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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-06-25-SLC-minSustainable Lexington Committee Minutes of Meeting of June 25, 2024 A meeting of the Sustainable Lexington Committee (SLC) was held in the Hudson Room, Cary Hall. A quorum of at least five was present throughout. Members Present: Cindy Arens (chair), Paul Chernick, Lin Jensen, Todd Rhodes (vice- chair), Dan Voss, Charlie Wyman Members Absent: Celis Brisbin, Andy Joynt, Rick Reibstein Staff Present: Maggie Peard, Pearl Tulay Other Attendees: Joe Pato, Mark Sandeen, Ricki Pappo, Sally Bleiberg, Kavitha Venkatesan, Nishanth Veeragandham, Mike Boudett Cindy called the meeting to order at 6:07 pm. Approval of past meeting minutes. The draft minutes of May 21, 2024, were unanimously approved as written. Introductions. Everyone in the room introduced themselves, and then Pearl Tulay was asked for a longer introduction. She is a UNH Fellow working this summer with Maggie on a data dashboard to track how the Town is doing on its sustainability initiatives. She thanked the members who have already met with her, and invited input on the dashboard. Comments from residents; emails to committee mailbox; new business. •Ricki mentioned that LexCAN has hired two part-time interns: one to work with Andy on Clean Heat, the other to assist Sustainable Middlesex in compiling a database of climate actions towns have undertaken across the state, which will allow towns that want to do something to be linked with towns that have already done it. •Mark reported that EEA Secretary Rebecca Tepper issued a determination that the Hanscom Field private jet expansion project Draft Environmental Impact Report does not adequately and properly comply with MEPA regulations. This will require that the proponent assemble a supplemental DEIR that addresses the issues the Secretary raises as well as issues raised in the 1,500 comment letters received. Secretary Tepper does not have the authority to terminate the project; only Massport can do that. Mark also reported that a climate bill including updates to the bottle bill has passed the Senate, and the House climate bill continues to be debated, including a long list of proposed amendments. Sustainable Lexington Committee Minutes of June 25, 2024 Sustainability & Resilience Officer discussion and updates. Maggie reported: •Dashboard. Maggie has just seen a mock-up of the dashboard that Pearl is working on. She will send around a list of programs/initiatives the dashboard will track. •Compost pilot. Enrollments stand at just over 3,000 after a town-wide mailing, with about 1,000 spaces left. She is doing some outreach to larger multi-family properties. •General waste reduction planning. Maggie met with the Tufts team and reviewed their recommendations and met with the Select Board. The waste reduction task force will be meeting more regularly to plan educational initiatives and identify priorities. Grants are available from DEP to plan, design, and implement a Pay As You Throw (PAYT) program. Maggie noted that there is a 29% average reduction in waste tonnage with PAYT-type programs. Cindy went with Lin Jensen, Diane Pursley, and Tina McBride to Black Earth’s grand opening of their new compost facility in Manchester-By-The-Sea. Ricki asked if Black Earth is still interested in operating at the Hartwell yard waste compost facility. With the DEP and USDA prioritizing local food production, there are many grants available to help integrate food and yard waste compost operations and it is still a longer term goal to do this at Hartwell. •BEU-D. Maggie reported that of the 123 buildings subject to the bylaw, 84 are completely in compliance, 21 need to fix errors in their reporting, and 14 have submitted nothing. This is roughly the same compliance rate as last year. Penalty fees for non compliance can be assessed starting next year. DOER is administering a large building energy reporting program for the state, and Maggie is talking to DOER to understand it better and how it will interface with Lexington’s program. •Networked Geothermal Feasibility Study. The study is going well. A community meeting was held earlier in June with about 30 in attendance. The four sites are being ranked on four criteria, and focus is zeroing in on Hartwell for several reasons, with the Brookhaven/ Revolution Labs district also showing some promise. The next step is a stakeholder group meeting with property owners in those two districts. •EEBCG (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant) Funding. Funding (up to $75,000) has just opened up for communities under 35,000 population, and Lexington will seek funding for improvements to the Community Center building envelope. •Climate Leaders. This state designation is for communities that qualify on five metrics above and beyond the Green Communities program and