Read the entire article at SustainableCityNetwork.com: Program Energy Retrofit Program Goes Statewide

On Tuesday night, September 7, 2010, the City became the first in the nation to pass a mandatory residential energy conservation ordinance (RECO) targeted at rental housing.  The regulation, called SmartRegs, received strong support from environmentalists and environmental groups like PLAN-Boulder County, from renters and students represented by New Era Colorado, and from a significant group of landlords, including Sheila Horton and the Boulder Area Rental Housing Association.

The SmartRegs ordinance will require energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades by 2019.  Scott Woolsey spoke for the City’s Environmental Advisory Board endorsing the measures.  Speaking for PLAN-Boulder County, Leonard May stated support for the staff proposed ordinances but urged Council to consider the urgency of impending climate change and key the timeline for compliance to one,  four-year rental licensing cycle instead of an eight year cycle.  While some public speakers and Councilmember Ken Wilson echoed the need for quick action, all agreed that City Staff had done an outstanding job of working with all stakeholders to produce a reasonable and balanced approach will move Boulder toward the State of Colorado GHG reduction goal.  Many, including Suzy Ageton, George Karakehian, and Lisa Morzel, spoke with satisfaction of the process that produced regulations supported by landlords and renters alike.  One citizen speaker in the public hearing, a landlord, said that this is the best City Council he has ever worked with.

Matt Appelbaum and Lisa Morzel expressed some concern with a proposal to allow carbon credits to be purchased as part of the SmartRegs formula.  Both felt that carbon credits should be removed and Morzel noted that one citizen suggested buying EcoPasses for RTD bus service or providing points for residential units with clotheslines insteard of gas or electric clothes dryers might be a better approach.  Several Councilmembers emphasized that bringing rental properties that illegally do not have rental licenses into compliance is a priority of this program.   All three SmartRegs ordinances passed unanimously on a motion by Macon Cowles, seconded by Crystal Gray.

City Council’s third reading of the SmartRegs ordinances to approve final revisions will be on September 21.

Landlords clashed over the likely effects of the City of Boulder’s proposed SmartRegs (which will be debated by the City Council at a second reading on July 6)  at a PLAN-Boulder County forum on the subject on June 21. Francoise Poinsatte, a forum panelist, rental property owner and former member of the Boulder City Council, claimed that compliance with the proposed regulations would be relatively easy and inexpensive for landlords and enhance their property values. In contrast, Sheila Horton, an audience member who is the executive director of the Boulder Area Rental Housing Association, argued that the regulations would create major financial burdens and no benefits for landlords.

Francoise declared that she has always taken pride in the physical condition of her rental properties. She said that she has already made significant improvements to them, including energy efficiency improvements, and welcomes the prospect of improving them still more. She noted that the proposed regulations emphasized relatively inexpensive measures–such as insulating walls, attics and under-floor crawlspaces, and stopping air leakage. She recounted that she had enlisted her 19-year old son to install insulation in some of her rental homes and that the insulation material itself had been fairly cheap to buy. She also observed that a high proportion of Boulder’s rental housing stock is constructed in the same way and that consequently energy improvements could become relatively standardized, thereby perhaps reducing costs. Francoise asserted that the re-sale value of her properties will rise as they use less energy.

Sheila, however, implied that the re-sale prices of rental properties are determined only by the gross amount of rents they can command in the market and contended that rents have been under severe pressure in the City of Boulder recently. She said that 2,500 units of rental housing had been built in the City during the past two years. That increase in supply has depressed rental rates. She claimed that landlords could not pass on the costs of compliance with SmartRegs to their tenants, even when the tenants’ utility bills fall, because market competition with their peers would not allow them to do so. Sheila also asserted that landlords around the nation are reeling from the expense of complying with new regulations on lead-based paint, which the Environmental Protection Agency put into effect in April, 2010, and apply to buildings constructed before 1979.

Another panelist at the forum, Yael Gichon, who is a member of the City of Boulder’s Environmental Affairs Office, said that the proposed SmartRegs have been designed to promote the energy efficiency measures that produce the most benefit for the least cost. She said that they had been devised after a City consultant had conducted case studies of seven different types of rental housing. The proposed regulations would require each rental unit to obtain a “score” of 100 over two rental licensing cycles and at least 50 during each cycle. Each rental licensing cycle last four years. Yael asserted that every rental unit in the case studies already qualified for a “score” of at least 50. She also stated that the regulations may provide for a yearly spending limit on energy improvements by landlords and that they will allow exemptions for two types of “hardship”: financial and technical.

