AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance repealing and reenacting Article XIII of Chapter 10, Denver Revised Municipal Code concerning green buildings and for conforming amendments to Chapters 2 and 10, Denver Revised Municipal Code. Amends Article XIII Chapter 10 of the Denver Revised Municipal Code (DRMC) concerning green buildings and Chapters 2 and 10 with conforming amendments. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 10-11-18. Amended 10-22-18 to correct cross-references to other portions of the bill.
12 hours. Council Bill one one, two, three has passed. Councilman Espinosa, were you put to council bill 113, four on the floor? I move that council. Bill 113 for series 18 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved, if I can get a second. It has been moved and seconded. The public hearing for Council Bill 1134 is open. May we have the staff report? Yes. Katrina Madigan with the Department of Public Health and Environment. Let me open the presentation. Okay. I'll give just a very brief overview of the ordinance you're considering today to get things started. So as you all know, an ordinance of the Green Roof Initiative passed on the ballot last November. We formed the Green Roof Review Task Force to develop recommended modifications, clarifications and improvements to the initiative through a collaborative, consensus based process that will honor the vote. A little reminder of who was on the task force. We had two council members, four city staff. Green roof proponents, as well as the real estate sector who had led the opposition to the original ordinance and a number of additional experts the task force met. And nine times from January 19th through June 7th when they reached a consensus recommendation for all of you. And the original ordinance had a number of great benefits for our city. And the ordinance you're considering today and we think improves upon those benefits and really honors them and does even better. So to touch on each of them briefly, that helps reduce the urban heat island. We have the third worst urban heat island in the country. And the new requirement has not only a partial coverage of a roof with a green roof, but full coverage of all the roofs with cool roofs to help address urban heat island. The original ordinance would add green space and help with water and stormwater management in our city, and the current requirement has similar options that honor those benefits. The coverage requirements are actually about 14% higher than the ordinance you're considering today. So we'll add a little bit more green space for the voters. And the greenhouse gas emission reductions will be similar to what their original ordinance would have achieved through solar panels. So just to briefly review the compliance options that buildings will have. All buildings over 25,000 square feet for new buildings will have to install a cool roof. And they will also have to pick one other compliance option. And the options they have are to do a green roof or to install that same amount of green space elsewhere on the site, on the terrace or on the ground. They can also pay for off site green. Ultimately, they can do green in combination with solar panels or energy efficiency. So a smaller amount of green in combination with some energy options. And that's similar to the original initiative where you could do a green roof combined with solar panels. Next they can do just solar or they can do energy efficiency. And again, it's similar to the original initiative where you could cover the whole roof and solar panels. And that's also the option here to cover 70% of the total roof area. Lastly, they can get sort of certified from a third party like LEED or Enterprise Green Communities. For existing buildings. When they replace their roof, they'll have to install a cool roof and pick one compliance option in addition to that, so they can add a small green roof or a small amount of green space to the site. They can pay for off site green. They can install solar panels, get certification, or they can enroll in a flexible energy program where they have five years to achieve similar greenhouse gas emission reductions as that solar option. And there's a number of energy efficiency options, as well as solar options in that energy program. So with that. I'll stop. All right. Thank you very much. We do have 19 speakers signed up to speak tonight, so I'm going to call the first five up to this front row. So if you'd please come up to the front row so that we can get through everybody and everybody has 3 minutes and you're free to take up the 3 minutes . But if, you know, four or five people in front of you have all said the same thing that you're saying, it's also totally fine if you say, I agree with those people and let us know that you're here and what your feelings are. So the first five of you could come up with front row Bruce Ray, Jesse Paris, Luke Spencer, Jack's Roger Melvin and Ellen Thorpe. If you want to come up to the front row and Bruce Ray, you are up first. But good evening, President Clark. Members of the council. Thank you for letting me be here tonight. My name is Bruce Ray, and I'm with Johns Manville. I'm director of Governmental and Regulatory Affairs for them. Johns Manville is a Berkshire Hathaway company with our world headquarters right here in Denver and the Johns Manville Building at 17th in California , where we have 400 employees. We also have our world R&D headquarters in southwest Littleton, where we have an additional 300 employees. We have three business divisions at Johns, Manville Manufacturing Products, insulation, engineered products and roofing. Of course, I'm talking about the roofing products here tonight. In fact, we are our commercial roofing systems division is one of the largest manufacturers of of commercial roofing systems in North America. JOHNS Manville makes a wide variety of different commercial roof membranes for a wide variety of applications. We can supply membranes, insulation and materials for green roofs, cool roofs, traditional black roofs, and just about everything in between. And when it comes to cool roofs, we've been in that business for many, many years, and we're actually one of the companies that work with the California Energy Commission in their establishment of the original cool roof requirements in their Title 24 energy code. So we sort of don't really have a dog in this fight. And from the outset, we've really offered our technical expertize, which we think is is pretty important, pretty vast to this process. And I think based on that overall expertize, we're just not in favor of mandatory cool roofs for two primary reasons. One is that it makes it makes for a more complicated and expensive design and construction. And then second, it may actually increase carbon emissions, since in our climate zone, there's a little bit of a heating penalty that these cooler of buildings have to pay in the winter. It just it takes more energy to cool or to heat them in in the winter. We like to say at Johns Manville, because we have such a wide variety of roofing products that there's there's a right roof for every building. And that right roof is really dependent on the location of the building configuration, size, use and all these other factors. And that's why we have a wide many, many very expert roofing design systems designers that help building owners and developers understand what is the right roof for their particular location. So we would urge you to not adopt this ordinance and instead let roofing system designers use their expertize in getting the right roof for any particular building. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Jesse Paris. Jesse Paris Blackstar. It's a moment for self defense. Denver Homeless Sellout and Community Action. Commitment for change. No hidden agendas. We are in favor of this ordinance change. I was in attendance for the subcommittee meeting on this. This whole chamber was full of overflow. So this is a big issue at hand that we need to deal with this climate change. So yeah, we're definitely in support of this. And also I'm delighted to hear that low and subsidized income areas will also have access to these roofs. Thank you. Thank you. Next up. Luke Spencer. Jack's. Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen of the Council. Thank you. My name. Is Louis Spencer, Jack's director of operations. For London Commercial Leasing Company. I am here speaking on my actually. The company they run and other companies. I support the Green Rush Task Force. With the new order of cool roofs. As far as adding. Greenery, new structural designs, it has become cost effective for. Building owners, new construction belts. So with just that being said, this allows us to get back to work and endeavor. Who a lot of us, you know, are in Denver. Right now because of this ordinance. We, you know, as everybody else, we all have family. We have friends that we need to support. So that's all I. Have to say. Thank you. Thank you very much, Roger Melvin. Good afternoon. My name's Roger Melvin. I work for Seek a corporation. Seek a corporation sells roofs in 82 countries around the world. We've been in business for 60 years. The only thing we've ever made are white, thermoplastic, cool roofs. We have not made black roofs. We hail from New England in the United States and Switzerland and Europe is where our home bases. The point there is that both of those locales are in cool climates. The argument against. White roofs in this market is leaving the designers to make the decision that they don't want to be dictated to. Well, the same argument was made in the electrical constituency when we made codes for electricity, when we have building codes for insulation. Codes are put in place to protect the. Constituents that those people live under. So the people of Denver have voted for a green roof initiative. It's very complex, but you have the data and the scientific research out there to support the Denver Green Roof Initiative. The folks against it, the folks that are in this room pitching that, we need to leave it up to designers, to the manufacturers to make the point it solely has to do with dollar signs and nothing other than that. They're not looking after the best interests of the city. They're not looking. At clear data, scientific data. Denver is number three in the nation for urban heat island effect. And, you know, the voters of Denver have spoken that they want to change that. You've got the tools. Each one of the council members have been sent. A case study from Target Corp., which I remind you, is a private, privately run for profit organization that is put in place to do the best for their shareholders. They've done the research. The research paper that you have is based on multiple roofs, I think 25 roofs that are all ten years and older. And they have all successful track records. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Alan Thorpe. And then I'm going to call the next five up if we can make room on the frontbench. That will be Kathy Bachner, Mike Morris, Brandon Routh, Heimer, Andy, Chris and Caleb Ewing. If you want to make your way up to the front bench. Go ahead. Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm Ellen Thorpe with the EPDM Roofing Association. The EPDM Roofing Association is a trade association representing three primary manufacturers of roofing products in North America. Johns, Manville You recently heard from Bruce Ray, also Carlisle and Firestone. All of these companies make a wide variety of roofing products, including cool roofs. As you've heard from us by now, we are supportive of almost all of the proposed modified ordinance, with the exception that we are against the cool roof mandate portion. In fact, we developed a compromise where users could select two options instead of one and an additional path for a high performance green building option. We are very appreciative of working with the City Council, grateful that you have read our e-mails, returned our phone calls and taken our meetings. We appreciate that you have asked thoughtful and critical questions. You've heard from over eight roofing manufacturers in previous communication and from over 100 roofing contracting companies as represented by the Colorado Roofing Association. The Colorado Roofing Association has communicated with you on several occasions and has been consistent about their opposition to the coal roof mandate. We are also appreciative of the work of the Green Roofs Review Taskforce and the monumental task that was set before them. But nonetheless, we are disappointed that we are here. We are troubled that no roofing contractors or roof consultants were on the task force. We are frustrated that when roofing experts were allowed to address the task force, they cautioned against a one size fits all approach. But that council went unheeded. We are concerned that although five members of the Chorus Working Group recommended against a coal roof mandate, they were told that removing the mandate was not an option. And we are disillusioned that although we submitted comments, attended meetings through the public review process and submitted 16 peer reviewed studies questioning the efficacy of a coal roof in Denver, we were told again that removing the coal roof mandate was not an option. And we were told that even though our compromise position allows flexibility and choice while preserving all of the benefits of the original ordinance. And so here we are. We encourage the Council to continue to ask critical questions that will measure the impact of the cool roof mandate on Denver's urban heat island. The roofing industry, the roofing industry, manufacturers, contractors and consultants is available, and we are committed to working with you to preserve the will of the voters while creating a high performance green building network with attributes that will actually improve Denver's urban heat island. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Cathy Fastener. Thank you, President Clark. Council members my name is Kathy Bachner. I am the executive director of Knapp, Colorado, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. I'm the past chair of the Colorado Real Estate Alliance, which represents over 16 real estate related organizations across Colorado. And lastly, I'm the chair of Citizens for Responsible Denver, and we oppose the passage of the Green Report initiative. The primary members of Knapp, Colorado are owners, developers and investors in commercial real estate. There are over 20,000 across North America, many of which are active in Colorado and in Denver specifically. We design and build office, industrial, retail, mixed use and multifamily spaces. I am here on behalf of those members and as a member of the Stakeholder Task Force to encourage you to pass Ordinance 18 1134 as submitted. The Stakeholder Task Force focused on two primary things as they did their work. Honor the will of the voter. This was a challenge because what the voters wanted and what initiative 300 would have given them were very different and eager compliance. It was our desire to create a program that owners, developers and investors would eagerly want to comply with. This ordinance is a delicate balance of ideas and solutions that we are convinced will not only result in eager compliance, but will ultimately result in even more environmental benefits than the original ordinance would have. For example, the City Planning Department itself estimated that 90% of existing buildings would have been exempt under the original ordinance. This revised ordinance will no longer exempt them. Instead, it gives them a variety of options that assures their participation in the program. One of the most pivotal changes is the requirement that all roofs new and existing include a chorus system with only a very defined few having exemptions for things such as special architectural features. The task force did significant research into this process with multiple roofing experts and have drafted extensive flexibility around these systems. This one change will have a dramatic improved effect on the original ordinance. Remember, 90% of existing buildings would have been exempted and now they will have a way to participate. It is important for you to also recognize that Brandon, who will speak in a moment as the chief proponent of the ordinance and me as the co-chair of the opposition, are in complete agreement with this revised ordinance. And in this day and age, coming to complete agreement on a consensus is a unique thing, and I think you need to keep that in mind. So by giving owners, developers and investors a range of options, Denver can deliver its green promises while remaining a great place to work, live and invest. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Mike Morris. Thank you, President Clark. Denver City Council. I live in lucky number seven. So excited to be here. I also voted for the Green Roof Initiative 300 last November 7th. In my concern with the new draft ordinance resolved around the language in one of the green buildings draft. I was surprised with the new draft ordinance language on page nine stating that any residential building five storeys or fewer or less than 62 feet in height with over 25,000 square feet of gross area floor are exempt, meaning all multifamily buildings that go under five storeys but over 25,000 square feet do not have to comply with green roofs, solar or any other, I guess, proposed renewables. The white roofs are cool. Roofs are still mandated in that section. So what I'm looking at is in multi-family permits in Denver. The year ending in May 18th, Denver saw 10,343 multifamily home building permits. It was a record that year, 14.4% year over year. So we're essentially saying multifamily can be exempt from this process unless you go over five stories. Majority of the buildings around me are all five stories. This is a building then is in 275 units built in 2016. It already has a white and cool roof, so they already meet this compliance in 2016. So this would be exempt. This building, Broadway station, 419 units built in 2009 with a white roof. They're already compliant. This would be exempt for the green roofs and solar. That's IMT Alameda Station. This is also exhibit 300 8038 units built in 2014. Exempt. And the last one in Observatory Park, 550 units built in 2017. White Roof. This sold for over $92 million. We're trying to exempt buildings that are $92 million in. GROSS This is what our my concern is. So I respect the committee's work and recommendations, but the proposed draft just needs to change that, that verbiage from 25,000 square feet or more to less, as the voters approved back in 20 back in 2017. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Brandon Reath Heimer. Hello. My name is Brandon Wreath. I'm here. I'm the proponent of the Denver Greenough Initiative. For months, individuals from all spectrums across Denver worked tirelessly to come to a compromise that would honor the benefits of the original ordinance while making it more feasible for building owners and developers. Not only did we accomplish that, but we have comprised something that is even a greater climate impact, not just to reduce our carbon footprint, to also protect Denver from the effects of climate change that we will definitely see in the years to come. As proponent of the Green Roof initiative, I believe the very foundation of our compromise lies with the requirement of cool roofs. Without this foundational piece, we never would have reached consensus. This important requirement ensures lowering our urban heat island highland, which would lead to lower fewer heat related issues and will lead to lower energy consumption leading to less carbon emissions. The task force worked very hard and very thoughtfully while drafting this new policy, and I'm here today to ask that you approve this without any amendments. Thank you. Thank you very much, Andy. Keith. Hello. Council members Mandy Keith, president of Green Roofs of Colorado, where an amenity space, green roof design installation maintenance company. We've been operating in Denver since 2007. I was also a technical advisor for the Denver Green Roof Initiative and a proponent of it, and I'm also a member of the city's Task Force on the Green Roof Initiative . I'm really going to speak to this task force. I want to agree with what Cathy said earlier, too. She said how this new initiative actually increases the reach of the initiative and will have more environmental and sustainability principles for the city of Denver. And I also agree with Brandon Reath Hamer and all the work that he's done. And this taskforce started as a highly opposed group and with very many variable constituents that they were representing. And during the course of these nine meetings that we had with the task force and over almost 40 hours of time, we examined current research and the viability of multiple options that would satisfy the voters intent of the original Green Roof initiative. Amazingly, we reached a consensus and not just a consensus. Unanimous candidate census of the group with this new green building policy, one that protects the will of the voters well, providing them the flexibility and the design and construction industry needs to operate here. This this new policy will help Denver continue on a path of resiliency and sustainability. Thank you very. Much. Thank you. Next up is Caleb Ewing and I'll call the next five if you could come up and we can make room for them in the front. Emma Dutton John deal into the. Grant Nelson and Sean GROSS. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, counsel. My name is Caleb Ewing. I am from Castle Rock, so I am not a resident of Denver, but I do work primarily in the Denver area. I work for a company called Seeker Carnival. We are based out of Switzerland with our U.S. operations being based out of Massachusetts. So I have to say, go Red Sox or as a celebration went last night, at least it wasn't the Dodgers. I would also like to point out that some of the other manufacturers that we are in party with with the Vinyl Roofing Institute would be Douglass, who is based out of Michigan, and they've been there since 1978. And then another company called FiveThirtyEight, who is based out of Ohio and has been there for over 25 years. I point out where these manufacturers are from because they are all in cold weather climate zones. Most of their initial installations were within a tight radius around their manufacturing plant. They have not experienced the widespread failures that maybe you may have heard of in some of the colder climates with coal roofs. If they had, they would not be in business anymore. So I would ask for your consideration to just to that one that one fact, as you hear horror stories of that might be contrary to that. All of the many factors that make up the EPDM Roofing Association do also offer cool roof options, as you have heard, and they also sell them in this climate zone in the city. So if they did not work, they would not be sold here. I'd only ask for you to consider that just as you are coming up with a mandate, you guys are all having to become experts in building code and building science, which is an unfair task to ask of anybody considering all the other things you have to consider. But I would ask that you understand that the Green Roof Initiative was passed by the voters in order to have an impact on the urban heat island effect. If we can do that simply by changing the color and reflectivity of our roof surface, then it is a very easy compromise for everybody to comply with. Leaving it up to building owners, choice and designers is a good idea. And in fact, I'm in support of that. To most degree, however, there are some things that cannot be left to designers and building owners. When I go to remodel my kitchen, I am not allowed to use lead pipes. So thank you building code for protecting my children. I would like to say that. While choice is good, we have to do what's best for our city. And I really appreciate your time. Thank you. Next up, Emma Dunn. Good evening, President Clark. Council members. I live in the inspiration. Point neighborhood of District one and I work in the roofing industry. I support the initiative as it has been revised by the task force, both as a resident. And as a member of the roofing industry. I want to congratulate the task force for the amazing work that they have done to come to a compromise. In my opinion, the original problem with the initiative was that it wasn't well researched by industry members and the task force has now taken time to do that and they have come up with an excellent compromise that many people are happy with. Most specifically, the urban heat island effect will be addressed by the initiative and I believe it really gets at voter intent for the initial passing of the initiative. And we need to think about that, not whether we can make money, whether we designers can have lots of choice. We need to think about voter intention and the long term effects on our city. The research is clear. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has indisputable research that cool roofs prevent urban heat island effect, and you can twist and manipulate data to show many different things. But a national lab is a trustworthy source, and in this age of infinite sources, they can tell us whatever we want to hear. Right. A rule you get on the Internet and you look for whatever opinion you want to find, you can find it. So we need to be careful about our sources. And the research is clear. And I know the task force has done really hard work to analyze that and present you with a compromise, which is a bit of a miracle in today's political landscape. So I urge you to approve the initiative as it has been revised by the task force tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Could you just state your name for the record? Am I done? Thank you very much. All right. Next up, John Dill. Thank you. My name is John Diehl. I am in Parker, Colorado, and I also represent a manufacturer. Caleb mentioned that I am the Dallas Roofing Representative. Our corporate offices in Michigan and we have been manufacturing roofing systems for over 40 years now. And we have installed billions of square feet of roofing in the United States and Canada. We offer both cool roofing membranes and dark non cool rated systems. Though we offer a variety of membranes we see the benefit of and recommend cool roofing systems to our customers. This is true in both warm climates such as Texas and Arizona and cool climates like Colorado, Michigan and even Canada. I am also a member of the Colorado Roofing Association and despite previous comments made by the Sierra and EPDM Roofing Association that, quote, the roofing community is unified in its opposition to the cool roof mandate and quote , They do not represent me and many other members of the Denver roofing community. We actually support the Corps of Mandate. Despite their opposition, all membrane roofing manufacturers make cool rated membranes and they can easily meet the cool, cool roofing mandate. And all of the roofing contractors that I work with install both systems, just like the insulation requirement, for example, they can and will install whatever the city code requires. As citizens of Denver voted, and I think most of us agree, we have to make changes to lower the greenhouse gases and reduce the urban heat island effect. The most energy efficient and cost effective way to make an impact is to require cool roofing systems. The proposal you have before you this evening is a great compromise. Through months of meetings, information gathering and negotiations, please honor the task force recommendation and mandate the. Use of cool roofs. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Next up, the interior. My name is Ian Thomas Tafoya. I live in the I'm a Lincoln Park and I happen to be the deputy campaign manager for the Denver Green Roof Initiative. I'm here today in support of the proposed changes to the code that was approved by the Denver voters. This bill provides options and requires buildings to do their. Part in meeting the initiative's goals. And I couldn't be more pleased that we're reducing energy consumption, improving air quality, reducing heat island effect and providing green space. I will note that the cool roofs. Are a critical component and must. Remain in the compromise. I'm pleased that the city industry proponents and opponents came together on the work here tonight. But let's be clear it wasn't an easy feat. Our all volunteer coalition was first turned away by the city, and then we took our case to the voters. We faced big money and the well-connected, and still we prevailed. Even still, our opponents asked the council to illegally halt the implementation of this law. Denver is ready to lead on climate change. We're entitled to clean air and clean water, and we cannot let industry dollars stand in our way. I hope this serves as an example that we cannot that we can choose to be bold, that the sky. Will not fall, and that with. Government and citizens leading the way, we can control. And have the hard fights to ensure a stable world for future generations. I implore you, Council, don't wait for. Citizens to push you further into climate change actions. We cannot falter. Time is short, but Denver can truly be a world class city by standing with those around the world and innovating to slow climate change. And let me be clear. If you don't, the citizens and voters will. Thank you. Next up, Grant Nelson. Good evening, Councilman. Council President Clark and members of council. My name is Grant Nelson and I live at 731 Norwich Court in Castle Pines. I'm a commercial real estate developer for the last 26 years have dealt about 3 million square feet of retail. I was the former state president of ICAC, the International Council of Shopping Centers, and I'm here and was on the task force on behalf of the shopping center industry. The original initiative has passed would have been very, very damaging to the shopping center industry, to retail and to Denver as a whole. I will commend Brandon and Andy and those who worked on the other side of this. They came to the table, they learned and they made a compromise. And the compromise was based. On the core of part of the. Initiative. I think we were all better served to have a diverse coalition or a diverse task force, and I think we all learned from each other. I would also say that it is hard in this day and age to have opposing parties come together and agree on something and not only agree, but we've agreed unanimously. So I would ask for you to support the initiative as designed. And I also want to commend Katrina and the staff in Denver. They did a great job of bringing us together and allowing us all a voice. Thank you. And I'm available for questions if anybody has any. Thank you. Thank you. And next up, Sean GROSS and then I'll call the last four, Paul Reed, Jamaica Berman, Phil Chavez and Jennifer Boosler. Coming up to the front. My name is Shawn GROSS and the co-owner of Maverick Roof Coating. And just want to let you guys know that we do support this bill, in particular the core roof portion for energy efficiency. And so happy you guys have everyone's come to a compromise here. So I look forward to seeing it get best. Thanks. Thank you very much. Next up, Paul Reid. Thank you guys for allowing us to be here tonight. My name is Paul Reid. I'm a general manager of Northwest Roofing here in Denver. You know, bottom line is this. There's a lot of roofing companies, a lot of real estate companies, other companies that are looking to grow. And I've personally seen I've been on jobs or we've came out to do a due diligence on some real estate, and. They refused to buy there in Denver because of. Of how this bill was passed. It's about an affordable for them. You know, these roofs were damaged. They needed new roofs. And it was just plain and simple, not affordable. But I do believe this new task force has put together a compromise that we will all be able to live with and be able to do and we'll be able to get back to work. That's been another issue. We we do have over 250 employees as well that we haven't been able to do work in Denver because of this this bill. So thank you guys for your consideration. And we highly suggest that we get this passed tonight. Let's get back to work. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Jamaica Burman. Thank you, Councilman Clark. She added, My name is Jamaica Burman. I am with the building manufacturer, GFT, the world's largest roofing manufacturer. I was also a Denver Task Force member and I represent the roofing community. I've been in the roofing industry for 12 years, both on the contractor side and the manufacturers side. And I just want to bring up to date to where we're at today. Three roofing permits have been poured in Denver. We're clearly in a building halt. I support the task force recommendations and and anxiously look forward to telling the roofing community they can get back to the work in the city of Denver. Stantec, the consultant on the task force, found that 87% to 95% of existing buildings can't handle the weight of a green roof. With that being said, the task force came up with this being the best decision. I believe that the cool roof mandate is the best possible option that respects the voters intents to assertively combat Denver's urban heat island effect. Over the last ten months, Jeff and the Sierra Colorado Roofing Association have been updating the roofing community on the proposed changes. I've been hosting a series of events that focused on training the roofing community on cool roofs, green roofs and solar, so that we are ready for this when it is passed. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Felicia Chavez. Thank you, council members. My name is Phil Chavez and I'm the general manager of Top. That commercial roofing. We are in support of the. Task force proposed changes to the green roof mandate. Our firm looks forward to getting back to work as soon as possible in Denver. And I appreciate everybody's hard work to get to this point. Thank you. Thank you. And last up, Jennifer Bruce looked. Thank you. Council members, I appreciate it. I'm Dr. Jennifer Bustillo, and I'm a professor at Colorado State University in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. But of course, I'm not representing the university. However, I am representing the science behind Green Roofing, as I've spent most of my 15 year career studying and peer review publishing the effective use of green roofs right here in Denver, Colorado. First, I want to address the question that Councilmember Herndon mentioned at the October 12th hearing about cool roofs locally and their benefit on the urban heat island. I was on the research team at the EPA and CSU research facility at 16th and Wynkoop. Ten years ago, when we did a three year study on the urban heat island effect and what we found was that green roofs reduce the temperature above the rooftops by up to four degrees or that seven degrees Fahrenheit. So it's four degrees Celsius or seven degrees Fahrenheit annually. That's on an annual basis. And you may recall that the in Denver, the urban heat island effect is about means it's about ten degrees hotter in the city versus in rural areas. So green and therefore cool roofs can make and have made a big difference right here in Denver. I was honored to be on the Green Roof Task Force alongside Councilmembers Susman and Clark. I encourage you to consider approving this proposal as it represents an enormous amount of effort and compromise by many stakeholders. I know I had to do a lot of compromising because I wanted 100% green roofs all over the city. And so your support will ensure a greener future for all citizens of Denver. Thank you. Thank you. And sorry about getting your last name out there. And I we did have one more that didn't end up in the system somehow. So. Dan Cupid. Good evening, President Kirk and Denver City Council members. I just returned from inspecting the completion of a very difficult roof in Snowmass Village. This report was replaced in just eight years due to severe condensation. In fact, the roof kind of skated so badly that they had to shovel off rotten sheathing in small pieces to get them off the roof. I've seen this type of thing happen way too often, and this is one of the reasons I got involved with the Green Roof Initiative review process early on, working with the city and county of Denver. We were able to agree on language and of portion of the proposed green building ordinance that we help to prevent this type of condensation. My name is Dan Cupid, and I make my living as a roofing expert, designing roof systems and testifying and representing cases. I'm a longtime active member of the Colorado Roofing Association on the Education and Coding Standards Committees, and I'm a board member of the local RCI chapter. I've been involved with this Green Work review process since early January by providing roofing related information and recommending professionals to serve on the Green Review Task Force and also the Green Rope Technical Advisory Group. I have reached out to many of my colleagues during this process, including designers, contractors and manufacturers, in order to obtain an obscure and share their input. Jamaica Merriman Wood Jeff was selected to represent the roofing industry on the Green Rope Review Task Force. She has worked with our Carbon Standards Committee, our group subgroup and myself during the last ten months. Jamaica has been transparent, impartial during this process. I have been part of the Cobra subcommittee meetings, along with Richard Boone, Kate Grabowski, James Kirby, Jamaica Bourbon, which whiskey of TAF and manufacturer representatives from Johns Manville. Over the last five months we worked with Katrina Madigan from Environmental Services. So in Resa Lucero was the sustainability and Scott Prisco and Daniel Krauss in the building department to shape the core portion of the Denver's green building proposal. We also proposed code language to ensure a core of systems are properly installed to protect against the type of condensation I mentioned earlier with cool roofing as a requirement and an proposed green building ordinance. We wanted to make sure it was as inclusive as possible. And in keeping with Colorado's extreme climate. Working with the city and county of Denver employees and various manufacturers, I feel we accomplished our goal as best as could be expected. Through this work, we were able to include concrete towers and balance to the roof systems that act as a different type of coal roof system that saves on energy costs, along with most metal roof systems that are common in industrial areas and would have otherwise been excluded. As industry representatives, we do not promote or choose one type of roofing over another. There are a wide variety of roofing and waterproofing products available in Colorado that perform well in our climate. While we don't support a crew of mandate. I myself understand the need for an equivalency as an alternative to the current requirements in the Green Roof initiative. There is no doubt a change is necessary so that roofing projects to. Such a large extent is a way. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That does conclude our speakers. Are there any questions from members of council or Councilman Espinosa? Yeah, I don't know if this is for Scott, if he's still here or maybe Adam, but there was a mention of a sort of concern about the specific language on page nine. And I just want to confirm that that that that is only for the the additional requirements that the core roof requirement. The you know, I should I'll reference it. Let me pull it up here. That specifically 1310 dash 301a1 is the core proof requirement and it would apply to buildings as described greater than 25,000 square feet. Multifamily, residential, five stories less than 62 feet and a half feet. It's only the additional requirements about greenspace cover and what not. That is is exempt. That's correct. The residential buildings, five stories or fewer, do have to comply with the core roof requirement. If they're over 25,000 square feet, they just don't comply with all the other options. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Flynn. Thank, Mr. President. I have a couple of questions that I don't know. We're covered in committee and a couple. There were occasion tonight as Brandon. Where's Brandon? Hi. Could you come up for a minute and Katrina while you're walking up? Brandon, I'm trying to understand what was the purpose in the initiative of exempting residential buildings of four storeys or no greater than 50 feet, whichever was less? What was the purpose of that? More just cost and burden. I'm sorry. Cost and burden. Oh, okay. Thank you. And Katrina. Then I notice that it's changing here from a exempting five storey five storeys, excuse me? Four storeys and 50 feet or less. Orgill is going to take this or 62.5 feet. And what's the purpose of that change? So, yes, good evening. Jill Jennings goal at Community Planning and Development. Sorry, we're tag teaming on questions here. So you actually tag her? Okay. Just to start. So the original initiative did look at a four storey limit. There was concern with limiting and with adding some compliance options based on what construction types that go up to five storeys. And so there was a concern about artificially limited limiting buildings to a certain height based on requirements in this initiative. So that's how the compromise came to that. They would still have to do a cool roof, but would not have to do other components. I was just answered for Councilman Espinosa. And then, okay, so they still have to do the core of and the change was made primarily because of the construction type. When you're still at four storeys, it's basically with still wood frame, right? Correct. Excellent. That's thank you. That's very good. And maybe I don't know, is is there a city attorney here who worked on this? Or maybe I should ask our our own. Hello, over there. I noticed there was a word, a different word used in the initiative versus the bill before us. I'm just wondering if there's a if that's an actionable change or if it means the same thing. Is there a difference between an exemption, the class of of structures that are under an exemption in the initiative, whereas in the bill before us it says exception. Adam Hernandez Assistant City Attorney The intent. Was not to have any sort of difference. Okay, so they mean the same thing. I was just just trying to make sure that we're not making a change without really coming to to discuss it. And then finally, Katrina or Jill, maybe one of you could tag each other and answer this. How do exemptions work with large but historic structures that might have pitched roofs? And do they I mean, will they automatically qualify for an exemption? And if so, do they do they nevertheless have to pay a fee? I'm thinking particularly of the Loreto Heights campus, which is which is going to be facing some redevelopment. And they have a historical building down there with a black shingle pitched roof. That would be very difficult. Would they have to provide offsite or onsite Greensburg? Do they have to comply? So there is no automatic exemption for historic buildings. However, what we have built into the ordinance, especially as it pertains to the cool roof requirement, because we know that many historic or unique buildings in our city, that roof is a very important element of the overall character of the building. So if one has what the ordinance is defined as a character defining roof, you can request alternate materials instead of meeting the cool roof requirement based on a staff review of finding that yes, indeed, that roof is important to the overall character, and then any portion that's visible of that roof would not have to comply with the cool roof requirement. But the other compliance options still apply and we believe that there are enough options for any building to be able to meet the needs of the building owner and still work for the program. So that night, that 1890, Frank and Brooke building all of the roof, of course, is visible. So they could be exempt. They could get an exemption from the corps roof, but they would have to choose from among the menu of other options. Yes, that is correct. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Flynn, Councilwoman Cannick. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of the speakers. I wanted to ask Jill Scott Briscoe is here. I don't know if he's gone, but the question about how we protect folks from, you know, the potential installation issues or condensation, things like that. I read the Stantec report. What in our building code helps to minimize the risk? So it sounded like proper insulation is the answer. You're not going to save on your heating bill. According to the Stantec report, you are not going to save on your heating bill by having a black roof instead of a white roof, because the difference is so marginal that it's really about insulation and how other things that you build. So I just wanted to ask whether or how our building code is there. So Scott Briscoe did have to leave, but I've got Daniel Kraus from our architectural structural review team. But essentially we have requirements and the rules and regulations which, if this moves forward, will be going out for public comment that require submittal of a roof study. Daniel, do you want to take it over from here? There are two types of Daniel Kraus, senior architect for committee planning and development for Denver. There are two types of roof projects that would be subject on an existing building to the cool roof requirement, and one would be a roof replacement where the existing roof comes off the building and a roof is put onto the building and the coat already requires installation of are 20 above or 30, but a minimum of 20 regardless of the roof type, where in some instances it does not. We would require a study by a an architect, an engineer who would show us where the dew point occurs and how to mitigate any condensation issue. And that Dan Cooper was mentioning was developed with experts on a roof recover, which is where the condensation issues are much more common because there are no existing building codes to require any insulation necessarily on a roof for cover. So you're putting an additional cover on an existing roof and that is allowed in some circumstances, although often not. But where it is allowed, there can be a condensation issue when you put the cool roof and for that there is an actual exemption where it is demonstrated that that would potentially create a condensation concern. There would be no requirement for a cool roof. On a roof recover. Thank you. That's Thomas. Thank you, counsel. Can you do Councilman Ortega? Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask Jennifer. I can't pronounce your last name, though, so far for Bustillo Abu-Salha. Okay. I had a question about the science, and I understand there are other cities that have done the white roof and wanted to just ask if any of the work you've done has looked at the benefit and the effects from cities that have had this in place for a number of years, and how that sort of folded into the the work and the decision made to move forward with a white roof for Denver's program. Sure. So the only data I have is specifically related to green roofs as one of the cool roof options. So not white roofs specifically. And that's Toronto. And what they found is an annual drop of four degrees Celsius already in. And they've only initiated their ordinance, I believe it was 2011. So already they're seeing that that difference that we found already in Denver on a small scale. Is there anyone else in the audience that could talk about Chicago and the effect that or the benefit that Chicago has seen? I understand they've had a program that's been in place for many more years than what Toronto has had. Though I don't have recent data. I know they have around 8 million square feet of green roofs installed. I don't know about Kourou specifically, and I don't know their current data on temperature. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thank you. Councilman Ortega, see no other questions. I have one that I think, Katrina, you might be the best one to answer, but if you want to tag out, then feel free to make my Harris question. I don't know if you still here, but about the change in floors and then Councilman Espinosa, I think, touched on it . The only change between what voters passed and this is the compromise on that one floor. There is an additionally a different change when it comes to square feet. Can you just confirm that that the change is just the floor, not a new exemption for buildings based on how big they are? That's different from what voters passed. That's right. And the voter passed initiative, it was all residential buildings for storeys and fewer were exempt. And now it's five storeys or fewer because as Jill said, the wood construction goes to five stories. So this just to be consistent across construction type. And I might just add, because I didn't said when I was up here last time, the question was that, of course, the core roof requirement was then added to all of those buildings, which were exempted entirely from that arrangement. It's one of the ways the task force really wanted to provide additional benefit. Thank you. Daniel Kraus, CBD architect. It just wants to make a clarification that the original ordinance had an exemption for a four story or 50 foot tall residential building and a 50 foot tall residential building. And again, it could be the whichever. If you had a 50 foot residential building, even if it were five storeys, it would be exempt and a five storey building would often be that height. That's why one of the considerations in simplifying and just saying a five storey building would be exempt because the 50 foot height was already within the exemption of the original ordinance . Thank you. Councilman Espinosa, did you have another question? Come on. Yeah, mostly. Just probably you might want to answer this one. So in the code changes, we actually can build a six story wood frame structure now. So the key is really the height. I mean, so, so I mean, because we can build a podium before it used to be the common thing was three stories of stick on a concrete podium. But now we can build five storeys a stick on a concrete podium. So is there can you explain to me how how this works? Because now you can have a six storey building stick framed, you know. So it's really the interplay, I would think, between the height and the number of stories. And can you clarify the question? Because a six storey building regardless would not be exempt, including residential building, even if it were five storeys above a podium that would be considered a six storey building and not be exempt. So then explain to me why it's significant. If we're referencing Stick Frame, you could build a 2320 5000 square foot, 50 foot high stick frame building, and you could also build a six storey stick frame building. So what is it? What is the connection between wood framing and the exemption? The more affordable housing types try to use exclusively the wood frame and not depend on the concrete podium that you're referring to. And those are the types of projects that would be hardest hit and the cost of the green roof would be passed along to the occupants who are trying to get into the affordable housing. So the real challenge, though, for for from that perspective and I'm sorry this didn't come up in committee, is that what we're talking about is a very marginal expense increase on a on just the roof component. Not every single floor, not every single facade, not every single finish. It's just the roof component in a lot of our affordable housing. And actually, if it's less than 62 feet, typically has a shingle roof, which I think would conform to the character defining rules. So did we just unexpectedly make a carve out for four and five story substantial market rate projects which could readily accomplish, I mean, accommodate a 1 to 4% increase in just the roof component itself. When you say roof component, you're referring to the cool roof because the five storey or a four storey or a three storey, any height, if it is 25,000 square feet, including residential, would be subject to cool roof requirements. Awesome. So we're back down to the same question I asked before, which is anything over 25,000 square feet period is required. With the exception of a single townhome, a single family home or duplex. Yep. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Flynn, you become famous president. I actually needed a clarification based on the answer to your question, but it just came out on on this question. So thank you. All right. Seeing no other questions and the public hearing for counsel go one on three, four is closed. Are there comments by members of council or Councilwoman Sussman? Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you all for speaking tonight. Very well. I was very heartened by all the conversations we had on the committee and how much we all learned about roofing, which I never expected to know so much about. And and thanks for all the hard work of the committee members that came and gave your time up to discuss the how we could make this particular ordinance work. One of the things that we talked about at first reading and before, I just want to reiterate, we've heard some folks from the roofing industry express a concern that the mandate for cool roofs might not be as all as wise as we. And they speak to things. We have heard a little bit about this tonight about perhaps condensation worries. I also heard that from the Roofing Association that perhaps a cool roof, a white roof, isn't as resistant to hail damage as some other kinds of roofs . And so to that end, I have asked the Department of Health and Environment if we wouldn't put in the rules that there be a very careful study and report about the effectiveness of what we are proposing to institute for our roofs in Denver. I think it's just makes sense that if we are going to make some requirements on the building and the roofs, that we understand that, that whether or not they are performing the way we would like them to perform for the goals of the ordinance. And they have said, of course, that they would make a report to council at least annually and put this in the rules about the effectiveness. Is it me? Is it helping with urban heat island? Is it helping with climate change? I know that that is a difficult study to make, but I'm sure you will put your best efforts forward and and very happy that we're going to do that. I also want to encourage you to start that study now, because you'll need to have basin formation of the roofs that are not cool roofs now and how they're performing versus the the new roofs that are coming in to do some sort of comparisons so that we're very you know, that we're we're very cognizant of whether these rules that we're setting in place are as as effective as we want them to be. So thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Sussman. Councilwoman Cannick. Thank you so much, Mr. President. And to Councilwoman Sussman, I first just want to thank you for the incredible amount of time that you guys dedicated to this. And I think that, you know, we were approached and many of us didn't have the capacity. Even if we kind of had some interest, we didn't have the capacity to take this on. And so the voters put us in a position where we had no choice but to find the capacity. And so I respect and appreciate the proponents and the voters, and I really respect and appreciate you guys. So thank you. In particular, Mr. President, I know that you spent a lot of time trying to help to balance the the the the the interest here. The one comment I wanted to make is that I know that there was some concern raised about the residential buildings. So where we are today is that I feel like the exemption is pretty similar to the exemption that the voters passed. And so I'm comfortable with it. But I also don't want folks to feel like this is the only place where we've addressed or we can't address the environmental sustainability of residential buildings. So I want to give two examples. One is that for most affordable, dedicated, affordable units where the prices are restricted and the folks have to income qualify, most of those projects in Denver use something called the Enterprise Green Community Certification already. And so they are working and they it helps them with keeping their operations costs down. So they do it because it's the right thing to do and because it's economical. And so that's happening for those folks. I think for the market rate, new construction, it's