FYI ... FoCo council fails to pass climate-driven commercial bldg. standards - BizWest
Thomas Clayton
Fort Collins council fails to pass climate-driven commercial building standards
Fort Collins City Hall. Christopher Wood/BizWestFORT COLLINS — Members of the Fort Collins City Council frequently referred to an ordinance to control energy usage in large commercial buildings as “the most powerful lever” that the city has to meet its climate goals.
Yet it couldn’t agree on a path forward Tuesday night when it failed to pass a motion to approve building performance standards.
Three members wanted to pass a draft of the standards and fix them prior to second reading in two weeks. Three others weren’t ready, but for different reasons. Council member Susan Gutowsky was absent.
The city adopted aggressive climate goals titled Our Climate Future that points the city toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Voters passed a new 0.5% sales and use tax that began in 2024 and ends December 2050; 25% of those tax collections were committed to climate abatement projects. The new tax is called the 2050 Tax. The proposed building standards ordinance would use about $6.25 million over five years to incentivize retrofitting of buildings larger than 10,000 square feet to reduce energy use. Both incentives and regulatory approaches were built into the ordinance.
Incentives would include city spending to help building owners complete energy-efficiency work. County and state financing programs also would be available. On the regulatory side, the city would impose civil infractions, which could result in fines of up to $3,000 — the maximum that the municipal court can impose. Because the maximum fine could be far less than the cost to retrofit a building, the city anticipates imposing the fine quarterly, Brian Tholl, energy services director for the city, told the council.
Speakers at Tuesday’s meeting expressed both support and opposition. Supporters, for the most part, wanted the proposed ordinance to go further. The city had rolled back some of the provisions, including excluding multifamily structures, giving building owners 10 years instead of five to comply, and excluding buildings smaller than 10,000 square feet.
Opponents, including the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce, questioned why the city would embark on a program that is being litigated in the Denver area and that doesn’t have a firm cost. Opponents also questioned whether city buildings will be included and what that cost will be. They said that efforts to seek multiple bids to gauge costs secured only one sample bid, and if multiple property owners are simultaneously seeking to comply, whether the workforce and resources exist to do the work without driving up costs. Opponents also warned that triple net leases would result in tenants paying the costs in order for building owners to avoid penalties.
A city memo noted that buildings account for two-thirds of local greenhouse-gas emissions and that controlling those emissions will improve air quality, reduce costs for building owners and tenants, increase property values, and create job opportunities in construction and engineering.
Fort Collins has 730 buildings that would be affected, but a third of them are already in compliance, city staff said. Those 730 buildings consume about 20% of all the energy used in the city.
Tholl said the city estimates that it will cost $4 to $6 per square foot to come into compliance, or $40,000 to $60,000 for a 10,000-square-foot building. Buildings in compliance with state energy standards would be considered in compliance locally, he said.
If the city had included multifamily properties — they were excluded because of fears of unaffordable rents — 148 additional properties would have been included. Another 310 commercial buildings between 5,000 and 10,000 square feet exist in the city.
While council members Julie Pignataro, Tricia Canonico and Melanie Potyondy had questions and asked for modifications to the ordinance before second reading, the other three voiced concerns that resulted in their negative votes.
Kelly Ohlson, who has served three separate tenures on the council and will leave the council in January, wanted a more-rigorous code that would include all buildings larger than 5,000 square feet, would have a five-year implementation term and would include multifamily buildings. He also wanted to see details on how the incentives piece would be implemented. “I can’t support this because it’s reduced to near meaningless,” he said.
Mayor Jeni Arndt said that if the ordinance passed “it will be the best one in the state,” but she didn’t agree with the regulatory part. She supported the incentives and said she was 95% of the way toward support.
Mayor pro-tem Emily Francis said the ordinance wasn’t ready for passage because it didn’t outline costs and how the incentives would work.
The 3-3 tie vote means the measure will go back to the staff for revisions; a timetable was not clear Tuesday night.
 | Tom Clayton Communication and Media Specialist, Public Affairs |
| Commissioners' Office 200 W Oak St, Fort Collins, 80522 | 2nd Floor W: (970) 498-7005 tcla...@larimer.org | www.larimer.org |