A third panelist, Tim Hillman, a tenant, claimed that a “market failure” has occurred in rental housing, because the tenants typically pay the utility bills, while only the landlords have the legal authority and the incentive to spend money on the housing to improve its energy efficiency. Consequently, regulation is needed to correct the market failure. He also observed that over 50 percent of the City’s dwelling units are rental, which percentage makes the energy impact of the market failure significant. He predicted that the proposed SmartRegs, if they are passed, will stimulate the local economy.

Tim cautioned that the behavior of tenants, as well as landlords, needs to change to reduce the waste of energy. He said that tenant education would be helpful, and he commended the University of Colorado for energy educational programs it has conducted for students. However, he recognized that education alone requires time to change behavior. He enthusiastically endorsed close cooperation between landlords and tenants to conserve energy.

The fourth panelist, Ann Livingston, who is Boulder County’s Sustainability Coordinator, said that rental properties in the City of Boulder qualify for Boulder County’s Climate Smart loan program, as well as for Xcel’s energy rebates.  Neither credit scores nor loan-to-value ratios are considered by the County in issuing a Climate Smart loan. The minimum size of a Climate Smart loan is $3,000 and the maximum is $50,000 or 20 percent of the assessed value of the property, whichever is lower. The loans may only be used to pay for fixtures, not appliances. They bear the same interest as the bonds which Boulder County sold to finance them, plus a small administrative fee; and they are secured by a lien on the improved property, which becomes due at the time of sale.

Ann reported that Boulder County has issued $10 million in Climate Smart loans during the past 12 months. The average cost of energy improvements per dwelling unit has been $4-5,000.She cautioned that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the gigantic, Federally sponsored mortgage insurers, have recently raised objections to the way that Climate Smart loans are secured.

She also noted that the County’s PACE energy program provides “micro-loans” from $500 to $3,000 for terms of up to three years at low or no interest. Ann disclosed that Boulder County is currently considering applying for a $20 million block grant, $8 million of which would be reserved as a pool to help finance residential energy improvements. According to Ann, the County is planning to participate with the City in the much-anticipated “Two Techs and a Truck” program. That program is expected to be inaugurated in the next few months and will be available for rental, as well as owner-occupied, properties.

What do you think?  Should landlords be required to make energy efficiency upgrades to their properties? Vote in the Blue Line Poll today!

After a little thinking break, the Boulder City Council re-engaged the issue of SmartRegs at Tuesday’s council meeting, voting unanimously in favor of moving it forward to a second reading.

When SmartRegs first broke into the council’s agenda two weeks ago, council members spoke about it with optimism about its carbon offsetting potential and confidence that it would pass in some form or another.  But after hearing over two hours of public comment, with strong facts and anecdotes coming from both sides, the council voted to delay their decision and moved onto the next agenda item without so much as a closing remark.

It was somewhat unsettling for the over-capacity crowd to sit through so much stirring testimony only to be rewarded with no response from the council. What seemed so certain to council members at the beginning was capped off without any summarizing thoughts or indication of how this week’s decision would turn out.  Read more in the New Era News.

In the US, buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of annual greenhouse gas emissions; globally, the percentage is even greater.  Since all of the buildings in the entire world are existing, if we do not make significant reductions to building greenhouse gas emissions, then we aren’t serious about addressing climate change.

This Tuesday, City Council will decide whether proposed “smart regulations” (energy efficiency upgrade regulations for existing residential rental buildings) should advance to the next stage of Council consideration.  These “smart regulations” will be one of the City’s most substantive act after years of delay toward addressing climate change and achieving City climate action plan goals, which include achievement of Kyoto Protocol goals.

During last week’s public testimony before City Council on this issue, many landlords and their lobby, the Boulder Area Rental Housing Association (BARHA) turned out in force, packing Council chambers to oppose Smart Regulations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Reasons given ranged from asserting such regulations would have no effect because irresponsible renters will negate any building improvements, to asserting that older buildings can’t be reasonably improved (despite decades of evidence to the contrary).  However, other landlords testified that they had already made the types of  building improvements that the Smart Regulations will require and had realized cost effective benefits.

Fundamentally, the opposing landlords’ resistance to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions is about who foots the bill.  They do not want to incur the cost of change.  We have spent 150 years since the industrial revolution getting into this climate change predicament.  Surely no one believes addressing it will not incur costs.

