Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Damon Motz-Storey
Audio sounds great.
Mitch Green
Awesome.
Damon Motz-Storey
Mind if I test out the screen share?
Mitch Green
Yeah, go for it.
Damon Motz-Storey
Great.
Okay, that's working.
Claire
It's getting there.
Candace Avalos
Hasn't started yet.
Okay.
Uh, I see your Zoom, uh, login page.
Mitch Green
Is that the page you were intending to show?
Candace Avalos
Oh, there, that looks better.
Mitch Green
It's a slide deck, but it's not at full screen.
Damon Motz-Storey
How about now?
Claire
Beautiful, perfect.
Damon Motz-Storey
Okay, great.
I'm gonna stop sharing and I'll come back to it one more time.
Sounds great, thank you.
Okay, good afternoon.
Candace Avalos
I am going to call the meeting I now call the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee to order on Tuesday, October 20th, at 2:01 PM.
Diego, please call the roll.
Diego
Good afternoon.
Green?
Mitch Green
Here.
Diego
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Diego
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Diego
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
Claire
Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon and welcome to the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at portland.gov/council/agenda/housingandpermittingcommittee or by calling 311.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should address the matter being considered.
When testifying, state your name for the record.
If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Claire.
We have 2 main items on today's agenda.
We'll start off as we always do with some public comments on housing and permitting issues of concern or interest, and then we will have ample time for public testimony and discussion on the climate and health standards policy.
But before we get to those items, we need to adopt climate our committee minutes.
Uh, and so let's see, we are approving our committee minutes for our September meetings, and they are approved by unanimous consent.
So are there any objections?
Seeing none, minutes are approved.
Diego, please read item 2.
Diego
Item 2, document number 2026-376, Housing and Permitting Community Feedback.
Candace Avalos
Great, we will, um, take some feedback from community on issues related to housing and permitting.
So, uh, go ahead and call up our testifiers.
Diego
We have 3 individuals signed up.
Lacey Sutton, Brian Owendoff, Amber Cook.
Candace Avalos
Welcome.
Mitch Green
Go ahead.
I once asked an expert if a tree on our property, a 125-foot-tall, 50-inch-wide Douglas fir was more likely to fall away from the damage Habitat for Humanity did to its critical root system during construction, or toward it?
Away from our houses or toward them?
And I will never forget his response.
He asked me, do you like going to Vegas?
And I said no.
And he said, me neither.
The city of Portland, though, likes going to Vegas.
Habitat likes going to Vegas.
Thank you.
Likes betting on our lives, on our children's lives.
They both know we don't have the resources to take them on in court.
They know that will change if that tree falls toward the damage they caused and allowed, especially after I've been making such a fuss about it.
Over a year ago, I filed a code complaint.
I sent the city photos of the excavation and construction that occurred horrifically close to this tree.
You don't have to be an expert.
Thank you.
To see it, but they sent out an inspector, said the tree was fine.
Does that sound familiar to you?
Wasn't there just a lawsuit that went something like this?
The city said it was fine, and then the tree fell on the house and nearly killed a child.
Did anybody learn anything from that, or did we just cut them a check?
I set up my phone on the ground near our tree on Thursday night, which was a little windy.
And I sent the video I took to the highly qualified arborist who was doing a risk assessment for us.
I asked if it was normal for the ground to move like that.
He told me this tree's likelihood of failure is imminent, not just possible or probable.
Imminent.
In the arbor— arboricultural world, that word means it could fall over at any minute.
Oh, my God.
Emergency removal is required now, and it's going to be expensive because the tree is so close to the house.
They might need a crane or 2.
We may have to evacuate.
Do you have any idea how that might disrupt our lives?
Where are we going to go?
A hotel for a day or 2?
We can't afford to pay for this, and I'm not going to waste my time explaining that.
We shouldn't have to pay for it.
This is on Habitat, and it's on the city.
And I don't even care how you want to split the bill.
I don't care where the money comes from, so long as it's not our wallets, our dinner tables, our gas tanks, our medicine cabinets.
I've done enough figuring this out.
It's your turn now.
Figure this out for us today.
Kids are going to be getting off the bus in an hour, and the arborist said he wouldn't even park his car near that tree.
Thank you.
10 children will sleep under it tonight in a building he assured me this tree would slice in half.
But hey, it's like a 50/50 chance, and maybe it falls away, you know.
So like heads or tails, you know.
I'm gonna see you guys tomorrow.
Jonathan Clay
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Lacey.
Brian Owendoff
My name is Brian Owendoff.
I'm a District 4 resident, business owner, and commercial real estate professional with more than 30 years of experience.
Since 2008, I've delivered $1.5 billion of office, apartment, and mixed-use developments in Portland's urban core and have completed more than 5 million feet of office leasing over my career.
I understand what attracts investment and what drives it away.
Portland has an income problem and a jobs problem, yet City Hall keeps proposing new mandates that makes doing business more expensive.
For the past 20 months, the Peacocks has operated as a bad idea factory, churning out DSA and ACLU-backed policy experiments that do virtually nothing to address Portland's most urgent problems: public safety, homelessness, untreated mental illness, economic decline, and the deteriorating quality of life for all Portland residents.
Instead of governing, you've prioritized ideological posturing over practical solutions and political agendas over the needs of the people who elected you.
Instead of governing, you've prioritized ideological posturing.
This 2026-377 legislation is among the most reckless yet.
Its potential economic damage threatens to surpass even the harm inflicted by your previous parade of disastrous policies.
Portland's businesses are struggling.
Investment is fleeing.
Employers are reconsidering their future here, and taxpayers are increasingly being asked to subsidize the consequences of your failures.
How many businesses must leave?
How many jobs must disappear?
How much more investment must Portland lose before this council accepts responsibility for the damage it's causing?
Portland does not need another ideological experiment designed to satisfy political activists.
It needs competent leadership, fiscal discipline, public safety, and policies grounded on economic reality.
Your job is to govern for all Portlanders, not to use the city as a laboratory for the DSA's political agenda.
Stop manufacturing problems.
Stop punishing the people who create jobs and generate tax revenue and start fixing the city you have been entrusted to lead.
Thank you.
Damon Motz-Storey
Thank you.
Diego
Amber is online.
Amber, you're welcome to unmute and begin when you're ready.
Amber Cook
Great, thank you.
Greetings, committee members.
My name is Amber Cook.
I'm here with some testimony on the recurring misconduct of our housing authority leaders.
Last month, Andrea Bell, the director of the state housing agency, was exposed for misconduct and ethics violations.
She neglected to disclose that she is married this whole time and that her husband works in housing development, running a company that her housing agency has awarded millions of dollars to.
A year ago, Maggie Harris sat on the Housing Stability Council and repeatedly voted yes on giving the architecture firm she works for 4 different lucrative housing contracts with no disclosure until a member of the public watching those meetings exposed her.
Our city housing officials are highly paid and also fired or removed very expensively on our backs, even when misconduct is involved.
As we all know, you know, this year with Ivory Matthews, CEO of Home Forward, forced to step down after being exposed for abusing taxpayer money and disability discrimination, right?
She left with $171,000 severance plus another $500,000 in career— $50,000, excuse me, in career transition services.
That's $220,000 we taxpayers paid for her abusing us above her $343,000 yearly salary, along with car allowance, and of course the $100K or more she stole from us for vacations she didn't have to pay back.
OJEC opened an investigation on Maggie Harris, but she was only issued a warning letter.
It's disturbing that we taxpayers are burdened with paying them so much of our money for salaries that have mysteriously skyrocketed each and every year in the last decade, while riding atop a 14-year housing crisis that is only getting substantially worse every single year.
To see how much misconduct is occurring unchecked and unpunished is also disturbing, and worse knowing we will again be footing the shockingly large bill for their safety nets.
How much will Bell get for her knowing violations that have been enriching her household unethically for the last 2 to 3 years?
What chance is there that there is no link between the degree of misconduct being allowed and the length and the severity of the housing crisis?
How is it Portlanders are told that we lack money in the budget for basic services, but somehow there's yet another golden parachute for the next criminal director or CEO of housing?
Thank you.
Salaries, they do need to be reconsidered.
Golden parachutes eliminated.
Misconduct punished.
And I hope this committee will call for it even stronger at the city level.
Thank you.
Diego
That concludes testimony.
Candace Avalos
Thank you for your time and sharing, um, your comments with us.
Let's get some follow-up on some of those if you want to reach out to my office.
Okay, so, oh yeah, go ahead and call the next item, please.
Diego
Item 3, document number 2026-377, Climate and Health Standard.
Add climate and health standards for building codes to reduce carbon emissions of commercial and multifamily residential buildings and provide information to tenants to improve the affordability, health, and resilience of rental housing, replace Code Chapter 17.104.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
That's a mouthful.
Appreciate you, Diego.
Um, all right, so colleagues, we are moving forward with our next step in the process of considering code changes to adopt the climate and health standards for large buildings in Portland.
This is an exciting policy because it tackles multiple problems with rental housing at once: a lack of information about a building's energy use and cost burden for tenants considering applying to rent a unit, And the huge cumulative impact of pollution emitted by Portland buildings due to combustion of fossil fuels and wood on site for heating.
By adopting the climate and health standards, we can solve both of these issues at the same time.
We can create an environment where Portlanders breathe clean air that is unpolluted by the appliances in large commercial and residential buildings.
We can make it so that renters know upfront before signing a lease how much to budget for their energy bills and whether a unit has air conditioning.
This is essential information in our current affordability crisis.
Electricity bills in Portland have risen by 50% on average over the past 5 years, outpacing inflation.
This is also essential information for all of us living in a climate crisis.
Climate change is making it so that extreme heat events happen increasingly often, such as the 2021 heat dome that tragically claimed the lives of dozens and dozens of our community members, many of whom many of whom were at home and without cooling.
A whopping 42% of our city's carbon footprint comes from heating, cooling, and powering buildings.
By reducing allowed emissions gradually over time, we can help ensure that our city meets its climate emergency work plan goals and successfully achieves zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
These are important housing policy issues.
It is up to us to do our part and target the emissions that we cannot impact by making different choices in our everyday lives.
Our constituents are looking to us to make sure that everyone does their fair share to address our city's contribution to climate change.
And everything that we do matters.
Lowering emissions means better weather outcomes long-term, and many of the same solutions that lower greenhouse gas emissions also make us better prepared to survive and thrive amidst increasing extreme weather.
The state of Oregon has passed policy requiring our 2 biggest electric utilities to be emissions-free by 2040, and the state has passed building performance standards that help address commercial buildings 20,000 square feet and larger.
And residential buildings 35,000 square feet and larger.
But we have heard from our experts at the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability that the state policies don't go far enough to address pollution from Portland buildings.
Our climate and health standards would cover about 40% of Portland's building sector emissions, making a substantial dent in the sector where all hands are on deck are needed between large building owners and small-scale property owners.
We spent a good deal of our time at our Housing and Permitting Committee meeting on October 6th, earlier this month, learning about the history of this policy proposal, 6 years in the making with extensive community engagement throughout the process.
We also had a chance to ask questions and hear from experts near and far about how we landed at this particular approach and how other cities with building standards have dealt with it, such as Seattle, New York, Boston, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Now it is time to dig back into this policy, get a refresher on what it does, how we got here, and hear from the public about their current thoughts on the proposal.
And then we will move to public testimony.
I'll note for members of the public that we will be limiting testimony to 2 minutes per person since we have over 40 people signed up to testify, so we can make sure to get through all of that in this meeting.
And then we'll have an opportunity to discuss the policy as councilors on this committee.
I will also hand out some documents here, um, for the committee members in a moment.
So to kick us off, I am excited to announce my newest team member, Damon Mott Story, our Director of Policy and Communications, to ground our discussion in where we have been so far.
So Damon, take it away.
Damon Motz-Storey
Thank you so much, Councilor Avalos.
Claire
Can you hear me okay?
Candace Avalos
Can we put up the volume in the chambers?
Try again.
Damon Motz-Storey
Testing, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
That sound all right?
Candace Avalos
Okay, one more time, Damon.
Damon Motz-Storey
Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Can you hear me all right?
Candace Avalos
Much better.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Andy Mason
Good afternoon.
Damon Motz-Storey
It's wonderful to be with you all.
For the record, my name is Damon Mott Storey, um, and I am here to present a quick recap on the climate and health standards.
I'm going to share my screen.
Right, here we go.
All right, so the climate and health standards, as Councilor Avalos was sharing with us, were shared in greater detail on October 6th.
I'm going to take us through just a quick recap of the policy and that discussion, and we'll go through real quick here so we can get to the testimony.
Thank you.
So, uh, part 1, the problem.
What are we actually trying to solve?
Let's get into it.
So large buildings in Portland are a major source of pollution and carbon emissions.
They're a combined total of 42% of the city of Portland's emissions, and 16% of the city's emissions come from large buildings alone.
It's not just carbon pollution that we're solving for here, it's also air pollution.
Buildings make up cumulative a really large source of indoor and outdoor nitrogen oxide pollution.
So solving for greenhouse gas emissions in this equation also solves for a public health issue that impacts Portlanders regardless of where they live.
Breaking it down a little bit, the reason for this is that building energy use is currently a mix of a whole lot of different things.
So it's electricity, of course, and that electricity is powered by both renewables and fossil fuels, a big mix of electricity from Pacific Power and Portland General Electric.
In some buildings, there's still things like oil and wood burning that is used for energy use.
And then a lot of buildings also rely on gas appliances, furnaces, hot water heaters, etc., that also vent to the outdoor air and contribute to greenhouse gas and air pollution.
So this is the energy mix of buildings right now.
Our dream and our vision for 2050 is that Portland buildings are powered by 100% emissions-free electricity, and that's because Oregon law requires Pacific Power and Portland General Electric to switch to 100% emissions-free electricity by 2040.
And then with the climate and health standards, we would gradually, gradually move towards reducing emissions in large buildings in Portland and ensure that the electricity that they're powered by comes from those renewable sources.
Another large part of the problem is that energy costs for rentals are not transparent, and we're in the midst of a really historic affordability crisis.
Now, as we heard a little bit ago, both of our major electric utilities have increased rates by a very large amount over the past 5 years that has outpaced inflation.
In just this one example, Oregon Citizens Utility Board spokesperson Charlotte Schuff was sharing it with OPB earlier this year, that there's been a nearly 50% increase between 2021 and 2025 for PGE alone.
So these costs are really stacking up.
And as we heard at the committee hearing on October 6th, Taryn Evans from the Coalition of Communities of Color reminded us that in many of the workshops around energy burden and cost, that they heard about tough choices that many communities community members face, such as choosing to pay energy bills or for medication and groceries.
These are choices that people should never have to choose between.
And so by, you know, making these costs more transparent and allowing people to plan and prepare and also know about the utility bill assistance programs, we can help to solve this issue and, and solve the problem of energy burden.
