I appreciated that bit about Biss’ new found ‘updates from the council’ that he decided to start weeks before the election. (If you want to share what’s going on, why haven’t you been doing this all along, Dan?)
I was a supporter of Biss initially but this thing, the Envision Evanston stuff, etc….: it all is about building trendy sounding stuff for his resume that he can use to parlay into an assistant Secretary gig in the next Democratic administration.
It makes me more and more likely I’ll vote for Jeff.
I'm for Jeff. He has a campaign office near Bennison's on Davis. We do not need any more of the extraordinary expense of outside consultants for projects that are poorly thought out and detrimental to the unique character of our community. Remember the search for a new city manager - They ended up with Luke Stowe, who was the IT Manager. There's also the extraordinary legal fees incurred in the last 4 years, including the lawsuit by Most Livable City concerning concerts at Ryan Field. The LUC voted against the concerts. Biss did not care. And there is a wrongful termination lawsuit: https://www.foiagras.com/p/bird-v-evanston-legal-fallout-from
This is why I’m not enthusiastic about Jeff. I really don’t care one way or another about the stadium but I think it is fine that they are going to have concerts there. The more they use the place to bring in people spending money, great.
The Bird lawsuit and the city manager search are part of the same source: Equity Army and the Same Thirty People pushing narrow NIMBY views to intimidate the council.
The first round of the manager search the city brought in weak candidates whose main attraction was that they ticked an identity box. In subsequent rounds when they brought in more serious people, The Same Thirty People objected because… equity.
The Bird lawsuit is actually the place where Biss has handled himself well. Birds claims are so ridiculous that they will never hold up in court. Complete birdshit.
I think Biss has generally done a good job at keeping the Same Thirty People and ridiculous council members like Devon Reid at bay.
The one thing I am worried about with regard to Jeff is that the Same Thirty People and Reid-wannabes are lining up behind him.
Now this May be part of their anti-everything disposition (I’m old enough to remember them lining up behind Steve Haggerty because Mark Tendam was too status-quo)
I can assure you I am not aligned with the Real Housewives of D65 Facebook Group or wackadoodle Reid. That said, I am ready for change and Jeff represents that wholesale. Not everyone who doesn’t like Biss is a rabid equity army private. Folks should visit Jeff’s office or website and think about if what is going on now makes sense, or if we need change. I think the latter.
He's more likley to take Jan's seat. He's been eyeing that for years. He won't even officially commit to not running for it and leaving Evanston before his term is up. What good does that do us?
Jan hasn't been looking very good lately, I have to wonder if this is her last term. Biss would be in a strong position to run for her seat while he's the Mayor and has that platform.
Thanks for reminding everyone that electrification is not the same as de-carbonization! (This also includes electric cars I’m afraid.) Do electric boilers even have the BTUs to heat large buildings in the IL cold? Heat pumps are still not up to the job, a big problem to moving away from natural gas for single family homes. I too lived in courtyard buildings in SE Evanston. It is impossible to think these are easy to retrofit. It’s all just another “let’s do ___ and all feel good we did something” rather than finding a legitimate solution. It seems to plague politics in this town.
Everyone is being very short sighted about this proposal. Heat pumps are capable of large commercial buildings and residential buildings because the mass of the building keeps more of the units/spaces warmer than a single family home. Where heat pumps struggle is when it's 0F or below for a single family home. ALSO - the final electrification component isn't required for 25 years. That's a lot of time for technology to improve. I follow a guy that is working right now and has prototypes in people's homes that use CO2 refrigerant for it's heat pump boiler and it's getting 180F so the technology is there and will be here well before 2050. Another point is that before 2050, all the equipment in every condo building in Evanston is going to be replaced. So this argument about the amount of money that will impact residents is really off. You have to look at what's called incremental costs. If replacing the condo building boiler is $100,000 they have to do that because it's old and failed. If they spend $125,000 to put a heat pump boiler in, the only added cost is $25,000 to the owners. It's a big difference.
Yeah I don't disagree with this, but I think the HBO is rats nest of bureaucracy. Two committees that will need to be staffed, a bunch of metrics and monitoring, and an entire rulemaking process. It feels like this ordinance is designed for a bunch of people to hit metrics and claim wins instead of being written for the people.
I think a simple law that just mandates new construction meets zero-carbon criteria and old buildings are grandfathered in, but if they need to replace their boilers, etc then they have to shift to electric would be sufficient?