If Boulderites want building greenhouse gas emissions reduced and building owners don’t want to pay the cost, then who pays?   Me?  You?

Or maybe we do nothing.   But that has costs too; it just increases and transfers them from landlords to everyone else.

Scientists give us 10 years to be well on our way toward global greenhouse gas emission reductions to avoid catastrophic climate change.  Yet in last week’s Council meeting, landlords suggested if such smart regulations were to be implemented, there should be a long phase in period, such as 15 years.

Now I’ll go out on a limb here and presume that most readers accept that climate change is real, dangerous and critical; that it represents a serious threat to livelihoods and lives throughout the world and that immediate and substantive action might be prudent.  If climate change was treated as a life threatening disease such as clogged arteries, would it be prudent to reject your doctor’s recommendation for immediate bypass surgery because you didn’t want to spend the money?  Would you defer action for 15 years?

Boulder talks the talk about being a sustainable community.  Can we walk the walk?  Climate change demands immediate and robust action and the Smart Regulations will be an early meaningful step towards fulfilling its climate action plan after 8 years of talk.

Addressing climate change will require effort from everyone.  What I heard from BARHA and opposing landlords last week is that they don’t want to shoulder their share of this responsibility.

We have a simple choice – to act or dither; but one way or another, there will be a price to pay.  City Council should not shy away from the opportunity offered by the Smart Regulations to take a major step toward reducing Boulder’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Boulder City Council began its first reading of the much-discussed SmartRegs proposal at their meeting on May 18. In witness of an over-capacity meeting hall, Mayor Susan Osborne said it was, “the most important issue we’ll tackle this year, and the most complex.” Landlords and renters passionately agreed.  Read more in the New Era News.

SmartRegs is a potential city policy that will create minimum standards for energy efficiency in rental units, such as sealing gaps in windows, installing programmable thermostats, low-flow shower heads and insulation.

SmartRegs has already passed through the Landmarks Advisory Board, the Environmental Advisory Board and Planning Board. With a few minor edits to the policy it is moving on to Boulder’s City Council next. (Click here to email City Council)

The SmartRegs policy will have its first reading at the City Council Meeting on May 18th at 6 p.m. City council needs to hear support from the community about this innovative policy. Please take a moment to edit this letter and let City Council members hear that we need this policy to be passed in Boulder. (Click here to email City Council)

You can also join New Era and show up in person to make a statement!

Boulder’s City Council Meeting

May 18th, 6 p.m
City Council Chambers
1777 Broadway

(Click here to email City Council)

With the current debate swirling around SmartRegs, I support them, professionally and personally. However, there are some details in the regulations that need correction and further work. As is often stated, the devil is in the details. No one would deny that improving the standard of housing in Boulder, or anywhere for that matter, is a good thing. SmartRegs is a step in that direction. The current outcries for and against this ordinance often depend upon whose ox is being gored. Tenants speak in support with hopes that it will reduce their energy bills, which, in most cases, it will. Negative outcries from landlords, some of which are barely hanging on, are about the mandated work that will cost them scarce money during a bad economic time. Both points are correct. What has been lost in this point-counterpoint debate that has mistakenly focused only on the energy savings to cost ratio promotion, is that it is not financial zero sum game. Debates will rage about how tenants will financially benefit but the reality is that there will be the canceling effect when their rents go up. What is overlooked is that it will reduce affordability in our town which is counter to one of the legs of our three legged stool of a sustainable community: economic. The three legs are economic, social and environmental. SmartRegs will lengthen the environmental leg while simultaneously shortening the economic leg. When each leg of this stool is worked on independent of the other two, the end result is much like chasing the carrot attached to the stick stuck on our back. We’re never going to get there.

To a greater sense this is really more about a comfort and quality of life for tenants. This is a good thing. The reduction in consumption and waste is beneficial to the community and the world as a whole. This is also a good thing. Setting aside landlords protests about costs, improvements to the asset increases their value and demand. This is also a good thing. The promotional focus for SmartRegs should remain on three points: reducing energy consumption, decreasing our carbon emissions, and increasing the quality of life environment.