We've heard a little bit also about Oregon's building performance standards, a law passed in 2023 that addresses building performance and energy efficiency statewide.
Now, this is a pretty busy slide that I'm not going to go super in-depth on, but you can check out the Oregon Department of Energy's website for this graphic and more information.
The bottom line here is that the state standard only covers commercial buildings over 20,000 square feet and residential buildings over 35,000 square feet.
Okay.
And that leaves a significant amount of Portland's building emissions uncovered.
We heard from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability on October 6th that that would only get at about 5% of the carbon emissions from Portland's covered buildings, but that our climate and health standards, if passed, would cover about 40% of Portland's building sector emissions.
So this helps to fill in the gaps, which brings me to the solution, right?
So this So, this was the problem.
Now, the climate and health solution— climate and health standards are the solution.
And let's take a look at what that means.
The ordinance itself does sort of 3 broad category issues: multifamily residential annual energy reporting, adding residential buildings to the already existing standard for commercial annual energy reporting for buildings.
And that just means that we are tracking the data much better for what our large buildings are doing and how much energy they're consuming and from what sources.
The ordinance also sets minimum carbon performance standards, and that's the mechanism by which we actually track reducing emissions from large buildings down to zero.
And then the climate and health information and transparency for tenants, and this is about disclosing energy costs up front so that people can make informed decisions.
About whether to rent an apartment based on its energy mix and cost.
Let's get into that for— that one first.
So the idea behind this is that we want to be able to make it a standard for Portlanders to expect that there's clear and transparent information about the costs of a potential unit that they are going to rent.
So the ordinance will require building owners to track and disclose the energy cost peaks and averages for units' utility bills, what kinds of energy cost assistance programs are available.
These programs have expanded significantly over the past 5 years, and so there is a lot of support for folks that are struggling to pay utility bills, but often people just don't even know that that support exists.
And then the other piece of information disclosed will be the types of appliances in the unit, such as whether a unit has central air conditioning or some form of cooling, and whether the unit has a gas furnace, electric heat pump, etc.
And these kinds of pieces of information will help tenants to be able to make informed decisions about what kinds of energy use is in their apartment and how much it costs.
The carbon performance standards mean that we're going to be on a gradual and, and very realistic timeline from now to 2050 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from large buildings.
Owners can select a baseline reporting year that works for them.
There's a lot of flexibility and a lot of options for alternative compliance pathways that help to meet the unique needs of different types of buildings and building owners.
But the basic gist of all of this is that we want everybody to be on the same track for reducing emissions to 100% emissions-free and here you can see the ways that that's been split out, starting in 20% reductions in 2030 and then an additional 20% every 5 years.
And again, the reason that this works is that we are counting on the state law for PGE and Pacific Power to deliver 100% emissions-free electricity by 2040.
That's an essential component of this.
Another component of this, as I was Uh, thank you.
So, the first thing I was mentioning is that we have phased flexible timeline with plenty of alternatives and options for compliances— options for compliance.
And, uh, and, and there's a couple of different broad category things here.
Regulated affordable housing is exempt, and we're seeing that a lot of that is already being covered by Portland Clean Energy Fund grants and other types of programs.
So those buildings are already becoming very green and clean.
And then there's there's a carbon pollution impact fee if a large building's energy usage is off track, and this helps to incentivize the kinds of upgrades and retrofits that we want to see in order to get emissions reductions.
There are alternative compliance pathways for institutional campuses that have large shared energy systems, and so there are options and flexibility for compliance and special considerations for those kinds of energy users.
And basically, additional considerations and exemptions will be made on a case-by-case basis under the policy as written.
The idea here is that everybody's going to be headed towards 100% emissions reductions by 2050, but that there is a wide range of different kinds of buildings, ages, construction types, maybe upgrades that have already been made or deferred maintenance, and there's just a lot of different unique needs between different buildings.
And so the policy intentionally has a lot of flexibility to make it as easy as possible for all sorts of different types of building owners to comply.
A really important piece of feedback that was received over the many years of community engagement done by both the city and community-based organizations is that we heard pretty extensive Thank you.
Councilmember Herbold, I think you mentioned this extensively, that tenant protections and anti-displacement measures for renters was really paramount importance in this process.
It's important to focus on improving the health and efficiency of, of rental housing in Portland, but not at the expense of stability for renters.
And so the policy has a number of different guardrails and sideboards to make sure that tenants are kept in place and can stay at home.
And in the event that— in a very rare case in which a building upgrade would require temporary relocation for a tenant, there is extensive language in the ordinance that would help to make it very clear how to support that tenant, what the landlord's responsibility is if there is a need for a temporary relocation, a guarantee of a right to return to the same dwelling unit after those upgrades are complete, and also a whole other section that essentially just says the cost from the carbon performance standard retrofits and fees should not be passed on through to residential tenants.
And we also discussed at the October 6th meeting an Eco Northwest study that that was performed, taking a look at the possible economic impacts to building owners and renters, and it found that there would really be no net impact to the cost of rent and utilities.
For tenants in buildings that get upgraded.
Finally, just sort of zooming out a little bit, this is just a recap on the really extensive community engagement and collaborative policymaking that has gone into this ordinance so far.
There have been 60 different organizations that have been engaged in various ways, and that spans housing, industry, real estate, higher education, healthcare, and environmental justice.
To stakeholders.
There's been many multiple rounds of feedback and revision over the course of 6 years where the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability has worked collaboratively with a number of different community-based organizations that have worked on energy issues for a long time.
And then in addition to all of that, Councilor Avalos convened her own feedback and input workshop in preparation for this discussion.
So it's been a long road coming here, but now it's time for the City Council committee to really dig into it and, and discuss and make any other further observations that need to be made.
And I look forward to being a part of helping to answer questions as part of that conversation.
So that's my recap of the climate and health standards.
And with that, I will pass it back to you, Chair Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Thank you so much, Damon.
Really grateful to have you on the team and appreciate you explaining the policy.
So, um, we have a ton of testifiers.
I'm sure we also have some questions that we will have as a committee and maybe technical questions.
Are there any quick technical questions we want to get out of the way first, or do we want to move forward with testimony?
Vivek Shandas
Let me just get a—.
Candace Avalos
We're okay with moving forward?
Okay, well, in that case, uh, let's go ahead and jump on in.
Diego, go ahead and call the first panel.
Diego
Just a few reminders for our testifiers.
Those signed up to testify, each verbal testifier will receive 2 minutes each.
I will call up folks in groups of 5.
For those testifying in person, you'll see the timer countdown displayed on the monitor in front of the testimony table.
For those testifying virtually, the timer is displayed in Zoom.
When testifying, you'll hear the timer chime twice.
The first chime is a warning when there are 30 seconds left, and then a second is when your time is up.
And finally, before you begin your testimony, please state your name for the record.
First up, Vivek Shandas, Andrew Mason, Kaeleigh Sheehan, Greg Moawad, Jonathan Clay.
Vivek Shandas
Hey, hello, hello everyone.
I hope you can hear me.
Candace Avalos
We can hear you.
Vivek Shandas
Okay, great.
Hi, for the record, my name is Vivek Shandas.
Thank you, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
For the record, I— Vivek, I use he/him pronouns.
I'm co-chair of the Policy and Implementation Committee within the city's Sustainability and Climate Commission, here on behalf of the full commission.
On August 20th, the commission voted to endorse the climate and health standards after reviewing the code language section by section.
Our endorsement letter was in your packet at the October 6th committee meeting.
I want— I primarily want to respond to a few questions from the last meeting and why we continue to urge you to advance this policy.
First, on rental impacts.
As Damon noted, the Eco Northwest study looked at rent plus utilities and found no net impact on renters.
Most upgrades for multifamily residential developments come around 2040 to 2045, leaving ample time for implementation, and owners can draw on state energy trust and PSEF funding.
On affordable buildings, each building is measured against its own baseline.
That way, the worst-performing buildings, often the most affordable housing, don't have the— don't have to make the biggest jump in terms of meeting these standards.
Thank you.
On policy efficacy, in the city's pilot, reporting took a few hours in the first year and less than 2 hours after that.
Other cities settled the details, including hospitals and campuses, in rulemaking processes.
On tenant protections, the community asked for them.
Renters get key information before signing a lease and, and a lease plus relocation help and a right to return.
We see decarbonization and rent protection as one goal.
On leadership, the state standard would cut emissions from Portland's covered buildings by only about 5%, and it starts at 35,000 square feet, as Damon mentioned.
Portland's 20,000 square feet threshold reaches more of our housing and gets us closer to our emission reductions goals.
Something that's on the commission's mind, I, I would be remiss to not mention, is that the current proposal, uh, is that it does not include maximum indoor temperature standards.
Um, we support taking that up in the next step, though still urgently moving that forward.
And finally, our guidance hasn't changed.
Please advance the climate and health standard.
Thank you for your time.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Vivek.
And clerk, it doesn't sound like the other bell worked.
Is it going to work on the next one?
Diego
We're going to troubleshoot that.
Candace Avalos
Okay, sounds good.
All right, thank you.
Whoever would like to go next?
Andy Mason
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
My name is Andy Mason, Facilities Director of Providence Health.
I'm joined today by my colleague from Legacy Health, Kaeleigh Sheehan.
And in addition to our brief comments today, we have, uh, submitted a letter Uh, going into greater detail on our position on the climate and health standards.
So let me start by saying that Providence and Legacy share the city's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving community health.
Providence's vision statement is health for a better world.
Ensuring a stable climate and healthy planet is a crucial element of our envisioned world.
At Providence, we are taking bold action to reduce our carbon emissions in this decade, working towards being carbon negative as an organization and we continue to make substantial progress across our system with energy reducing and carbon reducing projects throughout our portfolio.
We've also gone to great lengths to understand what it will take to decarbonize a complex healthcare facility by investing in a detailed engineering study on the feasibility and impact of fully electrifying a major medical center.
And we now have a clear picture of the costs and pathways to achieve this.
Thank you.
However, hospitals serve as a healthcare safety net to our communities and must remain available at all times.
During the 2021 heat dome that stressed building systems far beyond their design, and the 2024 MLK Day storm that closed roads and knocked out power throughout the region, people depended on us to remain open, functional, and available to provide care.
That is why resiliency, in addition, in addition to efficiency, must remain a central consideration in any policy affecting hospital operations.
Hospital infrastructure requires long-term planning and investment, as major systems cannot be replaced overnight.
Transitioning away from existing equipment often requires replacement of entire integrated systems, not just a boiler or a chiller, which can take years and significantly impact the facility.
Throughout Oregon, hospitals are operating at or near capacity every day, and taking critical, critical clinical spaces offline to replace complex infrastructure can have significant impacts on health Thank you.
Thank you.
Damon Motz-Storey
Councilmember Herbold.
Kaeleigh Sheehan
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
My name is Kaeleigh Sheehan, Director of Environmental Sustainability with Legacy Legacy Health.
As my colleague from Providence shared, we recognize climate change as a public health issue.
Environmental stewardship is central to our mission of good health for our patients, our people, our communities, and our world.
Legacy has a public goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
We've made meaningful progress through energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy investments, climate resilience assessments, and reducing the environmental impact of patient care.
We're committed to this work.
We share the city's goals of reducing emissions from our buildings, but we have real concerns over the policy as it's currently written.
Hospitals are uniquely complex facilities operating under strict healthcare regulations.
Our central utility plants, ventilation, sterilization, and emergency power systems are essential to patient safety.
These systems are interconnected, require substantial capital investment and planning, and are replaced over decades.
We appreciate the addition of the alternative compliance pathway for campuses, However, significant questions remain about how that pathway would actually work.
The policy lacks a clearly defined process to amend or update these plans over time.
These would be legally binding agreements recorded against the property.
Hospitals need the ability to adapt as infrastructure, technology, regulations, and circumstances change.
We recognize that many implementation details can be addressed through rulemaking, but the ordinance itself Council itself needs to establish the framework and authority for that flexibility.
We cannot responsibly plan decades of investment, near $1 billion, around requirements that remain undefined.
The potential financial implications are substantial.
As nonprofit healthcare providers facing significant financial pressures, we must balance these investments with maintaining access to essential patient care.
We are not asking for an exemption.
We're asking council to pause advancement and work directly with healthcare and other affected stakeholders to establish a clear, flexible, achievable framework.
Thank you.
Our joint written testimony provides additional technical detail on these concerns.
We share the city's climate goals.
Claire
We want to be part of the solution.
Damon Motz-Storey
Thank you.
Jonathan Clay
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
For the record, my name is Jonathan Clay, government and public affairs manager and registered lobbyist for Multifamily Northwest.
Building efficiency and lower carbon emission goals are completely admirable.
The issue is just how we get there.
Housing providers of Multifamily Northwest remain very concerned with the uncertainty and liabilities this ordinance would impose on Portland's rental housing market.
Portland needs a better policy that doesn't force arbitrary, unfunded building retrofits that neither renters nor housing providers can frankly afford.
Thank you.
This policy process has been blazingly fast.
It dropped on July 14th, the same day as the only public meeting so far.
That left 5 hours to absorb this complex policy, and despite any platitudes or follow-up emails, it's hard to— it's hard to ignore the underlying message that was clearly sent.
Hey, housing providers, your input is not really valued.
Thank you.
When Seattle passed a similar policy, it was the product of a 2-year public process.
There's only been 3 months.
In efforts from Seattle, Boston, and New York, they acknowledged considerable financial hardships of compliance by awarding grants to qualifying buildings.
This policy has still not incorporated resources for better compliance, nor does it provide a practical road to ensure housing providers decarbonization efforts are— will be sufficient to avoid the costly fee structure adopted by this policy.
Again, more ambiguity, more uncertainty.
The city's housing policy needs to reflect robust public process where all stakeholders are invited to the table.
We respectfully ask that the committee separate the decarbonization provisions from any unfunded mandatory building retrofits.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Diego
We have Greg joining us online.
Greg Moawad
Good afternoon, councilors.
Excuse me.
I'm Greg Moawad, Vice President for Campus Services at Oregon Health and Science University.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak.
OHSU supports the goals of the proposed changes to Chapter 17-104.
Reducing emissions and protecting community health are central to our mission.
We remain committed to carbon neutrality by 2050, but I urge you to exempt institutions of higher education from this legislation.
OHSU has already made significant investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable buildings.
Today, 87% of our electricity comes from carbon-free sources.
We've engineered a 38% reduction in our reported carbon emissions since 2015, despite substantial growth in our facilities and services.
We expect this to reach a 50% reduction by 2030.
Our concern is the proposal nearly— neither clearly recognizes those early investments.
Thank you.
Nor adequately accounts for our financial reality.
We carry $1.3 billion in debt, $600 million in unfunded pension liabilities, and a $700 million maintenance backlog.
Additional compliance costs compete directly with investments in patient care, education, and essential infrastructure.
