 My name is Talia Fox and I am the Sustainability Manager for the Town of Arlington. Thank you for being here tonight to participate in our public educational forum on the Specialized Stretch Energy Code. It is March 1, 2023. So we are here tonight because the Clean Energy Future Committee in Arlington and the Town Manager have introduced a warrant article to see if Town Meeting will adopt the Specialized Stretch Energy Code, or the Specialized Code, or as it's known, the Net Zero Code, or the Municipal Opt-in Code, or my personal favorite, the Super Stretch Code. Jokes aside, here are meeting objectives for the evening. We are going to review what the Specialized Code is and how that relates to our local and state climate goals. We will highlight some key components of the Specialized Code and how they will affect Arlington. And we will provide an opportunity to ask questions of an extraordinary panel of experts here tonight. Here is our agenda. We will start with some background information, then have an overview of the Specialized Stretch Energy Code, and then dive into some of the key provisions and local impacts, including for large homes, passive house and multifamily projects, pre-wiring and on-site solar, and then we will have some time for questions. You will also notice that we have a pause for questions in the middle of our program. I want to state up front that we are recording this meeting. Materials and resources, that includes the slides and links to additional resources, will be available following the meeting on the Clean Energy Future Committee website. You can find that at the link here, and you can also navigate to that site from the town website. I'd like to remind everyone of some Zoom norms. We do welcome your comments and questions in the chat, but we are only going to be able to respond during our designated question and answer times. And that is because we want to ensure that everyone who is listening can hear the questions and the answers that are being provided. We will do our best to get to as many questions as we can, but if we can't respond, we will do our best to post a question and answer that addresses vaguely or generally the subjects of the questions that you have put forth. To ask a question during our designated question and answer times, please raise your hand using the Zoom Reactions button. You can find that at your Zoom bar in the bottom. You can also type your question into the chat. If you raise your hand, we'll call on you to unmute. And if you type your question into the chat, we'll elevate those questions as we are determining how to approach questions. I'd like to remind everyone to stay curious here tonight. We are talking about building codes, which are very technical, and we're going to do our best to keep things clear and concise. Please be mindful that there are humans on the other side of your Zoom boxes, so be kind to our participants and our staff and our presenters. And please remain on mute unless you've been called on to ask a question so that everybody can have a good experience here. Some brief history. So the stretch code, which is a building code that provides greater efficiency over the base code was created in 2009. In 2010, town meeting became one of the first communities or Arlington became one of the first communities to adopt this, the stretch code. And that was by a vote of town meeting. We did this in order partially to receive green communities designation green communities as a state program that allows municipalities in Massachusetts to access certain grant funds for clean energy and energy efficiency activities. And through that program the town has been able to access nearly $2 million in grants since 2010. We have continued this trend of climate action and leadership around energy efficiency. In 2018, our select board adopted a goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 greenhouse gases as a reminder are the pollutants that cause climate change. In addition to local leadership when we've run into challenges we've advocated as a town at the state level. An example of this was in 2020 and 2021. So in 2020 town meeting in Arlington overwhelmingly adopted a bylaw amendment, which was a clean heat bylaw to ban fossil fuels and new construction and major innovations. But because the state preempts this kind of local action Arlington along with other communities filed home rule petitions for clean heat bylaws. In that same year 2021 the select board endorsed our net zero action plan here in Arlington which is our roadmap to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, and the legislature passed an act creating a next generation roadmap for Massachusetts climate efficiency, which establishes the Department of Energy resources as the stretch code authority. So they are responsible for updating the stretch code, as well as creating a new specialized code which is the subject of our conversation tonight. In 2022 town meeting in Arlington past article 73, which is a resolution for a true net zero opt in code for cities and towns. Again this net zero opt in code is the same thing as the specialized code, and that resolution advocated for certain stringencies in in that code to help us get to our net zero goals. In 2022 do we are also completed the stretch code updates and developed that specialized stretch code and Arlington as a town participated in that process. The legislature also passed passed another climate act, which created a fossil fuel free demonstration project that relates to our home rule petition and to the specialized stretch code and I'll briefly go over that in a moment. It is now 2023 the stretch code updates have already taken effect for residential buildings in Arlington because Arlington is a stretch code community and all communities that are stretch code communities automatically get brought into those updates. And as we know there is an article before town meeting or there will be to adopt the specialized code. I want to hone in on a couple of things here. First is our net zero action plan which was endorsed by our select board in 2021. Again this is our roadmap to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A key strategy and that plan is electrification of our buildings buildings represent 62% of our greenhouse gas emissions here in Arlington. The priority measure in our ends up is to advocate for a state net zero energy stretch code, which is again what eventually became that specialized stretch code, and a metric of success in the end up is the town's adoption of the specialized stretch code. So that's all to say that again what we're talking about here tonight is a priority in our net zero action plan to achieve our local greenhouse gas emissions goals. I want to briefly note the relationship between the specialized code and the fossil fuel free demonstration project that I mentioned. So although several communities petitioned the legislature using those clean heat home rule petitions. The legislature did not approve them. Instead, through that 2022 climate act it created a 10 municipality fossil fuel free demonstration project. I mentioned this because the draft regulations for that project suggests that the specialized code or adoption of the specialized code might be a key step to participate in that project. Arlington does intend to apply for this project and meet the requirements. So to summarize adoption of the specialized code is a an important step potentially for participating in that project. I'd like to go over some timelines here. It is March, we held a developer forum for builders and contractors to educate them on the specialized code and the stretch code. We're having our public forum tonight. And then there will be a select board hearing in March and the date to be determined. And if the select board votes action town meeting will vote on this warrant article for the specialized stretch code in April or May. Should town meeting vote to adopt the specialized code a six month recommended by DOER phase in period will begin. And the likely date that it for effectiveness of the specialized code in Arlington would be January 1, 2024. And like with the stretch code, once we opt into the specialized stretch code, any future updates would be automatic. All right, I'd like to hand it over to Ellen Watts who's going to give an overview of different provisions of the specialized stretch energy code at a high level. Thanks, Ellen. Hi everyone, my name is Ellen Watts. I am an architect and live in the nearby town of Wellesley. I'm delighted to be here with you tonight. I'm honored to be a fellow member of the American Institute of Architects, President-elect of AIA Massachusetts, and a former board member of the Boston Society of Architects. I'm speaking here tonight on my own behalf because of my experience designing net zero buildings and steady effort to advance the Massachusetts building energy codes. My appointment in 2007 to co-chair the Massachusetts governor's zero net energy buildings task force. My goal is to kick off this wonderful panel by giving you in just 10 minutes what I hope will be a good foundational understanding about the new Massachusetts building energy codes. Next slide please. Zero buildings, right? In the United States, the average person spends 90% of their time