The problem is that leaves 80% of Evanston buildings on the table with no requirements. Is it so bad to make them improve the efficiency of their building incrementally over time? That's what the purpose of the multi year plan is. 5 years from now, do an audit, make sure your lights are upgraded, start budgeting to replace your 20-50 year old windows. Budget to replace your HVAC systems. So that when those systems fail or 5-10 years later, you're ready. The whole HBO is to have a concrete plan in place for owners instead of them waiting to do anything 25 years from now and then going oh crap, we didn't plan or save money and then people really will be pissed. The committee part is there to create the plan and help owners execute it. It's not just about more unnecessary bureaucracy.
Sure, I don't think this current iteration gets you there, though. I have nothing against everything you just described. I feel this way about Evanston Tree Law too - like I absolutely think it's important to the character of the City to protect as many trees as possible. But the rules they put in place requiring permitting if you do anything 25 feet from a tree, requiring a visit from the Evanston tree cop, etc are expensive and increase the time/costs for everyone to do anything.
I think this can be vastly simpler - forget about all the metrics and monitoring and committees and (likely non-existent) federal grants and carve outs, etc. That's just more jobs for consultants. Just say "here's the new rules, they go into effect in 10,15 and 25 years and they impact everyone, even single family homes. If you want to replace a gas boiler, you cannot do that anymore, it has to be electric. No more gas stoves as of 2032. etc" and apply to everyone.
This iteration just adds so much complexity to a simple problem and will clog everything up while Northwestern's lawyers grease the wheels
Also, don't get me started on the tree thing. Sure canopy coverage is good but when someone's tree is leaning over my garage and they want to take it down and the city says no, I'm honestly surprsied people haven't sued over that yet.
I don't disagree completely. I just think since the federal $ is still potentially on the table they should push forward. If that gets abandoned, then maybe go down that path you suggested. But there will have to be a lot of time and money by the city to come up wtih that which is why the federal dollars are important. It's not like the city has a bunch of time on their hands thanks to the disaster of EE45 and the proposed zoning changes and the horrible consultant they hired that they didn't do what they said they were going to. Evanston needs to come up with a way to actual make things happen instead of talking about it forever and paying consultants to not actually produce anything valuable. And this is coming from me, a consultant.
1. The City's approach to environmentalism is nuts. Setting aside the fact that I am under the very strong impression that the City staff doesn't want to be there, it is a big reason why you get such eye-popping numbers for the renovation/upkeep of the Civic Center and why the City is paying rent downtown Evanston. Same for the Noyes Center.
2. Anything that depends on/relies on federal grant money should be looked at with a very skeptical eye. The last month should tell us that we can't count on the Trump Administration to honor anything.
100% agreed. If you try to turn the civic center into Apple Park from an environmental perspective, you're going to break the bank. Having such a draconian ordinance in a small city only hurts Evanstonians. We make no significant impact on global emissions, but our performative nonsense will hurt real people who just want use their radiators in their 100 year old apartment building.
Performative Evanston is going to perform. Biss didn't have my vote last election and he won't have it this time either. I want leaders who share and reflect the ideals they tell their constituents they have and stand by them. Too many secret shenanigans going on here.
Backroom deals by Biss Nieuwsma, Stowe, and Devon Reed, none of them with law degrees, led to my group’s Most Livable City Association, lawsuit. No transparency. No fiscal responsibility from Biss.
I agree the HBO is half baked-too many unknowns, too discretionary, too one sided.
Even though I am a small landlord and this will not apply to me (yet?) this ordinance will upset the entire Evanston housing market of currently affordable "missing middle"housing because:
1. As you point out, higher costs will raise rents or condo assessment fees in the buildings to which it applies. New build housing may be able to afford this but older, currently affordable buildings won't be able to absorb the cost.
2. This could lead to a decrease in the value of the buildings because any new owner will have to absorb the very high costs of conversion.
3. This could also lead to an exodus from these buildings, with tenants/condo owners looking to smaller buildings. This competition could lead to higher rents and purchase prices in smaller buildings.
You don't pass an ordinance and then try to figure out what you really mean to do and what the ramifications are. That makes the ordinance arbitrary and discretionary, two things you never want in a law.
Yeah, I actually don't hate the idea of the HBO in general, there are some compelling things about it but at the bare minimum the ordinance needs to have the actual rules in it instead of determined by some future un-elected committee staffed by god knows who.