Those trade-offs have real consequences.
Our highest capital priority is expanding our.
We urgently need new additional neonatal intensive care capacity for critically ill babies.
Every dollar redirected toward new compliance requirements is a dollar unavailable for those in need.
We remain committed to reducing emissions and are prepared to be transparent with the city about our progress.
But we have to balance those commitments with our responsibility to patients and students.
I urge you to exempt institutions of higher education just as you have exempted K-12 schools.
Please allow us to continue pursuing our climate goals while fulfilling our essential public mission.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Next, we have Madeline Miller, Cindy Robert, Jennifer Yocom, Amy Rathfelder.
David Thompson.
Cindy Robert
Good afternoon.
My name is Cindy Robert, and I'm here on behalf of the Oregon Alliance of Independent Colleges and Universities.
The alliance includes 7 independent nonprofit higher education institutions within the Portland area.
Chair Avalos, in your district is Linfield University School of Nursing.
The campus is phasing out traditional fossil fuel maintenance equipment and building all major projects to pursue LEED certification.
In Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's district is University of Portland.
They are targeting carbon neutrality by 2040.
Councilor Elena Novak, in your district is Warner Pacific University and Western Seminary.
Western Pacific— I mean, Warner Pacific is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and has invested in multiple Energy Trust of Oregon-supported projects.
Western Seminary is in the process of replacing heating units that burn natural gas with high-efficiency electric pumps.
And in Councilor Green's district is Reed College, Lewis& Clark College, and Willamette University's Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Reed's carbon reduction plan targets 40% reduction by 2030 and then going beyond net zero and becoming climate positive by 2050.
Lewis& Clark has a self-imposed deadline of 2040 to reach net zero carbon emissions.
And Willamette's PNCA completed a major renovation of their flagship Portland building, achieving LEED Platinum status.
All of these institutions are integral to the fabric of Portland.
All of them want to be good partners with you.
All of them have climate goals and objectives.
In some cases, they are more progressive than yours.
So this work is going on, and you should be proud of it.
If it's already happening though, what's the big deal about the proposed ordinance?
Because compliance is a cost driver for higher education.
Paperwork, documentation, reporting, and personnel hours are all factors that contribute to tuition increases, while rising operational costs ultimately are absorbed by students.
Please add higher education institutions to the exemption that the ordinance provides to K-12 education.
Samantha Hernandez
Thank you.
Madeline Miller
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and committee members.
For the record, my name is Madeline Miller.
I use she/her pronouns.
I'm a lobbyist with a collaborative of the Building Owners and Managers Association, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, Oregon Smart Growth, and the Portland Metro Chamber.
Together, we represent hundreds of organizations and thousands of employees that work across construction, development, engineering, architecture, the trades, property management, and the commercial real estate industry.
I've been analyzing housing issues, including affordable housing and homelessness policy, for over 12 years.
I have recently submitted a letter signed by 20 organizations outlining our concerns with this policy.
I want to begin by highlighting the impacts that the carbon performance standards would have on Portland's downtown recovery.
Across downtown, people are working hard to reactivate buildings, attract businesses, bring employees back, and restore the vitality of our city center.
These standards risk undermining that work by requiring costly building retrofits on aggressive timelines.
Or subjecting owners to noncompliance penalties.
Our industry supports the need to address climate change, but many office and multifamily properties are already facing record vacancies, declining revenues, and reduced property values.
These buildings simply lack the capital reserves to make these investments.
The city's own analysis indicates that most building owners would bear these costs directly, with no realistic plan for full subsidy.
These standards could further depress building valuations, which would reduce property tax revenues that fund essential city services.
And implementation and staffing costs would come at a time when the public resources are already very constrained.
These standards also present significant challenges for housing.
The city's analysis shows the cost per unit for older, naturally occurring affordable housing is the highest.
These are properties that are owned by small landlords who lack the financial reserves necessary to absorb major retrofits.
As a result, this could accelerate consolidation in the market and encourage these owners to sell.
The organizations I represent want to work with the city on a policy that advances climate goals without jeopardizing downtown recovery or housing affordability.
Please engage us further.
Thank you.
Amy Rathfelder
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Amy Rathfelder.
I'm the government community affairs manager for Multnomah County and Northwest Natural.
I'm a registered lobbyist and I live in District 4.
Over the past several years, Northwest Natural has invested significant time and resources participating in Portland's stakeholder process on building decarbonization.
That's why we're concerned that the proposal before you today differs in significant ways from the framework stakeholders have spent years discussing.
Many of the policy choices now under consideration were not meaningfully vetted through, through the collaborative process stakeholders were repeatedly told would guide this effort.
Throughout that process, participants worked to evaluate implementation approaches, compliance pathways, and potential impacts.
Yet major elements of the current proposal have not been fully analyzed or reviewed with affected parties.
One example of this is the economic analysis.
The Eco Northwest study frequently referenced throughout this process evaluated an earlier version of this policy.
Since then, significant requirements have been added, including emissions reduction and efficiency provisions that were not included in that analysis.
Before moving forward, council should have the benefit of, of an updated economic information and a clear understanding of potential impacts on building owners' housing costs and investment decisions.
We're also concerned about advancing local requirements before Oregon's statewide building and performance standards have been fully implemented.
The state has invested years in developing those standards, and regulated entities are already preparing for compliance.
Thank you.
Portland should evaluate how that framework works in practice before layering on additional local requirements.
Climate policy is most effective when it is grounded in collaboration, transparency, and sound analysis.
We urge the committee to pause this proposal, allow for updated economic review and stakeholder engagement, and ensure it is aligned with Oregon's existing statewide approach before moving forward.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Jennifer Yocom
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
My name is Jennifer Yocom, and I am the Local Government Affairs Director at Northwest Natural.
I'm a resident of District 4 and a registered lobbyist.
We believe, we believe climate policies must be practical, resilient, and grounded in the realities of how energy systems operate.
That is why I was troubled by a recent conversation with the chair's staff.
Yes.
When Northwest Natural asked how resilience was evaluated in developing the proposal, we were told that community resilience during winter weather events was, quote, not addressed through this policy.
That is not a minor oversight.
That is a fundamental flaw.
As you consider the proposed climate and health standards, I encourage you to examine how this policy could affect energy resilience and system reliability over the long term.
Thank you.
And your constituents.
Portlanders depend on reliable energy during emergencies.
In recent years, Oregonians have experienced severe weather, winter storms, extreme temperatures, wildfire smoke events, and other disruptions that have demonstrated how critical resilient energy systems are.
I'd be happy to share my personal experience of sheltering in place for 6 days during 20-degree weather in District 4.
During those events, resilience is not an abstract concept.
It is a public safety issue.
This is one reason energy diversity matters.
A resilient energy future, including multiple pathways for reducing emissions— building owners and affordable housing providers, healthcare facilities, schools, and businesses all have different operational needs.
And different financial constraints.
Maintaining flexibility helps ensure those needs can be met while continuing to make progress toward climate goals.
This proposal does not meaningfully evaluate resilience, among many other issues.
Thank you.
David Thompson
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, members of the committee.
For the record, my name is David Thompson.
I'm the executive director of Multifamily Northwest.
Multifamily Northwest strongly opposes the proposed climate and health standards in buildings policy as currently drafted.
It would impose costly, unfunded retrofit mandates on housing providers without any serious accounting of the cost, the feasibility, or consequences to Portland's housing supply.
First, our concerns with the process.
For more than 2 years, the city has said And I quote from a BPS letter dated May 2024, no upgrades to buildings will be required as a part of this policy proposal.
The July 14th policy was the first time that these became a part of the policy.
On substance, first, the city has not determined what compliance will cost or whether it is feasible.
The city has often referred to the Eco Northwest study that was not even in existence when this policy was released, and the number of differences between what was in place and studied then and this policy is too numerous to even begin to talk about.
Third, the policy penalizes housing providers for what they cannot control.
Compliance is measured on each building's total emissions, including energy residents use, In their own homes.
Owners cannot dictate how residents heat, cook, or use electricity, yet owners pay the fee.
Second, the policy creates unfunded mandate for tenant displacement.
That was raised in our letter in 2024, and we were specifically told by the city that our raising displacement as a part of this was a specious argument.
Fourth, benchmarking should align with the state policy.
And finally, the policy works against Portland housing goals.
The city housing needs analysis calls for about 120,000 homes by 2045.
As written, this ordinance will divert capital from routine maintenance, push up rents, risk closure of buildings.
We ask you to take a pause on this policy and work with us so we can help develop a policy that works for all Portlanders.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Next is Michele Gila, Samantha Hernandez, Kathryn King, Sarah Heinicke, Michael Meyers.
Megan Howard
Go ahead.
Samantha Hernandez
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
My name is Samantha Hernandez, and I am the advocacy manager at the Coalition of Communities of Color.
We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the climate and health standards ordinance proposal, and we strongly urge the committee to vote yes on this important policy.
I want to take a moment to uplift the sign-on letter I submitted yesterday on behalf of 28 organizations and businesses.
Some signatories include Community Energy Projects, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Oregon Business for Climate, and Birdsmouth Design Build, just to name a few.
Over the past 6 years, Portland has felt the effects of climate change more acutely than ever, putting the health and well-being of Portlanders at risk, especially low-income residents, communities of color, and energy-burdened households.
Historic heat waves, ice storms, and wildfires have highlighted how important our homes and buildings are for keeping people safe, healthy, and comfortable.
It's critical that our city take action now to reduce emissions from buildings and improve the health and well-being of those who live and work in them.
Other cities have already adopted similar requirements and have seen successful results.
For example, New York City's building performance mandate saw strong compliance in its first year, driven by energy efficiency measures such as lighting upgrades, envelope improvements, heat pump installations, and the implementation of building and energy management systems.
The climate and health standards will entail similar energy efficiency measures, and these measures not only reduce emissions and utility costs but also increase comfort and safety during extreme weather events, a growing concern as climate-related disasters become more frequent.
CCC urges the committee to vote yes on this policy and ordinance shaped by more than 7 years of meaningful community engagement.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify.
Sarah Heinicke
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the committee.
I'm Sarah Heinicke, Director of Planning Sustainability for Portland State University.
PSU respectfully asks the committee to extend the exemption given to K-12 schools, manufacturing, places of worship, and condominiums to higher education.
Public universities face the same fiscal constraints as K-12 schools, And while managing complex energy-intensive buildings.
The reason is cost.
Our preliminary analysis based on limited details suggests PSU could owe more than $2 million a year, and the city has not published a cost analysis for campus institutions.
Funding upgrades is difficult for public university given state bond processes and the unavailability of federal dollars under this administration's changing priorities.
PSU's Climate Action Plan targets an 80% emissions reduction by 2030 and a carbon neutrality by 2040.
And we are making real progress.
Since 2008, we have cut campus emissions from 105,000 to 44,000 metric tons.
Since 2012, our direct operational emissions are down nearly 74%.
Retrofits and modern facilities have reduced our electricity use by 28% and gas use by 20%.
Gas used mainly for heating accounts for just 13% of our total emissions, and our residence halls have no gas cooktops.
But PSU is working to close a $35 million deficit, and compliance costs would come from the same operating budget that pays for faculty, staff, and student services.
With 80% of that budget going to personnel, that means workforce reductions and tuition increases.
Oregon ranks 46th nationally in per-student funding for public universities, leaving little room to absorb an unfunded mandate.
If the council is not prepared to exempt higher ed, we urge you to delay the vote until a full public financial analysis is complete.
PSU will keep reducing emissions and gladly share data and technical expertise as the city refines its policy.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Second.
Diego, I don't know who the others are.
Unidentified speaker
Once more for Michele Gila, Kathryn King.
Okay, we'll move on to Michael Meyers, Howard Bell.
Randall Friesen.
Brian Owendoff.
Diego
River Scholl.
Unidentified speaker
And we have Michael online.
Feel free to begin when you're ready.
Michael Meyers
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
My name is Michael Meyers.
I'm an economist with Northwest Natural.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the proposed climate and health standards policy.
Portland is already facing significant economic headwinds, yet the city is considering a policy that could impose new costs and compliance obligations on housing providers, businesses, and building owners without an updated analysis of those impacts.
Oregon's labor market has weakened over the past year, while developers, affordable housing providers, and property owners continue to face high construction costs, financing challenges, rising insurance expenses, and broader economic uncertainty.
In this environment, even relatively modest new costs can influence investment decisions, housing production, and the resources available to support tenants.
That is why updated economic analysis matters.
The proposal before council today differs significantly from the versions previously evaluated during the development process.
The economic analysis that has been cited throughout this discussion was conducted on an earlier proposal, and since then the policy has evolved substantially.
Adding requirements that were not reflected in the original analysis.
Before adopting a policy with potentially significant economic consequences, council should have current information about costs, implementation impacts, and tradeoffs.
Policymakers should not be asked to make decisions of this magnitude based on outdated assumptions.
This concern is particularly important as Oregon's statewide building performance standards are still being implemented.
Building owners, utilities, and regulators are only beginning to understand the real-world real-world costs and operational impacts of those requirements.
Portland should evaluate those outcomes before layering on additional local mandates.
Climate goals and economic realities must be considered together.
Strong policy requires current data, rigorous analysis, and meaningful stakeholder engagement.
We urge the committee to pause this proposal until updated economic analysis has been completed and these questions have been fully addressed.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Unidentified speaker
We have Howard Bell online.
Howard, feel free to unmute and begin when you're ready.
Howard Bell
I got it.
Can you hear me?
Unidentified speaker
We can hear you.
Howard Bell
All right, great.
Thank you, Chair Avalos, members of the committee.
I appreciate all of you.
My name is Howard Bell.
I serve as executive officer and executive secretary Treasurer, BOPU Local 11.
I represent working men and women whose careers and retirement security depend on Oregon's energy, construction, and service industries.
I support reducing emissions and protecting public health, but this ordinance commits Portland to an aggressive building decarbonization policy without adequately demonstrating that it is affordable, reliable, or achievable.
Electrification does not automatically create more jobs.
It can shift work and investment away from existing energy infrastructure and the skilled workers who build, maintain, and operate it.
Why should Portland choose a policy that could eliminate family-wage careers without a credible plan for the workers affected?
Our Northwest Natural Collective bargaining agreement covers pipeline welders and fabricators, construction equipment operators, field engineering technicians, system operations and gas storage employees, GIS technicians, customer service representatives, accountants, and administrative support staff.
These are real people with families, healthcare, and retirement security at stake.
Let technology compete.
Evaluate heat pumps, hybrid systems, district energy, Thermal storage, renewable natural gas, and hydrogen where technically appropriate.
Learn from Denmark and Northern Europe, where integrated energy systems, district heating, and industrial waste heat demonstrate the value of diverse energy portfolio.
Our existing gas pipelines are energy, energy infrastructure, and their potential role in developing, delivering low-carbon energy deserves serious evaluation.