indoors. Nearly 17% of our national gross domestic product is attributable to construction and real estate. We newly understand that greenhouse gas emissions impact indoor and outdoor pollution, posing serious risks to public and planetary health. Today, 35 to 40% of greenhouse gas emissions are related to buildings. As Holly just mentioned in towns like Arlington and also in the town of Wellesley where I live, it's over 60% and in cities like Boston and New York, it's nearly 70%. So I suppose it's hardly a surprise then that building energy codes are proving key to helping us achieve emissions reductions. Unless you're a building inspector, you might be asking what are building codes? Building codes are adopted by states based on national model codes. These model codes are issued every three years by a nonprofit in Washington DC called the International Code Council. In physical form, the building code consists of about 1000 pages in 14 separate books as shown on this slide here on the upper right. Building energy performance is regulated by just one of these books, the International Energy Conservation Code or IECC shown lower left. In reference to a national baseline standard called ASHRAE 90.1, which is also updated every three years. Some states like Massachusetts adopt the latest IECC and ASHRAE 90.1 standard really promptly. These are shown in green on the map. The states shown in yellow and red are lagging. The states shown in gray have no state code at all. In 2009, as Talia mentioned, Massachusetts complicated the first stretch building energy code in the United States. This above code standard has now been adopted by 299 communities or nearly 90% of the Massachusetts population, while importantly spurring changes to the national model base code. Next slide. Let's turn to Massachusetts. Massachusetts building energy codes are designed as overlay codes, that is they build successively to meet legally binding codes. At the bottom of the pyramid shown here, the base code incorporates Massachusetts amendments to the national model code, the IECC, and is automatically updated for all Massachusetts communities every three years. In the middle of the pyramid, the stretch code overlays the base code with above code provisions for both residential and commercial structures and both new construction and renovations, including alterations, additions and changes in use. From time to time, the stretch code is automatically updated for all stretch code communities. At the bottom of the pyramid, the opt-in specialized code overlays the stretch code with a few, just a few important provisions which are stricter. Importantly, the opt-in specialized code is for new construction only and requires a vote of town meeting or city council for adoption by a specified, elective effective date. As we mentioned, recommended to be at least six months from when that vote occurs, ideally a July 1 or January 1. At the very top of the pyramid, excuse me, is a fossil free pilot, which is proposed to be a variation on the opt-in specialized code. It essentially eliminates mixed fuel buildings, those combusting fossil fuels for any purpose, allowing only all electric buildings, those heated and cooled with heat pumps. In Arlington, as well as 13 other communities, there have been votes to become fossil free and currently proposed legislation would allow an increase in this number in due course. Next slide. Now statewide emissions limits are mandated by a 2008 law called the Global Warming Solutions Act. That law says as compared to a 1990 base emissions baseline, the state's legal requirements are for a 50% reduction by 2030, a 75% reduction by 2040, with zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Some Massachusetts communities have additional and somewhat more stringent emissions reductions goals. To meet the 2030 limit, statewide building sector emissions will have to drop as much this decade as they have in the previous three decades. The opt-in specialized code will help achieve this in just seven years. So will the fossil free pilot. As shown on the map on the right, the vast majority of Massachusetts communities shown in light blue have adopted the stretch code, which was recently updated as of January 1st 2023. I don't know if you can see it but in slightly darker blue for communities, Watertown, Brooklyn, Cambridge and Somerville have already this year adopted the municipal opt-in specialized code with an effective date of July 1st 2023. It's understood that 20 more communities are thereabouts are working towards votes on it soon. Next slide. The most frequently asked question is, well, what are the stricter provisions of the opt-in specialized code? In a nutshell, there are five. Free wiring, solar PV, exemplary performance for large homes, ditto for multifamily, and you get a jump on the lower hers ratings if you opt-in soon. Let's take a minute and explain this a little bit in detail. For mixed fuel buildings that is using fossil fuel for any purpose, those buildings must provide free wiring for future electric conversion for anything not electric from the get-go. So space heating, water heating, electric appliances, whatever. This accelerates the clean energy transition, avoiding cost premiums to convert these buildings in the future while preserving property values. Next, mixed fuel buildings must also provide rooftop solar generation in certain specified quantities, subject to exceptions for tree shading and obstructions, casting shadows, and so on and so forth. There's a specified amount of 24 kilowatts for single-family residences, another amount 0.75 watts per square foot for multifamily residential buildings, and 1.5 watts per square foot for each of the three largest floors for commercial buildings greater than 20,000 square feet. This partially offsets these buildings' greater emissions due to their fossil fuel combustion, and importantly, it's a very clever way to encourage all electric buildings from the get-go while still preserving market choice. Next, large homes, dwelling units with more than 4,000 square feet of condition space, must be zero energy certified, either her zero or fias zero. Pat Hamlin's going to talk about more of that in a minute. And these exemplary performance standards encourage large homes to go all electric from the get-go. Next, phased in starting in July 1, 2024, multifamily buildings greater than 12,000 square feet must be passive house certified. It's important to note that many Massachusetts affordable housing projects have been over the last five years and are currently being developed to this standard, prompted in part by continuing mass-save and Department of Housing and Community Development projects, which will continue to keep the supply of affordable housing strong while the quality of these buildings goes ever up to the benefit of affordable housing residents will benefit from not only beneficial health effects, but also cost savings. Very briefly, for communities opting in with effective dates relatively soon, there's a chance to get a jump on when lower hers ratings come into effect, 42 for all electric buildings and 45 for mixed fuel buildings. Next slide. This residential chart shows in green what I've just summarized the relatively few but important provisions contained in the opt-in specialized code as compared to the updated stretch. The first two columns on the left are building size and fuel type. Along the top with the minimum energy efficiency electrification, EV wiring and renewable generation. As I've explained the opt-in specialized changes shown in green pertain only to mixed fuel buildings which are the rose in light blue. Last slide. Similarly, this commercial chart shows in green the relatively few but important stricter provisions contained in the opt-in code. Again, most pertain to mixed fuel buildings shown in the light blue rose and can be summarized as requiring pre-wiring and solar PV of a specified amount to the extent of the so-called solar potential zone. The real kicker in the commercial code which regulates multifamily residential buildings 14 stories or higher is that after a phase in starting July 1, 2024, multifamily buildings greater than 12,000 square feet must be passive house certified or her zero. It's worth noting that shown in black. As required by the stretch code not the specialized code the stretch code. There are important new provisions such as requiring ventilation and energy recovery airtight construction tested to a validated level of performance. Regulation of thermal demand energy demand intensity or Teddy, which is the annual thermal demand of a building not usage but the intensity of demand. And the stretch code also requires EV charging wiring, one per 20 spaces for commercial and one per dwelling unit for residential. Now over to Patrick Hanlon. The first challenge is which I think I've done I'm patty and one I'm co chair of sustainable Arlington. And I've been working on building electric electrification ever since the clean he campaign that resulted in by a lot of tell you referred to that resulted in the homeworld petition that resulted in the demonstration project and as so has the future ahead of it. In the next few minutes, about one of the key provisions of the, of the specialized code. And that's the requirement