But Tom, this is how NY passed their ordinance. Evanston's is nothing new or extroidinary. After the initial approval it took them 2 years to establish the committee, determine the timilines and the fees. And then they have until 2050 to meet the full set of targets. The first target is going to be "do an energy study, implement some measures" It's not going to cost owners a ton of money.
hahaha another study? How many people online constantly B**** about the number of studies we do. If you don't have an oridinance, it's not enforceable. And organizations like NU will definitely not do anything. Look at all the money they are throwing behind Biss' campaign and the Ryan Field deal and now joining in with the city against MLCA's lawsuit regarding the zoning changes. They have a $15B endowment. If this thing isn't enforcemable, you know they and others, won't do squat. Also not doing the ordinance disqualifies the city from the $10M from the government. The city has already said if that money doesn't come through they'll cancel the whole thing.
Yeah, I wasn't saying "do the study", I was just saying if they want to do a study, they shouldn't pass an ordinance to do it. I would suggest they not do any more studies, until the read the last few ones they've had done.
I hear you, but then why not just make it tied to zoning? Make large commercial and university zones subject to the ordinance and exclude residential. I just don't see the upside here to having strong enforcement mechanism against 18 unit apartment buildings.
They talked about this last night, and Devon Reid was beating the drum on this but the current language of this ordinance gives Northwestern a lot of wiggle room to fight for exemptions, particularly the carve outs they have for non-profits. Even if they do pass this, the worst case scenario is Northwestern litigates themselves an exemption while we all pay!
I think if they tied it to zoning, it would make NU more likely to cry that they are being singled out. If it's an ordinance based on all the buildings above 50,000 sf they have less of an argument against targeting and discrimination. I think NU should not be given wiggle room, they should tighten that language right away. They are responsible for 30% of the property in Evanston, they should have to upgrade their facilities. And Evanston Hopistal and Trinity and the large churches will have to comply. They need to remove the NP loop holes otherwise it's worthless.
This is unbelievable. I also lived in that area about a decade ago in one of the courtyard buildings, paying a very cheap (3 figure) rent for a 1bedroom w/ dining room. These buildings aren't set up to have ductwork run everywhere for HVAC, and it's going to end up with teardowns instead of special assessments. I wouldn't be surprised if mansions ended up being built there instead, which would make the anti-population increase crowd quite happy.
Biss keeps talking out of both sides of his mouth again. This does nothing for affordable housing or increasing the population which is the driver of the re-zoning, right? Also, if we are trying to help the environment, how does tearing down single family homes for re-zoning help? This ordinance might also lead to more tear downs as someone else mentioned too. All of his initiatives contradict each other.
How can we fight against this? This ordinance will absolutely price my small family out of Evanston. If we show up to the council meeting tonight, is there any hope of stopping this ordinance from passing? Should we be emailing the Council administration?
Staff did an extraordinarily bad job of explaining this at the Council meeting a few weeks ago. Starting with the outright hostility and refusing to discuss the difference between net zero, zero onsite emissions and carbon neutral - the idea that you need to attend university level courses to even have a discussion about these concepts. The unbridled optimism that the federal government will follow through on giving the city $10M in grant money. The chippiness with Daniel Biss cutting off NU's Dave Davis during public comment. The inability of staff to give ANY ballpark figure on what this could cost the city. But my personal favorite in this mess was city staff's analogy of shooting for the moon, not being able to reach the moon, so you "land among the stars."
And, this is just one more poorly conceived project, like Envision Evanston 2045, where Daniel Biss has used an outside consulting firm with no clue about the character and population diversity of our community. Your analysis of the cost per square foot is mind boggling.
I've also learned the affordable housing project at 1915-1917 Grant Street is not underway yet. The contract was awarded last year to Wally Was, which was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Neighbors are complaining the property is overgrown, is not being maintained and that there is a problem with rodents.
Also on the agenda tonight is a vote on awarding a 40 year contract to Celedon for a boutique hotel, restaurant, wedding venue site at the derelict Harley Clarke Mansion overlooking Lighthouse Beach. I have expressed my opinion to Councilwoman Eleanor Revelle, 7th Ward. It was not positive.
I've learned from Clare Kelly the Morton Civic Center might be a designated National Trust for Historic Preservation site and our Preservation Committee wants to make it a historic site.