Funding Dilemmas

What is missing for landlords is a way to fund the improvements. The cost of improvements are eventually recouped through rental increases and tax write offs but the catch for many is in how to pay for them. Some are able to finance out of pocket, some have reserved funds for improvements, and others will have to borrow the money. Currently, financial institutions are only lending to the absolute AAA class of clients. These landlords already maintain their properties in good condition, maintain reserves for unexpected expenses, and enjoy rents near the top of the price range. The properties in need of the most important upgrades and repairs are often the least able to do so. They may be owned by over-leveraged owners or by people that do not manage them properly. Their only option is to make the necessary improvements through the Climate Smart Loan Program. But, its long term ability to be funded is questionable given two recent events. First, voters last year turned down expanding the funding amount. This, despite the fact that this program is not a tax on everyone, but a debt obligation only to those who use it. The second problem that could potentially undermine Climate Smart directly and SmartRegs indirectly is the State Legislature’s attempts to stop or restrict all debt bonding abilities of Colorado public entities, (cities, counties, school districts) through Amendments 60 & 61, and Proposition 101. These bills attempt to eliminate the de-Bruceing fixes to the Tabor Amendment. If voters do not authorize new funding for Climate Smart and the amendments pass, you can say goodbye to the only real option at funding the SmartRegs for a vast majority of Boulder property owners.

The Real Culprits

Over the course of my career in this town, I have witnessed, firsthand, that where the greatest number of violations of non-permitted work, unlicensed rentals and greatest physical challenges to upgrade structures are in older historical homes. Unlicensed rentals units in basements, attics, and garages that were converted to such without permits are a serious life safety issue more than they are an energy problem. A blind eye toward unequal code enforcement and the granting of special exemptions from numerous parts of the city code further exacerbates the problem. Preservation of historical structures is very important, whether they are landmarked or not. For over thirty seven years I have saved and remodeled many of Boulder’s historical structures, some landmarked, some not. All have had physical challenges and expensive options. That means that not everyone can afford these homes. Should the public be subsidizing private ownership where the least able to afford them gain special privileges in the goal of preserving historical structures? These types of structures make up a large number of rental units in the city and are the ones that should be targeted to comply because they have the greatest deficiencies of in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and quality of life environment.

Hardship

Regulations should provide incentives to do the right thing, not punitive threats to force them into compliance. These regulations are the needed nudge when coupled with readily available and well funded Climate Smart loan options. The downside to these regulations is that they could bring owners to a tipping point. It will drive many owners to reassess whether owning the properties is worth it or whether they can hold on in this economic climate. Four years to comply, even with an additional four years is no guarantee that they will be able to come up with the funds either by borrowing or income reserving. Opportunistic investors will be waiting on the sidelines to quickly scoop up those on the edge. This begs the question of why we would not grant the same time and financial assistance that is being offered to the publicly owned affordable housing properties to everyone. The very same challenges outlined in the Affordable Housing sector’s reasons also apply to private individuals. Unfortunately, the horse trading allowing hardship exemptions by purchasing carbon offsets whose funds will be used to upgrade public housing means that only public housing will get fixed. Neat trick, similar to “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul” but does not reduce our carbon emissions. This false zero sum game is really an averaging of emissions at a much higher level and a financing trick for public housing. There are better options to support affordable housing. Carbon offsets are a bad thing and should be eliminated because, while they lessen guilty feelings, they do not solve the problem.

In my career, I have also remodeled and maintained many rental properties for clients and myself. I am also a licensed Building Contractor and rental inspector. A majority of the properties I have inspected are in good to excellent condition with responsible tenants that are eager to live in them. The rental rates are a predictable result of this cause and effect. Those with serious neglect and in need of major work fill the range of “affordable’” rental housing. They fall below a quality of life standard for housing than should be allowed in this city by any human measure. Many of the improvements necessary fall outside the rental license baseline check list and the SmartRegs would not even begin to address the deficiencies of these types of properties. Improvements to these would be a major quality of life improvement for the tenants and go a long way towards reducing our energy waste and consumption. But, the remaining deficiencies would still fall between the cracks.

The Prescriptive Path

SmartRegs’ proposed Prescriptive Path guidelines point system has missing and nonsensical points for some of the categories. At its root goal, SmartRegs is about carbon emission reductions. There are no points given for electrical power that is Windsource originated. Xcel clients that choose Windsource, pay a premium and in the current regulation would not get credit for the easiest way an owner and tenant can reduce their carbon footprint. The Prescriptive Path points for Windsource should be up in the same range as solar generated power sources. These alternate energy sources do more than carbon offsets ever will. Give people more time if needed but avoid creating more bureaucracy via government run money pools.

