 Alright, well welcome everybody. Thank you for coming out for this. I appreciate, I already appreciate you being here and your thoughts and comments already. So we're very interested in hearing from you. So because we are recording this conversation, it's set up in a slightly more formal way because we want to make sure that we capture all the comments and the video recorder doesn't, well I should really say this microphone doesn't go out there very well. So we might just have you, you know, when it comes to the comment time, just have you come up here. But just so you know the format of what is going to happen tonight, I'm going to, oh sure, yeah. Oh yeah, we can, do you know how to do that? Okay, so I'm just going to give a quick background on sort of what passed and what didn't pass. And then we're going to, I'm going to hand the mic over to Kate, who is our chair of the Energy Advisory Committee to get sort of her context for this as well. And then Richard Faisy, who's here from Energy Futures Group, has been working with us on this. It's going to give us a little bit of the background on like how this has worked in other parts of the country and in other countries too. And then we're hoping to save a good chunk of time for your comments. So and I'll be writing them all down and hopefully capturing them because we want to make sure that we're, you know, capturing, you know, like hearing them. So that's, so that's sort of the broad overview of what's going to happen. We, there's not a ton of us here right now. So I think we could potentially just do a quick round of like, hi, my name is and we don't think we need to go up to the mic for this. But just if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself, that'd be, that'd be great. So I'll start. My name is Anne Watson. I'm the mayor and so glad you're all are here. Kate Stevenson, again, chair of the Energy Advisory Committee. Richard Faisy with Energy Futures Group. So once we get to the, so we were just doing introductions and those will not be a part of the recording because you weren't here up at the mic. But when we get to the part where you, you know, are hoping to get your comments, then we'll ask you to come up and use the microphone. So we've, we've got that on the recording. Okay. So just for some context, so Montpelier does have a goal to reach net zero energy by 2030 for city operations and 2050 for the community at large. And really what that means is that the hope is that we can be generating renewably as much energy as we're consuming. And so that's especially for the city operations is a pretty ambitious goal. And I think even for the residential and commercial aspects of Montpelier, that's also still pretty ambitious. And so it's going to take some, some thought and some planning. And, you know, this is one, one thing that we had considered. And so to that end, there was a charter amendment that we, that did pass back, gosh, last town meeting day. Now, just to be clear, what passed the public was quite broad and had some provisions for requiring energy efficiency, minimums in buildings and existing buildings. And that I just want to be clear that that did not pass the legislature. So that's, I want to make sure that you all know that we're not talking about that. And, but what did pass was the possibility of doing energy efficiency disclosure of information at the time of listing for sale for existing properties, commercial and residential. And so moving forward from that, we are interested in having this conversation about how this could look or potentially, you know, what we should be considering or what's, what are the, what are our fears with this or what are the concerns or hopes or any of the above is, it's all welcome. So anyway, so for any further context, I'm going to pass this over to Kate. I just wanted to say a few things about the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. We were a group of volunteers. There are about 15 folks on the committee. And our mandate is really to advise city council on anything energy related that's for the city. So again, totally advisory in, in capacity. But a lot of what we've been working on as a group are things like measuring the city's municipal energy use, outreach to citizens to help inform folks about energy efficiency opportunities. So we kind of work working at the municipal level. We're also working, you know, at the community level, we're currently working with landlords to help increase efficiency of multifamily buildings. And so this energy efficiency ordinance conversation really kind of fits in with a larger planning process that we have underway. And for all of you who are Montpelier residents, you know that there, there's a city plan, formerly known as the master plan, but that needs to get updated every five years. And so that process is in progress. And we are, you know, all the different committees of the city are responsible for helping to draft different chapters of that plan. So we're working on energy chapter. And within that, we look at things like what's the, you know, number of homes that have been weatherized in the city of Montpelier, and then set a 10 year goal for what we, you know, what we think that will look like in 2030. And then also we're looking at 2050 goals as well as Anne said. So, you know, part of that goal setting process is also identifying what are specific initiatives that the city could take both on a policy level and an outreach level to help us reach those goals. And so this idea of an energy efficiency time of sale disclosure was one of the ideas that we've been talking about for a few years, really, to the point of bringing it to the vote in November and then through the Charter Change process. But I think as Anne said, like, we don't really know what this looks like yet. And that's why we are trying to engage in this process of getting feedback and researching, which Richard will speak to, researching kind of what the possibilities might be. And then our role as the Energy Advisory Committee is, I think, to come back and make some recommendations to city council as to actual ordinances and ordinance language. So that's all I have. Yeah. And yeah, I guess resources to help home buyers. You know, we also see ourselves as a kind of educational information gathering and information sharing resource. So part of what we are doing is tabling at the farmer's market and having lectures and events that help educate folks as to how they can help implement these ideas in their homes and businesses. Great. Thank you. So as the mayor and Kate indicated, I'm Richard Faisy. I live in Starksboro. I don't live in Montpelier. But I've been helping the city here think through and consider what the options are for moving forward with time of listing energy ordinance. I've been working on this for a while in Vermont and had a grant from another organization that allows me to spend some time supporting the city. So I've been here helping move this forward. So I'm going to provide a little bit of background and context. And sorry for those of you who have heard this previously. I'll be repeating it, but hopefully it will provide some context for everybody. So why are we doing this? Why does this make sense? Well, there's this, the theory behind making energy information at the time of sale is one that sort of is picked up by this cycle here. So if you start at midnight and go around clockwise, if the owner discloses energy information of the property, that fully informs buyers or renters about what's in that property that they're either buying or renting. We're talking here specifically about sale, but this concept holds true for rental properties as well too. By making this information available, people have choices and will favor efficient properties. It's really leveraging the market and the power of information that the market can provide. So the market would, in theory, value more efficient properties. Owners would, in order to sell their property either quicker or for more information. If this information is made available, owners would invest in those properties if they know that they could get their money back and get a return on that investment. And so, and then making that available, the market will see that the next time and the market pressures will help to improve the properties just through making information available. So that's the theory behind it. As I mentioned, we've been working at this for a while in Vermont, trying to figure out how to take something that's really