Apparently some folks here believe that reduction of CO2 emissions has important environmental benefits. That seems doubtful. Tom, is it acceptable for me to post some relevant URL's?
A good place to start for actual technical information is Judith Curry's site at https://judithcurry.com/. She's former head of the "Earth & Atmospheric Sciences" dep't at Georgia Tech. CO2 Coalition (https://co2coalition.org/) provides "information about the vital role carbon dioxide plays in our environment." Climate Depot at https://www.climatedepot.com calls itself "an ombudsman of media eco-reporting," with a particular point of view. There are lots more which are not hard to find thru these.
As the saying goes, "97% of scientists agree with whoever is funding them. The other 3% were banned from social media." For an illustration of what those 3% face, one might want to watch or listen tohttps://odysee.com/@corbettreport:0/ep427-timball:7
There are real environmental problems we need to deal with (such as glyphosate and PFAS), but imho carbon is not one of them.
I think there is probably no way to attribute severe weather events and a lot of the breathless reporting on that is bullshit, but just from a sheer physics standpoint = more carbon -> more heat trapped. Yeah sure, plants benefit from that but it will result in significant changes in the distribution of resources, caused by changing coastlines, rainfall patterns, etc.
As someone who works in the energy sector, I'm actually pretty optimistic. I think that technology will eventually get control of the carbon cycle, and we'll look back at the era of when we dumped carbon into the sky as stupid. There's no physical reason why we can't combine carbon capture/removal with processes to convert it to back to fuel as a useful hydrocarbon (natural gas). I think it's just about finding the right combination of technologies to do this in an efficient manner. Vaclav Smil (Bill Gates' favorite writer) has a great book on this.
I appreciated that bit about Biss’ new found ‘updates from the council’ that he decided to start weeks before the election. (If you want to share what’s going on, why haven’t you been doing this all along, Dan?)
I was a supporter of Biss initially but this thing, the Envision Evanston stuff, etc….: it all is about building trendy sounding stuff for his resume that he can use to parlay into an assistant Secretary gig in the next Democratic administration.
It makes me more and more likely I’ll vote for Jeff.
I'm for Jeff. He has a campaign office near Bennison's on Davis. We do not need any more of the extraordinary expense of outside consultants for projects that are poorly thought out and detrimental to the unique character of our community. Remember the search for a new city manager - They ended up with Luke Stowe, who was the IT Manager. There's also the extraordinary legal fees incurred in the last 4 years, including the lawsuit by Most Livable City concerning concerts at Ryan Field. The LUC voted against the concerts. Biss did not care. And there is a wrongful termination lawsuit: https://www.foiagras.com/p/bird-v-evanston-legal-fallout-from
This is why I’m not enthusiastic about Jeff. I really don’t care one way or another about the stadium but I think it is fine that they are going to have concerts there. The more they use the place to bring in people spending money, great.
The Bird lawsuit and the city manager search are part of the same source: Equity Army and the Same Thirty People pushing narrow NIMBY views to intimidate the council.
The first round of the manager search the city brought in weak candidates whose main attraction was that they ticked an identity box. In subsequent rounds when they brought in more serious people, The Same Thirty People objected because… equity.
The Bird lawsuit is actually the place where Biss has handled himself well. Birds claims are so ridiculous that they will never hold up in court. Complete birdshit.
I think Biss has generally done a good job at keeping the Same Thirty People and ridiculous council members like Devon Reid at bay.
The one thing I am worried about with regard to Jeff is that the Same Thirty People and Reid-wannabes are lining up behind him.
Now this May be part of their anti-everything disposition (I’m old enough to remember them lining up behind Steve Haggerty because Mark Tendam was too status-quo)
But we will see.
I can assure you I am not aligned with the Real Housewives of D65 Facebook Group or wackadoodle Reid. That said, I am ready for change and Jeff represents that wholesale. Not everyone who doesn’t like Biss is a rabid equity army private. Folks should visit Jeff’s office or website and think about if what is going on now makes sense, or if we need change. I think the latter.
The concerts at Ryan Field are Dillo Day times 3: Superior Ambulance, fentanyl testing strips, Narcan, The LUC opposed the concerts.
He might try to run for Senate in 2026 if Durbin retires. Durbin is 80.
He's more likley to take Jan's seat. He's been eyeing that for years. He won't even officially commit to not running for it and leaving Evanston before his term is up. What good does that do us?
