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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 12/09/2014 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Greg Olson (Chair), Laura Jester(Vice Chair), Margaret Powell, Prashant Shrikhande, Lori Tritz STUDENT MEMBERS: Ashray Manipalli, Anthony Polyakov, Sophia Modeas STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary GUESTS: Rick Carter, LHB Inc. I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Olson called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Powell, Tritz, Manipalli, Polyakov and Modeas were absent. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to approve the agenda as published. Motion carried 3-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of the Minutes for the October 14, 2014 Meeting Jester said the phrase "discharge plan" in Paragraph 2, Page 5 was incorrect. Rojas said it should be "illicit discharge plan." MOTION: Shrikhande moved, seconded by Jester, to approve the minutes of the October 14, 2014 meeting as amended. Motion carried 3-0. IV. PRESENTATION A. Urban Land Institute (ULI) Regional Indicators Initiative--Rick Carter Rojas introduced Rick Carter and asked him to give a review of the program and to explain how the data they collect could be used by the City. She noted Eden CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES December 9, 2014 Page 2 Prairie is looking for direction as we will start a new program now that the 20-40- 15 program is nearing completion. Carter commented that the City should enter water data into the State B3 database in addition to the gas and electric data already entered. Olson asked if doing so would count towards the GreenStep Cities program. Rojas replied the City enters data into the B3 database which is a branch of the State government; whereas the GreenStep Cities program is partially funded by the MPA and other nonprofit funding sources. Olson asked if the City does not monitor water usage in City buildings. Rojas replied staff has just not entered the data in the B3 database. Carter noted there is free training for entering the water data into the B3 database. Shrikhande asked about the main purpose of the B3 database. Carter said the goal is to save money. The user can see all of the energy components of their whole portfolio. Olson asked if City staff routinely does the data entry or if the City Council need to give direction to staff. Rojas said City staff is currently entering the gas and electric data. Carter asked if staff has talked about incorporating environmental objectives or data into the comprehensive plan. Rojas said we expect to take a close look at that as the Metropolitan Council has had a greater focus on sustainability. Carter said Edina's comprehensive plan published in 2010 contains a good section on environmental considerations. Rojas expected the City to give more attention to that. She noted we have done a lot about energy and water conservation since the last comprehensive plan revision. She mentioned the sustainable green neighborhood was recently approved by the City Council as an example. Carter said the ULI's Regional Indicator Initiative was started as a pilot with three cities and was expanded to include the 27 cities now participating. They have a database that shows trends and now includes about one-half of the State population. He noted all of the data is available on the internet, so it is possible to go online and do comparisons of the data. Data is collected on energy, water, travel and waste and recorded in greenhouse gas emissions and cost in dollars. Olson asked about the calculations used to measure the greenhouse gas emissions and the cost. Carter said they use an international standard for measuring. The cost is the retail cost to the consumer, not the cost of emissions. Shrikhande asked if land use is a component. Carter said it is and they can do many measurements. They are trying to move to determine what a city could do to reduce greenhouse gas because a city has influence on everyone through such means as building codes. Carter showed graphs with energy usage data. He noted they have seven years of data for most of the cities. He noted the greenhouse gas emissions from energy is pretty flat for the seven years. Rojas asked if the data can be broken down for specific portions of the City. Carter said they are just starting to do that with a study in St. Paul that takes data from a neighborhood as a subset of the entire city. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES December 9, 2014 Page 3 Carter showed graphs with water usage data and noted residential water use is measured in gallons per person per day. He noted they are not able to weather normalize the data. He commented Eden Prairie is quite high in the comparison of residential water usage. Rojas suggested we add water usage reduction as a focus after the 20-40-15 program is completed. Carter showed travel data graphs and predicted that the travel data indicator will remain flat. They are talking about adding a health metric which he would like to be an outcome-based metric. They could measure a walk score that would rate the ability to get around the community without using a car. Carter said they are trying to develop a template to create a projection for greenhouse gas emissions that could be used to get improvement and to project reductions. He said the State's Climate Strategies for Economic Opportunities is trying to come up with big picture targets. Jester noted she attended a very interesting presentation that compared quality of life and sustainability data for many countries. Carter said they are trying to determine how to use the data they have collected. He said they are suggesting a city's comprehensive plan include information on city and state goals and how measurements will be made to see how the city compares to others. He noted Edina has a model section in their comprehensive plan. Olson asked if the information is available from the ULL Carter said the website has a program available for individuals to use. Olson suggested the website be used for future reports from staff. Jester suggested having this information as part of a blog from the City Manager. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. TOD Draft Ordinance Rojas said several months ago the Commission was invited to a kick-off open house with other commissions and the City Council to discuss a grant the City received from the Met Council to review zoning density for the areas around the five light rail stations. Staff developed a draft of the ordinance which was included in tonight's Commission meeting packet. The draft includes language that goes towards higher density, energy savings and less water usage. There are requirements for bicycle parking, specific landscaping of open space areas and allows credit for things such as green roofs and rain gardens. She asked Commission members for feedback. Jester asked if there are differences in how the ordinance allows development to occur in these specific areas. Rojas replied the focus is on the five stations only plus a five-minute walk-shed area around each station. That would be the boundary for the future zoning ordinance. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES December 9, 2014 Page 4 Olson asked how this would impact population growth. Rojas said the current comprehensive plan does envision additional housing with higher density in the Town Center and Golden Triangle areas and this would now include the three other station areas. Olson said the question is how does it impact population growth. He heard that we expected population growth in 2009 and asked if this ordinance will affect the assumptions from 2009. Rojas said it would likely be in line with the assumptions for the Town Center and Golden Triangle areas. She noted the infrastructure needs to support the higher density as well. Olson commented it would be good to anticipate the additional population in those areas and how that will affect everything else. Shrikhande asked if it would affect mainly roads and traffic. Rojas said part of the ordinance is to help establish compact, connected areas where people could bike, walk, and take transit as an option. Rojas asked Commission members to send any comments to her. She said she would let them know if there will be any more commission-wide open houses for the ordinance. B. Work Plan Jester suggested we include a new photo with the 3rd step of the GreenStep Cities block. Rojas said she will get new photos for the document. Rojas reviewed the 2014 accomplishments in the plan. Olson suggested adding how much water was saved with the Mayor's Challenge for Water Conservation. He asked if there was a period of time set for the water pledge goal. Rojas said it was for a year. The pledge survey included such things as shorter showers, fewer loads of laundry and doing less lawn watering. Olson asked how they came up with the number of gallons saved. Rojas said the Wyland Foundation came up with the formula to use with the results of the residents' surveys. Olson asked if there is really a way to measure the results. Rojas said it is just a way to get people to think about saving water in a fun way. Shrikhande suggested we could show the difference between this year and last, how many Eden Prairie residents responded and the per-household savings. Shrikhande said we had a discussion with Mr. Ellis regarding DNR water conservation and other related updates. Jester said we had an update on the Wellhead Protection Plan in October. She noted there were other Nonpoint source pollution Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO)workshops in addition to the Streambank and Stormwater Workshop. Shrikhande suggested adding a category for Land Use and Light Rail. Rojas said she will go through the minutes to see if there was anything else she missed and asked Commission members to let her know of any additional items. Rojas reviewed the 2015 Goals and Work Plan. She noted the Commission has discussed inviting the three watershed districts to come in during 2015 to talk CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES December 9, 2014 Page 5 about their current programs. Jester suggested moving Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek to the first quarter and then moving the Lower Minnesota to third quarter because Riley has some timely updates. Rojas said we currently are at Step 3 in the GreenStep Cities plan. She will keep tabs on Step 4 where they plan to incorporate more metrics and monitoring of data. Shrikhande said we should maintain awareness of the new data from the Regional Indicators Initiative and get an update on that, particularly in regards to water conservation, education and the next steps to take. Jester asked if there will be an explicit plan for when and where to have Commission input when the City starts work on the comprehensive plan update. Shrikhande said it would be good to get an update from the City planners about how the plan would deal with land use and how that will unfold. Jester suggested working on how we could transfer the knowledge gained from the successful 20-40-15 plan to other institutions in the City, such as the School District, Eden Prairie Mall and the new UNH buildings. Shrikhande suggested the City could showcase a program or a building on the website. Jester thought there might be a presentation at the Chamber. Olson believed it falls within the Commission's mission to advise the public, and that is something the Commission and staff could work on as a presentation at one of our upcoming events. Jester asked if there is any kind of celebration planned for the end of the 20-40-15 plan. Rojas was not aware of any but that would be a good idea. Rojas said staff members are starting to review last year's Ecopalooza event and discuss plans for 2015. They will probably shorten