sort of invisible and put it in front of people at the right time so that people can make good choices and so that people are motivated to invest and improve the energy efficiency of their property. So we've really, we've been rating new construction since 1987 in Vermont. And so we have what was originally energy rated homes. It's now a home energy rating system. So anytime about a third or half of all new homes in Vermont go through a rating system and that information is made available and disclosed. But beyond that as well, too, there have been a number of efforts underway that started in early 2011. The governor named a disclosure working group. There was a couple acts that didn't make it forward through the legislative process. And it's been come up in a number of plans at the state level. So things have been percolating along, too. At the same time, there have been a pilot program that was done, Efficiency Vermont, and worked with New Hampshire and did 250 home energy scores for Vermont homes on a sort of a pilot basis as well. And have been working with the market players with the realtors and the lenders and others to try to figure out how this works throughout the state of Vermont. So this effort in Montpelier is one that's sort of building on some of the information in the past and trying to figure out how to put these pieces together and make this information available so that we can leverage markets and make them work. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but we know that having information available, it's helpful in many things. Buying appliances, buying cars, people don't make a decision solely on miles per gallon. But I think that we all expect that this information should be available and be part of the consideration of which vehicle we might buy. So there are, as well, we've been looking at this or other jurisdictions that have put this in this energy information in place. And the evidence there is that it doesn't necessarily kill a sale, which is one of the contensions out there. So but it's an opportunity to reward investments and what people have put into properties. So in addition to making this information available, there have been some studies that have been done around the world. The Europeans have been doing this for a while that actually shows that having this information when a home changes hands. Having that information available encourages people to make energy improvements in the properties. So typically, somebody is going to they buy an existing home, they'll do some sort of remodel or upgrade or something within the next within the first six months or a year or so, having some information available around energy and knowing that this is going to be part of the process, the sale process coming down the road, people are more likely to make an investment in that property. So there's some examples here of the portion of buyers that are influenced by rating or disclosure reports, and the percentage of those who actually make recommendations when they're making renovations to those homes. So so that's part of it as well too. So this is not anything new. This has been happening in Europe since 1997. And and the most of the, I think all of the European countries actually have some sort of some form of time of sale or time of listing disclosure in place in the United States. This has been happening since the since 2007 as well as well too. Right now, this is what it looks like as of June of this year, there are there are a number of number of states and cities that have some form of energy disclosure policy that that's in place. So we're not we're not out there leading the charge on this here in Montpelier. There's evidence, there's experience, and we would be borrowing from some of that from some of these other states and municipalities as well. As well, the Department of Energy has done a number of studies looking at this and and really sort of looking at the impact that energy efficiency has had on the on the real state market. One that I think is particularly interesting is Chicago, that homes that disclose energy costs sold 20 days faster. There was also some evidence there that they sold they sold for more as well too. So this information does does help influence markets. Just to sort of pull to pull together what some of the benefits would be for Montpelier buyers and sellers. This would really help protect and reward investments that somebody's made in their home for upgrading energy efficiency or putting solar in their home by making this information available. It would help the market to better value efficient homes with with transparency. There there are increasingly opportunities to roll improvement costs into the mortgage. More and more lenders are offering green and energy efficient financing program. So with with this being made available, this information made available, people will will more likely take advantage of some of these financing opportunities. And really, this is a consumer protection opportunity for helping buyers know what they're what they're getting into. So with with that sort of as as background, I just want to sort of walk through some of the some of the elements that we're considering. And and at this point in time, nothing, nothing is a done deal. But there are some there are some pieces that we're looking at and thought it'd be helpful to share those and and then let people react to to to what what's on the table. So the mayor talked about what what sort of driving this effort. So this is this is the the language that was passed by the legislature and is is now became part of the city charter once the governor signed it earlier this summer. So regulation enforcement of energy efficiency disclosure requirements for existing and new commercial and residential properties at the time of properties listed for sale. So this is quite a bit broader than what we're talking about. This includes new construct new construction as well as existing commercial and residential. We're we're starting with existing proper existing residential properties, even though this ordinance would allow a broader effort. But it seems to make sense to start with a particular market segment and figure that out and and before before taking a too big big a bite of the apple. So some of the options that we're considering are and I'll talk a little bit more about this and I'm sure you'll have some questions as well too. There's a Vermont home energy profile which is a which is a home energy label that sort of summarizes the key features of a home and provide some some bottom line information. So a way to convey this information in a and a consistent uniform and straightforward simple way to to to buyers and and and for sellers as well. We're talking considering generating this through what's called an automated energy model. I'll talk a little bit more about that. We've also looked at and many of the other jurisdictions actually have an energy auditor come in as part of their disclosure requirements and provide a home energy score which is the Department of Energy labeling system and energy audit. But we've we've sort of put that aside because that that that does add some costs and it does potentially have a time consideration. And so in the interest of of having something that's basically efficiency Vermont has has suggested that they could provide this automated energy model for free and it could be done by the seller or the realtor or somebody involved with the home sale. So it would it would take care it would take care of the cost and the time considerations that that we've heard that have been issues. There's there's also another piece of legislation that that passed this this session Act 62 which called for the the reformation of some working groups that have been meeting over the past number of years. There's a residential building energy labeling working group and a commercial and multifamily building energy labeling working group. So this is an effort that's sort of happening in parallel outside of Montpelier. But they will be talking about are there some building energy labeling systems that make sense for the for the state of Vermont that that Montpelier could could tap into. It makes no sense for Montpelier to have a system here in Burlington have their own and Brattleboro to have theirs. St. Johnsbury to have theirs. If there's a statewide system that that works that that there's consensus from the stakeholders. And it's your stakeholder working groups that that are named this legislation