qualifies the municipality for additional funding. Lexington has met the requirements and will apply for designation this summer. Paul Chernick. Cindy announced that Paul will be leaving the committee, as he and his wife are moving to Portland, Oregon to be near family. Paul explained that it will be several months before they sell their house and they will be back and forth until then, and he will attend .2 Sustainable Lexington Committee Minutes of June 25, 2024 remotely as much as he can until the move is finalized. Several people spoke about Paul’s important contributions to the town and the work of the committee. Pizza and watermelon were enjoyed by all. Police Station Update. Move-in day is this week. Mike Cronin is working with a canopy provider to identify design/construction alternatives that could reduce costs without a significant impact on the structure’s aesthetics before returning to the HDC in July or August to request approval for the alternatives. High School Update. Cindy reported that at a meeting was held with key people from the designer SMMA, where the life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of LHS design options were discussed. During the discussion, it was identified that the typical SMMA LCCA does not include consideration of solar and battery storage as part of the initial assessment – it is typically added on at the end of the assessment. The team emphasized the importance of including these elements in the initial analysis to get full understanding of lifecycle costs and drive decisions for an integrated design. In addition, Cindy identified that inconsistent and confusing estimates for the cost of the sustainable elements of the LHS design were presented at a School Building Committee (SBC) meeting on Monday (6/24). Joe noted that at that meeting, the conclusion was that solar is a good financial investment, but the higher costs and lower returns (which SLC members believe are incorrect) will reinforce concerns about the capital cost of the solar component. Joe asked for the SLC subgroup to submit comments to him so that they can be passed on to the rest of the SBC. Muzzey Street Parking Lot. The lot is scheduled for reconstruction. Town staff were asked about the potential for solar canopies at that site at Town Meeting in the spring and responded that that solar was not in scope for this project – the rationale was not clear but included concerns about the cost of canopies since the lot is in the historic district and the potential for shading from the taller buildings allowed under the new MBTA zoning. Dan ran a model and found very little impact from shading even with 60-foot buildings and concluded that canopies are very viable. Considerable discussion followed about the project’s timetable and how to get canopies on the site, or at least the infrastructure for canopies (conduit and footings) included, and where funding for design work might be found. It was agreed that Cindy should send a communication (with Dan’s input) to the Town Manager and Select Board, with a copy to Maggie, making the case that canopies are viable, reconstruction provides an important opportunity, and canopies would be a benefit to the Town. The Fall Town Meeting could provide design funding if needed, as well as the Sustainability Fund recently set up. After further discussion, it was moved, seconded, and unanimously voted to authorize Cindy to communicate this to the Town Manager and Select Board. .3 Sustainable Lexington Committee Minutes of June 25, 2024 Solar Potential/Needs Update. Todd walked us through the updated Analysis of Solar Potential and Need that a task force has been working on for some months. He reviewed the analysis and conclusions from the previous iteration, noting that our progress in adding solar is comparable to the rate needed to match Lexington’s share of the state’s goal if apportioned based on land area. He then focused on the team’s identification of Priority Actions and Additional Actions. Considerable discussion followed. Two items were highlighted for addition to the Priority list: a Watertown-type bylaw requirement for solar on new commercial/institutional buildings, and utilization of the new rule for aggregation of distributed assets for low-income residents. He said the team would welcome further comments. User-friendly Solar Analysis. Cindy noted that she has employed family members to help validate Project Sunroof’s methods, using a different interface, looking at homes with existing solar and comparing the reality with the analysis. Dan suggested Helioscope is more accurate. Next Meeting: Cindy proposed that the committee not meet in July, unless (as Mike Boudett suggested) the committee might need to vote to pursue a warrant article to fund solar design of the Muzzey Street lot. The committee voted to adjourn at 8:30 pm. Respectfully submitted, Charlie Wyman .4