Jan hasn't been looking very good lately, I have to wonder if this is her last term. Biss would be in a strong position to run for her seat while he's the Mayor and has that platform.
Thanks for reminding everyone that electrification is not the same as de-carbonization! (This also includes electric cars I’m afraid.) Do electric boilers even have the BTUs to heat large buildings in the IL cold? Heat pumps are still not up to the job, a big problem to moving away from natural gas for single family homes. I too lived in courtyard buildings in SE Evanston. It is impossible to think these are easy to retrofit. It’s all just another “let’s do ___ and all feel good we did something” rather than finding a legitimate solution. It seems to plague politics in this town.
Everyone is being very short sighted about this proposal. Heat pumps are capable of large commercial buildings and residential buildings because the mass of the building keeps more of the units/spaces warmer than a single family home. Where heat pumps struggle is when it's 0F or below for a single family home. ALSO - the final electrification component isn't required for 25 years. That's a lot of time for technology to improve. I follow a guy that is working right now and has prototypes in people's homes that use CO2 refrigerant for it's heat pump boiler and it's getting 180F so the technology is there and will be here well before 2050. Another point is that before 2050, all the equipment in every condo building in Evanston is going to be replaced. So this argument about the amount of money that will impact residents is really off. You have to look at what's called incremental costs. If replacing the condo building boiler is $100,000 they have to do that because it's old and failed. If they spend $125,000 to put a heat pump boiler in, the only added cost is $25,000 to the owners. It's a big difference.
Yeah I don't disagree with this, but I think the HBO is rats nest of bureaucracy. Two committees that will need to be staffed, a bunch of metrics and monitoring, and an entire rulemaking process. It feels like this ordinance is designed for a bunch of people to hit metrics and claim wins instead of being written for the people.
I think a simple law that just mandates new construction meets zero-carbon criteria and old buildings are grandfathered in, but if they need to replace their boilers, etc then they have to shift to electric would be sufficient?
The problem is that leaves 80% of Evanston buildings on the table with no requirements. Is it so bad to make them improve the efficiency of their building incrementally over time? That's what the purpose of the multi year plan is. 5 years from now, do an audit, make sure your lights are upgraded, start budgeting to replace your 20-50 year old windows. Budget to replace your HVAC systems. So that when those systems fail or 5-10 years later, you're ready. The whole HBO is to have a concrete plan in place for owners instead of them waiting to do anything 25 years from now and then going oh crap, we didn't plan or save money and then people really will be pissed. The committee part is there to create the plan and help owners execute it. It's not just about more unnecessary bureaucracy.
Sure, I don't think this current iteration gets you there, though. I have nothing against everything you just described. I feel this way about Evanston Tree Law too - like I absolutely think it's important to the character of the City to protect as many trees as possible. But the rules they put in place requiring permitting if you do anything 25 feet from a tree, requiring a visit from the Evanston tree cop, etc are expensive and increase the time/costs for everyone to do anything.
I think this can be vastly simpler - forget about all the metrics and monitoring and committees and (likely non-existent) federal grants and carve outs, etc. That's just more jobs for consultants. Just say "here's the new rules, they go into effect in 10,15 and 25 years and they impact everyone, even single family homes. If you want to replace a gas boiler, you cannot do that anymore, it has to be electric. No more gas stoves as of 2032. etc" and apply to everyone.
This iteration just adds so much complexity to a simple problem and will clog everything up while Northwestern's lawyers grease the wheels
Also, don't get me started on the tree thing. Sure canopy coverage is good but when someone's tree is leaning over my garage and they want to take it down and the city says no, I'm honestly surprsied people haven't sued over that yet.
I don't disagree completely. I just think since the federal $ is still potentially on the table they should push forward. If that gets abandoned, then maybe go down that path you suggested. But there will have to be a lot of time and money by the city to come up wtih that which is why the federal dollars are important. It's not like the city has a bunch of time on their hands thanks to the disaster of EE45 and the proposed zoning changes and the horrible consultant they hired that they didn't do what they said they were going to. Evanston needs to come up with a way to actual make things happen instead of talking about it forever and paying consultants to not actually produce anything valuable. And this is coming from me, a consultant.
And, once again, you are so valuable to Evanston.
Two thoughts:
1. The City's approach to environmentalism is nuts. Setting aside the fact that I am under the very strong impression that the City staff doesn't want to be there, it is a big reason why you get such eye-popping numbers for the renovation/upkeep of the Civic Center and why the City is paying rent downtown Evanston. Same for the Noyes Center.
