeting and will be voted on at the August 16 meeting. Jeremiah asked if there is an exemption for the special assessment so that it would not have to be repaid at the time of sale. Hanson said it is up to the discretion of the lender on the special assessment. For commercial owners it is put in as a senior lien and is allowed to be carried from owner to owner. The statute states it is allowed to be carried through unless the lender requires it not to be. Jester asked about the drawbacks of the program. Anne said he could not think of one, as there is no cost to the city and they are just using the municipality for CONSERVATION COMMISSION August 9, 2011 Page 3 access to long-term financing. Hanson said studies done in North Carolina and California indicate the rate of default on PACE mortgages is less than 2%, and the energy savings has put more money in the pocket of the homeowners. He said they have a third party lender available and also have a source to help with implementing this. Jester said any company that sells these would benefit from our passing this ordinance. She asked if they have a list of things that PACE can work with. Hanson said everyone goes back to what California is doing. They are bonding for water conservation, energy efficiency measures and have their own program guidelines. They require local utilities to do an energy audit. Jester asked for a copy of a model ordinance. She asked if the state is looking at legislation to have a finite list. Hanson said it clearly states that the municipality has authority to implement this, and the ordinance addresses requirements. Jester asked what the Planning Department thought about this. Rojas said staff wants to complete more research on the program. Staff has not discussed it with other city departments and would like to talk to the City of Edina about it. We want to gather all the information and see if this is something we want to pursue. Jester said it sounds really interesting, and she did not know why we would not pursue it. Rojas said Mr. Olson brought this up before, and he seemed very interested in finding out more about the program. Aune said he will provide a copy of the model ordinance. Jester asked that this be put on next month's Commission agenda and also on the agenda for our workshop with the City Council. V. DISCUSSION A. Recap of Joint Workshop with Parks, Recreation & Natural Resources Commission Daniels said he thought Ms Jester did a nice job of presenting the GreenStep Cities program. Having the green highlights for items related to the Parks Commission was also helpful. He showed photos he took at the Fourth of July celebration, none of which showed recycling containers since there was no recycling at that event. Jester said it sounds like they are networking with other parks managers, and she thought it is hard to believe the other cities would still be putting out the recycling containers if it wasn't working there. She thought we should put this on the workshop agenda with the Council. Jester thought the joint workshop was very helpful. Lawton thought there may be more joint meetings where we need their help with the GreenStep Cities program. CONSERVATION COMMISSION August 9, 2011 Page 4 Jester said she hasn't gotten into the details of it,but almost all of the steps highlighted in green showed that we are done with those. She thought it would be good to have Mr. Lotthammer come in and talk about the conservation areas specifically. VI. REPORTS FROM STAFF VII. REPORTS FROM CHAIR Jester said the zero waste event she attended was phenomenal. It was sponsored by the Friends of the Mississippi River. Lawton thought we could work with the Parks Department on a zero waste event. VIII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. Birch Island Woods--Ray Daniels Daniels said Jeff Strate will continue to pursue this and is going back to Nine Mile Creek to talk to them about it. He has been doing a lot of research on this and has some concerns that are conservation related. The permeable pavement for the parking lot is located right over the dump area that was used by the former Glen Lake Sanitarium. He reviewed the report from Braun Intertec who did a geo- technical evaluation. A limited subsurface investigation turned up a lot of suspect material, and they only went down five feet. Jester asked what is different about what exists there now and the permeable pavers. Daniels said the fill that is in the dump is variable so that some places are sand and others are clay. The variability will cause frost to get underneath the pavers and cause heaves. He thought a location that would have frost heaves would not be the best place to showcase permeable pavers. He also thought the proposed parking lot will be very secluded, and Mr. Strate is going to propose a different location. Pini noted a report done for regular pavement would have similar wording. Jester suggested the Commission ask Leslie Stovring to take a look at the report and make sure this is where Eden Prairie wants to showcase permeable pavers. She noted that each Commission member has an opinion on this,but we are not on record as a commission. She thought we can ask staff to clarify if we have legitimate concerns. Jester said the report is new information and brings up a good point. While Mr. Pini said the language in the report is standard, she thought it makes sense for one of us to talk to Ms Stovring and ask her to take a look at the report. CONSERVATION COMMISSION August 9, 2011 Page 5 Pini thought the issue of visibility is a good point, and he agreed that as a conservation area it should not have a parking lot. Jester noted Ms Stovring said the Watershed District would have to put in a rainwater garden if the permeable pavers are not used. She thought the issue of parking lots in conservation areas is a point to discuss with Mr. Lotthammer. Daniels said he thought the issue of handicapped accessibility could be taken care of with an alternate plan. Jester said the Task Force spent a year reviewing this, and a parking lot was one of the things that was included in their recommendation. She would like to know about plans for other conservation areas. Daniels thought such items should have been coming to us as he would rather the commission learned about such things ahead of time. IX. NEW BUSINESS X. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. GreenStep Cities Program Rojas said the MPCA website is back up, and she has entered data for the water conservation section and information about Xcel and CenterPoint rebates. Jester asked if we can go in and see those. Rojas said the input came up immediately. Jester asked when the MPCA checks the information. Rojas said she has to notify Philipp Muessig that she put them in. Jester asked Ms Rojas to let us know if we are contacted by other cities or if we contact other cities. She would like to keep this item on the agenda each month. We really should have more press about this, but we might want to get up to date with our entries in the website first. She thought Joyce Lorenz might mention it to Eden Prairie News the next time she meets with them since they didn't cover it when the Council passed it. B. Communication Strategies--Website,Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. Lawton said they were just printing the September/October issue of Life in the Prairie when he talked to Ms Lorenz. They talked about the website redesign and discussed providing some consultation about designing the conservation area of the website. He thought a few of the Commission members could get together and discuss what is there and how to change it. Jester suggested forming a Communications Subcommittee. She thought the GreenStep Cities might be a good topic for the November/December issue. Daniels said Plymouth's rainwater gardens are really nice and someone has made a presentation about them that can be downloaded. CONSERVATION COMMISSION August 9, 2011 Page 6 Jester asked if we can get a link to the GreenStep Cities on our website. Rojas said she will do that. She noted GreenStep Cities has a Facebook page. C. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Project Profile Daniels asked about the 6G Ranch project. Rojas said it is an incomplete proposal for a two-lot subdivision off Riverview Road. The property is still zoned rural and is in the middle of two other developments. Daniels asked how the GE Capital project is coming along. Rojas said it was recommended for approval by the Planning Commission and goes to the City Council on August 16. She said it is conforming except for the architecture. They have not had any feedback from residents in the area. XI. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS XII. UPCOMING EVENTS City Council Workshop--September 6, 2011 Rojas said this workshop is cancelled. We could do October or November but Mayor Tyra-Lukens will not be there for the October workshop. The consensus was to have the workshop on the first Tuesday of November, if possible, with the regular meeting to follow the workshop. Jester said she would like to include a presentation on the non- reusable bag fee idea. Daniels asked if we will have a presence at Sunbonnet Days. Jester said she can't be there that day but could arrange to borrow recycling containers from Hennepin County. XIII. NEXT MEETING September 13, 2011 XIV. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Lawton moved, seconded by Jester. Motion carried 4-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 9:40 PM.