This whole administration over the last 4 years or so has been advocating for equitable and environmentally friendly solutions, while at the same time setting up developers to swoop into Evanston and make big $$$ at the cost of our community. The Ryan field debacle, the Envision Evanston debacle, the City Hall debacle and now this this. Let's call it what it is: Make Evanston Great Again. City leadership is selling off our community to the land developers while turning us against each other. No one who lives here will benefit from any of this.
This is a municipal crisis in the making, paralleled by the school district crisis in D65 already underway. When is everyone going to wake up a realize you are being conned? This is the enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) of government, and it is happening in real-time. WAKE UP.
I am all for equity but like a random committee making arbitrary decisions that could result in major expenses for tenant is not “equity” in any meaningful way. By this logic the Zoning board of appeals is the biggest equity group in town
It is pointless to retrofit buildings here to convert to electric heat, while at literally the same time hundreds of new gas-powered electric plants are being built in the US because of all the demands on the grid caused by electric cars, bitcoin mining, cloud computing, AI-driven data centers and the like. At enormous cost we would be shifting energy demand from direct burning of gas onto the electric grid which increasingly is based on natural gas fueled power generation.
Yes the country and the world needs to solve climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. But feel good yet ultimately pointless measures like this ordinance will do nothing to fix the problem, only shifting a tiny bit of energy use from one natural gas based demand (heating systems) to another (electricity generated from natural gas power plants).
This is performative virtue-signaling at it’s finest. Hello city council — does anyone see the absurdity of this???
I am not an attorney. Is it even legal for a City Council to pass an ordinance demanding that property owners convert to electricity? This would include both individual homeowners and those owning rental buildings.
The path to hell was paved with good intentions. Curiously, it would seem our own city hall fell prey to their over aggressive standards with, "...the cost of replacing the HVAC is more than 50% of the valuation cost of the building.”
You'd think having just confronted this challenge themselves they'd be a bit more sensitive to he implications of ham-fisted legislation.
I'm a big believer in renewable initiatives, in fact I've spent the last 16 years in the Solar and Renewable energy industry. That said, you can't force these things. The proper way is to provide incentives and look for impediments and how to solve them. There have been massive improvements in heatpumps and the new Mitsubishi models can warm buildings in North Dakota and northern MN. There are great solutions out there. That said, there are huge bottlenecks in this space in both supply chain and fulfillment:
Mandating this will lead to, at best, price gouging by providers and short-handed contractors. At worst businesses and homeowners will be forced out of their homes or out of business. These are not trivial expenses as seen by the City Hall example above. Curiously, they would probably be more effective in implementing change if they were to help sponsor/support electrician training.
Mayor Biss strikes me as a sincere, earnest individual. I hope he would reconsider the impacts of this legislation and consider less painful ways to achieve the same ends.
Sometimes it pains me to hit the like button, because I like the writing, but absolutely detest what you have found and simply reported. I hope our alder people are on your mailing list. Please keep up the good work!
There are only 22 days until Election Day, April ! (April Fool's Day - How ironic). Once again our mayor is trying to steamrolll something through the City Council without careful analysis except by Tom and Jonathan Danko of the Hinman Kedzie Condo Association. Anyone who wants to request further study and delay a vote will be called "immoral". We will have at least two new members on the City Council. I'm not sure how the election for mayor will work out. Why the rush? Tonight's meeting will be "lively".
In the Third Ward and all over the city there are very old apartment buildings, such as all those old Schermerhorn buildings on Hinman and elsewhere, that would be subject to the HBO. What will Schermerhorn do? They will pass the cost on to their tenants. So much for the goal of more affordable housing.
This whole administration over the last 4 years or so has been advocating for equitable and environmentally friendly solutions, while at the same time setting up developers to swoop into Evanston and make big $$$ at the cost of our community. The Ryan field debacle, the Envision Evanston debacle, the City Hall debacle and now this this. Let's call it what it is: Make Evanston Great Again. City leadership is selling off our community to the land developers while turning us against each other. No one who lives here will benefit from any of this.
This is a municipal crisis in the making, paralleled by the school district crisis in D65 already underway. When is everyone going to wake up a realize you are being conned? This is the enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) of government, and it is happening in real-time. WAKE UP.
I am all for equity but like a random committee making arbitrary decisions that could result in major expenses for tenant is not “equity” in any meaningful way. By this logic the Zoning board of appeals is the biggest equity group in town
It is pointless to retrofit buildings here to convert to electric heat, while at literally the same time hundreds of new gas-powered electric plants are being built in the US because of all the demands on the grid caused by electric cars, bitcoin mining, cloud computing, AI-driven data centers and the like. At enormous cost we would be shifting energy demand from direct burning of gas onto the electric grid which increasingly is based on natural gas fueled power generation.
https://www.powermag.com/hundreds-of-new-gas-fired-power-units-planned-as-u-s-gas-output-soars/
Yes the country and the world needs to solve climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. But feel good yet ultimately pointless measures like this ordinance will do nothing to fix the problem, only shifting a tiny bit of energy use from one natural gas based demand (heating systems) to another (electricity generated from natural gas power plants).
This is performative virtue-signaling at it’s finest. Hello city council — does anyone see the absurdity of this???
I am not an attorney. Is it even legal for a City Council to pass an ordinance demanding that property owners convert to electricity? This would include both individual homeowners and those owning rental buildings.
I don’t know but there is no doubt in my mind Northwestern will sue and we will find out.
The path to hell was paved with good intentions. Curiously, it would seem our own city hall fell prey to their over aggressive standards with, "...the cost of replacing the HVAC is more than 50% of the valuation cost of the building.”
https://evanstonnow.com/council-may-permanently-relocate-city-hall/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Midday%20Update%20-%20NU%20food%20service%20workers%20go%20on%20strike&utm_campaign=Midday%20v20241013
You'd think having just confronted this challenge themselves they'd be a bit more sensitive to he implications of ham-fisted legislation.
I'm a big believer in renewable initiatives, in fact I've spent the last 16 years in the Solar and Renewable energy industry. That said, you can't force these things. The proper way is to provide incentives and look for impediments and how to solve them. There have been massive improvements in heatpumps and the new Mitsubishi models can warm buildings in North Dakota and northern MN. There are great solutions out there. That said, there are huge bottlenecks in this space in both supply chain and fulfillment:
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy-jobs/we-need-a-lot-more-electricians-if-were-going-to-electrify-everything
Mandating this will lead to, at best, price gouging by providers and short-handed contractors. At worst businesses and homeowners will be forced out of their homes or out of business. These are not trivial expenses as seen by the City Hall example above. Curiously, they would probably be more effective in implementing change if they were to help sponsor/support electrician training.
Mayor Biss strikes me as a sincere, earnest individual. I hope he would reconsider the impacts of this legislation and consider less painful ways to achieve the same ends.
Sometimes it pains me to hit the like button, because I like the writing, but absolutely detest what you have found and simply reported. I hope our alder people are on your mailing list. Please keep up the good work!
There are only 22 days until Election Day, April ! (April Fool's Day - How ironic). Once again our mayor is trying to steamrolll something through the City Council without careful analysis except by Tom and Jonathan Danko of the Hinman Kedzie Condo Association. Anyone who wants to request further study and delay a vote will be called "immoral". We will have at least two new members on the City Council. I'm not sure how the election for mayor will work out. Why the rush? Tonight's meeting will be "lively".
In the Third Ward and all over the city there are very old apartment buildings, such as all those old Schermerhorn buildings on Hinman and elsewhere, that would be subject to the HBO. What will Schermerhorn do? They will pass the cost on to their tenants. So much for the goal of more affordable housing.