2. Anything that depends on/relies on federal grant money should be looked at with a very skeptical eye. The last month should tell us that we can't count on the Trump Administration to honor anything.
I'm still mad about Tree Law causing them to kill some woodpeckers on my street!!!
I’m pretty sure they aren’t dead. I’m pretty sure they are in my attic.
Or they went over the rainbow due to bird flu
100% agreed. If you try to turn the civic center into Apple Park from an environmental perspective, you're going to break the bank. Having such a draconian ordinance in a small city only hurts Evanstonians. We make no significant impact on global emissions, but our performative nonsense will hurt real people who just want use their radiators in their 100 year old apartment building.
Hope we can count on the Trump administration to defund those "nonprofits" that seem to be behind this.
Congress should do this! Impoundment should not allow executive branches to stop paying things they just don't like.
Yes, Congress should do this.
Performative Evanston is going to perform. Biss didn't have my vote last election and he won't have it this time either. I want leaders who share and reflect the ideals they tell their constituents they have and stand by them. Too many secret shenanigans going on here.
Backroom deals by Biss Nieuwsma, Stowe, and Devon Reed, none of them with law degrees, led to my group’s Most Livable City Association, lawsuit. No transparency. No fiscal responsibility from Biss.
I agree the HBO is half baked-too many unknowns, too discretionary, too one sided.
Even though I am a small landlord and this will not apply to me (yet?) this ordinance will upset the entire Evanston housing market of currently affordable "missing middle"housing because:
1. As you point out, higher costs will raise rents or condo assessment fees in the buildings to which it applies. New build housing may be able to afford this but older, currently affordable buildings won't be able to absorb the cost.
2. This could lead to a decrease in the value of the buildings because any new owner will have to absorb the very high costs of conversion.
3. This could also lead to an exodus from these buildings, with tenants/condo owners looking to smaller buildings. This competition could lead to higher rents and purchase prices in smaller buildings.
You don't pass an ordinance and then try to figure out what you really mean to do and what the ramifications are. That makes the ordinance arbitrary and discretionary, two things you never want in a law.
Yeah, I actually don't hate the idea of the HBO in general, there are some compelling things about it but at the bare minimum the ordinance needs to have the actual rules in it instead of determined by some future un-elected committee staffed by god knows who.
But Tom, this is how NY passed their ordinance. Evanston's is nothing new or extroidinary. After the initial approval it took them 2 years to establish the committee, determine the timilines and the fees. And then they have until 2050 to meet the full set of targets. The first target is going to be "do an energy study, implement some measures" It's not going to cost owners a ton of money.
But you don't need an ordinance to do those things! Just have the city do a study
hahaha another study? How many people online constantly B**** about the number of studies we do. If you don't have an oridinance, it's not enforceable. And organizations like NU will definitely not do anything. Look at all the money they are throwing behind Biss' campaign and the Ryan Field deal and now joining in with the city against MLCA's lawsuit regarding the zoning changes. They have a $15B endowment. If this thing isn't enforcemable, you know they and others, won't do squat. Also not doing the ordinance disqualifies the city from the $10M from the government. The city has already said if that money doesn't come through they'll cancel the whole thing.
Yeah, I wasn't saying "do the study", I was just saying if they want to do a study, they shouldn't pass an ordinance to do it. I would suggest they not do any more studies, until the read the last few ones they've had done.
I hear you, but then why not just make it tied to zoning? Make large commercial and university zones subject to the ordinance and exclude residential. I just don't see the upside here to having strong enforcement mechanism against 18 unit apartment buildings.
They talked about this last night, and Devon Reid was beating the drum on this but the current language of this ordinance gives Northwestern a lot of wiggle room to fight for exemptions, particularly the carve outs they have for non-profits. Even if they do pass this, the worst case scenario is Northwestern litigates themselves an exemption while we all pay!
I think if they tied it to zoning, it would make NU more likely to cry that they are being singled out. If it's an ordinance based on all the buildings above 50,000 sf they have less of an argument against targeting and discrimination. I think NU should not be given wiggle room, they should tighten that language right away. They are responsible for 30% of the property in Evanston, they should have to upgrade their facilities. And Evanston Hopistal and Trinity and the large churches will have to comply. They need to remove the NP loop holes otherwise it's worthless.