that would make life easier for us to sort of hitch our wagons to those. And then as well we you know we we certainly want to hear from the stakeholders people here today and this this won't be the end of the conversation either. I think you'll hear the the mayor indicating that too because there will be as the ideas get fleshed out there'll be other other opportunities for city council and for the public to chime in also. So this is the front and the back side I know you can't you can't see it very well here but and I'm assuming this this this will be up. We can put this PowerPoint up on the website. Maybe it was up there on the city city council website so you can look at it in more detail. But this is the Vermont home energy profile that came out of the pilot program that was run a couple years ago and it's sort of been tweaked and adjusted. But this is what what's we're considering it at this point in time. So the the backside has a number of definitions and resources to follow up on. But the front side the left side here has some sort of three main areas that it that it focuses on. The has total dollar energy costs per year. So that'd be for heating hot water heating cooling hot water lights and appliances. So all the energy costs that are in a building would get pulled pulled together and provided in terms of dollars per year. So that's the really the the disclosure that that we feel is is is the bottom line going to be most important to people to know what they're getting into and what it's going to cost to live in a property. Then the wedge that's next to it provides a comparison of that property against other properties of the same size. So the highest energy use would be that same that same home with no end with no insulation in it. Very inefficient home. The green point on the left would be the amount of energy that that home uses. It would be very well insulated and very high efficient equipment in it. A very tight building as well too. So and then it provides a comparison for the for the home that's being rated and in comparison to those to those different endpoints. And then it breaks down the home energy okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So there's and then it breaks down the energy costs. If their achievements the house is so many participated in a program or put solar panels in the roof those things will be highlighted there. And then the bottom section is take action. What are the opportunities in this house based on what's there for moving forward. So with that this would be generated through a automated energy model. And I'm not going to go through this in detail. I have got a number of slides here. If you've got questions we can talk about it. But it essentially this this is being developed and piloted by efficiency Vermont and and clearly energy that's done a couple million of these for for real estate portals around that around the country. But it will pull information from the property database to generate the characteristics of a home. And and then it allows you there are as the seller or the realtor or the home inspector whoever is going to fill this out for property. You can then go in and update the information that it comes up with. So it'll pull from the statewide the Montpelier database and then you can if you put in a new energy star refrigerator you can select that or you put in LED lighting throughout you can update that as well too. So this has the ability to take what was automated and then update it for your particular situation based based on information that you have. So that these are some examples of of what the impact would would be there too. There there are a number of pieces of information this pulls from as well. Not only would pull from the Montpelier database but of a home had solar on it. All of the solar systems in the state are in database that the Public Utilities Commission holds. It would pull that solar information accurately from there and and and put it into the system. If it had gone through a program and efficiency for Mont it would pull from that database as well too. So the all the available information that sort of builds on the characteristics of the house that are in the property that the cities. I'm not saying the proper terminology is the property database a tap property tax database. I'm not even quite sure exactly what what is what the proper name is but it has the characteristics of the house in terms of age size fuel use that sort of thing that's there. And then these and then pulled from efficiency of Vermont and the Public Utilities database it would it would generate that home home energy profile. This is the same information that flows into the multiple listing service as well. So we've talked about about this. It's this would this would be I think people have some suggestions around this. It's been a lot of thinking but but certainly what what is the information that gets conveyed would was is going to be useful. And and with that I'm happy to answer questions. We did we did have some discussion questions we put put forward as well too but but maybe maybe what we do is if there's any clarification questions maybe we start start there. And then and then and we'll lead a conversation. Yes. Which great. Yes. Which slide did you want. Okay. I generated this list of questions in hopes to just get people thinking about it in a variety of ways. I would add to this list of questions. Are there things that we should be asking places that have done this sort of thing elsewhere. What what kinds of things should we should we be asking to be finding out. Are and also I think it's fair to put up there like what are our hopes and or fears about this. And yeah open to open to suggestions and advice. So I guess I would add that to that. Is that is that helpful. Okay. Great. So as Richard said if I if it's I think we could start with some clarifying questions. Are there things you'd like to details you'd like to know more about. And then then we'll frame a discussion. But for now clarifying questions. Yeah. I'm Alex Aldrich I was Koldebecker classic properties. My wife is my broker and she told me I could come down here if I promise not to say anything. So here I am. You you mentioned early on. This is a clarifying question. That at some point during the sale someone would pay for this and you mentioned either the seller or realtors would pay for it. Did I hear that correctly. In other in other markets that's what's happened is happening. Here efficiency Vermont has at least initially they haven't said for how long for at least a couple of years they will cover the costs of providing this. So and and there after my the indications that that we've heard from the developer of this automated energy model is it it costs something like 15 or 20 thirty dollars to actually to run the software. So my efficiency Vermont has some resources. Certainly I would say plenty to cover that. I think that they want to hold hold their options out if there if there are a lot of these that get generated throughout Vermont at this point in time. It's really just Montpelier that's having this conversation now. I know Burlington is considering something as well too but it so to answer your question directly no costs for at least a couple years. Thank you. Other clarifying questions. Yeah. I have more thoughts about this and there's probably time to. Allow to express it. I think one. I'm sorry. What one thing I want to mention I've heard a number of people are realtors. My own professional background has been legislative council staff and other places in government developing policy and workable programs that are going to actually do what they purport to to do. And so a good deal of my frank frankly criticism of the idea stems from that experience and then there are other things that are into it. I'm not not even quite sure where to start except that I think one fundamental thing that seems to not be acknowledged at all is that there has been point made that this this proposal would affect the price of buildings and would affect the amount of money that somebody gets from when they sell their house. I mean I think it's it's inevitable that it will go. It's going to have a financial effect. And particularly if my pillar is being viewed as the guinea pig for this. It is simply you got to say this is not. I don't feel as a as a mob pillar or homeowner that I particularly want to be a guinea pig. Particularly when you know I'm an old man I might die before I get out of my house but there's a chance