Second.
Finally, where are the transparent annual measurements of emissions reductions, energy costs, housing impacts, grid reliability, and job losses or gains?
I urge the committee to reconsider a one-pathway mandate and adopt a technology-neutral, measurable, and workforce-centered approach.
We can reduce emissions without treating working families and reliable energy infrastructure As collateral damage.
And I, I—.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Howard.
Thank you, Howard.
You are 30 seconds over.
Wrap up your thought.
Oh, okay, never mind.
Thank you, Howard.
We have to move on.
Go ahead, Diego, call the next person.
Unidentified speaker
We have Randall online.
Oh, sorry, would you like—.
Howard Bell
Am I still on?
Candace Avalos
Go ahead and wrap your thought.
I'll give you 10 seconds to wrap up your thought.
Yes, go ahead.
Uh, it looks like Council Chambers is muted.
David Thompson
One second.
Randall Friesen
It looks like the council is muted.
Candace Avalos
Yes, we are working on that.
Okay, can you hear us now?
Randall Friesen
Yeah, this is Randall Friesen with the Columbia Pacific.
Can I go?
Megan Howard
One second.
Candace Avalos
Okay, Diego, are we good?
Unidentified speaker
I believe so.
Can you still hear us, Howard?
Candace Avalos
All right, let's just keep going.
Uh, call whoever's next.
Unidentified speaker
Uh, Randall, I believe you are up next.
Candace Avalos
Okay, go ahead, Randall.
Randall Friesen
All right, thank you.
Uh, this is Randall Friesen.
For the record, I'm the executive director for the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council.
We represent 22 building trades unions made up of over 20,000 skilled trades members in the Portland metro and Southwest Washington region.
Our members build and maintain the energy infrastructure and buildings that serve this community.
While we support practical efforts to reduce emissions and improve building performance, this proposal raises serious concerns because of the process used to develop it.
Simply put, the city is moving faster than the facts.
Many workers, contractors, housing providers, and property owners who must implement this policy were not meaningfully engaged.
Until very recently, council is being asked to advance a policy that still lacks clarity on 2 critical issues.
Before moving forward, council should complete and publish an updated impact analysis.
The policy has changed significantly, yet updated information regarding affordability, compliance obligations, and broader economic effects has not been made available for public review.
Good policy requires good information.
Council must also ensure any local requirements are fully coordinated with Oregon's Building Performance Standards Program.
The city should avoid creating an additional layer of regulation that increases confusion, duplication, and compliance burdens.
From a workforce perspective, regulatory certainty matters for training, staffing, and project delivery.
The broad coalition submitting testimony today represents tens of thousands of workers, Employers, associations, and residents.
Together, we are asking the city to pause, complete the necessary analysis, engage affected stakeholders, and evaluate how this interacts with state requirements before imposing additional local mandates.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Brian Owendoff
Brian Owendoff, District 4.
This rushed and poorly written ordinance risks increasing construction and operating costs, adding red tape, discouraging investment, That's not climate leadership, it's economic self-sabotage.
The ordinance makes no consideration of measures already taken by property owners to reduce consumption and carbon emissions.
Regardless of whether a building is already certified as LEED Platinum, there still must be a 20% reduction in carbon emissions every 5 years, or there will be a significant penalty.
The cost will fall heaviest on precisely the older, lower-rent housing that Portland's housing supply and affordability crisis can least afford to lose.
Second.
Where tenants hold a utility account directly, the building owner has no ability to elect an energy product with lower emissions on the tenant's behalf.
Despite this, the draft ordinance assigns compliance obligation associated with penalty exposure to the owner on something they don't even control.
That's insane.
Adding another expensive building mandate will not bring employers downtown, fill vacant offices, increase retail foot traffic, or restore investor confidence.
After 30 years in commercial real estate, I can tell you this.
You cannot regulate your way into prosperity.
You cannot mandate a thriving downtown into existence.
Instead, council continues to spend time on symbolic policies.
There's a famous line in the 2008 comedy movie Tropic Thunder that says, never go full-on retard.
This legislation, as it is currently drafted—.
Candace Avalos
Excuse me, we do not allow that kind of language in here.
I'm going to have you wrap up.
Brian Owendoff
Poorly— this is a poorly thought-out rush job, just like the Fair Share Act.
Candace Avalos
All right, your time is up.
Brian Owendoff
Hit pause and bring the stakeholders to the table, not just another ideologically aligned—.
Candace Avalos
Your time is up.
We do not appreciate those words in this chamber.
Please leave.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Next up, we have River online.
River, you may begin when you're ready.
Howard Bell
Hi.
Russell Chide
Um, yeah, first off, uh, good afternoon, Chair Avalos, and thank you as a member of the disability community for, uh, calling that out.
Uh, that was Rocking.
Anyway, moving on.
My name is Russell Chide.
I am a person with disabilities, and I have lived in low-income housing pretty much my entire adult life and still do.
I really appreciate these measures, and I just see a very small gap that I think can be relatively easily fixed.
Um, when it comes to the policy talking about standards that will provide access and climate information for prospective tenants, I ask as a member of Habitat for Humanity community and a low-income housing owner that it also be provided to potential homeowners so that low-income homeowners particularly know what they're getting into and whether or not they can afford what that energy costs will be as we are trying to expand low-income homeownership, I hope.
Thank you.
That should be included.
The other part is the cost not being passed on to residential tenants, and that displacement must be impacted.
When it comes to things like townhomes and condos, there are plenty of low-income housing people living in those that could not afford that displacement but are not covered by this policy.
So we are asking for some sort of like support for the low-income homeowners.
Thank you.
Condo owners, townhome owners as well.
Um, so last, I do just want to speak on something that was spoke on earlier from Lacey Sutton.
And I say this with love and respect.
I adore you guys.
If that tree is not taken care of by the city council and/or Habitat for Humanity and people die, the blood will not be on Lacey's hands.
It will be on yours.
Thank you.
And I am sorry to say it that way, but it is true.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Next up we have Kellye Dundon, Jim Marquard, Brad Archuleta, Megan Howard, Carra Sahler.
Candace Avalos
Do you want to go first?
Unidentified speaker
Do you want to go first?
Jim Marquard
I'm not sure who goes first.
Candace Avalos
Okay, I can just go.
Megan Howard
Does it matter who goes?
Candace Avalos
Okay, can you just call the person if you could, just to help me so that there's less confusion?
Just call the next person when they're up.
Unidentified speaker
Certainly.
Uh, first up, Jim.
Jim Marquard
Okay, good afternoon.
My name is Jim Marquard.
I'm a partial owner of 2 older 1920 Portland brickers.
One is in Northwest and the other is close in Southeast.
I'm retired at this point and the buildings are a primary income source.
Regarding the climate and health standards, I have reservations about the current requirements, and so today I testify in opposition.
Climate crisis, it's real, it's here.
Earthquakes pending.
Housing shortages and shortfall of city finances are all major issues for Portland.
They're interrelated and they all need to be addressed.
There's the— there's the problem.
This may not sound right, but sometimes pausing makes sense to get the response as good as possible.
Let's take a step back and bring all the stakeholders together.
Earthquakes posing a real danger to Portland.
Seismic upgrades are needed to help save lives and protect Portland's affordable housing stock.
So whatever the city approves regarding structures will also apply to the city's older buildings.
Remember what happened not long ago when the city mandated URM upgrades?
That did not go according to plan once the city looked fully at the costs involved and the liability involved.
Let's not repeat that.
I have worked to make my apartment buildings more energy efficient, comfortable to live in, and it's simply the right thing to be doing.
I recently replaced all the windows in one building, investing $500,000 for that upgrade.
Would this mean that I would have a harder time to hit in terms of reaching the required efficiency goals?
I would suggest again to slow down and consider the implications.
What is being proposed amounts to unfunded mandates to make this work.
Get the funding side of it in place first, then apply requirements.
Portland needs its older buildings as part of the city's character and to retain needed housing.
Do not gloss over the negative effects of proposed legislation that will have on the tenants involved.
And thank you.
I appreciate your time today.
Ann Turner
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Next up is Kelly.
Kelly's online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Kelly Dundon
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment.
My name is Kelly Dundon.
I'm the environmental policy manager at Northwest Natural, where I oversee our greenhouse gas reporting, among other responsibilities.
Northwest Natural takes emission reporting and reduction seriously.
We've invested significantly in reducing emissions through energy efficiency, pipeline replacement, Purchasing gas from lower-emitting producers, renewable natural gas, and our voluntary smart energy program.
At the October 6th committee meeting, the chief sustainability officer at the city described natural gas as an outlier fuel, noting that it was the only major fuel source with increasing emissions and used it as justification for this policy proposal.
But this characterization overlooks important progress.
Between 1990 and 2024, emissions per Northwest Natural residential customer decreased by approximately 27%.
While total emissions have increased, the efficiency of direct natural gas use has improved substantially.
It's also important to consider the entire energy system.
Much of the electric sector's emissions reductions have resulted— have been the result of replacing coal generation with natural gas.
Since 2000, natural gas use for electricity in Oregon has increased 128%, while direct natural gas use for residential customers has only increased 9%.
The proposed policy does not adequately reflect the realities of our energy system.
It risks requiring costly building retrofits while shifting emissions and energy demand from one system to another, including increasing regional peak electricity needs.
In case there's any confusion, I also want to make this committee aware that Northwest Natural already offers a service for renters to call us and receive information about potential energy costs.
I urge the city to reconsider this proposal and ensure that its policies reflect the realities of our energy system and fully account for the emissions and reliability impacts of shifting energy between systems.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Brad is online.
You may begin when you're ready, Brad.
Howard Bell
Thanks.
Brad Archuleta
Can you hear me?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Brad Archuleta
Hi.
Hi, councilors.
Um, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
My name is Brad Archuleta, rank and file member of Local 290 Plumbers, Steamfitters, and HVACR.
UA290 joined a coalition representing tens of thousands of workers, employers, housing providers, community organizations, and more.
We're urging you to pause this proposal.
I want to focus on 2 issues.
First, more coordination with State of Oregon is needed, whether through the Oregon Department of Energy Building Performance Standards Program, the Public Utility Commission, or DEQ.
The city should align with existing state efforts, not create a new and separate schedule for decarbonization.
Sound key— second key assumptions in the proposal do not align with current utility filings and recent reporting, particularly the assumption that electricity will be clean, available, and affordable by the proposed deadlines.
Pacific Power's recent filings raise significant concerns about costs that have not been reflected in the city's analysis.
The utility project's annual electricity rate increases ranging from 10% to 140% to comply with the state's climate mandates.
That's 10 to 140% each year.
PG also has raised doubts that meeting Oregon's 2030 clean energy mandates.
In a filing released last week, the company stated it would need to add nearly 7 gigawatts of renewable generation in just 4 years, roughly double the capacity of the Pacific power plants it owns today.
PG warned that adding the unprecedented amount of renewable energy while maintaining reliability and affordability poses clear execution challenges.
All of this is before addressing another major concern.
The city has not fully evaluated the true cost of this proposal and what other city programs would cut to pay for staffing.
As a union member and building trades leader, I urge you to pause this proposal.
Thank you for the time today.
Unidentified speaker
Megan, you may begin.
Great.
Megan Howard
Hi, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
Uh, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
My name is Megan Howard.
It's nice to meet you.
I am a second-generation owner, developer, and housing provider here in Portland.
Climate change affects all of us, and as a lifelong Oregonian, I support cleaner, healthier, and more energy-efficient buildings.
But I believe Portland's climate, housing, and affordability goals need to work together.
One of our apartment communities began welcoming residents in 2020.
Energy efficiency was already a major part of that project.
We incorporated low-flow plumbing fixtures, LED lighting, high-performance insulation, efficient appliances, and other energy-efficient measures.
Thank you.
We also chose to go up beyond the code because we wanted to pursue the NGBS Green certification.
So I genuinely wonder, for a building this new where we've already invested significantly in efficiency, what exactly are we supposed to retrofit and how quickly can we realistically do this?
I'm also concerned about occupancy.
If a building is more fully occupied after its baseline is established, energy use may increase simply because more people are living there, not because of energy usage on the building itself.
Thank you.
Filling apartment homes should be the housing success, not a compliance concern.
Another concern I have is affordability.
There isn't a separate money— separate bucket of money for these requirements.
Significant unfunded capital investment means fewer dollars available for maintenance, improvements, and future reinvestment back into our community and building new housing inventory that the city desperately needs.
We cannot continually make housing more expensive to operate and expect affordability and future investment to be unaffected.
I continue to struggle with how Portland reconciles its desire for more housing with policies that add cost and complexity for housing providers who have chosen to remain here.
If we genuinely care about increasing and preserving housing, housing providers need to be partners in these conversations.
Before imposing mandates, please make sure meaningful financial assistance through the PSEF or other resources are actually available to the buildings required to comply.
I ask you to please complete the city's landlord-tenant study and make those findings public before adopting additional regulations that materially increase the cost of providing rental housing.
Portland needs housing.
Our climate, affordability, and housing production goals should reinforce one another, not compete with one another.
Thank you for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Carra, you may begin.
Carra Sahler
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
My name is Carra Sahler.
I'm a climate policy and energy law attorney at the Green Energy Institute, which is housed within Lewis& Clark Law School.
I live and work in this city, and I'm a constituent of District 4.
So I want to assure you and the folks in the room that this policy is decidedly not an experiment.
In fact, we're a laggard.
Boston, New York, St. Louis, D.C., Washington State— those are just a handful of jurisdictions which have adopted a building performance standard like this one.
4 States, 11 cities, and 1 county have adopted standards like these.
Years of outreach, Research pilots and discussion with Portland stakeholders have resulted in us being here today.
I just want to note that you've heard both that there was not enough process and that there was quite a bit of process that doesn't reflect stakeholder feedback.
From my perspective, we have been talking about these rules, refining them, testing them, and waiting since 2019.
Just from a personal perspective, I'm excited about this policy because Portland is a lot of talk about climate action.
I'm excited to hear about all the institutions in our city which have voluntary plans to reduce emissions.
I believe that those institutions truly mean to do the right thing.
The reality, though, is that unless a regulation inspires an institution to prioritize the investments, there is always something that needs attention first.
We heard Denmark raised as an example for Portland to follow.
Denmark is legally obligated to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
That policy has driven the kinds of innovative solutions that you heard about from that previous testifier.
I also want to note that there sounds like a lot of fear.
I think, Chair Avalos, that your FAQs on the webpage are excellent.
I think close reading will assure folks in this room that this policy is very doable and will give plenty of time and flexibility to comply.
Madeline Miller
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Once more for Ann Turner.
Ann Turner
Good afternoon, good afternoon, Chair Avalos and councilors.
My name is Dr. Ann Turner.
I'm speaking today on behalf of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.
