City Council passed the much-debated Healthy Buildings Ordinance in a 7-1 vote at its meeting Monday evening, putting Evanston on track to follow its Climate Action and Resilience Plan goals.
The ordinance requires buildings of more than 20,000 square feet and municipal buildings of more than 10,000 square feet to eliminate on-site greenhouse gas emissions and use only renewable energy sources by 2050.
The vote to adopt the ordinance was pushed three times after its unanimous introduction to council on Jan. 13.
The deciding factor for Monday night’s vote? The adoption of multiple amendments workshopped by Alds. Bobby Burns (5th) and Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) following intensive stakeholder and expert feedback.
Among the amendments added to the final draft approved Monday night included a consideration for the ordinance’s impact on stakeholders and required nominations for members of the new measure’s Technical Committee and Accountability Board by building owners and their associations.
Crucially, it also included a non-enforcement clause of performance standards until the rulemaking process is complete and approved by City Council.
While residents aired concerns about the ordinance’s potential to raise rents and the uncertainty of adopting it too quickly, its proponents suggested that the ordinance’s rulemaking process allows for much-needed flexibility.
“This is not enforceable until we approve the rules, so there’ll be another opportunity for folks to oppose this,” Burns said.
Yet the ordinance faced some skepticism from the dais. As the only dissenting vote, Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) argued that Council was “jumping to the end” of the process, much like Envision Evanston 2045, the city’s contentious rezoning and comprehensive plan.
She also argued that the ordinance’s 2050 timeline is too far-flung for immediate impactful change.
“I do feel like there is this rush to say we’re going to be the first in Illinois,” Kelly said. “But I think this is actually deterring from the hard work of making impacts now on our environment.”
Although Ald. Devon Reid (8th) voted in support of the ordinance, he flagged issues with the designation of equity prioritized buildings, a power granted to the HBO Accountability Board under the ordinance. In the Feb. 26 council meeting, he raised concerns that Northwestern could apply for such a status as a nonprofit institution.
Reid doubled down on the lack of objective criteria for the board to designate EPBs, which he says could open the city up for lawsuits on an equity basis.
“I fear that in between the time that we adopt those standards that are going to be set forth by the technical committee and other committees, that we could be setting ourselves up for unnecessary legal challenges,” Reid said.
The matter of federal funding also emerged as a possible wrinkle in the HBO decision. At the meeting’s opening, city staff identified that Evanston’s $10.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy would be considered high-risk to federal slashing under the Trump administration. The grant was awarded to aid the implementation and adoption of the ordinance.
However, city staff clarified that Evanston’s sustainability fund has an appropriate budget to conduct the rulemaking process for the first year of the ordinance’s implementation, providing a clear path ahead for the ordinance’s next steps.
Paula Scholl, a member of Evanston’s Environment Board and Building Electrification Working Group, called the newly-passed policy an “enabling ordinance” to create solutions that work for multiple community stakeholders.
Scholl recommended that skeptics remain highly involved in the ensuing rulemaking process by attending and voicing their concerns in public meetings.
While some observers may say that the fight for the ordinance has ended in triumph, Scholl said the process is just beginning.
“Now it’s time to really sit down and do the rulemaking and get into the weeds, so I’m looking forward to it,” she added.
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