I might want to sell it and I don't particularly want to take whatever the loss or the gain would be. I know what it's worth now and experience something that could be negative when everybody else in my shoes in the state is not. That that's one point. Another point I had not known about this automated thing but I got to say I'm really suspicious or dubious about that. And when when the point was first made that this was analogous to the Miles Pergallan sticker on the car up in the at the auto dealer I thought well that's just baloney. You're talking about a brand new comparatively simple system a car that is basically the same technologies of all the other cars that are on the market. You're not doing it to use cars. It's a national system that's been tested by all kinds of engineers and it's one factor anybody who pardon me and it's not accurate. You can you can fudge it and as we know with VW and so you know when I think about Montpelier houses which I know something about over half of our housing stock is old and you know I think it's true to say that every one of those buildings is unique. I know that I've had my I've had my house almost 50 years and I've done any number of energy improvement efforts over the years which are now probably mostly antiquated. But I think that's probably true for most people. I give I think Montpelier is homeowners are really the biggest asset that this community's got. If you look around it's not historic preservation. It's not zoning. It's not anything else. It's the people who have invested their lives and their major financial commitment to that property. And I think it's got to be the case that practically everybody who's got their you know who's who's awake is going to be investing in energy improvement for a long time. Which I'm that's a little off the point but it but the point I'm wanting to make is I think there's a bit of a presumption that this is really a key problem. You know and the way I think of it as a government analyst is that you've got problems which are ones that individual parties are most suited and most motivated to cure on their own. You've got other problems that they are not capable of dealing with. We call those things public goods highways the military whatever. And it seems to me that in the terms of the city wanting to have the net zero business actually accomplished. Our efforts would be better spent looking at how we could actually get rid of the fossil fuel consumption that we do where there's not the potential for very many people individually to take care of that on their own. Whereas I think the energy efficiency is something that can take care of their own. But let me just make a couple other points. I don't want to just I don't want to go on and on here. But there are a couple other key points I think from just a policy point of view and that is I really don't trust the automated concept. I think having assuming that this is going to be done. It seems to me that it's such a complex problem that you really do need to have individuals who are well trained and who know the differences between all the variations that they're going to find and relying on a computer model somewhere to for example take account of most of the houses, the old houses in Montpelier have got fieldstone foundations. Energy efficiency says that is a condition which you need to cure from an efficiency point of view by putting insulation over in the basement on the inside. And I think if you ask any old timer about that they're going to tell you that's the worst thing you could do if you want to prevent frost from heaving those stones and wrecking your foundation. Yeah, I just had a conversation about this. Yeah. So am I wrong about that? Apparently there are ways that you can insulate fieldstone. Well, yeah, you do it on the outside. That's how I mean, that's precisely a point. Well, okay. Anyway, I mean, another thing with efficiency for a month that has bugged me for a long time is there was a period where they sent out a letter to homeowners every so often with I was either good, bad or medium, I suppose, in my enter my electrical use. And you know, it was the stupidest statistical measure that I've ever seen. I mean, it completely ignores the notion that people use electricity on multitude of ways and with different levels of use for the same things. And I worry that that's the kind of mentality that would come from particularly these comparisons, you know, home to home. And I guess the final thing I want to say well, two things. One is that I think it's from a governmental point of view, wrong to give a nonprofit entity whose job is primarily promoting energy use in the way that they would have you use it, to be the ones who are going to be responsible for telling you what you need to do, not simply because you ask them and you can use the information or not, but because it's a regulation, a government regulation. Non profit groups, not to be in the business of an arm to regulation. And the final thing I want to say, I guess is that to me, we've got a perfectly good, long term, well developed set of institutions about real estate transactions that are called the licensing process. We've got realtors, lawyers, appraisers, building inspectors, surveyors, financiers, they all have to be licensed. There's a whole series of aspects to the institution to assure that people are well trained that they are competent, that they're being supervised properly. And if there are problems, you've got a non partial adjudication of it. And I wonder, in fact, how what's a person who's not happy with one of these things that they get from energy efficiency going to do to try to get a fair hearing. And so I think that if this is going to go forward, first, it needs to be a state program that involves the licensing procedure of similar to what all the other actors in the real estate market are about. And that it that it not presume that it can be all automated and done with a computer and an app on your phone comments. I think they're they're really helpful to get your perspective. If if the automated energy approach was not taken, but instead curious about your thoughts about if instead there was a professional accredited individual, would that be desirable? That's exactly what I'm suggesting. And there was a comment about this that the city council made in the week. Use the mic. Oh yeah, use the mic. And there was an individual present who is a licensed appraiser. And he made the observation. I'm not sure where this occurs, but that in that particular profession, they had branched out apparently someplace and included energy auditing as part of that. And that seems like a very reasonable way to do it. Thank you. I think we are. I think we're on to comment. So I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I live in East Roxbury now, but I did own real estate in Montpelier up to 2013, I think. Oh, Lori Holt. I'm a real estate broker in Montpelier. So if we're being expected to help implement this, that's why I'm not feeling bad about living in Roxbury. Right now, the time of sale, the only requirement that Vermont has is that the sellers provide the adequate smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. And for years, I don't think it's a bad thing, but for years I've had trouble understanding why, why are they waiting if it's so important for a house to sell to try to get smoke detectors in everybody's houses? I mean, really, I don't understand why the two are joined at the hip like that. And I guess my same comment would have to do with this idea. I don't understand if it's such a good thing why you're waiting until a house sells to get involved with this. But, but, but also, you know, I'm not an advocate for this. I mean, I like the idea that the American dream is for people to own a home where it's safe for them to come home and just have peaceful enjoyment of it when they get there and not have some government body saying you need to have it be energy efficient as well. I mean, I've been recycling to, you know, for a long time before it was mandated in places. But I just don't get why the government needs to get involved in people's decision to choose to make their homes energy efficient or not. I mean, it's obvious that insulated homes are cheaper to own their heat. They cost less to, and they're more comfortable. They're not drafty. But I just don't get this idea that at the time of sale, there's going to be this arbitrary computer generated. I think I put it on the same, the same scale as