important that we continue to look to our building codes for places where we can be putting those standards in, in the in the, the building code. And I it's my understanding that there's a pretty significant green building code update coming in in the next year or two so that we'll have an opportunity to think about where we have gaps in what this ordinance covers and how we get to those gaps in the residential multi-family environments. I think that's really important. And then the last thing is, I think it's important for us to like not just monitor the cool roof in the and the heat island effect, but I want to see, for example, how many buildings do the retro commissioning and how many buildings do the energy efficiency stuff. Because if folks aren't choosing those options and we may need to continue to look at ways to because what we know from our our education recently as a council is that we can't meet our climate goals without keeping that energy efficiency improving. So Heat Island is one thing, but we've got to keep looking. So I think it'll be very interesting to track kind of the paths folks are choosing. And I just don't want us to feel like, Oh, this is the only ordinance we're ever going to pass and now we've solved climate in the building environment. That's just we're going to have to keep working at it. We know a lot more about how to do it in a stakeholder. Says this time. So I feel confident that we have the tools in place to do that and that this really important step is when we can learn from and then where there are gaps and we need other work, we've got to continue to problem solve to do those things. So thank you very much to the to the community for your patience and your willingness to participate in the conversation. Thank you. And I will be proud to support this ordinance as drafted. Thank you, Councilwoman Kennedy. Councilman Flint. Thank you, Mr. President. I, too, will be supporting this tonight, although for perhaps different reasons. The the initiative passed citywide by about eight percentage points. In my district, it failed by 18 percentage points. And in order to adequately represent the folks in the more suburban context, I feel there's a need to at least outline that sometimes one size fits all solutions or approaches aren't really the best and can have. Unintended consequences as initially written this the requirements of the of the initiative that was on the ballot could have been devastating to these small commercial strip centers that serve my working class neighborhoods and and along my corridors, like Federal and Sheridan, because of the enormous costs versus the inability to recover those costs from small tenant base on a one storey commercial building that exceeds 25,000 square feet. There were enormous costs on that. And so this revision, thankfully, removes a lot of that cost burden that that actually, I think Brandon spoke too about when they exempted the smaller residential buildings as well. And so I really want to thank the Task Force Council President Clark and Councilwoman Susman for their really, really hard work on this to fail to approve this by our supermajority, which is required tonight to fail to approve this doesn't and would not bring about a better resolution for for more options for those looking for greater options at simply one. It would feel to me to fail to approve this would be like punting on first down and given the game the other day maybe that would have been better for the Broncos. But. But not for us. Not for us. Right. We tend to look at Denver sometimes, not all of us and not all the time, but we tend to look at Denver as looking like it does outside this window. We're just a couple of blocks away without recognizing that when you walk around the borders of the city in county of Denver, we have a huge diversity of neighborhood types. And when I sat through the task force presentations and saw heat island effect, we want to mitigate the heat island effect. And I look at the average nighttime temperature map versus the daytime and the changes. I see that in my suburban district, single family, some apartments, Wadsworth Sheridan Federal we don't have we don't have the same issues that we have in the core of downtown, which is where the heat island is concentrated. And how is it fair to say we have to solve the heat island effect down? We're not even we're not even experiencing it. And so. I believe that this compromise that's been worked out, given the various competing, you know, Kathee and Brandon at the same table, probably glaring at each other at the first meeting and coming away side by side is a great testament to the power of compromise and working together. Maybe this isn't the last compromise. And I thank Councilwoman Sussman for calling for annual review or, you know, one year and let's see how it work. But what I do know is that because this was put into code by the voters in 2017, we were told that there were six about 630 roof replacement permits issued in this city, 631 on the buildings that would be required to put a green roof one in 2018. So far, we have had three. And those three did not put on a green roof. They went to the planning board and they got an exception. That tells us that this this initiative was a significant problem for commercial building owners. I hope that this compromise will free that up because the very worst thing for my neighborhoods and for the commercial, the older commercial buildings, fifties and sixties era. The very worst thing would be for them to not be able to afford to replace their roofs, to lose tenants, and to board up their properties. So I am very happy to vote yes on this agreement and I'm looking forward to a review on whether it really does generate roof replacement and building upkeep and keep our building stock thriving and vibrant and serving our neighborhoods. So I will be voting yes on this. Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to thank you and Councilwoman Sussman for your work in bringing everybody together and really working toward something that, you know, we can all support and be very proud of. I also want to thank Jack Paterson from my office, who sat through all of the meetings and kept me fully informed on the work that was occurring. I want to thank the folks who came and met with me on all sides of the issue to raise various questions and concerns. I am going to support this tonight as well as it's been brought forward. The only other thing I want to say is I think the work that's been occurring with our energy advisory board that administers our $2 million franchise fee from Xcel Energy, has done a lot of work with various nonprofits and a lot of that happens with single family homes as well. But as we hopefully get to a place in this city where we've we've approached a lot of that work and where we have nonprofits and others that might need to replace a roof. Hopefully we can see that fund maybe be utilized into the future so that even the work of our nonprofits continue to not only benefit from the work that's been occurring to, you know, make buildings more energy efficient, but really contribute towards this overall effort as well when it comes to, you know, having to replace a roof and be able to try to as much as possible be in compliance with with the rest of the work that everybody else is working towards. So I'm happy to support this and great work, everyone, for just rolling up your sleeves and coming together and finding something that everybody could could say, Yeah, we agree to. Thanks. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. Part of me wishes that cool roofs were crazy expensive and that we applied this to duplexes so that we could. So there would be a new movement towards character defining roofs again. That that's me. Sort of self-serving. As a young architect, you get pigeonholed to doing essentially toilet room details and roof details, and you end up spending a few years just doing the things. I see that. And so it's fine that we've already grappled as a council with toilet rooms a couple of years ago, and here we are with roofs. So it's been a real pleasure for me to watch my colleagues, council and clerk, our President Clarke and Council and Susman sort of develop their own skills with regard to roof and roof assemblies and things like that, that that are so critical to the world, to our built environment, and to to see them all the way through these different committees still still getting more and more. And it's just I don't know, it's pretty cool. And but it speaks to sort of how much, how much, how much this role actually takes us out of our comfort zone, gets us to a place of understanding so that we can actually legislate better rules. And so kudos to you, too, and your leadership role in this task force. And kudos to all the task force members because it's pretty cool when you develop these things and get to that point where where everyone sort of feels good about what's going to go forward. And so it's a it's a it's a real pleasure for me to be able to sit here and in support of this and, and why I say that is, yeah. District one Northwest Denver sort of put this over the line, you know. And Brandon, you know, I've always acknowledged this that Brandon and I, we had our differences. I mean, right? We didn't have our differences. I always supported the notion I had problems with the technical aspects of it and where how onerous it seemed to be. But you didn't see me going out there and telling my constituents, vote no. And the reason being is this exact situation, which is it is the right step in the right direction. And I wanted it to win so that we could come here and fix it and find something more workable going forward because it moves Denver in the right direction. So I am wholeheartedly here to sort of. I mean, happy to support this because it's not only what my constituents have been crying for, you know, they're not crying for it, but spoke out loud in the last election that this is something they wanted and it is a way that we can implement it and for the better of this city long term. So thank you to staff as well for your efforts in shaping this and helping make that case again and again and again to the groups that I mean, the people that you were leading. So thank you all. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Brooks. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. You know, one thing that has not come up during this conversation is historic buildings and representing one of the oldest areas in the city. I had a lot of concern of historic buildings and how this would fit into how they will be penalized or exempted and things like that. And I just want to thank the team for working with our community, especially the LoDo district. They had a lot of concern about that and I just appreciate they're probably the only neighborhood that was pushing so hard and in my district around this and so I really appreciate you guys working on that. And I think it's a lot of times we I definitely want to say thanks to our our city council folks, but the amount of time, Katrina, you put in jail, you put in Adam Hernandez into the study over this stuff is unbelievable. So thank you for your hard work on that. And obviously, Dr. Sussman and President Clark, thank you guys for working so hard on this. Sometimes, you know, folks forget about they just see you at the meetings, but they don't know about the prep that it takes to get to the meetings. And so appreciate you guys and then the community that's out here today. Number one, thanks for sitting in those hard chairs, going through security, paying your parking and being here and caring enough about our city. No matter what side of the aisle you land on that you care enough about our city to get this done. I feel like being the worst. What is it that the top three worst urban islands, but yet putting this innovative, collaborative solution together? We're going to be I'm going to get phone calls from my colleagues in Seattle and Portland. And I love that, by the way, saying that you got that we did a great job. And so but really, you guys did an incredible job. I want Washington, D.C., to watch what's happening here. This is this is communities coming together over a very tough issue. And I remember when this passed, I mean, folks were going crazy on both sides. I was like, calm down, everybody. And you guys really proved that a city can come together, come together, and we really want the same thing at the end of the day. So really appreciate everybody who worked hard. Thank you, Councilman Brooks. Councilman Cashman. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. I'll go the thanks to the staff and my council colleagues. Brandon Rice, Ruth Heimer, thank you for kicking the door open as we've had a couple of examples recently along with the Democracy for the People initiative of initiatives coming before us that we take a close look at and see problems with and working with the proponents to come up with something better. And so I think the system's working real well. And Brandon, thank you for moving us into farther into the 21st century towards making Denver truly a leader in sustainability. And I've said it before, I am so tired of hearing Boulder, Portland, Seattle talked about when it's matters of environmental importance and your work is going to go a long way in putting us at the top of that discussion. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Guzman. Councilman Lopez, I just want to to join in on the on the on the congratulations and the thanks for the hard work. But the one thing I'm going to I'm going to saying in that here on the floor that I said in committee is it doesn't end here. I think, you know, we will see true climate change. We will see change happen in our environment when folks who are everyday people living all over Denver who are not just installing these things as their jobs, but own the companies and have the skills to be able to do it and own their own businesses to do it . This is there's you know, there is something to be said about the training, something to be said about building that economy and making sure that that we grow those businesses and we. Make sure that those folks are able to have the training, to be able to install them and then even take them one day down to the residential scale. And that isn't necessarily just putting your regular roofing tiles on, but being able to tap into this and maintain this kind of technology. And that only happens when it's affordable. So we have to be able to grow that part of the industry. And, you know, I'd like to see not just folks that look like me installing these roofs, but also owning the businesses that install these roofs. So I think that's you know, there is an economy to be to be to grow here. There's a trade to continue to do training. So I think this is a good step and I'm going to vote yes. Thank you. Councilman Lopez. Councilman? Yeah, I think it was surprising. I think my colleagues have stated everything very well for our support tonight. And I just want to thank all of the industry representatives and the professionals and the scientific community for helping provide the information that we're looking forward to do to support this initiative and understand the value and the benefits we're going to receive from it. It's very easy for us to explain to our colleagues when we have scientific data, industry experience and information to support such an initiative and a change for our city. So thank you for all your participation and input and advice and data and the support of our task force. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. New seeing no other comments. I will just end by saying one more round of thank you to Katrina and all the city staff who are here and not here who put in made the number of hours of the task force put in, which was significant, seem small in comparison. Thank you so much for all of that to Councilwoman Sussman for serving on the task force with me and and being a great sounding board as we went through the process. To Cathy and to Brandon, who, you know, for some of those first meetings, I was like, oh, boy. I mean, they're even sitting on opposite sides of the room. It was not just glaring. It was, you know, and there were, you know, people paranoid about who's meeting in secret rooms and what are they deciding and to really sticking with it and then sticking with each other as we got close to the end. And there are turbulent waters over this, that and the other thing and really saying, you know, here might be an opportunity where one side might pick up a little bit or a little bit of that and saying, you know what, no, we went through this process together and we compromise. And I didn't get everything I wanted, but neither did they. And that that's a tenuous balance. But to be able to come here tonight and just, you know, thank you to both of you. Thank you to Brandon. I quote, Councilman Cashman said, As a guy who came into this job with very few credentials that that look like this, but a natural resource degree and training as an environmental educator this is a really exciting night for me to to have this in front of us. And thank you for for doing that for our city. And then to all the task force members who are here, all the ones who spoke, I'm Count and other ones who didn't speak, who could have kept us here for an extra, you know, 30 minutes or so, but are here and have been supportive. It's a lot of time that you are not getting paid for to be in a room wrestling around with people over something. And so I appreciate all of your dedication and and hard work. You know, it's to have this ordinance in front of us that now gets more environmental benefits, will keep keeping people working who have not been able to work in the city for a little while and having eager compliance instead of rapid opposition is really. Amazing. And, you know, Councilman Brooks almost took the words straight out of my mouth, but I had written in my notes that the entire nation should look to this room to see how government can and should work and and take note that it's messy and it's hard work. And it took a lot of time and a lot of hours, but it is totally worth it to be able to sit here tonight with this in front of us. So thank you all for setting a great example for not just as leaders in our city, but for our country. So with that, Madam Secretary, let's vote. And as a reminder, we do need nine votes, not seven, to pass this tonight. Madam Secretary, roll call. I. Brooks Michelle Espinosa, I. Flynn I. Gilmore, I. Cashman I can teach. Lopez I. Knew. Ortega, I. Sussman All right. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce results. 12 hours. 12 I's Council Bill 1134 has passed. On Monday, November 5th. That's right. You can clap for that one. On Monday, November 5th, 2018, Council will hold a required public hearing on Council 1160, designating 6302638 16th Avenue, the A6 apartments as a structure for preservation.