We strongly support the climate and health standards and urge you to pass this ordinance.
The climate crisis is real, primarily driven by the fossil fuel industry.
Whose main tactic over many years has been delay.
We cannot afford to delay.
As a physician, the importance of the fact that tenants will receive information about the health risks of appliances like gas stoves cannot be underestimated.
We spend 90% of our time indoors, and indoor air quality is not regulated in the US.
Thank you.
It's often worse than outdoor air quality, and gas stoves emit the same pollutants as car exhaust, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and benzene.
Numerous scientific studies have shown that nitrogen oxides inflame the lungs and airways, increase the risk of childhood— of children experiencing asthma symptoms by 42%, and increase the risk of being diagnosed with asthma ever by 24%.
This year, a study demonstrated that swapping out a gas stove for an electric one in households with people with poorly controlled asthma resulted in significantly fewer emergency department and hospital visits and fewer missed work and school days.
This is an economic benefit.
We also know that gas stoves emit many hazardous air pollutants, including blood cancer-causing benzene, benzene, even when they're off.
So this ordinance requires that tenants not only know the type of cooking appliance, and for gas stoves, what they can do to minimize the risks, including ventilation and using other electric appliances when possible.
So Oregon PSR strongly urges you to pass this ordinance to improve the health and safety of our residents, especially the most vulnerable.
Thank you for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Next is David Heslam, Lauren Peng, Danny Noonan, Daniel Eisenbeis, Ross Kelley, David Burger.
And I think we have Lauren online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Lauren Peng
Hi, councilors.
My name is Lauren Peng, and I am a 25-year veteran in the commercial real estate and property management industry and a resident of District 1.
Um, I believe we all share the same goals of improving our climate and energy efficiency and reducing our carbon footprint.
Um, and I like the goal of this initiative, but I think we need to take a pause and really be able to set up some better frameworks, um, and understand better how this program is going to be administered.
I attended one of the sessions earlier this year, and there were questions regarding, um, where there would be funding to administer this program.
Didn't sound like that had been answered, as well as the impacts on, you know, both residential developers, owners, landlords, both small and large, and as well as in the commercial industry that I work in.
Others have spoken just like I believe that right now we don't need a further impact on our downtown buildings and other office and commercial buildings in Portland.
The cost analysis has not been extensive enough To for folks to understand what this impact will be on those buildings, and it will continue to hinder owners and future owners of both commercial and residential buildings in our city, which could lead to further vacancies, further dark buildings, and further economic impacts on our city.
So I would just strongly urge that we take a pause, take some more time, that you continue.
We continue to seek feedback from commercial and residential owners and operators, and importantly, our colleagues at places like Providence and Legacy who expressed some severe concerns over what this impact would be on their ability to continue to care for individuals.
And same for some of our smaller medical office buildings that we manage and own.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
David, you may begin.
Randall Friesen
Great.
David Heslam
Um, thank you for the opportunity to testify, um, Chair Avalos and other members of the committee.
Uh, I live in District 2 in North Portland, and, uh, I am the executive director of Earth Advantage, which is a nonprofit which does rent office space in downtown Portland in District 4, and, uh, we're proud to do so.
I'm just a little disappointed that my councilor is not here with everyone else today, but thank you for being here.
Um, I really appreciate that this policy takes the long view towards 2050, and I believe that actually answers a lot of the questions here, that we are taking the long view with this policy towards 2050.
And I just thought it was great to hear that there are so many shared goals from so many different voices here, whether it's been citizens, businesses, or the staff.
Thank you.
And that I do think rulemaking will offer the time and the opportunity to iron out a lot of the details and a lot of the questions or uncertainties that have been expressed today.
But I think a policy like this is supposed to set those long-term goals.
And it, as I sat there, reminded me of that Carl Schurz quote that's on the I-5 bridge, over I-5.
In case you don't know it, it's something like, you know, we look to the stars like the seafaring person looks to the stars for direction.
Yeah.
Not because they're ever going to be able to reach out and touch the stars, but because it gives you direction that then you can live by for a compass.
And this policy will set forward the direction and people can find their own pathway there, right?
There's a lot of room to find your own pathway.
And one element that I did want to point out is there was discussion earlier about resilience and the need potentially for fossil fuel power.
During ice storms and other things.
The policy does already include— you can have a backup generator run by fossil fuels.
And so those won't be taken away in this policy.
That type of resilience is foreseen and included.
And the last thing is energy efficiency work might not be glamorous, but it's local, and the jobs remain local, and the benefits remain local.
Thank you for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Danny is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Alyson Kraus
I was—.
Elayna Trucker
Is it okay if I just say something to her?
Alyson Kraus
I just wanted to assure you that your councilor's chief of staff is sitting right behind you and they will be fully looped in and part of the conversation.
Tyler Reeves
Thank you.
Danny
All right, I'll jump in.
Hi everyone, my name is Danny.
I'm a registered lobbyist with Breach Collective and I am a resident of District 2.
Breach Collective signed on to the letter that Samantha mentioned, signed by 28 organizations and businesses.
We also submitted our separate I did just want to offer some maybe real-time feedback to some of the opposition testimony.
So to start with, I noticed that interest group after interest group that would be subject to this ordinance has claimed that they support climate action, have these ambitious corporate goals to reduce emissions.
If this is true, then the very generous compliance timeline outlined in the climate and standards policy should be no problem for them to comply with.
Thank you.
The reason they're opposing this is because their internal climate commitments are voluntary and optional.
This is not.
Moving on, seems like several of the landlord and gas representatives seem to be under the impression that a building performance standard policy would somehow not have involved building upgrades.
So I would like these stakeholders to outline, and I did not hear them outline, how large existing buildings are supposed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions without undertaking At a minimum, efficiency and weatherization upgrades.
That just doesn't seem to make sense to me.
I want to note that UA290 rank-and-file member Brad Archuleta is in fact the president of the Northwest Coalition for Energy Choice, which is a 501 organization arm of the Northwest Gas Association.
That's a collaborative between pipefitter leadership and the gas utilities in the region.
He's not just a rank-and-file member.
Uh, in response to, uh, Kelly Dundon, um, at a utility level, gas decarbonization relies on a suite of speculative technologies that have yet to scale, are multiple times more expensive than fossil gas, and may not actually reduce emissions materially or at all on a lifecycle basis.
Uh, and in response to Jennifer Yocom, um, that resilience narrative is the latest narrative for Northwest Natural to latch on to, and I would refer you to my, uh, June 26th, 2025 presentation at the Portland City Council Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee meeting on that point.
Malcolm McIver
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Daniel, you're up next.
Dan Eisenbeis
Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, members of the committee, for the record, I am Dan Eisenbeis.
I'm a registered lobbyist with the Port of Portland where I serve as Regional Affairs Manager.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments today.
You'll also find written testimony in the record.
The Port is a public agency whose mission is to build shared prosperity for our region through travel, trade, and economic development.
We operate 3 marine terminals, 6 industrial parks, and 3 airports, including PDX.
A guiding principle for the port is environmental leadership.
The port has a goal of achieving net-zero carbon by 2050 for its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
Our approach seeks to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of investments through a holistic port-wide data-driven strategy focused on prioritizing our largest sources of emissions.
Thank you.
The Port has also worked closely with the City of Portland since the city began administering its existing commercial building energy reporting requirements.
Administration of those requirements has clarified 2 technical issues that we respectfully request council expressly incorporate into the proposed ordinance.
First, the city has provided interpretation that aviation buildings are industrial buildings.
This recognizes the industrial activity associated with the buildings and the specialized systems that must operate continuously to ensure the safety and reliability of aviation, such as runway lighting, security screening equipment, ventilation, baggage and cargo handling, and emergency response infrastructure.
We ask that Council incorporate a technical revision expressly noting that covered building does not include buildings predominantly used for aviation purposes.
And second, we would request that Council incorporate a technical revision to the definition of owner to expressly clarify ground lease situations where the lessee owns the building, but the owner of the ground does not have an ownership interest in the building itself.
This would also track with current administrative rule provisions.
Thank you for your consideration.
Unidentified speaker
Ross is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Ross Kelley
Good afternoon, members of the council.
My name is Ross Kelley, and I'm a principal at Menashe Properties, which owns and operates office buildings here in Portland.
I am here with many of my fellow industry professionals in the spirit of respectful collaboration to land on good policy and solutions.
We share the goal of cleaner buildings, but as written, this ordinance would stall investment and downtime at the moment we need it most.
It has been extremely difficult to get investors or lenders to even look at downtown Portland recently.
We are just starting to gain some momentum, and I fear this policy would freeze it.
Specifically, I wanted to raise 3 problems.
First, the baseline.
The targets are set off 2027 or 2028.
Thank you.
When downtown is still largely empty.
As tenants come back, energy use rises, and owners miss targets set against a half-vacant building.
Under this ordinance, filling a vacant floor becomes a compliance violation.
This is backwards from what downtown needs.
Second, the targets are unfair as written.
Tenants control much of the energy use, yet the owner carries the penalty regardless of what the lease says, and the 20% cut every 5 years applies the same to everyone.
Owners have already invest— owners who have already invested in efficiency have used up their early savings, and they're asked to make the most expensive cuts now.
This ordinance penalizes the people who acted early.
And third, the ordinance effectively requires every downtown building to go all electric.
It allows no offsets and no renewable natural gas, so working gas boilers will have to be torn out years early.
Many of the buildings will also need major electrical service upgrades.
Thank you.
That depend on utility capacity owners don't control.
These are all multimillion-dollar projects, and the ordinance identifies no funding for them.
I am asking the council to reject this ordinance as written.
If the city wants a local standard, let's start over in partnership with the owners and tenants who have to deliver it and build it to work alongside the state standard rather than on top of it.
Portland can lead on climate without driving away the investment the downtown recovery depends on.
Second.
Thank you very much for your time.
Unidentified speaker
David, you may begin.
David Burger
Thank you, uh, Chair Avalos, uh, committee members.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is David Burger.
Um, I was a resident of District 4 for 19 years.
Um, I represent, uh, UA Local 290, about 5,500 workers across the state of Oregon.
I also serve as the president of the Oregon State Building Trades Council leadership, um, that works and builds, maintains, retrofits the infrastructure and buildings that keeps our communities running, and we are training the next generation of workers through our apprenticeships.
UA Local 290 joined a coalition representing tens of thousands of workers, employers, housing providers, community organizations, trade associations, small business, and residents.
We do not believe the proposal is ready for council's evaluation.
Thank you.
I want to highlight a couple of concerns.
First, transportation is Portland's largest emission source, yet the policy focuses largely— larger on buildings concentrated in the urban core.
Increasing the cost of owning and operating these buildings will inevitably increase costs for tenants and businesses.
Over time, that can push workers further from their work, potentially increasing transportation emissions.
Staff have not evaluated this impact yet.
Second, the proposal exempts emissions associated with electricity by assuming electricity is clean, while overlooking one of the least efficient heating technologies still common in buildings: electric resistance and baseboard heating.
If the goal is emissions reduction, energy efficiency, efficiency should be a central focus.
Converting inefficient resistance heating to high-efficiency heat pumps could deliver meaningful reductions while lowering energy costs for occupants.
UA's Local 290's highly trained HVAC technicians and workforce stand ready to help implement those upgrades, and Portland has resources such as Portland Clean Energy Fund that could help support that.
For these reasons and more, we respectfully request that the council please pause consideration of this proposal, conduct the necessary analysis, and engage stakeholders on a more valid path forward.
Thank you for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Next is Ruth Dallas, Malcolm McIver, Elayna Trucker, Jordan Lewis, Jason Verduzco.
And Ruth, you may begin when you're ready.
Ruth Dallas
My name is Ruth Dallas and I live in District 2.
I support the climate and health standards for buildings.
Again, individuals and members of the environmental groups come to our City Council to beg you to do more.
We, unlike the lobbyists from Northwest Natural and others, have no economic benefit to motivate us.
We are motivated by science and what we see right now with our own eyes.
The lobbyists all ask for more time, but we have no more time.
In the words of the UN Secretary-General, quote, we have a choice between collective action or collective suicide.
Lobbyists all decry the costs of making changes to their buildings.
I sympathize with their concerns, but their costs are nothing compared to what they and everyone on Earth will pay due to the climate change that is devastating our planet.
It is estimated that the average Oregonian is likely to lose roughly $12,000 in personal income per year in the next decade or so.
Due to changes in the climate that have already been set in motion from previous greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change is no longer some far-off risk.
It is happening now.
Our children and grandchildren will pay so much more to both in loss of health and economic collapse, even loss of life.
So many industries in Oregon will suffer existential loss due to climate change.
How long do we expect our winter sports How long do we expect our fisheries to last?
Our forests are dying now from wildfire and insect infestations and drought due to climate change.
Builders and other industries fail to mention that due to climate change, their workers will not be able to put in an 8-hour shift.
How much will they lose then?
How much will they lose then?
Please listen to scientists and not to lobbyists who are paid to tell you that they need exemptions.
We can't delay cutting emissions when the consequences are so dire.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Malcolm, you're up next.
Malcolm McIver
Hello, my name is Malcolm McIver.
I'm the president of Commerce Properties.
We're an owner and manager of property in the Portland metro area, and we have several hundred NOAA units in the city of Portland.
I'd like to talk about the financial realities our buildings are facing and how this proposed ordinance could affect them.
Since 2021, it's been a very tough environment for providers of multifamily housing in Portland.
There's been a lot of pressure on rents through a combination of new supply and less job growth, and it's led to a downward spiral in financial performance.
I'd like to pick out one of our park buildings is an example of this.
Over the last 5 years, rents have increased 9%.
So that's 9% over 5 years, not per year.
Payroll costs are up 31%, utility costs are up 32%, and insurance is up 182%.
So what this means is that we've had a building that's gone from relative economic health to one that's just able to generate enough money to keep the lights on and pay the mortgage.
And if we are facing a mandated major capital expense that we have to pay for, that's going to be very difficult.
In brass tacks, what that could mean is a building like this can't raise the money to do the improvements.
It can't pay the penalties contemplated in this regulation.
It could well be driven into bankruptcy.
It might be able to come out of bankruptcy.
It might not.
It would have a big overhang of this mandate to install this equipment.
It would also be not very healthy financially.
And what I worry about is this is not unique.
There's a lot of NOAA buildings that are in this situation.
I would urge the council to take a pause on this regulation until you understand better the effect on multifamily housing, and certainly be cognizant of the fact that the unintended consequence could be less affordable housing in Portland.
Thank you very much for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Elayna is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Elayna Trucker
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and committee members.
My name is Elayna Trucker.
I live in Southeast Portland District 3, and I'm the Healthy Climate Program Director for Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.
We are an organization of healthcare professionals and public health advocates working towards a healthy, just, and peaceful world for present and future generations.
Portland aims to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and commercial and residential buildings account for 42% of the city's emissions.