how accurate zestimists are, which they aren't, which they are not. So I guess, I guess that's my point more for I don't understand why this is coming up at the time of sale anyway. And I don't think the realtor should be the ones involved in needing to make any of this happen, frankly. On Zillow.com, if you go to Zillow.com, it's a it signs an arbitrary computer generated figure, which is historically terribly inaccurate. I don't know where to start either a little again. Just one thing in particular, which I'm not sure if you're aware of, we have forms. Oh, Martha Lang. Oh, actually, I'm sorry, before I'm sorry to interrupt. Just to clarify from the previous comment, it's the the language of the Charter Amendment was actually about time of listing for sale rather than time of sale, if that makes any sense. Yeah, OK, well, fair enough. It's not as old as my neighbor's houses. It does have a foundation that is not rock. And I don't have I'm on a shrinking fixed income as many people my age are. We don't have the money to do all of this fun stuff. And I whatever this, I don't know, this. Plan or whatever sheet that tells you you have to tell how much insulations in your attic. I don't have an attic, so I don't much care. In all of that kind of stuff, I mean, that's crazy. I do have, though, if the time comes to sell my house. I believe since day one, 25 years now, my electric usage, my heat usage and what the city calls an excuse for a water usage, which is almost impossible to really track. So. It's something a lot of homeowners would probably do anyway, especially since we have computers. I mean, I'm an accountant and I remember 12 column spreadsheets and if you had to consolidate, you had to add 12 12 column spreadsheets to get to the consolidated. You got Excel now. You can just pop your numbers in there, put your formula in there and you can do whatever you want. I take my bills when I get them for electric. I don't do it every month, but I'll catch up here and there during the year and pop in kilowatt hours used and all the other information they give me and the same as the heat, when did I buy it? How much did I buy and what cost me to buy it? And I'm always six or seven thousand dollars depending on the or gallons, depending on what time of year it is for the city. For this water and sewer. So I, you know, I don't think we need somebody to tell us our efficiency. I mean, we can calculate that when somebody, if somebody wants to sell my home, if I'm still alive, I can tell them. I rarely heat my home above 64 in the winter. I do have air conditioners. This this efficiency Vermont things that we used to get in the mail. I was the worst in the neighborhood. I was. I was in the in the summer. I was absolutely the lowest of the low as far as efficiency. Because I do have air conditioners in my windows and my refrigerators old. It's as old as it's 25 years old. I don't have the money to get the latest energy efficient, put the solar, put this. There are things I'd love to do if I had any money, but I don't. So I just don't want to see this thing happen at all. I think, you know, I think we're getting way, way to governmental regulated as it is. And we don't. And I think the way it's proposed or the way I'm hearing it, it's right for things to not happen in a fair manner. The people that don't have the money, have the older homes are going to be treated considerably unfairly. The realtors are going to want to go for the houses with all the efficiency bells and whistles, because they'll make more money and they'll make more commissions. The rest of us can go pound sand because we're just not quite with it. So I don't know where all of this is coming from, but I don't agree with it at all. Something that we had talked about too, Vicki, previously was the potential for the city to provide some kind of incentives. If it's not free. If it's not free, right, exactly. It doesn't do me any good. I don't have the managing money. Yep, fair enough. I feel your resident and the realtor as well. And I've been involved in this issue for several years. And my notes unfortunately are a little bit random, but I'll try and collect things as much as I can. You know, I think we started a couple of years ago with some kind of a disclosure system at the state level. And, you know, that bill eventually didn't pass. But what the realtor association did at that point in time was create a disclosure from sellers to buyers to inform buyers that there are reasons to be energy efficient and if they want to explore that that's, you know, something that they should be aware of. Same thing as a water test. You know, rate on anything else that occurs along with building inspections. So I think that that kind of opened the door. Martha indicated that we have, you know, an SPIR or sellers information report. So oh, sorry. Yeah. And that really does, you know, provide a lot of information from the seller to potential buyers in terms of the cost of energy that they're using. You know, this is the stuff that's in place right now, which has worked across the state, you know, for quite some period of time. We made that improvement even though it wasn't legislated to have that disclosure at the time at the time of contract essentially. Let's see. I think that that one of my concerns with the automated model and I've got to say that that quite honestly, I support the automated model because I've seen the only other action as, you know, hiring an energy auditor to do a full-blown energy audit that is going to add significantly to the cost of actually putting your property on the market. So, you know, I'm concerned about that. But with the automated model, you know, what is the liability of the seller if he fills it out inaccurately, you know, on purpose or otherwise just because they don't know how much insulation's in their attic, you know, they run the risk of being sued, you know, saying, you know, it wasn't a proper disclosure. Just to skip a little bit, one thing that I can tell you with certainty and, well, two things I wanted to say and the first one is, you know, I know the most of the realtors that are sitting in the room right now and we sell all kinds of property all the time. We're not, we don't have the ability, we're not a big enough marketplace even in the entire state to pick and choose the kinds of properties that we represent. So, you know, regardless of the value of the property, there are realtors out there that are, you know, that will work, you know, on behalf of sellers. So, I think that's really important. So, S118 was the bill that didn't pass. At this point, you know, a lot of the due diligence that's done on homes is done on the time of sale by the buyer performing building inspections and other tests that they, you know, they want. That's kind of the way things have worked. They want to have a water test. You know, the reason is, so they confirm that the property meets their expectations. But also, they're going to live there going forward. You know, in terms of energy efficiency, you know, they're going to be the ones to benefit as they go down the road. So, the whole mechanism of having the seller try to do some kind of disclosure at the time of listing does a couple of things. You know, one, it potentially points out, you know, shortcomings to the seller's property and it does, you know, run the risk that they won't get as much you know, value out of the property. One of the other things that we've seen and certainly, you know, is potentially subject to change over time are, you know, talking with appraisers. And appraisers generally have said, you know, we don't add a lot of value for efficiencies that are in place. They're hard to quantify unless somebody's had a, you know, testing or just new windows done, something of that nature. But they have been slow and reprisals are also looking backwards. So, they're always going to react more slowly to the marketplace. But it's very hard to say this property is worth more money because it has some type of efficiency that just hasn't proven out yet. And just to give you a handle on our market, you know, we have we've seen a couple of good years, the last couple of years, and I think if you look at brand lists and how brand lists are improving or property values are selling relative to brand lists, there has been some progress. But, you know, where the economic expansion is now, I think like 11 years, you know, the progress that we've seen in real estate values in Vermont has really just started to creep forward in