This is unbelievable. I also lived in that area about a decade ago in one of the courtyard buildings, paying a very cheap (3 figure) rent for a 1bedroom w/ dining room. These buildings aren't set up to have ductwork run everywhere for HVAC, and it's going to end up with teardowns instead of special assessments. I wouldn't be surprised if mansions ended up being built there instead, which would make the anti-population increase crowd quite happy.
Biss keeps talking out of both sides of his mouth again. This does nothing for affordable housing or increasing the population which is the driver of the re-zoning, right? Also, if we are trying to help the environment, how does tearing down single family homes for re-zoning help? This ordinance might also lead to more tear downs as someone else mentioned too. All of his initiatives contradict each other.
How can we fight against this? This ordinance will absolutely price my small family out of Evanston. If we show up to the council meeting tonight, is there any hope of stopping this ordinance from passing? Should we be emailing the Council administration?
The quickest and easiest is to just email your Alderperson!
Staff did an extraordinarily bad job of explaining this at the Council meeting a few weeks ago. Starting with the outright hostility and refusing to discuss the difference between net zero, zero onsite emissions and carbon neutral - the idea that you need to attend university level courses to even have a discussion about these concepts. The unbridled optimism that the federal government will follow through on giving the city $10M in grant money. The chippiness with Daniel Biss cutting off NU's Dave Davis during public comment. The inability of staff to give ANY ballpark figure on what this could cost the city. But my personal favorite in this mess was city staff's analogy of shooting for the moon, not being able to reach the moon, so you "land among the stars."
Shoot for the moon, fly directly into the sun
And, this is just one more poorly conceived project, like Envision Evanston 2045, where Daniel Biss has used an outside consulting firm with no clue about the character and population diversity of our community. Your analysis of the cost per square foot is mind boggling.
I've also learned the affordable housing project at 1915-1917 Grant Street is not underway yet. The contract was awarded last year to Wally Was, which was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Neighbors are complaining the property is overgrown, is not being maintained and that there is a problem with rodents.
Also on the agenda tonight is a vote on awarding a 40 year contract to Celedon for a boutique hotel, restaurant, wedding venue site at the derelict Harley Clarke Mansion overlooking Lighthouse Beach. I have expressed my opinion to Councilwoman Eleanor Revelle, 7th Ward. It was not positive.
Stay tuned for who gets to redevelop the current City Hall location
I've learned from Clare Kelly the Morton Civic Center might be a designated National Trust for Historic Preservation site and our Preservation Committee wants to make it a historic site.
Apparently some folks here believe that reduction of CO2 emissions has important environmental benefits. That seems doubtful. Tom, is it acceptable for me to post some relevant URL's?
Sure - fire away. I'll probably comment if I think you're wrong lol
A good place to start for actual technical information is Judith Curry's site at https://judithcurry.com/. She's former head of the "Earth & Atmospheric Sciences" dep't at Georgia Tech. CO2 Coalition (https://co2coalition.org/) provides "information about the vital role carbon dioxide plays in our environment." Climate Depot at https://www.climatedepot.com calls itself "an ombudsman of media eco-reporting," with a particular point of view. There are lots more which are not hard to find thru these.
As the saying goes, "97% of scientists agree with whoever is funding them. The other 3% were banned from social media." For an illustration of what those 3% face, one might want to watch or listen tohttps://odysee.com/@corbettreport:0/ep427-timball:7
There are real environmental problems we need to deal with (such as glyphosate and PFAS), but imho carbon is not one of them.
I don't know, man. Just from a sheer physics point of view, increasing carbon from 320ppm to 450ppm is going to have an impact.
https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png
I think there is probably no way to attribute severe weather events and a lot of the breathless reporting on that is bullshit, but just from a sheer physics standpoint = more carbon -> more heat trapped. Yeah sure, plants benefit from that but it will result in significant changes in the distribution of resources, caused by changing coastlines, rainfall patterns, etc.
As someone who works in the energy sector, I'm actually pretty optimistic. I think that technology will eventually get control of the carbon cycle, and we'll look back at the era of when we dumped carbon into the sky as stupid. There's no physical reason why we can't combine carbon capture/removal with processes to convert it to back to fuel as a useful hydrocarbon (natural gas). I think it's just about finding the right combination of technologies to do this in an efficient manner. Vaclav Smil (Bill Gates' favorite writer) has a great book on this.