Points are not given for natural cooling methods such as opening windows or doing so in conjunction with ceiling fans. Giving two points for ceiling fans or whole house fans versus eight points for air conditioning encourages going the carbon emitting air conditioning route. Also, there is potentially too much ambiguity with the city discretionary review for Passive Solar Design option. I have constructed many passive solar homes that have extremely low to net zero energy costs. Will discretionary review necessitate extensive documention, costing time and money, to prove your case?

Unintended Consequences

The last point I want to make addresses the constant pitch that these regulations “will be cheap to comply with so just do it”. Some options will, but many won’t. What is forgotten when we create new ordinances without dovetailing them carefully into existing ones, is the resulting adage: sometimes the best of intentions can produce the worst results. Case in point: any electrical work performed to meet the SmartRegs that requires obtaining a permit will trigger making the structure totally comply with the smoke detector requirements under current city ordinances and the National Electric Code. That requirement means that a smoke detector must be inside each and every bedroom and outside of each of them in a common room and that they must be hard wired and interconnected. This is a life safety issue that is a good thing because battery operated smoke detectors, while better than none, often fail to perform at the critical moment due to bad batteries or complete removal. I have inspected many student occupied units only to find they have removed the batteries because “they kept going off”. The code was changed to counteract this problem and it means electrical work in the range of $1,500- $3,000 per unit would have to be performed, far from a simple $600 upgrade.

My fear, with every new regulation we pass, is the entrenchment of a culture of avoiding the painful route. Many tell me that it is easier (and cheaper) to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. The end result, though, is that this drives rentals back underground and increases remodels using unlicensed trades performing very questionable work without permits. That is not the comfort and quality of life results that any of us desire.

In celebration of Earth Day, Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) applauded the announcement of $25 million in Recovery Act funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, for the “Two Techs and a Truck” retrofit program in Boulder County.  Read more in the Boulder Reporter.

]]> http://www.boulderblueline.org/2010/04/23/boulder-reporter-25-million-for-%e2%80%9ctwo-techs-and-a-truck%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 http://www.boulderblueline.org/2010/04/22/smart-regs-another-landlords-perspective/ http://www.boulderblueline.org/2010/04/22/smart-regs-another-landlords-perspective/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:43:28 +0000 Francoise Poinsatte http://www.boulderblueline.org/?p=1266
The Smart Regs proposal, which would require energy upgrades in over 19,000 Boulder rental properties, is likely the single most important opportunity to reduce carbon emissions in Boulder to date.

The implications of climate change are extremely serious and the science is very compelling as predicted changes are actually occurring around the planet.  This is just the beginning of the substantive actions communities need to take to start doing something about it.

As an organization whose mission supports sustainability and environmental protection, Plan Boulder should come out strongly for the Smart Regs ordinance and its individual members should make their voices known to City Council.

Will these energy efficiency upgrades make a big difference for Boulder’s GHG reduction goals?  I believe they will when one considers about 52% of our housing stock are rentals.  They also promote the city’s goal of housing affordability and for me, it is a question of social fairness.  I think it unjust that people who in many cases can’t afford to buy in Boulder, or who are students really stretched thin with higher tuition costs, are made to bear the cost of their landlords’ choosing not to invest in their property. The upgrades should  be part of the cost of doing business.  Spread out over a few years, they are reasonable and manageable with proper budgeting. Many landlords have owned their properties for years and can tap into considerable equity as such.  Landlords also receive tax write offs when they list the improvements as depreciable assets In this case, the investments required by property owners end up being value added for the property, much as any other upgrades, and are a big economic advantage for the tenant.  There are going be trade offs, but in this case, the benefit overwhelms the costs.

We in Boulder like to tout ourselves as environmental leaders when in fact other communities have had regulations in place for quite a while. Berkeley and San Francisco have had rental property energy standards since 1981, Anne Arbor and Minneapolis since the 1980s, and  Burlington since 1997.  Memphis, Tennessee passed a rental housing ordinance in February, 2009 that requires rental units to insulate their attics, seal ducts, close off leaks and properly seal and glaze windows.  Inspections occur when tenants call in with documented high energy usage and utility bills.  The whole state of Wisconsin requires energy standards at point of sale for all residences with a special section for rental properties.