of exemplary performance for large homes. Do you go next slide. The first thing to do is to look at the pathways to compliance that are available to houses generally so you can see the ways in which large houses have to be exemplary is as Ellen called them. There are three basic pathways for smaller houses. The first is all electric. It's pretty easy, at least to understand because you don't have to do a lot more than you have to do for the stretch code itself but what you do have to do is all is to be all electric which is Alan stress means, not just heating and water but also appliances, including if you have fireplaces and, and all of that sort of thing basically there can't be any on site combustion of fossil fuels. The second way of complying is the mixed fuel pathway. And you should pay attention to this one because it's going to be a mysterious vanishing one in just a moment. And that requires getting a first rating of 42, which is what Ellen described as what the ultimate landing point is under the stretch code. But the key thing is it has to be electric ready. And that's not just a matter of pre wiring, although that sort of is the thing that that we mostly see it described as as do we are calls it electric ready includes all of the infrastructure to change fossil fuel equipment to electric with minimal impact in the future. So you have to have adequate capacity you have to have the adequate distribution methods you have to have the space to put the equipment and so forth. The idea is basically, all you need to do to electrify is to buy the electric thing that you want, whether it's a boiler or whatever heat pump, and you need to be able to and you're already to just plug it in. The alternative way of mixed fuel is is also similar passive house is sort of like hers only much more so and you'll hear, you'll hear a lot more about that in the in the next panel. It's a much stricter energy efficiency standard and reaching verse 45. But as you'll hear there are great deal of there are a great deal of other benefits to it. The third way of the third pathway is zero energy. And this requires you to achieve the same energy efficiency that the mixed fuel pathway does. But then you have to provide enough renewable energy, which is probably solar to bring you all the way down to net zero energy. So for example, if you were following the hearse method of doing this you would have to show that you comply with the 42. The hers rating of 42 that is otherwise required. And then you have to provide enough on site renewable resources to take that all the way down to zero. If you're doing passive house it's a similar thing in structure. But the, you have to follow the either in this case the passive bias the passive house in the United States core standard. And then you have to have offsetting renewables. And this is the only place actually in the specialized code, where you're allowed to offset renewables with off site rather than on site renewable energy. So, I jumped to the next slide, because I know everybody is impatient but the concluding line to the previous slide if you have a 4,000 4,000 conditions where even more, you have to use either all electric or zero energy. The mixed fuel option is not available to you. So that means you either have to go all electric, or you have to go net zero. And you don't have any middle choice that provides you with a flat path of compliance. Now that provision for 4,000 square feet is pretty large. And that provision will have a significant effect in our own time. It will apply to most if not all, excuse me, many if not most probably most new construction of single family houses in our own time as we'll see in just a minute. I emphasize here again that you have to go all electric means all electric. And if you don't do that, you have to go down to net zero with very strict standards. So the bottom line there is that big houses in Arlington are going to have to be more climate friendly under the specialized stretch code. And they have to be under just the stretch code. Next slide. So, I wanted to dwell a little bit on how we know about the at what the evidence is relating to the coverage of the new stretch code. There are many really hard evidence that uses condition square footage because the town doesn't normally keep that, but it does keep records having to do with either gross square footage over time, or finish square footage which is a closer proxy for condition square footage so the condition square footage on this graph is the gray line. But the blue bars is over a certain over several days several over a considerable period the amount of new construction there has been most of the periods are five years long except for the 20 to 22 and that last which is much is therefore much lower. You can see that from the gray line that in year 2000 to 2004. The average size finish square footage of houses in Arlington was under 3000 square feet. And today it at the median. I'm sorry I didn't mean to say the average I meant to say the median. Today the median is right around 4000 so that if everything continued exactly the way it is today. Then about half of the towns, a single family dwellings would be would be covered by the specialized stretch code. But we also see the slope of that line and we've gone up quite a bit in the last 20 years, and everybody in Arlington knows that new houses in Arlington are not only already big, but they're getting bigger. The bigger they get the more important the specialized stretch code will be will be to them. Next slide. So to take a to look more closely at just the last year. This is data from the town of Arlington Inspectional Service Department. There were 24 new dwelling units that were split between single family and duplexes. In Arlington in 2022, half of those were all electric, showing that that certainly is doable. And seven of those were more than 4000 conditions square feet. And those seven, those seven are all single families. So basically 70% of the single family homes built in Arlington in 2022 exceeded 4000 conditions square square footage. So, while it may not be true everywhere that this provision of the stretch code is a big deal, because Arlington has big houses, it's a big deal here. Next slide. And the point of view of people, those of us who've been advocating for a while the large house rule and the specialized stretch code itself really is the first step. There's lots more that needs to be done in order to get to the objectives that Ellen had described earlier. Here, we have a powerful incentive to to under with the 4000 square foot rule to electrify and net zero isn't bad either. We're going to apply to more and more houses as time goes on, but obviously the next step would be to apply the same rule to smaller houses, which would over time lead to nearly universal electrification of new low density housing construction in Arlington and in other places as well. And that has to be for another day and another town meeting. And I promise you actually that there will be another time meeting that will deal with that subject because we will have to eventually deal with the, with the fossil fuel pilot program that we began with. So with that, golly, I guess I don't know who is the next person on the list. Great. So what we're actually going to do right now is questions is pause for questions related to any of the items that were just presented. As a reminder, you can raise your hand and the zoom raise hand function and we will call on you to unmute or you can put a question into the chat. And this will not be the only opportunity to ask questions you can ask questions at the end of the presentations. Tell me, do you want to start with the one question you received so far. Sure, I believe so the one question I have received so far is whether embodied carbon is getting discussed for any of these codes now or in the near future. I'd like to kick this actually if Ian Finlayson from the do we are is present on the line I would love for him to address this question. If not, I can give a quick response. Are you present. Yes, hello, everyone. Thanks for inviting me to join. It's not often that people spend that evening listening to presentations on building codes. And if you could actually introduce yourself, Ian, that would be great. Thank you so much. Yeah, sure. So I'm Ian Finlayson. I live in Arlington on Russell Terrace. And I work for the do we are and actually am the lead on development of the stretch and specialized energy codes. So I get to spend my day thinking about building codes as well as my evenings. So great question about embodied carbon. So just to jump into that. We, when we put out our straw proposal on this back in February of last year we did have consideration of embodied carbon in there. And we got a lot of public comments, both for and against integrating embodied carbon and code. At the end of the day, I think that the administration viewed it as a little bit early to get embodied carbon language into code. But and so it isn't in the stretch code or the specialized code that you have in front of you today. But I would say it's very much on our radar screen for what needs to happen next in the energy code development. I mentioned earlier, we sort of do this on a three year cycle. So I think we'll be looking at that. We've