the past couple of years. And so, you know, with whatever our future economics hold, you know, the potential to see things turn around and downturn slightly even, you know, we're just kind of catching up to everything. I do like the energy model, the automated profile model because I think that the alternative is going to be, you know, add $1,000 or so to the cost of listing the property. Oh, sorry, get closer. Yeah, well I do, but I, you know, I totally get the fact that, you know, it's right with, you know, the chance of being missed, you know, not filled out correctly, kind of creating potential liability for the, you know, for the seller. And one other thing, you know, I think, you know, as a state organization, you know, our recommendation to all of our realtors would be for somebody else. We're not going to do that, you know, I mean, we do an awful lot for folks, but we can't assume that kind of responsibility, you know, and that's pretty clear in my mind. I think that if this did go on and, you know, becomes a policy here in Montpelier, and then we do see subsequent state policies that are different, you know, that I'd like to see Montpelier kind of on the front end saying, well, we'd be willing to accept whatever the state standards are, even if they're not, you know, lined up or as stringent potentially. I would support the fact that you don't include it, you know, or don't have an energy auditor, you know, as part of this program. That's why I like the automated model, even though I see the great deficiencies of it. I like the information, like that Martha gives, you know, the information sheet that Martha gives out, and certainly as realtors, we can do a better job of that. I mean, Martha's on the forms committee, we make those decisions. So, you know, having a better disclosure at the time of listing is certainly possible, and that's, I guess, to wrap this up. You know, you're talking about a disclosure, and it can be as simple as that. It doesn't have to be something that's this complicated formula or an energy, a full-blown energy audit. It's a disclosure of what I know about my property at the time that I'm selling it. We do that now, you know, if we need to do it better, or you know, there are ways that we can do it better that are satisfactory to this group, I think we'd be wide open to that. That's about it. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, too, I just want to make sure it's clear that if I have not accurately captured your comments, I want to make sure that you know, please let me know, and I'll adjust it. So, thank you. Do diligence. Just as we should do diligence on everything. Hang on, Vicki. Is there anybody who would like to speak who has not yet spoken? Tim Heaney, I'm a resident of my player and real estate broker here, too. I think, just listening to all this, and we've had a few meetings now, and I think the concept of trying to create energy efficiency is a good goal for us all. The interesting piece is with this program, it seems punitive. It seems like at some level people have been trying to get it together for a number of years. At the state level, I know there's a few people in the room who've been in those meetings over the years with, you know, Richard and Peter have worked on it for a long time. And really the detail of it and how to work out all these questions is why it hasn't happened yet. There are really a lot of big questions to answer, how you evaluate efficiency of homes, who's going to do it, what's the cost. And also, what level is it going to come in at? At one meeting it was mentioned, is it a marketable title issue? And that's a really big piece that can affect transactions. If two days before a closing, you find out, gosh, there was the energy disclosure didn't happen and so we can't close while somebody's moving truck is coming in from California and another couple moved out of their house and people's lives just go into a swirl when you create a marketable title issue. And I'm not sure this should hit that level in the transaction. There are enough other key things that do that are really critical but, you know, you've got to pick your battles. And I think maybe this one shouldn't go to that level. I really like, I think Kate mentioned in the very beginning creating incentives for multifamily owners and for people to make their properties more energy efficient. And I like that approach a lot. I like the incentive approach rather than the punitive approach. So if the focus goes that way, I think it would be a really good direction for this. Thanks. We've compared this program to other countries and other parts of our country. I'm curious as to what form they use. It doesn't look like this. Is it something different? I mean, if we're going to compare to their programs, kind of yeah, that's great. Great question. Thank you. And then I had also mentioned before about, I don't know of the people in charge who have houses in Montpelier and at the last meeting it was suggested, hey, run your house through this and see what you think and see what your gut tells you. We're definitely going to do that. Thank you. Nancy Lynch, I'll be very quick and it's actually a follow-up to Martha. And Richard, it's sort of a question for you actually. I tried to do after our last meeting, which I really appreciated the information that you prepared and presented and so I contacted the National Association of Realtors to find out what I could find out where they were at at the national level and this is just a little bit of information and I'm happy to work with you and move forward and have these conversations but what I found out was that and I'm going to just stick to this country, within this country so and I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing I think it's just some information that we should all have as we think about the fact that we actually are really cutting edge where we are sitting right here and what we're all think about doing. So there are if these are accurate, there are six localities in the country that have done this. The two that you brought up at the meeting Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon there are four others I didn't ask the names, but they're all municipalities no states in the country have done this at all and good or bad there is absolutely no appetite big surprise at the federal level for this to happen and so therefore NAR has not taken a strong position at all yet because they obviously work at the federal level and there's nothing on the table or anywhere in the future that they're seeing that the feds are going to go. So I would just I cited I thank you very much for adding some of your citations I noticed that you did that from the request from the last meeting and I'm happy to take this offline but I'd like to talk about where some of this information is coming from because when I spoke with the folks at NAR their perspective was that there really are not any solid studies yet because not enough work has happened in this direction to clearly say with full confidence that this will improve the value of a home this let me use that broad term please and I would just this is sort of a personal liking to the fact that depending where you live if your backyard has a pool it could be a positive if your backyard has a pool somewhere else it can be a negative so I think we just as we all work together to try to come up with something that works for everybody and is in the best interest of remonters I think it's just a nice little reminder for us and I'd love to be able to thank you further to figure out what do those forms look like what is going on but we just nice to remind us all that it's really happening very local and there's got to be some reasons why it's not happening state and federal and so just just thought I'd add that thank you for your time it is incumbent on buyers to do their due diligence just as they would do their due diligence when buying a car, buying a stock, buying whatever I think there's a big difference between Austin, Texas and Montpelier Vermont. Montpelier is a small city everybody kind of knows everybody and this could become punitive you may not intend it to be but a few years down the road it could I can see that happening easily in that context I still I just don't think it's necessary to have this just to have too many people that don't have the money to upgrade to everything that everybody thinks they should have let's keep up with so and so next door and I don't think anybody is against energy