People need to cook to heat and cool their homes, and changing how they do so will have a tremendous impact on our emissions and the health of our community.
The standards would inform renters whether homes have cooling systems, which saves lives in a heat wave, and will inform them of the risks posed to their health if the home has a gas stove.
To meet performance standards, building owners can make weatherization upgrades to make homes safer during extreme temperature events.
And air quality emergencies.
Weatherization and energy efficiency measures can reduce asthma-related emergency departments by 12%, and 40% of households who were helped with upgrades said their health improved afterwards.
Long-term exposure to pollutants associated with appliances burning natural gas indoors contribute to increased risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, lung cancer, and strokes.
Climate change is here.
Our communities have already faced its impacts through wildfires, record-breaking heat, and ice storms.
At a time when our federal government is abandoning efforts to take action on climate and abandoning the most vulnerable among us, it is critical that our local governments respond urgently to reduce climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions and protect the health of our families, friends, and neighbors.
We urge you to vote yes on the climate and health standards.
Thank you for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Jordan is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Jason Verduzco
Can you hear us all right?
Jordan Lewis
My name is Jordan Lewis.
He/him.
I'm a D4 resident, a volunteer lobbyist for Portland DSA, though I'm speaking on my own behalf today.
I support the proposed changes to the building code.
I just want to say that giving Northwest Natural and other polluters input on climate policy is like giving your car keys to a known carjacker.
Large corporations came up today and said, as rehearsed, we care a lot about climate, but— and there's always a but— these institutions are not negotiating in good faith.
They are trafficking in doubt to undermine and stall climate action, not unlike what fossil fuel firms have done since the mid-20th century.
When large firms talk about going net zero by 2040, think critically about it.
Are employees taking electrified public transit to work in 2040?
Yes.
Surely firms like Portland Metro Chamber and the orgs they represent worked to support the 2020 Metro ballot measure, which would have built light rail to Tigard.
Surely there's evidence of that that we can find online.
Let me just look it up.
Oh dear.
These orgs actually fought that ballot measure and killed it successfully, despite their deeply stated care about climate change.
Actions speak louder than words.
Please keep the score.
Lastly, I'd push council to pursue reforms in zoning and code.
That would allow apartments to be located away from busy high-speed arterials and to allow single-family multifamily buildings.
Uh, single-stair multifamily buildings.
I lived on West Burnside for several years among loud through traffic, which would actually get louder into the night as streets got emptier.
Fire trucks would sound like they circled the block around my place as they moved between north-south and east-west arterials.
Locating more apartments away from arterials would alleviate this.
If I ever wanted to cook with the gas stove I was provided, I would have to open my windows and use a box fan to blow the smoke away from my ineffective hood vent because the dual-loaded corridor design of my apartment building gave apartment— my apartment a long cave-like floor plan with windows on one of the 4 sides of the unit.
Legalizing single-stair multifamily designs would alleviate smoke through better ventilation and allow more light into the unit through windows on multiple sides.
I'm also supportive of larger regulations on household gas stoves.
As stated recently, I lived my entire life with electric stoves until the age of 26, At which point I got one and found them to be smoky, annoying, and not worth the trouble in my apartment.
Thank you for your time.
Unidentified speaker
Jason is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Jason Verduzco
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the committee.
Uh, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Jason Verduzco, and I'm the Director of Advocacy for the Northwest Gas Association.
First off, we absolutely share the city's commitment to reducing emissions and improving community health.
We would welcome the opportunity to work with, alongside council and community partners to explore how we can advance those goals while maintaining reliable As you consider the proposed climate and health standards, we respectfully encourage you to allow additional time for conversations and analysis.
Northwest Gas Association would be glad to help convene a broader discussion bringing together utilities, businesses, community organizations, and regional partners such as PNUC.
That conversation could also include a shared review of the E3 study and its implications for choices before the city.
One opportunity for that discussion is to consider the range of approaches that could contribute to emissions reductions, including electrification, Thank you.
Renewable natural gas, hydrogen, hybrid heating, and district energy.
Evaluating these options together could help clarify these— their benefits, costs, and practical applications.
We would also appreciate a fuller conversation about how the proposal could affect Portland's interconnected energy systems.
Natural gas and electricity both serve important roles during peak demand and extreme weather.
Bringing regional planning perspectives and research into the discussion could help everyone better understand potential effects on reliability, infrastructure investment, and customer costs.
Additional analysis could also help clarify the proposal's expected emissions benefits and its relationship to existing state requirements, including Oregon's building performance standards.
That coordination could provide greater clarity for building owners and help support effective implementation.
With these opportunities in mind, we respectfully ask the committee to defer action and invite a broader collaborative process.
Northwest Gas Association is ready to help bring people to the table, listen, and support a shared path forward towards the city's climate and health goals.
Thank you for your consideration.
Unidentified speaker
Next is Cherice Bock, Andrés Oswill, Melanie Plaut, Greg Astley, Joren Bass.
And Cherice, you may begin when you're ready.
Cherice Bock
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the committee.
My name is Cherice Bock, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of 350 PDX.
We represent thousands of Portlanders who care about climate justice, and we're very excited to support the climate and health standards for buildings.
We also signed the joint letter mentioned before.
As you've heard from the presentations a couple weeks ago and today, this policy has been fully 6 years in the making.
While 350 PDX was not part of the original formation of this policy, we're happy to support the excellent work done by environmental justice and tenant rights organizations and others, and it's in our climate justice platform.
We also really appreciate the work BPS has done to prepare the policy, carrying out a helpful pilot project and learning from similar policies in other cities and States, as well as listening to feedback from stakeholders over many years.
While the climate and health standards policy isn't perfect and doesn't include everything that we could wish for in terms of reducing emissions and increasing efficiency, it's a meaningful start, and it's important to start now.
Delay is the new climate change denial.
We've heard many industry lobbyists say today, oh, we care about the climate, we just need to work on this later.
We don't have time for later.
Thank you.
We must significantly reduce our collective emissions now.
In early September, the United Nations announced the global community is not going to be able to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, though hopefully we can overshoot briefly and come back below that safe-ish threshold soon.
So-called natural methane gas is actually a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Over the last several decades, we're told that natural methane gas is a bridge fuel.
Thank you.
As we work to decarbonize.
If we accept that framing, we can consider this as a 23-year bridge to decarbonize.
That is plenty of time to figure this out.
This is ample time to shift our systems.
It's completely disingenuous to cry, what about climate resilience, when one's entire business model is based on adding massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere on a daily business basis, causing climate harm.
This policy helps make buildings healthier for people and the environment and emphasizes affordability.
We ask you to work on passing it now.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Andrés is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Dan Eisenbeis
Thank you.
Andrés Oswill
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the committee.
My name is Andrés Oswill.
I use he, they, and el pronouns.
And I'm a registered lobbyist for Portland for All.
I'm here to urge you today to vote yes.
As you heard in the presentation, buildings make up a meaningful component of the city's greenhouse gas emissions, and we know that to make progress, we need to address our buildings on a faster timeframe than the state.
The city has long been committed to reducing our carbon footprint, and it is the morally correct thing to do.
As someone who has lived with asthma my whole life, clean air is not an abstract concept.
Pollution directly affects my ability to breathe.
Extensive work has gone into preparing these standards and the code changes before you.
Like you've heard today, there have been ample opportunities for feedback and revision, multiple public forums and opportunities for folks to provide input and feedback.
I know from my time developing city policy that there will always be pushback when you're proposing big change.
Anytime a new regulation comes forward, people will always pop out of the woodwork.
They will tell you that this has been too rushed, that you need to go back to the drawing board.
They support the concept, but this is just the wrong version of you.
People will always tell you that the sky will collapse if you adopt a new set of regulations and will make compelling cases for why they specifically should be exempt.
I encourage members of the committee to vote in line with our sustainable city principles and fight the urge to add additional carve-outs or exemptions beyond the avenues outlined in these code changes.
Portlanders overwhelmingly support making our city greener, more sustainable, and stewarding our environment for future generations.
I strongly encourage the committee to vote for these code changes as is.
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Melanie, you may begin.
Melanie Plaut
Good afternoon, councilors.
My name is Melanie Plaut.
I'm a retired OB-GYN doc and I live in District 2.
I'm going to tell you a short story about my relationship to gas stoves.
When I was a kid in the '50s, my father often used to say, now you're cooking with gas, as a synonym for well done.
Do you know where that phrase came from?
In the '30s, the American Gas Association used it as a marketing ploy and fed it to comedians like Bob Hope and Jack Benny.
It worked on me.
I grew up with a positive association with gas stoves.
So when we remodeled our kitchen 20 years ago, I thought putting in a 6-burner gas cooktop was a great idea.
The natural gas industry had known since the 1980s that unvented methane combustion was a health risk, but decided it would be too expensive to figure out how to vent gas stoves, so they buried this information.
Sound familiar?
It wasn't until about 10 years ago that independent research started to emerge.
The effect on the respiratory system is now clear, but there is also likely an increased risk of heart disease, dementia, and cancer.
So we decided we didn't want to expose our family to these risks and we took out the still-functioning gas stove and put in an induction stove.
And we had a kitchen, an airy kitchen, and a well-functioning fan.
But if you are a renter in a small apartment with one of those ineffective microwave fans over your range, you have potentially even more exposure to the harmful effects of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and benzene.
Even if replacement is not an option, there are things you can do to decrease your risk.
Like opening a window when you cook and using electric appliances such as kettles or inexpensive induction hobs whenever possible.
I think it shouldn't just be people like me.
Everyone should have information about and access to clean and healthy cooking, which is why I ask you, among other reasons, to support this ordinance.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Greg is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Greg Astley
Thank you, Chair Avalos, members of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
For the record, my name is Greg Astley, Director of Government Affairs for the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association.
We represent Oregon's hospitality industry, including thousands of restaurants and hotels in Portland.
I'm testifying today in opposition to Document 2026-377, the Climate and Health Standards for Buildings Code.
ORLA has signed on to a coalition letter representing a broad cross-section of concerned groups and individuals who also oppose this policy.
First, this proposal risks duplicating Oregon's existing building performance standards.
Commercial buildings over 20,000 square feet could face both state and local requirements, creating unnecessary complexity and additional costs.
We would urge the city to let the state's program roll out first or coordinate with it to avoid duplicative regulations.
Secondly, this policy has moved too quickly without meaningful stakeholder engagement.
Short notice, limited opportunities to testify, and unanswered questions have made it difficult for businesses to participate.
ORLA was never consulted, and to our knowledge, neither were restaurant or lodging operators.
Finally, restaurants face unique challenges under this policy.
Natural gas is essential to many commercial kitchens, and practical, affordable alternatives aren't always available for specialized cooking equipment and techniques.
Restaurants are already struggling with high labor, food, utility, and rent costs while operating on razor-thin margins.
They cannot absorb another layer of regulatory costs without consequences for their ability to remain open, to retain employees, and to serve their communities.
I wish more restaurant operators could be here today to share these concerns, but many are working in their businesses just to keep their doors open amid these challenges.
We urge the city to slow this process, improve the transparency, engage meaningfully with affected businesses, and coordinate with the state to prevent duplicative requirements.
Thank you for consideration.
Unidentified speaker
Joren, you may begin when you're ready.
Joren Bass
Good afternoon, Chair and Council.
My name is Joren Bass and I live in District 4.
I'm an architect and vice president with Deacon Development.
We're a small, locally owned development company here in Portland.
We focus on producing and operating what's naturally affordable and workforce housing in Portland.
We wake up every day looking for ways that we can build housing and get more people in homes.
I'm sure everyone here today shares the goal of cleaner, healthier, more efficient buildings.
That's clear.
My concern is that rushing this policy that just came down in July creates an environment that makes more expensive— more expensive for renters, the ones that it's It also drastically reduces the already anemic supply of middle and lower-income unsubsidized housing that's being built.
We know Portland's housing supply is drastically undersupplied.
New supply projections are well below the targets that are needed.
Rushing this policy through will only further diminish that supply.
We will also see many existing units come off the market.
As costs to meet this policy take effect.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Portland's rental units are not owned by large corporations or national investment firms.
Local small businesses, individuals, mom-and-pops, families operate and own these units.
This type of owner and small business is the, is the type of owner the city should support, not punish and drive out of business.
This policy needs time.
We support working on it, but to just rush it in from July and impose it upon the city is not thought through.
We want to support bringing more affordable and workforce housing to this city.
We would hope the council and the members of this committee would also support that desire.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Next is Sarah Wood, Tyler Reeves, Helena Birecki, Kevin Pahl, Alyson Kraus.
If you're at the testimony table, you may begin when you're ready.
Thank you.
Helena Birecki
Hello, and thank you, Councilor Avalos, for bringing this bill.
For the record, my name is Helena Birecki.
I live in D4.
I want to start with a couple of facts.
One, you cannot protect climate or health with gas or other combustion fuels.
Not possible.
2, You can pass this bill, and if there are real things that need to be fixed, you'll find that out with the data you get, and you can fix it as it goes along and make a better city for everybody.
So I have a question for you, and I think I know your answers here, but do you think Portland's climate goals are important?
And if so, Start by voting yes on the climate and health standards.
Buildings are not technically hard to decarbonize, and they are 42% of Portland's emissions.
Weatherizing buildings and replacing inefficient combustion or resistance appliances with heat pumps and induction stoves improves air quality and saves energy, meaning it saves residents and workers money on both utilities and healthcare.
So there's all of this testimony that it needs to be delayed or it's not feasible.
And I want to tell you a little story.
Back in 2019, I lived in San Francisco and was involved in that city's building decarbonization task force.
In the commercial retrofits group, behind closed doors, they were seeing was what they needed was regulatory certainty.
And if they had that, they could decarbonize by 2035.
Thank you.
Water heaters last 8 to 12 years, furnaces 15 to 20.
Repairs and replacements have to be done anyway.
Why not ensure they improve quality of life?
Climate and health standards in front of you have already gone through years of tweaking to make sure both tenant protections and feasibility exceptions are good, and you can improve them further as time goes on.
Far from any kind of fast track, full decarbonization isn't required until 2050.
Thank you.
In San Francisco, they said they could decarbonize all electric by 2035.
We have better and cheaper technology now.
Don't let the special interests tie us to the current deadly status quo.
Please pass the climate and health standards.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Sarah is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Greg Astley
Hello.
Sarah Wood
Sorry, I'm getting my notes up.
My name is Sarah Wood.
I am a tenant in District 4.
I support the environmental goals of this measure, and I strongly support access to utility cost information for prospective tenants.
When I moved into my current apartment, I did not realize it would cost me around $300 a month to heat the apartment to 68 degrees in the winter.
There's poor insulation, there are resistance heaters, single-pane windows, and my landlord is happy to let tenants eat the costs.
Water and trash is another $150 a month.