already started talking to different groups that are working on the body carbon language. And with the amount of federal funding available, we've already applied for some funding for research on embodied carbon and codes. So that process is underway. There are a lot of people around the country working on it. And I'd say watch this space. Thanks Ian. And we got a question to define what embodied carbon is and I think that's a great question. If you want to also take that ear and if you have a quick response that would be great. Sure, I can, I can take that one I'm sure lots of people on this call could answer it better than I but essentially the concept is that carbon in fossil fuels that that is very that we're very aware of because, you know, when we burn them, the carbon dioxide is emitted. But there's also a lot of carbon used to in the manufacturer production transportation of different materials. So something like, I don't know an iPhone or a laptop, a lot of energy and as a result carbon went into producing the materials that went into that. When it comes to buildings, the things that tend to have a lot of embodied carbon are substances like concrete cement and steel and so on. So that's that's what we're thinking of when we're thinking about regulating or or incentivizing less embodied carbon in the construction. Thanks, Ian. I see that we have hand raised from Chris or let the ready and you can unmute to ask your question. We'll probably take this question and then get to the great question that's in the chat a little later in the presentation but Chris please unmute yourself and ask your question. Sorry, that's all right. Sorry, can you hear me now. Yes. Yeah, thanks. My question is this I think I heard someone say that this new specialized code would only apply to new construction. And I'm curious exactly how new construction is defined. Because in my part of town, it's very rare that you see. I think what most people would consider new construction we're actually building something from the ground up, but you do see increasing a lot of gut renovation, where two families are, you know, almost completely gutted they might actually be torn down so only fractions of a couple walls are left remaining is that new construction or or what exactly is new construction. That's a good question. I'm going to briefly answer and then kick this to my Champa, who is our director of inspectional services who is also on the line. But briefly, my understanding is that that would not count as new construction that a gut renovation would not be covered by the specialized stretch code but rather the stretch code, which is automatic for Arlington. Mike Champa, do you have anything to add to that. That's correct. Well, 100%. But, you know, there are the new regulations in the stretch code updates that cover renovations. But they large renovation even if, you know, it's not considered a new home if part of it is for me. Great. Okay, good question and thanks Mike. Okay, so for the sake of time I'd like to just move us on to the next part of our presentation and then we can get to the questions in the chat and any other questions that come up. All right, I'd like to ask Aaron Gunderson to speak a bit about passive house, but first actually I'm going to summarize briefly the, the provisions that were already raised about when passive house is required. The passive house is an option for many buildings under the stretch code as well as the specialized stretch code, but it is required when multifamily buildings are constructed new that are over 12,000 square feet. Those have to be designed to the passive house standard under the specialized code. In Arlington, approximately one to two new buildings per year would meet these requirements. And that's from data from building permits that were pulled from January 2018 through March 2023. So with that I'll hand it over to Aaron. Thank you. My name is Aaron Gunnerson. I'm the executive director of passive house Massachusetts where a local nonprofit organization that provides education training and other resources for passive house and for other low energy building construction methods. So you can just go on here in the next slide. So passive house, those wondering who are new to it what what it is it's a performance based building standard that focuses in on the reduction of energies. So specifically focus on reducing energy man in our buildings. Now, something to clarify right away is despite the name passive house. We're talking about any building. This can be a home. It can also be an office or a school or a mixed use development and any building type can be a passive house and we have examples of many of these different types already in Massachusetts offices schools, in addition to residential homes. So any building type can be passive house. So we're going to talk about what it actually means to do this. So first that the benefits of what passive house issues. So we talk a lot about energy reduction and the associated reduction in carbon emissions. But there's lots of other benefits to being in a passive house is simply a better building in lots of ways. So, in terms of financial benefits for reducing energy costs reducing utility costs. We've also seen reduction in maintenance costs. So both in terms of the maintenance of say the, the elect or sorry the mechanical equipment that is used since it tends to be smaller and use less often, but also simply there's a lot of the longer lasting construction methods so the home itself will tend to need a lot less maintenance work in helping comfort benefits we're seeing improved improving indoor air quality so simply a better healthier environment to be in consistent temperatures whether from room to room or to floor you have a much more consistent and comfortable temperature level in the building and quieter acoustic conditions as well. So blocking out noise from from outside, for example, or having a reduction in noise from the mechanical equipment inside. And then of course those environmental benefits. So reduce carbon emissions. We have a multi climate resilient building. So when I was able to a stand say extreme of whether patented pattern changes or power outages that we experienced from time to time and more often these days. And there is a focus on embody carbon. It's not part of the passive house requirements to sort of be a past of building, but it is part of what the architects and and builders of these projects and focus on using materials that do have a lower environmental content. You can go on here. So these are briefly what you know what the kind of construction features of a passive house so the building envelope, we have exterior thermal sorry exterior thermal insulation which is like throwing a sweater around a building you know putting the sweater on you to keep the heat in in the center. That's what we're doing. You have continuous air barrier to kind of control where air is coming in and out of the building of reducing thermal bridges. That's a lot of different things but you can an example would be wood studs in your home would studs conduct more heat than the insulation does and we want to reduce the amount of those type of thermal bridges and what in the project better performing windows and doors and optimize solar heating so it can take advantage of some of the some of the types of heat. And then we do have mechanical systems so the balance ventilation, also efficient and minimized heating cooling systems, and more efficient water heating systems as well. You can go on. So passive house has been scaling up dramatically here in the state, and it's been scaling most dramatically in multi family projects. So that's where we've seen the most growth in terms of passive house this is showing in bold projects through the mass saving center program. This is for passive or sorry for multi family projects are five units or greater can enroll in this project. If they're going to meet passive house standard. We have already over sorry over 10,000 units worth of development in role in these projects which is enrolled in these incentives which is pretty pretty exciting. These incentives have been out now since 2019 so we have a few years here but it's been pretty incredible to see this huge huge group in passive house, you can go on. And as I mentioned with multi family being kind of a huge focus and growth where we're not just talking about market rate, we're also talking about affordable housing buildings, and those those numbers of units I just showed you about 40% of them are enrolled through the mass saves low income, sort of definition. So we're seeing kind of a large amount of affordable projects that are choosing passive house, all the ones on your screen right now are affordable housing projects, and this is showing you sort of the cost premium for them, but the main point here is that the incremental cost, you know to go from a traditional building to a passive house building is coming down, and it's coming closer and closer to that sort of break even point here in the next little while we're not really going to see much of a difference in terms of cost from what a code built building is to what a passive house building is, at least on these multi family larger buildings. And one more slide here I have, and you can go