efficiency I doubt very much if there's anybody that says no I'm going to go out there and use all the energy I can possibly use and then some so I I just don't see that this is a necessary part of selling a house or listing a house it's just not necessary Hi there I'm Dan Jones from Montpelier I've had an experience a couple of years ago when I went on the new lower interest rates to try and refinance my house and had the experience where the appraiser that the bank wanted to send out although I had put a huge amount of energy work into the house specifically because it made it more comfortable refused to give me credit for any of it so I found that as a negative on the whole industry because it means that all the work that I have done on there does not then show up at the point that I want to sell this so having some kind of formal mechanism that allows for this to be recognized seems to me like a necessarily good idea and that a lot of us get stuck in the whole what's called business as usual framework now we know from a lot of research that the climate is degrading rapidly we also know in Vermont 35 to 40% of our energy usage comes from oil for heating oil and propane from heating it's a huge part of our pollution that we're putting out and to have ways of controlling that is a necessary part of building a sustainable future in town we seem to try and put everything back on the market well if the market doesn't do this or the market doesn't do that we can't have any part of it because our role is merely to facilitate the market the market has gotten us here the market is going to take us elsewhere and it's not going to be pretty so I for one think that this is a hell of a good idea and I'd like to even see it be stronger but that's just me thank you I just wanted to make a comment of what you said Dan obviously we really do need to deal with climate change and the point that I was not very clear about that I wanted to make earlier is that I think the gain to be had from what additional home residential efficiency that can be had here which is a desirable thing is not anywhere near as urgent as all the fuels we use that it's sort of like and so what on my point here what you're missing is that we are spending our time with this activity which I'm suggesting has a fairly small marginal gain whereas I think what the city could be doing in a non-putative approach some sort of an assistance I don't know the form it would take but that if we could look at the city's use of residential other kind of building heating in a manner similar to what we've done with the district heating I'm not suggesting using wood as the fuel but that if the city wanted to try to figure out what's the scope of this problem of converting everybody basically to something that's not screwing everything up and then working out the parameters that would be involved with that such as for example electricity presumably would be a big part of that I know enough about the electrical system to know that that if the city were to make a big jump in use of electricity not just sort of incremental changes there'd have to be all kinds of major changes within the grid system and the public service department and board's scope of activity but that seems to me the kind of thing which the city could really profit in taking action on behalf of the entire town and not going at it piecemeal one individual home at a time in the city of Montpelier having the most energy efficient homes is a fantastic idea my question is how will the implementation of this influence that behavior someone who's been in the market for a house and looking to buy a home all things being equal I would buy the most energy efficient home however there's almost nothing for sailing in Montpelier so you're lucky to find something that works for you right? so as a buyer knowing that it's more energy efficient is nice but it's not necessarily going to influence my decisions as a seller you know that too so where's the incentive to get a good score now if you could tie it to an incentive structure for example around weatherization where you have everybody could weatherize and in return if you have a good score in weatherization for example you get a little bit of a kickback on your taxes there needs to be an incentive for people to do this because if there's no incentive and no benefit then it becomes an exercise in figuring this stuff out and that's great but it's not going to make much difference so with that said I do think if you have an incentive system you have to think through do it in a way that doesn't just benefit the people who have the money to do the weatherization and do all these energy efficient measures find a way to roll it out in such a way that everyone can participate for example if there's a 0% interest weatherization program and you have a certain amount of time to carry it then you will kind of score the housing that could be one way to do it but I feel there needs to be a mechanism in this system to make sure that it actually has an impact on the behavior of buyers and sellers my name is Jared Duvall I'm a Montpelier resident and I live on Elm Street and I just want to speak to this issue from the perspective of consumer protection and as somebody who couldn't afford to work so I've heard some terms that have been confusing to me this evening in terms of punitive in terms of burden and I think genuinely out of a concern for folks with less means and I think that that's a reason that a program well designed in this direction is incredibly important so let me just speak from my personal experience to ground this so my wife and I moved to Montpelier about five years ago we had a house on Elm Street who's an old 1890 house that was incredibly leaky we moved in the late in the early fall and that first winter we used over a thousand gallons of fuel oil to heat the house and it wrecked our budget on one income with a new baby and you know we ended up in a situation where we paid almost $3,000 in fuel oil bills that first winter and the problem with our dependence, Vermont uses more fuel oil per capita than any other state in the country except for Maine and fuel oil and propane are by far the two most expensive and the two most voluntarily priced fuels that you can heat your home on and so when you end up in the middle of winter with a $607 fuel oil bill that is incredibly difficult for a lot of folks in this town and so we couldn't afford not to make an efficiency investment we did a whole house retrofit with capstone and berry we cut our heat loss in half and because our home became so much more efficient we were able to switch over to wood pellets and we have a complimentary heat pump system so our heating bills went from almost $3,000 a year a winter to about spend about $1,200 a winter the last four years that project is going to pay for itself in like eight years so this I think there's a lot of the framing of this that is backwards when we invest in efficiency it's about getting off of the highest cost, most punitive, most problematic both from a pollution perspective and from a family budget perspective fuel oil and propane are the worst thing for Vermonters and so I think that if we can design this program well to make sure that from a consumer protection perspective we're giving buyers first-time home buyers especially the information to know what they could be getting into and make sure that we can make smart investments the other thing is from an income perspective the state has a program called the heat saver loan which buys down the interest rates on energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to as low as a zero percent interest rate depending on your income so if we can design this in a way that helps make those smart investments that will save money over time help avoid those huge fuel bills in the middle of winter and make folks more comfortable and also the health and air quality improvements that can be related to energy efficiency and moving off of fuel oil and propane I think there's a lot of opportunity here and I think we really need to look at this from a consumer protection and affordability perspective and that's why I support what we moving forward in a way that mandates and moves forward an energy efficiency agenda for Montpelier yes are we running out of time? but I have I mean this has been incredibly valuable this is super interesting comments I know something you wanted to add and Alex short is there anybody else who wanted to speak on this? very briefly yeah