the hours and limit the number of stops on the Green Crawl. Jester said she would like to have a buckthorn removal event, perhaps as part of the Ecopalooza event. Shrikhande asked if any of the recommendations from the Xcel representative's presentation were adopted. Rojas said that presentation was given in 2012 or 2013. Jester said they wanted to partner with us to sponsor events. Rojas said they wanted us to help get the word out about their programs and she hasn't followed up with that. Shrikhande suggested exploring how the City could partner with Xcel in other areas. Rojas said we should get further updates on the establishment of a Green Team. She noted both Parks & Recreation and Public Works are involved in that effort and she will request more input from them. Rojas said we want to get an update in the third quarter from Hennepin County and the solid waste management companies on waste and recycling. Leslie Stovring will come to the Commission to get recommendations on organics collection requirements. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES December 9, 2014 Page 6 Jester expressed a desire to expand the City's use of the Water Treatment Center for education purposes. Rojas said we could also get an update on the water rate structure. Jester said Rick Wahlen seemed interested in getting our help on the public outreach component of the water project. Shrikhande suggested we could partner with the Freshwater Society. They have a program called Water Stewards. Rojas said the first step would be to have them come in and describe the program. Shrikhande suggested we get information on use of pervious pavers from a contractor or other source. Jester said the City of Plymouth has done studies on the use of pervious asphalt, and the manager of their program gave the Commission a presentation years ago. Rojas said Hennepin County did a trail section of pervious surface on Baker Road. Shrikhande asked that Commission members get the draft work plan a few days earlier so it can be reviewed before the January meeting. VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR Olson said he attended the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District annual communication meeting where they gave a review of various things going on within the watershed district. One of the presentations that he attended was presented by the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) about their program to encourage planting plants that foster pollinators. He suggested we have someone from BWSR's community outreach come and talk to us about their pollinator program to see if it is something we might incorporate into our surface water program. Jester said it could be part of the Expo if there are specific recommendations for homeowners. She suggested Leslie Stovring talk to them to see if it is a good fit for Expo. Olson suggested we also have them give us a presentation at some point. They talked a lot about carp management efforts too. They said they are making progress with Staring Lake but have a long way to go. Olson said he uses Organics Disposals for his household organics, and he just received notice they are no longer providing that service. That would mean there will be no service for organics in Eden Prairie. Rojas noted that subject was on the work plan for later in the year. Olson suggested it might be moved up. Rojas said it is on the draft plan as part of the bullet point to invite Hennepin County and the haulers to a meeting. Ms Stovring is the licensor and she has close communication with the companies so scheduling the presentation would depend on her workload. Olson noted this is an item of interest for the Commission. VIL REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. Night with the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District See Item VI. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES December 9, 2014 Page 7 VIII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Communication Strategies--Website, Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. Jester reiterated her suggestion regarding a City Manager's blog about the data from ULI. X. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS A. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Proiect Profile Jester asked about the High Point at Riley Creek project. Rojas said it is a conforming subdivision that will go before the Planning Commission on January 12. They will have a neighborhood meeting in December. Jester asked about the current zoning for the site. Rojas said it is currently a single family home and will be divided into ten lots. XI. UPCOMING CITY EVENTS Rojas said they are starting up the Light Rail Community Advisory Committee again with the intent to look at station design and architecture. Eden Prairie has five committee positions. She asked if any of the Commission members would be interested in serving. Olson asked if it would involve going to see a presentation of a series of drawings. Rojas said the purpose of the committee is to be an advisor on the design of stations, public art and other topics. Olson commented a lot of input they are looking for seems to involve a technical knowledge that he does not have. He thought it would be helpful for anyone participating in the committee to have a briefing from staff about some of the issues of concern. Jester noted they have technical committees too so this committee would provide input from regular citizens. Rojas said Eden Prairie chose to reach out to the commissions to serve on this committee. Jester commented, based on her participation in the earlier committee, more direction from the City would be useful. Olson asked if this was something that could be rotated among the Commission members. Rojas replied one person would be designated to serve. XII. NEXT MEETING-January 13, 2015 XIV. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 3-0. Chair Olson adjourned the meeting at 9:10 pm.