on. So this is showing you the incentives. This is for the multi family incentives from NASA, lots of great financial resources available project teams. There's lots of other incentives out there as well. So this is just kind of one, one source of them through the massive program, and actually one more slide you can go on, because in addition to funding the sort of projects. They're also providing a lot of great training resources so questions I get a lot or what about you know the contractors and trades to sort of need to get up to speed on building different types of projects. We have a lot of great training resources to help out and we've been doing a lot of work so far even our last few years providing a lot of great training resources to contractors in the state. So we're helping to sort of fill fill that need. That's the end of my session here but I'm going to stick around for questions. Thank you. And I'm going to have Jeff bisoner from you to speak a bit more about passive house in the marketplace. So, Jeff, will you take it away. We'll do thanks a lot Talia. It's really. It's great to be at this meeting and I'm happy to share some of our experiences my name is Jeff geisinger I'm the director of sustainable design at teal. And architecture and planning practice based in Boston we also have a small office in Providence, and passive house has been playing a very big role in our design process. And here on the slide we're showing some of the benefits that we have encountered and that we share with with our clients and that our clients are are finding on their projects. One of the things that we're observing is that we're seeing more demand from clients because of these benefits, for example in the affordable housing side which is a big part of our multifamily practice. There's a real alignment reinforces some of the points that Aaron made between the kind of indoor quality that you can achieve with a passive house building and the mission for many of our nonprofit affordable housing developers, and on the housing side. There's been a lot of attraction to some of the benefits related to enhance marketability, as well as the quality assurance and durability, getting a product that you know performance design because of the verification that passive house brings to the process. You can go to the next slide please. So at our practice multifamily housing is a big part of what we do and passive houses are is becoming the sort of default standard for much of our multifamily work, starting with a lot of affordable housing. But more and more and increasingly, our market rate work is utilizing passive house to sort of set that bar. So this is a range of a few of the projects that we have that are passive house we have six projects that have gone through fias design certification. And we have many projects that are registered fias and that are in various levels of development including one project that we're starting early in design in Arlington. So what we take away here is that our passive house work comes in many shapes and sizes, affordable and market rate, low rise to mid rise and above, and it is really elevated the quality of the design product that we've been able to deliver to our client partners. The next slide should just a couple of examples. This is a project in the Jamaica plain neighborhood of Boston, it's an affordable senior housing development. A few of the things that this project. It's in design. It is in review right now with with the passive houses to us. It puts into practice a lot of the kind of key principles that Aaron showed in his presentation ranging from an airtight envelope to high performance triple ways windows and good high quality continuous installation with careful attention to detailing that we've been able to implement without elevating costs. This is an affordable housing project. Many of our projects like this one have common heating and cooling systems like that are shown here, they are right sized and they're relatively small and we're able to really maximize the area for affordable takes this project is going to be planning for PV we're studying it and hopefully will be able to offset a good portion of the building's energies with renewables. Another example that I'll show is a market rate development that is in construction right now in Somerville. This is the 154 Broadway project. This project. In part, we were able to design it towards the pass of a standard because our developer partner is very interested in it, and we were able to get increased zoning density bonus through the Somerville zoning ordinance. By going for passive house so this became a really valuable proposition for the project. And one of the key features of the project in addition to incorporating a lot of the, the kind of key principles that we saw in the previous project, excellent envelope and systems. This project is also utilizing mass timber or cross laminated timber floor structure. And it's sort of going to be a showcase or a model for how you can really reduce that that upfront carbon of the embody carbon for multifamily housing in Somerville and beyond, and we're hoping for this to be a model that gets replicated in other projects. This is the last slide I had but I wanted to really strike home the point that, you know, pass of us is not only something that is really increasing in demand in terms of who we're working with, but it has been a lot of work in terms of designing and building better buildings and we're excited that I'm excited to be here on this panel and happy to answer any questions about that particular standard in this form. Thank you. Thank you Jeff. And now we are going to have a representative from the housing corporation of Arlington, or on the sitting on the board of directors of the housing corporation of Arlington. I'm just going to talk about the housing corporations experience with passive house construction with a project that they're working on right now. Thanks, thanks to you. I'm really pleased to be able to be here and to introduce to those of you who don't already know about the housing corporation of Arlington, and also our interest in energy efficiency and the specialized stretch energy code. I've been a board member of the housing corporation of Arlington for 27 years. In my day job, I am an architect also it seems like there's a lot of architects here. I work for a firm called the narrow gate architects in Boston, and we are a design firm that specializes in doing affordable housing. We have a contract with the Department of Housing and Community Development, which is the main primary funder of affordable housing in Massachusetts we are on one of their design reviewers for their subsidy decision making for affordable housing. So, and I'm also a member of the Arlington affordable housing trust fund which is a fairly new entity in Arlington is working to consolidate and facilitate funding of affordable housing projects in Arlington. And just to introduce the Housing Corp of Arlington. We are a nonprofit community development corporation we are not the housing authority, which is not a bad thing or a good thing we're just, we are a smaller entity we are a nonprofit, not not a public authority. The Housing Corp of Arlington owns 150 rental units of housing of which 48 are relatively newly constructed that some of you may, if you're familiar at all with the Housing Corp of Arlington we have just finished in two that with the project known as the Downing Square Broadway project it's known as Downing Square Broadway because half of the project is that Downing Square in the heights or near the heights and half is on Broadway in East Arlington. There are three buildings that are part of the Downing Square Broadway project. They were built to the standards of the previous stretch code so they, they are, they have all electric heating cooling and cooking. They do use gas for the domestic hot water. But they're all designed to be so so called solar ready so they're pre wired and designed structurally to handle solar panels on the roof, and the Housing Corp of Arlington is currently in the process of in the process of getting solar panels installed on the largest of the three of those buildings at Downing Square Broadway. And I just want to say that it kind of it goes without saying that the increased energy efficiency reduces the Housing Corp of Arlington's operating costs, which helps make housing more affordable for the long term reduces our operating costs and makes it more affordable for the for the residents for the tenants. In the future the Department of Housing and Community Development, the state organization. They have their standards are encouraging higher levels ever higher levels of efficiency by awarding more points I'll say points in their competitive subsidy funding rounds that they offer to developers so the state agency DHCD is really stepping into the plate and encouraging developers to become to work on, particularly on passive house projects. Also for the future, the Housing Corp of Arlington is is planning a project on sunny side street in Arlington which Jeff knows because utile is the architects for that project. We're in the early stages, but that project will be a passive house certified project. And we see that most actually most of the new projects