There are a high number of low-income tenants here in this building, including a lot of people on vouchers.
A lot of them get surprised by the high costs of utilities here and can't afford to keep the heat on.
The air gets really smoky in the winter because people burn the fireplaces constantly instead, and each year there are pipe breaks from the cold that cause mold, and tenants in the building get stuck with the water bills for that as well.
I would not have moved here if I knew utilities would cost so much, and the landlords won't make any improvements here unless they have to or are incentivized to.
So I strongly urge the council to make utility costs much more transparent for prospective tenants so we don't get ambushed by high costs, and to provide more incentives for landlords to actually make energy efficiency upgrades.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Tyler is online.
You may begin when you're ready.
Tyler Reeves
Yes, thank you, Chair Avalos, members of the committee.
My name is Tyler Reeves, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today as both a small landlord District 4, Northwest Portland, as well as a commercial real estate developer with Spec Development.
I'd also first like to echo the earlier sentiment that I too am here on behalf of the commercial real estate industry as a show of collaboration in a respectful capacity with the city to find a better future for the city of Portland.
While I support climate resilience like so many on this call today, my concern is not the approach— excuse me, my concern is not the goal but the approach, which is unfunded mandates at the exact moment Portland needs investment.
I'd like to share 3 concerns starting as a small landlord.
First, owner carries the entirety of the cost with no financial relief.
While I agree with earlier comments that tenants should not bear these costs, the policy itself offers no upfront funding, and financial hardship doesn't qualify for an exemption unless I and so many other small owners around the city can demonstrate near insolvency.
However, these costs have to come from somewhere.
Thank you.
And for small owners like myself, that means less money for repairs and maintenance, things that directly impact tenants like we just heard on a daily basis.
So while it's recognized yet or not, these additional costs borne by the landowners will in some capacity negatively pass through to the tenants themselves throughout the city of Portland.
Second, the help just comes too late.
The city's own consultant estimates repair costs, improvement costs, and upgrade costs of more than $10,000 per unit.
Thank you.
Per unit for older units, and that's just to meet the first step of compliance.
Yet the only assistance fund is filled by penalties, so help arrives after the owners have already failed.
Third, relocation costs fall entirely on us as owners.
We got to pay for the upgrades, we have to pay for the relocation, moving, and storage of the tenants, and guarantee their ability to move back into the unit after we're done.
A single instance can wipe out years of income for so many small owners across the city.
There will be one result: local owners selling to large operators.
As far as the commercial real estate investment side is concerned, this creates a liability with no ceiling.
Penalties are open-ended, can only go up, and include limits on building permits.
When we and so many others are underwriting a deal, uncapped risk such as this makes it more than enough to walk away from the city of Portland and other nearby cities.
Second, the timing and optics of this are very concerning.
With occupancy Office vacancy still north of 25%.
We're just now seeing signs of recovery.
Investors locally and nationally are paying very close attention to this vote.
I'd also encourage us to look at nearby cities such as Denver with a similar program, who's already extending its deadlines for compliance and cutting its fine in half after hearing from owners.
It's also facing federal lawsuit.
Portland would be adopting a stricter version just as our peer cities are already pulling back.
Thank you.
Yet we won't even study the cost or grid capacity until after the first deadline.
It's with all that I want to respectfully ask the committee not to advance this policy as drafted.
Instead, please pause, engage stakeholders, especially those who are bearing the entirety of the financial responsibility, fund compliance up front, and align with the state's existing standards.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
We have Kevin online in the lobby.
Kevin, if you could accept the panelist invite.
Uh, for now we'll move on to Alyson, who's online.
Alyson Kraus
Thank you.
Uh, good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
For the record, my name is Alyson Kraus.
I'm the Senior Government Relations Manager at Portland Community College.
On October 6th, PCC Interim President Katie Ho sent a letter to this committee outlining the college's concerns with the proposed climate and health standards.
We've also submitted that letter as written testimony today.
PCC strongly supports the goals of this proposal.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving energy efficiency, and creating healthier communities are commitments we share with the city.
Sustainability is embedded in PCC's mission and operations.
We have a climate action plan, invest in renewable energy and conservation, and publicly track our progress.
Thank you.
Our concern is not with the goals of this ordinance, but how it applies to higher education.
PCC has engaged with the city in this process, and we appreciate that some changes were made in response to stakeholder feedback.
However, after reviewing the revised proposals, we continue to have concerns about how the standards would apply to higher education institutions.
PCC facilities are classrooms, laboratories, and workforce training environments with energy needs directly connected to our educational mission.
We have a responsibility to steward limited public resources.
Thank you.
This— the proposal creates potential new compliance costs without providing dedicated funding.
Those costs would have to be balanced against educational programs, student services, facilities maintenance, and energy improvements.
As Dr. Ho's letter explains, our preference remains a collaborative approach that recognizes higher education circumstances while maintaining accountability for emissions reductions.
However, because these concerns remain unresolved, PCC is asking this committee to exempt public and nonprofit higher education institutions Good afternoon, board and committee.
Kevin Pahl
My name is Kevin Pahl.
I am a District 4 resident.
Also part of a rather small property management organization here in the Portland area.
First became aware of this only a few days ago, and in the course of today's discussion, it does sound to me like things have probably been moving faster than they should.
And right up front, would, would recommend taking a bit of a pause and slowing things down a little bit until we work out some more of the details.
What I'm seeing is a document of about 17 to 20 pages that I read through last night, and honestly, there is quite a lot of complexity here that is going to hit property managers directly.
I do generally agree with the objectives you're trying to achieve here, but I also feel like just having good objectives and intentions don't mean you're going to get good results.
So I would strongly encourage the committee to, to take a step back and study things a little bit more closely.
Some of the, some of the primary concerns that jump out to me— one thing that I have not heard mentioned at all today, I mean, it seems like a big part of this is a push to get away from natural gas, uh, and, and I understand that, but one thing that has not come up is whether the electrical grid in the Portland area, in the Northwest in general, can withstand the extra load that is expected over the next few years with EVs, etc., coming online.
As I— the numbers I've seen from a report on OPB is a 9-gigawatt shortfall as soon as 2030.
Of course, that's, uh, that's a little bit undetermined.
Yes.
But I'd like to see that at least considered before we rush into this.
The other thing is, do people be prepared?
I expect that I would have clients if this goes through as is, very small residential rental owners who would say, you know what, I've had enough.
Too much regulation, too much oversight, too much compliance that I have to comply with.
It's time to sell.
Those units would no longer be on the rental market, more than likely.
So I urge you to keep that in mind.
If this goes through, don't be surprised if housing prices go up.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
That concludes testimony.
Helena Birecki
Great.
Diego
Um, and then before we, uh, finish, we've got Devin from Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's office.
Um, she was, uh, I don't know, you can share why she's not here.
Melanie Plaut
I don't know.
Um, Yeah, go ahead.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Dan Eisenbeis
Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, members of the committee, my name is Devin Mullins.
I'm the chief of staff for Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney.
I am very sorry for the councilor's unexpected absence.
To be transparent, just moments before committee, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney started feeling very unwell and had to go to urgent care.
I did get a text from her.
She's doing okay and is at home, but she has strep throat.
We know this policy is incredibly important, both in vision and in anticipated impacts.
Greg Astley
The councilor takes that very seriously and really wishes she could be here right now.
Dan Eisenbeis
We appreciate the many conversations we've had with stakeholders and the sponsor up to this point.
She does have questions and points to raise on a number of the policy details and wants to do so in a public forum where the stakeholders and constituents who took time out of their day to be here in chambers can be part of it.
She looks forward to having those conversations in the near future.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks for bearing with us, and thanks sincerely to Chair Avalos for the flexibility here.
Our climate goals must be ambitious.
The city is committed to reducing carbon emissions 50% below 1990 levels by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
These goals are only ambitious because inaction and climate negligence are the status quo.
We could be doing better, but these are practical goals we need to be working towards.
This reality makes it all the more real that these are not aspirational goals we can afford to treat as optional.
They represent a basic responsibility we have to our community and planet to reduce our contribution to climate change and preserve a livable future for generations to come.
Meeting these targets will require bold policies, sustained commitment, and a willingness to take action on challenges that cannot be solved through incremental change alone.
We must be willing and prepared to take—.
Thank you.
On meaningful action that puts us on a credible path to meeting our goals and helps foster a safer and healthier Portland for all.
Before coming to City Council, before being elected to City Council, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney led a state-level workgroup focused on improving energy efficiency in new construction.
And while that work was a significant step forward, it was understood even then that it would only get us so far.
If we are serious about achieving our climate commitments, we must address emissions from our existing buildings.
The councilor appreciates that this proposal seeks to identify strategies to do just that.
No single city can solve the climate crisis single-handedly.
Our actions alone cannot eliminate the harms we are seeing from climate change, but that does not diminish our responsibility to act.
Our work to reduce carbon emissions matters, our leadership in this space matters, and the example we set can help demonstrate important climate action on a local level.
At the same time, those ambitions must be matched with thoughtful policymaking.
We have a responsibility to ensure that the policies we adopt are not only effective and advance our climate goals, But also practical and workable.
That means listening to the people and organizations who will be affected, understanding the implications of the proposal, and carefully considering the questions and concerns that will help us get it right.
That is the spirit in which the councilor is approaching this ordinance.
She was planning to ask a lot of questions today that have come up for her personally, as well as things that have been raised by stakeholders.
A few of these include questions around contingency plans if electric utilities fail to meet their clean energy targets.
Questions concerning the application of different definitions used in the ordinance, and questions around how areas of enforcement left to the discretion of city officials will actually be applied if entities with unique buildings like hospital campuses.
The councilor is looking forward to having further discussion on this policy and asking many of these questions to ensure the final product both helps us achieve our climate objectives and accounts for the realities of implementation.
Thank you very much.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Devin.
And to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I hope she feels well soon.
Okay, so what we are going to do is let us take a— I'm going to give us a 13-minute break.
Let's come back at 4:30 and we'll get into discussion.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, we are going to call this meeting back to order at 4:33, uh, and we're going to get into some discussion.
And I'll— I'm going to kick us off and just share some reflections, and then yeah, we'll, we'll get into it.
Um, so first of all, thank you so much for all of the public testimony.
Really grateful that you took the time to engage in this policy.
This is a really important policy for our city, and, um, whether I agree with your comments or not, uh, I appreciate your voice, and I need your voice in order to make this a policy that we can all stand by.
I am, um, struck by the powerful stories of folks like Sarah Wood, who was surprised by huge energy bills over $300 and can feel the air quality impact of wood stove backups for folks facing high gas and electric bills.
And it's folks like Sarah and future generations that are the reason that we are moving this policy forward.
So I want to take a moment to respond to a few of the claims that we've heard so far.
First of all, I'm happy to share that many of the concerns raised today have already been addressed.
My office and BPS have made sure that there are sideboards and flexibility to allow for considerations of buildings' unique situations or needs, as well as progress that buildings have already made towards eliminating emissions.
I was really grateful to hear So many of the folks share that they already have plans to reduce emissions by 2030, 2040, 2050.
So I think that that aligns perfectly with this policy.
Not only are you ahead of the curve, but we've also made sure that, you know, we've heard the concern that building owners who are already working towards decarbonization goals feel that this is duplicative.
But the point of the flexibility in selecting a baseline year to measure against is to give credit to building owners who are already making progress toward net zero and decarbonization.
Thank you.
And if a building's efficiency is already high due to past upgrades, that's great.
The climate crisis still requires us, though, to transition away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, and this policy gives a very long on-ramp to eliminate those remaining emissions.
The long road from 2030 to 2050 is meant to give plenty of time to building owners to replace appliances and make upgrades as part of regular upkeep.
We're simply ensuring that those fixes and replacements are emissions-free and not locking in new fossil fuel appliances.
And this is a direct quote from our ordinance under alternative compliance plans.
Alternative compliance plans are intended to provide flexibility in the replacement of long-lived equipment such as air conditioning and heating, or long-lived envelope components such as windows and insulation.
As it relates to the claims that stakeholders haven't been engaged sufficiently, we're going to have to agree to disagree.
Here's what we've done.
Years of BPS roundtables with impacted parties, including building owners, we've done years of community workshops hosted by the Coalitions of Communities of Color, Verde, and other community-based organizations.
I hosted a workshop earlier this year.
And overall, what, uh, for my colleagues, I shared with you a large document.
And what that document shows is on the right column— there's 3 columns— in the right column you'll see 2022 at the top.
That shows kind of the origin or the, the OG version of the, um, ordinance.
In the middle column that says 2025, those are all of the changes that happened between 2022 and 2025 prior to me being involved, right?
And so those changes were a result of the pilot program, the Eco Northwest study, years of engagement that BPS has done.
And so the middle column shows all of those changes.
And then on the left column is where you see my changes.
So my office, once we entered office and started working on this policy to try to enter it into the legislature, legislative process.
And so you'll see that.
I think what you'll notice when you look through those documents is that a lot of the red lines are in the middle column.
A lot of this, this policy was devised and developed over those many, many years of engagement.
As for cost of compliance, the pilot program showed minimal impact from energy reporting, including no new staffing needed.
And there are numerous pools of funding to support building owners in making upgrades, such as PSEF, of course, but also the Oregon Housing and Community Services Community Energy and the Energy Trust of Oregon.
We are uniquely fortunate in Portland to have PSEF, something other cities like Seattle and NYC don't have.
At the same time, the city expects private building owners to pay for their own assets and investments in properties, and we have given a long implementation timeline to allow owners to do that when they are able to.
The policy also includes consideration for extra support for building owners facing undue hardships, including bankruptcy.
So please refer in the policy to Section 17.104.170, under extensions and exemptions in the draft ordinance, which includes a list of 9 situations anticipated for possible exemptions or timeline extensions for covered buildings.
The electrical grid is absolutely capable of handling building electrification, and energy efficiency measures mean that demand should fall in the near term as electrification proceeds across the state of Oregon.
Finally, climate scientists worldwide have clearly stated that we need to transition away from burning fossil fuels.
Our buildings make up 42% of Portland's emissions, and they need to to make that transition sooner or later.
This policy gives plenty of time for building owners to make the change as their existing appliances age out of functioning.
And we are moving forward with this policy because, as testifiers have mentioned, we must act now to address the scale of the climate crisis.
So, um, we've got, you know, 22 more minutes.
Let's see how far we get, and then we can talk towards, um, what it looks like at the end of our time.
But, um, now is the time to ask technical questions, reflect on the testimony, or if you have any other thoughts or comments on the and let's kick it off with Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Um, one thing that I think that we'd really benefit from, and I think we had somebody who was familiar with New York testify a couple of weeks ago, but I think it would be lovely if we could have somebody who's intimately involved with New York City's implementation, because I'm sure they heard all these arguments too.
Like, they heard from restaurants, they heard from— I'm sure they heard from They heard from hospitals.