Much of the housing stock in Boulder does not even meet the minimum building energy standards of the 1970′s as the bulk of it was constructed pre-1965 where at best the insulation was a few inches of rock wool in the attic and nothing in the crawlspace and walls. Many homes have not been retrofitted. Payback periods for putting in attic insulation can be as little as a year, and a tremendous amount of heat is squandered without attic insulation.  If inefficient air conditioners are added to the equation, the energy expended as coal, a very potent CO2 contributor, is very high.  Insulation keeps structures more comfortable in all the seasons.

The good news is that in most cases it is not costly to blow insulation into existing attics and walls. Please see the insulation calculator site: When I plugged in the cost of taking 1000 sq feet of attic space from R5 (typical Table Mesa home with no modifications) to R30,  the cost savings was about $300 for natural gas in the first year alone. This is almost the cost of the insulation itself. The CO2 reductions are about 3000 pounds for natural gas and 11,000 pounds for electric. With electric heat the savings will be more than double.

Tenants will realize substantial savings for heating and cooling.  The assertion that upgrades will raise rental rates is simply not grounded in fact and is a scare actic perpetrated by the landlord association to dampen enthusiasm for this ordinance. The rent is determined by these factors:  rental market demand at the time of advertising, the number of bedrooms and location. It also depends on whether the landlord is going for “top dollar,” which may result in a higher vacancy rate and more frequent turnover, a big trade off.

As a landlord who has upgraded two homes that had no insulation and leaky single pane windows, I’d like to describe the details of having upgraded these properties.  Our houses do not generate lots of income; we have to be satisfied with the long-term view of retirement savings.

Our house in Table Mesa and the bungalow in Longmont now have R-40 and R-30 fiberglass batts respectively.  My husband laid the batts, wearing a dust mask, taking about 3 to 4 hours for each home. The insulation cost about $300.

My son installed the batts along the Table Mesa crawlspace, again the total cost was about $300, including his pay and the insulation. It took half a day.  He is not a professional. He helped us with insulating the walls in Table Mesa, the cost was less than $200. We hired someone to blow cellulose in the Longmont bungalow; the costs were so minor, I have since forgotten them, but think it was less than $300.  The Longmont house was done in 1999, and the Table Mesa house between 2001 and 2004, as we could budget in the improvements.

Window replacements were more costly, but definitely worth every penny.  The total cost for replacing 8 windows has been about $2000 for our Table Mesa house and about $1500 for a little bungalow we own in Longmont. All included new trim and insulating foam sealant. Our tenants were extremely appreciative when we swapped out the old leaky aluminum framed single pane windows.  The appearance of the house has been really enhanced and I am confident they have increased the property’s values by far more than the installation costs.  We hired part of the labor for the large difficult ones and did the easier ones ourselves.

All these costs, insulation and windows, have been listed as depreciable assets in our taxes each year, so they count as a tax write off.  These investments have been less consequential and much more satisfying in terms of adding value than other repair and maintenance expenses we’ve encountered over the years.

Obviously we cut costs by doing labor ourselves, and by purchasing about 5, high quality, used windows from Resource, but it shows that this is an option for the landlord on a shoestring budget. The Two Techs and a Truck program should facilitate the process and reduce retrofit costs.

As for increasing rents, actually the opposite happened. We charge less for the Longmont house for the past 8 years than we did at first, because the market is soft, and we have a long term tenant who can’t afford much.  The same thing happened in Table Mesa; for years after the upgrades we reduced the rents by about $120 a month, as a result of a weak market.  I think the upgrades have, however, helped us attract responsible, longer term tenants. We have had 0% vacancy.

I think it essential that the City develop a system for tracking down people who have never licensed their properties. This may require sorting by names through the County database to see which property owners pay taxes on more than one property or who live out of town.  These people should be encouraged to get licensed with incentives at first, and penalties if that doesn’t work. If we don’t track these non-licensed landlords down, it won’t be fair to those who do comply. My concern is that the tracking methods suggested won’t get to landlords who have never been in the data base.

Secondly, the properties should be required to do a substantial portion of the upgrades within the first 4 years or the owner may simply “flip” the property in the meantime, getting out of the requirement.  We have already taken years getting to this point of finally having the ordinance before you, let’s not wait for years before we see the energy savings.

Much of our housing in Boulder has had substandard energy performance for years. We need to seize this opportunity to raise the bar. If we can’t do this, who will, and how can we claim to be leaders in addressing climate change?  Folks, we need to not just talk, but act.