as others have mentioned most of the new projects that are being developed as affordable housing, because of DHCD is incentivizing it are are going to be passive house. I guess I'd say that, of course, the stretch codes have additional design and construction costs involved versus the base code. But as the stretch code and and the base code, I think get closer, as well as as builders and designers get more familiar with the standards. The difference is hopefully shrinking and I know that Aaron showed some of those cost differences that have been researched by the Mass Clean Energy Council. The numbers, I think are getting closer. It's also getting more challenging for architects on all all buildings because the standards are increasing. But hopefully we will get to the point where we maybe don't need to have a stretch energy code or even a specialized code because the codes will become one. I should also note that the 102 of the housing corporations units are renovations of existing housing. And I think that the impact of the specialized code and the stretch code is much less noticeable versus what would be known as the base code. It depends on the scope of work and the size of the project, obviously. Just to note that about two thirds of our current affordable units are were renovation projects and not new construction. Just to kind of wrap up, I'd say, want to say that the Housing Corp of Arlington enthusiastically supports the move to the new stretch code and the specialized stretch energy code. We are also enthusiastically in need of the support incentives that come from MassSafe and the Mass Clean Energy Center and other programs that are designed to help offset these additional costs. It goes without saying that it's not easy to develop affordable housing in an expensive town like Arlington, but Housing Corp of Arlington takes a lot of pride in serving our lower income residents of Arlington, and is committed to creating the best environmentally sustainable environment that we can for the housing and for the residents that we serve. Thank you. And I'm supposed to pass it on to Ryan. Sorry, I knew I was going to forget that. Ryan. That's great. Take it away Ryan. I'll pull up your slides just a second. Thanks. And while you're doing that, I'll just add my welcome. Good evening everybody. It's fair to say we're in the home stretch of the presentation this evening. Just a quick introduction. My name is Ryan Katowski. I'm the current chair of the Clean Energy Future Committee. I've been an Arlington resident coming up on 25 years now and actually was a founding member of sustainable Arlington back in 1999. It's really amazing. You know, we're really on a journey together in this sort of road to net zero and it's really amazing to see how far we've come and obviously this, this opt-in code is an important step in that journey. I'm going to talk to you a little bit. We've already heard a little bit about this from some earlier speakers, but I'm going to come back to some of these requirements for pre-wiring and on-site solar, depending on whether the building is using fossil fuels or not. So next slide please. So I think as you heard, if you are going to be using fossil fuels for any purpose in the building, that does impose some additional requirements, both the pre-wiring and solar. And then this only applies to that mixed fuel pathway. The solar, and actually I think this actually relates to one of the questions in the chat. The solar does help obviously offset the impacts of that fossil fuel use on-site. The pre-wiring just helps make conversion to electric much easier down the road. And I think of that as sort of an ounce of prevention. We do need to get to that net zero condition in only 27 years. Being ready and able to do that more quickly in these buildings that choose to use fossil fuels is going to be very helpful. And I think as Talia articulated really nicely at the beginning of the presentation, these are really important strategies for us. I think it's been pointed out to us before that if you look at the housing, the building stock in Arlington, we basically need to decarbonize one building a day every day between now and 2050 to get to our goals. So there's a lot of work to do and these requirements will help us get there. Next slide please. It's actually really challenging to summarize all the additional requirements for mixed fuel buildings in one table. We tried to do that here. I'm not going to go through the whole thing. But suffice it to say that if you do have mixed fuels, if you're a low-rise residential, you're going to have requirements for solar production on the building. And you can see depending on the type of building, there's different requirements. So for a single family has a four kilowatt system. That's actually a pretty small system. I have a fairly small Dutch colonial and I have a 3.9 kilowatt system that I put in back in 2011. And probably if I maxed out the roof area with the state of the art panels that are available today, I'd probably get almost twice that. So it's actually a pretty modest requirement for single family houses. There are exceptions for the solar requirement depending on shading. So we don't want people to feel like they need to chop down trees in order to meet these requirements. So there are different ways to measure essentially the solar access to the site and provide the exemptions where solar is either limited or not feasible. You have similar requirements for commercial buildings that are driven by the size of the building itself. And again, with some exceptions around this concept of potential solar zone, which we'll get into in a minute. But, you know, in a nutshell, solar is required with some exceptions, depending on the conditions of the site. Next slide please. Okay, so there is a definition for potential solar zone area in the code. And it is, it is defined around what essentially percentage of the potential solar shining on the building is relative to the maximum relative to what you're getting. And then it also makes accommodations for structures on the roof so you don't, you have shading from vents or a rooftop equipment it factors all that into calculating what the size of that solar zone is and then it uses that to make a determination as to what the requirements are for the building. Next slide please. Pre-wiring a more straightforward arguably this means a couple of things. It means that you have to have sufficient capacity coming into the building in terms of the amperage. That means that you have to basically when you when you design the building you have to do the calculations for the electric service as if it were an all electric building, you need to have circuits fed to the areas where the where the equipment is going to be and you need to have plugs as well so nothing is ever quite plug and play when you're replacing HVAC equipment but the goal here is to make that switch over to electric as easy as possible under the expectation that even buildings that would choose to put in fossil fuels today are going to electrify between now and 2050. And just anecdotally I think there's there's plenty of evidence to support that for a typical home 200 amp service is likely sufficient but obviously the the the exact requirement is going to depend on the the size of the building and and the anticipated uses. I think that's all I had Talia. I'm going to turn it back over to you. Thank you Ryan. So before we dive into questions here. I'd like to ask Ellen just to quickly summarize at a high level of the things that we just covered so I'm going to pan back to that top five slide and then we'll address a couple frequently asked questions. And then we'll take questions from participants so if you just give me a moment to pan back to that overview slide sorry for the here. Okay. Ellen would you mind giving that high level so what exactly is the difference between the specialized or the sorry the difference between the stretch code which is automatic for Arlington and the specialized stretch code which is what town meeting is deciding on. Right. There are stricter provisions. Five of them. Pre wiring solar PV exemplary performance for large homes exemplary performance for multi family. And if you pass it soon and jump on those lower hers ratings which are delivered for all communities. At the same time if you opt in later. And can you explain what a hers rating is very briefly. Yes, although it's a home energy rating system the lower the value the better the energy performance. They're certified hers Raiders who give it to you as part of your building permit process. Thanks Helen, I'm going to go to our frequently asked questions slide real quick here, and then we'll dive into some questions from participants. Okay, as always I learned so much from the panelists and the participants in the questioning from these sessions. And I have two last messages that tell you asked me to share number one, if you have any questions whatsoever on your mind, you are not alone. And many of them have been asked and answered before. There are a lot of resources to help us all gain in our, not just conversancy about these codes but in our implementation of them and that's where the rubber really meets the road. So, the five most frequently asked questions I personally