fair enough why don't you go ahead and then Alex and Martha unless there's anybody else who would like to speak again for the first time I just wanted to offer very briefly a little bit of wider context to this because I think it's important to not lose sight of the 20,000 foot level of why I think the energy committee and communities are coming up with this Donald DeVoil resident of Montpelier and formerly resident of other parts of the world which is what I wanted to mention so I've bought three properties in Montpelier now in the 15 years I've been here one of them from Laurie I've done a lot of weatherization work so I don't from personal experience the housing stock here I know isn't really that energy type in fact Americans use twice as much energy as the average Western European and I think houses and lack of insulation and housing sizes and all these things factor into why that is the case so personally I would really have liked more information about energy use and the overall efficiency of the building that I bought here I'm impressed that with my brother who is in the process of buying his first house in England right now standard all of the United Kingdom to have the type of report that we are discussing here tonight as part of a building purchase I don't know all the details about how they calculate it but he gets a basic report it has a score from one to five overall for the building in terms of energy use and then it has a breakdown of major components not about how much energy the previous person used components about whether the loft insulation is there whether the walls are insulated that type of thing for him in terms of making a decision about purchasing the house and what he is going to do in terms of improvements there I think it has been incredibly useful to him in terms of figuring out where his priorities need to be so I just want to say that there are lots and lots of other countries in the world that are doing the kind of thing that is being discussed here nationally and have been doing it for a while and certainly the word on the street I hear from my family back in the UK it seems to be a pretty good system it seems like we should fight it more great and Alex and Martha either way it doesn't matter great for the information again I would love to see how they come up with their numbers on that kind of thing because I am not able to wrap my head around this is actually working so I think that is another step is to find out what other people are using to see if that works so I think an important thing when I have talked to some other residents who again didn't understand what was going on I think it is important that they know how it was sold to us at our realtor meeting was we want to come up with this program so each house has a number and yes I called it a scarlet letter but then it was said so you can have buyers who say I only want to look at houses rated 50 to 75 but the thing is that those houses may not actually fit their needs or they may not be cute and have the character they want so I don't see it as a factor in how they are going to decide like being that range of properties I only want to buy one in this range so again buyers do diligence and they can do an energy audit they can do all of that as well and I think we can have a better form of the usage from sellers I think that is I do not like the computer generated this computer generated so love to see what other people do my only comment is that I agree with everything that everyone has said I don't see it as being either or more of as a both and because everybody knows that fuel basically is still a hell of a lot cheaper in this country than it is in Europe so therefore the incentive to insulate has been far less in this country traditionally than it has been in Europe I'd much rather live in England just for the healthcare costs alone but we're not going to have that discussion tonight I think that as a realtor only relatively recently I see the intense interest in having realtors be the point around which this argument gets thrown and that's not going to happen because there's no incentive for realtors other than to make sure that caveat mtor, which is buyer beware is put into place we have so many rules around disclosure already that would protect consumers you know that it doesn't seem to me that the approach of having the seller and the realtor be responsible for doing this energy audit when it really should be on the buyer who as somebody earlier said is the one living in the property from this point forward I think over time we will see a natural evolution towards this process but as information we're in the age of big data and I'm sure that the data is already there we just don't know where to find it or how to look for it or even more importantly how to present it so that it is credible and easily available but I think that will happen naturally given time and not too much time either so I would encourage us not to look at this as a you do this or else or as I have this position and if you don't believe in what I'm saying then you are opposite me and therefore we're in disagreement I think we are in agreement I think that energy efficiency is crucially important I think there are people who can't afford to do the things that they really want to do God bless you, whoever you are Jared, whoever you went for having the means to fix up these houses and reduce your energy costs I think that's the marketing but I think my point is it's easy for me to market a house that is really badly energy efficient to someone who is interested in finding a fixer upper say boy do I have a bunch for you you know and I think it's just a question of how you frame the question we'll get to where we want to be I just think setting it up as don't do this because it's going to go against my basic principles it's not the right way to think about it let's keep talking let's understand that we can't apply a macro solution to what is essentially a micro problem which is each house is different each house's usage is different so don't lay a huge state law there's a reason the state law doesn't apply because you can't do a one approach fits all in this situation so in that sense let the market take care of itself but also have with it in your mind always the goal of achieving efficiency and achieving better housing stock for all Montpellier residents I would like to know where in this format because I'm the one homeowner here one of the few homeowners here there's a few of us that are not realtors where do I get credit for the last 25 years of doing what an awful lot of Vermonters do doing plastic over the window so I don't have the drafts because I do have a corner in my house that is ungodly drafty and I haven't yet been able to figure out why but where do I get the credit for that I mean I am opposed to paying the oil companies I really do not enjoy my fuel delivery it's not fun and I also do not enjoy drafts I do keep my house cold to some people maybe 64 65 if I'm not feeling well because that's where I'm comfortable but I'm not comfortable with drafts so since the day I bought the house 25 years ago I've been doing all my little plastic on the windows and it does make a difference but where do those of us that is what we do for our energy efficiency and by the way it does work get credit for that versus spending a few thousand dollars on whatever I did spend a few thousand dollars on new storm windows and guess what it made no difference alright well so thank you all again I know even just from these comments this has given me a lot to think about and a lot to chew on and I actually really looking forward to digesting these comments and I'm so appreciative of those of you who have said like you know I want to help like involve us in the process that's super valuable and hope that we can like follow up on those offerings so there's more to be more discussions to be had in the future this is we're really early in the game here trying to figure out where or how this can look or what parts of it might entail anyway your comments are shaping what this might look like and I'm really so grateful that you all were able to come out tonight so thank you all for being here and if you have further comments for me or Kate or Richard I know my email is I'll say this you can email me my email is on the city website and we'll go from there okay thank you again for coming out and I know that there's another meeting in this room later on okay look for more on this later for the meetings