So I'd like to hear from the city that's already done this, sort of how they are dealing with those issues.
And specifically, actually read an article just a few days ago, maybe a month ago, about New York City's implementation.
And the Department of Buildings said that they're considering adding a measurement for energy efficiency, discussing how to account for density of residents, which I think ties into one of the arguments we heard that, well, if I've got an empty building now, but I'm going to have a full building 10 years from now, do I get penalized for that?
So it sounds like New York is thinking about that.
And another thing they said was how to better support landlords of apartment buildings.
So I'd love to actually hear from— if we could hear from the person in the Department of Buildings that wrote that report, I think that would be great.
One question I have is we're talking about buildings being able to sort of use their own baseline.
Yeah.
And what I'm wondering is, does that mean that will building owners actually know what their emissions were like 10 years ago?
Like they've said, we made investments 10 years ago.
Would we expect to know what their emissions were, you know, a year before that?
Candace Avalos
And we've got some staff here from BPS to help us answer these technical questions.
Thank you so much.
Ben Mason
For the record, I'm Ben Mason with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
Um, so in regards to the question about baseline, so, uh, since 2015, commercial buildings of the same threshold for the current legislation that you're considering is 20,000 square feet larger, and those buildings have been required to report annually In terms of energy use, but also carbon emissions.
So if they have been in compliance with the state— or sorry, the city regulation, then they would have access to baselines for the last 10 years.
Steve Novick
What about multifamily residential though?
Ben Mason
Multifamily residential, we do not have that same requirement, so they may not have access to that baseline.
I believe that there's state regulations now because of the state building performance standards that the last 3 years of data can be available to them.
So they can reference some of their previous years.
Steve Novick
But if they're saying we made this big investment 10 years ago, but we don't know exactly what the carbon impact is, they might be right.
That's right.
Did you guys give thought to— I think that in some other context, You know, to partly to address this, um, well, we're more energy efficient now than our competitors, so you're being unfair.
I think that in some instances, uh, people have said, okay, we'll set an energy efficiency target for everybody to meet as an alternative to reducing by X percent.
Uh, did you consider sort of having that 2-tiered thing saying either you reduce by 20% or you say you are reaching a certain energy efficiency target?
Ben Mason
Yes, so that was where we started when we first engaged a wide range of stakeholders in 2022, was to set a target.
And it's similar to where Seattle was looking at greenhouse gas intensities.
And our concern at that time, because we were thinking about the potential equity impacts and unintended consequences, is that if we set a A target for building owners to reach that the lowest performing buildings, particularly if they are naturally occurring affordable housing, would have the longest way to go.
So then later we had the Eco Northwest analysis, and the key takeaway from that analysis is that a long compliance period is really necessary to allow for the market to adjust and not results in the pass-through of compliance costs.
So we actually changed to a much longer compliance period where 2030, for instance, is really a procedural compliance year.
It's not any change that's anticipated within buildings.
So it's really back-end loading any retrofits.
Eric Kingstrom
And Councilor, for the record, Eric Kingstrom, Director of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
Keep in mind that the end goal is the same for all, whether you're starting close to your goal or far from your goal.
The long-term end goal is the same.
So your slope of effort is shallower if you're already halfway there.
Steve Novick
On costs, I mean, Eco Northwest looked at cost of compliance by 2030, right?
Ben Mason
And at that time, the first carbon performance standard was 2027.
So their work was in 2024 mostly.
Candace Avalos
Would it be—.
Steve Novick
I mean, and I'm particularly interested in the effect on sort of naturally occurring affordable housing, like, you know, the Joe Weston, you know, complexes.
Have we done sort of like a case study of here's what a— for one thing, how many naturally affordable housing units are gas-powered?
Have you done like a case study of like over the next 20 years, what kind of investments would a Joe Weston type have to make in order to come into compliance?
Ben Mason
It wasn't over the next 20 years, but again, the initial greenhouse gas intensity target was set as assuming that a lot of naturally occurring affordable housing that would not reach it initially.
And so the estimate was the number of units out there, and so they assumed an 80% AMI.
Okay.
For the renters to define what would be natural currently for affordable housing, and then looked at a rent associated with that.
And then they looked at a CoStar database and did some extrapolations too.
I think they said a regression model.
And the conclusion from that, we asked them to be conservative because we were trying to avoid unintended consequences.
So they looked at 80% of— 80% of the units.
Naturally occurring affordable housing is probably all electric, but at the same time, they made some assumptions about if those buildings didn't get there through the clean energy targets plus the gas-served buildings, then what's the highest amount of impact that could be affected in 2027?
Eric Kingstrom
And Councilor, just keep in mind, when in 2024, when we paused our work on this, one of the reasons was we wanted to stand up the PCEV program that is aimed at naturally occurring affordable housing.
Unidentified speaker
Before this was reconsidered, and that program is now close to being underway.
So that's a piece of this, is we do have resources stood up for that segment of the market.
Steve Novick
Okay, I'm actually— I don't want to hog all the time, so I want to like fire off some questions and we'll answer, see whatever answers we can get now.
Some of them could be postponed till later, but one question is, I mean, we had again Eco Northwest looked costs by 2030.
I would be interested to see what, you know, an analysis of costs for various affordable, naturally occurring affordable housing, what we'd estimate for 2035 and 2040 and 2045, particularly for those that are currently gas-powered.
On the issue of PSEF and other, you know, and the Energy Trust of Oregon, etc., etc., I'd like to get some more precision as to how much we anticipate the overall costs are going to be, like, over the next 20 years, and how much of that we think that those entities could reasonably cover, particularly because there's, you know, other demands for PSEF as well.
So I just have no concept of whether we think that overall conversion is going to cost $8 billion and we expect PSEF and those other things to cover $1 billion of it, or if we expect the cost to be $1 million and we expect PSAP and those other, those other providers, those other givers to give, you know, $700 million.
And another question I have is, what about new buildings?
If a building is built now, do they have to reduce 20% every X number of years, or are they exempted for some period of time?
Candace Avalos
Notably, this policy is climate and health standards for existing buildings.
It purposefully is not addressing that because there's a whole other kind of set of conditions for new buildings.
So that's why we decided to tackle this.
And if you want to add anything else, but just wanted to point you to those.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, if we have just a minute to address the vacancy issue, like what would happen to a building that is empty now, that is 50% empty now, but and that's something I think we talked about last time, that it really just comes down to the ACPs, the alternative compliance plans, to be able to adjust in those cases.
Because, yeah, we heard that people were concerned about, you know, if it's vacant and how that changes the energy use.
But that is why we built in protections in the ACP for that.
Steve Novick
And another question, you don't have to answer it now, is that To the extent we're creating flexibility, I think that we're creating work for the city and sort of, you know, administering a flexible program and being able to work with individual buildings for individual timelines.
So I see you've got some estimates of the cost to BPS of implementing some of this.
I'd like to sort of follow up on line of, you know, how much the cost increased depending on how flexible we are.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Okay, thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Vice Chair Green.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you, Chair Avalos, and all good questions, Councilor Novick.
I'm curious to see those responses as well.
Um, I just want to thank you for bringing this forward.
Um, thank you for preparing this document which gives us a tour through the history.
I was not working on this in 2022, but clearly others were.
Candace Avalos
I was.
Mitch Green
You were working on it.
The red lines are really important because, I mean, oftentimes when we pursue policy, there's folks who say, you just— this came out of nowhere, or, you know, it's not clear that you listened or that anyone has been engaging with us.
But you've very clearly provided a forensic analysis of all the changes that have gone on for the last 6 years in this policy.
So I think that's notable.
I think there's just a couple comments I want to make here.
First is, I don't know if there's any skiers in the room or snowboarders in the room or anyone watching online, but this is maybe the first year that there's not a Palmer Snowfield operating on Timberline Lodge.
Mm-hmm.
So we no longer have a year-round mountain to ski on.
And that used to draw in, I mean, U.S. team used to practice at Mount Hood for the Olympics.
Used to be a site of destination and tourism, economic development.
And that's just one example.
It's not the most important thing in our local economy.
But if you look at pictures of the glacier fields on Mount Hood, the Zigzag Glacier is gone.
The Palmer Glacier has been gone since— I mean, for a while now, but they've always had a snowpack field.
That's gone.
And that's interesting because it's driven by climate change.
And if you look at the weather record at Portland Airport, we have an increasing number of hot weather days every single year.
And the 2010s decade was a banner decade for weather extremes.
And so a lot of folks think about Portland as a place of climate policy leadership.
Yes.
And so when I hear that, hey, your policy is not aligned with the state's, that's not a very compelling critique because the state's is not very aggressive and it's not aggressive enough.
And so in the absence of the ability to get the state to move faster and have a better and frankly more right-sized policy framework, cities step up.
And Portland has been lucky to have leadership on this question for a long time.
So I just needed to lay that there.
And if you're thinking about the electrical grid, you know, most of our energy is served by hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest.
And a significant source of that energy is driven by— or I'm sorry, the fuel source for that is stored in the mountains and snowpack.
Okay?
And so our dams were built based upon certain assumptions of snowpack.
Well, that—.
That's right.
Runoff has started earlier and earlier every single year for the last decade.
And so what we, what we now find is you have to spill water earlier in the year to maintain certain constraints on the system, which means that you have to go buy it back in the market, and sometimes with carbon embodiments.
It's a, that's a less clean fuel, uh, in the parts of the summer that are expensive.
And so We're exposing ourselves increasingly to a very expensive regional wholesale energy market, while at the same time our unwillingness to move faster and wean ourselves off of fossil fuel is driving the very thing that's making that expensive.
And so there's a certain connectedness here.
And while Portland's building codes and standards can't necessarily solve the problem on its own, it's up to us to lead.
And so I think, you know, building emissions is a primary source, and we have an obligation to do it.
And so when I think about costs, it is appropriate to raise costs when you think about a policy, but those costs need to be weighed against other costs of inaction.
And the generations that come after us are gonna wonder why we didn't take action to lower their energy bills, to improve their health standards, and so on and so forth.
So I'm fully supportive of this process.
I really appreciate your willingness to—.
Thank you.
Be responsive to all of these stakeholder concerns.
I've had my own questions, but also your FAQ on the website is pretty comprehensive and your stuff's been posted there.
And so I suspect you'll continue to be flexible and continue to iterate.
And, you know, folks who think that, you know, I really encourage you to read what's actually been posted and read about all the exemptions and ways to comply on this because I heard a lot of, frankly, strawman arguments today during testimony that were simply not in the policy.
So I don't know when we're gonna move towards, you know, formalizing this, but I'm supportive of it and I'm gonna be really supportive of the broader conversation in this committee to finally land this, whatever the final policy looks like.
And that's it for now.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you for this discussion.
Thank you to everyone that came to testify.
Thank you to all the folks here for all the work you if it's okay with you, Chair, I would love to see if our sustainability officer, Vivian Satterfield, is interested in coming up and sharing about how her work as our first sustainability officer connects to these policies, if there are any code changes in particular that connect to some of our goals that we have, if there are any pieces that you see as being the most impactful.
Councilor We'd love to hear from you.
Thank you, Councilor, for the invitation.
For the record, Vivian Satterfield, Chief Sustainability Officer for the city.
As you all know, my time here at the city started at the Bureau of Planning Sustainability, so I am familiar with some aspects of this proposed legislation.
And, you know, as I've mentioned before, you know, my goal in stewarding the city's next climate action plan alongside the Sustainability and Climate Commission is to really offer the strategies and the frameworks that help identify and help prioritize the areas that are most impactful, building off of the great work of the Climate Emergency Work Plan, which is our current climate action plan.
So addressing the emissions that come from our building sector is inevitable.
Similarly, and it's been mentioned here on transportation, that is another significant source and so it is inevitable that there will have to be both behavior changes, advances in technology that we can continue to hope for and spur innovation in.
And I believe some regulatory frameworks that will have to be— that will have to impact these sectors.
So the Sustainability and Climate Commission did hear the presentation from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
And we will continue to monitor the progress has considered also with Councilor Avalos's leadership the various changes that have come with that.
I believe the letter from the Sustainability Commission helps emphasize that the tenant protections component of the updated code was of great interest.
Give me one moment.
It's integrating the building decarbonization with the tenant protections component.
The commission also appreciated the information to renters about energy use and the health impacts that can exist in their housing unit before signing the lease, and supported the Eco Northwest study around the long implementation period, was that.
And again, to the point that many have made about the complementary components in the state, that this builds upon and closes the gap in the state standard.
And that is very much in alignment with what I foresee that will also be reflected in the climate action plan.
Thank you.
Plan as ongoing strategies that they will be identifying as well.
Thank you, Officer Satterfield.
That's helpful.
Candace Avalos
All right, thank you everybody.
So, um, I don't see any other hands and we're about 3 minutes out, so here is what I'm planning for next steps.
Um, first, again, thank you to all of the folks who have engaged, uh, so far and also who have brought things in testimony that are worth Uh, looking at and considering.
Um, we are not only out of time, but also I think it's, uh, worth having some more time in committee to discuss this.
I'm glad that we were able to at least take the time to hear from testimony.
I knew that once I saw the list kind of, uh, creeping up in numbers, I realized that we might not get to all of our discussion today.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and so I have made some space on the December 1st So that is when this will return for hopefully a vote at that time.
My plan between now and then, because I've got a deluge of letters last night that I haven't had time to parse through and look at, I'm going to take a look at those with my team.
For councilors, obviously, you know, I've heard some questions that have emerged.
We'll work on getting answers to anything that came up in committee.
Damon is going to support us in that.
Thank you.
Okay.
And then, uh, we— the goal will be to make any additional changes that we feel are necessary, uh, before bringing it back on December 1st.
So, um, we can keep discussing what that looks like.
I think at a minimum, um, you know, please do come and discuss, come talk with me if you have, um, questions or ideas so that we can start putting those in.
Because ideally we can come in on 12/1 with a new policy instead of having to have a big amendment drama.
I think that's going to be more bureaucratic and annoying.
And so I'm trying to minimize that, especially too because what I don't want is for amendments to have disparate effects.
And if we're approving that, right?
So I want to have a chance to work with BPS, work with the lawyers, consider any possible amendments and changes, and make those in conjunction with each other so that we can have a nice clean copy coming on December 1st.
So for those who have engaged up until this point, please do reach out to my office.
We will continue to be responsive.
Um, check out my website where we have everything that you need to know about the history, where this is headed.
Um, and yeah, we will, uh, continue that on 12/1.
Thank you for your time, BPS, and Vivian, for being here.
So, um, with that, our next meeting is Tuesday, November 17th.
And note that we do not have a meeting on Tuesday, November 3rd, which is Election Day.
And then we will, like I said, return with this policy at our next meeting, which will be 12/1.
With that, I will adjourn the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee at 5:00 PM.
Unidentified speaker
Adjourned.