get are these five. Just quickly to summarize. Will the opt in specialized code apply to existing structures I think we've already said and you've already heard. No, it applies to new construction existing structures depending upon their size are regulated by either the updated stretch code, or the base code. Secondly, I couldn't say it any better than Neil did, will the opt in specialized code discourage the creation of affordable housing know. In fact the incentives by mass save. And the housing. The housing incentives from is a community development, community development Neil. Sorry, I couldn't get my on mute it's a Department of Housing and Community Development DHCD at the state which which administers a lot of the subsidies that provide for affordable housing. Not only spurring better performance but even to the positive house level and as we've said, importantly, these benefits really improve the quality of affordable housing which accrues to the residents, which is all important for them to not only improve health, save costs over time, but to live in comfortable housing. Next, an awful lot of people want to know can I still install a gas cook top. You know whether I'm a Chinese chef or a homeowner that just loves gas cook tops. Absolutely yes. It's permitted under mixed fuel pathways. And we've talked about what that constitutes it requires the pre wiring and the solar. Essentially, another question a little more existential why adopt this there's so few changes yes but the changes are important as I hope we have conveyed. I would say the number one reason is it is that it requires free wiring avoiding really costly and time consuming retrofits down the road. This will expedite our transition to electrification. And also preserve property values. I also think it's highly probable that those in first as was true of the original stretch code will benefit from prioritized training and incentives. And lastly, why does the often specialized code permit fossil fuels why do we have to go through a pilot project and a fossil free demonstration or to get to that level of clarity about where we need to go in the future. I would say this. It preserves market choice at a time when utility pricing is highly volatile, and a few of us studying this matter in some detail is recently found that among Massachusetts communities today utility costs very 300%. So that means for some communities, the conversion is a no brainer for others it may be still a short ways off. And I would also say that if anybody feels that net zero mandates. Absolutely preclude fossil fuels that's not true the federal Department of Energy has compiled all the definitions that have been used over a decade throughout the United States, and they very widely, and very few if any preclude any particular type. So, last slide, these questions and many many more. You can find in a document that the Northeast energy efficiency partnerships has put out in a frequently asked questions. PDF. They also offer some comparative tables as shown on the right. There's also a wonderful link on this slide to the Boston Society for architecture. A critical stretch code series. This first one which is linked has a really great robust Q amp a with Ian Finlayson from do we are. I'd also just comment that if you're just stepping into this the do we are summary documents which are on the DRA website are much easier to read than the codes themselves. And I think that's one of the issues that's among many others are urging do we are to quickly compile or consolidate all the additions, deletions and substitution so that we can read it in plain language which I think will really ease implementation. The presentations that I've seen and attended have been so impressive are rich with information. I'm a little biased by I think the town of Wellesley presentation by Mary Beth Martello, director of sustainability, I believe is on this call is outstanding there are many others occurring daily as this recording will be available so are they go looking I think it's a great way to talk with county members and other members of the community have interest in concern about these codes. Thank you Ellen. Alright, let's get to some questions. I already see we have a couple in the chat. Hello, we did have a question earlier. If I can just read that off. So there was a question kind of about how much electrification really matters so it was about doesn't electrification only reduce emissions if the electricity comes from renewable sources so rooftop solar helps, but without better technology to last overnight much of the electricity will still come from natural gas burning power plants right. So I guess what I read that as is the underlying question is like, why is it, why is electrification important if electric is still coming from fossil fuel sources. A good question, and I'm actually going to ask Ryan Katowski who's the chair of the clean energy future committee to answer this one. Thanks Talia and it is a great question it's important to understand the implications of electrification so the short answer is that emissions do go down, even if the electricity is produced from natural gas. And the key technology to making all this work is the heat pump. Right, so heat pumps can be used for heating, they can be for heating space, they can use for heating water and using your clothes dryer so the heat pump is so efficient that even if you were burning 100% natural gas to generate your electricity. When you sort of watch sort of follow that energy from the steps it takes along the chain till it's end use. If you compared its use in a heat pump safer heating your home to even a high efficiency furnace using natural gas, you're still better off with the electric heat pump option. Just because it is, it's just much more efficient at getting heat into the space than men a traditional heating system. With that said, our grid on an annual basis I believe in New England uses about 40% of our electricity comes from natural gas. The rest comes primarily from carbon free sources that includes nuclear power. That includes hydro large and small, and a growing share of other types of renewables wind and solar primarily as the requirements for that increase. So, it's really, it's pretty clear that the electricity pathway with heat pumps is is better than the natural gas, and obviously as each year goes by it's only going to get better. So if you're on your home, that's part of the question. You know, you're not generating electricity at night, but it's a very good chance that on on on many days you're actually, you're actually producing more electricity than you need to use so that electricity is actually going out of your, you know, onto the wires and into neighboring So, you know, overall things are just going to get better each year if we electrify in Arlington. We also have already a much higher renewable energy content in the electricity that we that we use because of our Arlington clean electricity program, which most residents are are enrolled in. And I think in the latest procurement tell you you can credit me we're actually getting 30% more electricity thank you thumbs up, then what is required by the state renewable portfolio standard to clean energy standard. So we're actually our electricity in Arlington is really quite low carbon to begin with. Oh, that's probably a much longer answer than was needed but it is an important question to understand. Thanks Ryan I thought that was a fantastic response. And not seeing any hands raised. There are some more questions in the chat here. So we have a question about if the town adopts the specialized stretch code will the specialized coded applied to new 40B projects. So question my understanding is that any multi family project over 12,000 square feet under the specialized stretch code would be required to meet the passive house requirements and Kelly maybe you can say more about what what 40B is and when that applies. Sure. And actually I would, I would want to look into this a little bit more because 40B does sort of preclude the town from applying certain local standards above state standards so that's just one thing I would want to check into before I gave a definitive I think it's a good question. So, so how about we put that on a sticky and make sure we get to that tomorrow. That's all right. Okay, yes, I'd rather give a clearer answer. Thanks. Ian Finlayson. Oh, you might have an answer to this actually. I'm sorry I was just wanted to add. There was a comment in the chat about the energy mix and I just wanted to add something to that but maybe I'll just hang on to that for a minute. Yeah, I just thought I could chime in on the 40B question. So, because you'd be adopting a statewide code option in the specialized code it would apply to 40B. It's not treated as say a special permit might be as a local option. Okay, I think do we are as the authority here so thanks, Ian. And Ryan feel free to add. I appreciate Michael Quinn posted a link to the regional grid operator which shows the energy mix. And he's right that the 52% represents which is the gas contribution in the New England mix. But I don't, and this is where like I'd love to hear from other people because it's not always things are not always perfectly clear. It excludes that what's in that category called net flows over external ties. That's really what was generated in the region. And we get about 15% of our electricity imported, mostly from Quebec. And almost all of that is hydropower. So when you factor that in to the mix it lowers the percentage of the mix that is actually coming from, from natural gas I'm, I won't say I'm 1000% sure but I'm pretty sure that that's the case. And I think it's clear from the ice in New England website, you know what what the composition of that in those net imports is but I believe it's, it's primarily hydropower. I think Ryan I think it's, there's, there's a difference between what's generated in Massachusetts versus what's used in Massachusetts I think that's kind of getting the same issue that you're talking about. So these statistics apply to the six state New England region because this is the regional grid operator and that's the way to think about our electricity mix it really doesn't matter from really doesn't matter if something is generated in Massachusetts or Maine, because we all share the same wholesale market in the six in the six states up here in the Northeast. Thank you. I don't have any other questions I don't believe there any more in the chat that that have come up. You're welcome to raise your hand in in zoom and can call on you to unmute. You have a question to ask. I see Susan stamps has a question. Hi everybody this is an amazing. Thank you for this presentation. I am I feel like I'm the most lay person is lay person on this, this call. And so I think of it in terms of how am I going to present this to people around town and in my precinct as a town media member because I volunteered to be the person, the point person to this code. I'm very, very unprepared to do that so it's going to require a lot of study, but already the question, the question that I'm getting, most often is, am I going to be able to open my windows. And I don't know what the answer is so I'm just wondering if those kinds of simple minded questions are, you know, sometimes what one needs answers for. That's a good question. Thank you for that question and I wonder if one of our architects who is familiar with these kinds of highly efficient buildings can speak to this perhaps Jeff or even Neil or Ian, but yeah Jeff I see you've unmuted. Yeah, I'd be happy to answer that question and it is a good question and it definitely comes up when presenting that you know it's highly technical standards. Absolutely you can open your windows. And yeah, the passive us envelope when referencing air tightness, it refers to you know high quality construction so that we don't have unintended infiltration of air that could bring in not only you know cold drafts but also potential contaminants. So, we're making sure that you know when windows are closed that we have excellent air quality because we're delivering mechanical ventilation which brings fresh air that's filtered. That's recovering waste heat and doing providing really high quality breathing air efficiently, but absolutely when the, when the weather is really nice outside you can certainly open your windows. You know as a designer in our practice we make sure that we maintain that really important connection to the exterior in all of our designs, so that you know there is not only a high performing technically building but also one that provides a really strong connection to the outdoors. Well that's great news. Thank you. Jeff, and thanks Susan for your question I'll also note that I'm happy to speak with you about how to talk about this code with others. There's definitely some some ways to summarize a very high level what the key provisions are including, you know just that simple slide that Ellen had with the five, you know the top five things that we can make sure to define all the terms on on there and I'm happy to support you in doing that. I think that Sustainable Arlington and Pat knows is actually organizing, trying to get at least one person per precinct for a precinct to be the person who can explain to everybody what it is. So maybe, yeah, maybe if you could just have a small group meeting of those precinct representatives that would be wonderful. And as Ann is noting in the chat, there will be some frequently asked questions documents and resources available as well. I see that Roderick has a hand raised. Hi, Ron Holland precinct seven town meeting member and set somebody who is enjoying his first winter with a heat pump. What I wanted to comment on was the emphasis that was put on pre wiring. The, we went through, you know, fairly standard conversion process for heat, heat pumps and in two units of it to a family house, and the long pole of the tent in the whole process was upgrading the electrical service. It was expensive. It was slow. So, getting getting that done ahead sounds like nothing but in fact it's a very significant something. That's all I've got. Thank you for that comment. Pat, I see you have a hand raised do you have a question or were you adding to the response for for a question. I'll put to the response to Chris already's question of about 20 minutes ago. It's true that the. Can you repeat what the question was Pat just for the benefit of this. I'm sorry the question. The question had to do with whether or not this apply to cut renovations. And the answer as Ian pointed out is that it doesn't. I would say that if you looked at the pyramid at that we had at the very beginning of the slides, the very top had to do with the pilot project. And I wanted to stress that the bylaw that we passed in 2020 did cover significant renovations, mostly very similar to what in the building code is thought of this level three alterations. Every town that has adopted a similar or similar bylaw ordinance has got the same sort of thing because it's true of many places that renovations are a major part of what new construct, new construction is. So, this, this is a step that doesn't include that. But certainly it's already in train to expand what is what is going to happen there. I think that it's it's clear that practically that all of the 10 towns that are currently have priority status for the demonstration project. It's very clear that they want to include reconstructions and significant renovations there and the same thing is true in the recommended draft language that was recently published as draft for what what the deal we are is looking at in terms of recommending a new bylaw that would that would be presumptively appropriate for the demonstration project. So this is one step. And as Ellen pointed out and it's a significant step but it's not the last step and Tom meeting will be taking up the will be excuse me in the fall will be taking up the demonstration project and renovations will be front and center then. I just want to emphasize again that the specialized stretch code does not apply to renovations, it applies to new construction to pass point. Neil, do you have a comment on something and then I just want to make sure that there are no more questions because we only have a few more minutes left here. I'll just just a quick thing just to get into Ian's ear and maybe Ellen's ear. As an architect, I wonder if there's any way that we could rename these, these codes it to not to not say update. So, stretch code update or base code update because it's a, it's a constantly moving target. If you have a file on your desk that says latest or most recent. And it's just, it's, it's really challenging as architects and builders and so on to keep up to date and when you see something that says the update. Well, it just, it was just updated and is this the new update or the old update so that's kind of a, that's maybe inside baseball comment but it's really challenging and I would, I would think you might think about calling it version one or addition to or something like that rather than update so thanks. Thank you, Neil. And I see that Wendy has a question in the chat which I think is a really great question which is what will be required for new construction under 4000 square feet. And does this encourage development of new construction to stay under 4000 square feet now there's a few answers here and I'm going to try it and you can correct me if I get it wrong here, but if the building is under 4000 square feet. It is not it is, if it goes all electric, then there are no additional requirements and it goes mixed fuel, then if it goes mixed fuel, then it has to do solar and pre wire. So that sort of keeps with with what we've been this mantra we've been saying which is if you put in mixed fuels in your building, you have to pre wire for future electrification and add solar in the building. If you go all electric for the most part there aren't any additional requirements over the stretch code which is already automatic for Arlington. Did I get that right, Ian. Yeah, I mean it maybe you did get it right. I'd say an alternative maybe simpler way of saying it is that if it's under 4000 square feet, then if you have a solar accessible roof. It's a 4 kilowatt system. And if you're over 4000 square feet and you have a solar accessible system. And it's a much bigger solar system because you're trying to get to zero or pass five zero function so those bigger houses which are going to be more expensive properties are being asked to put a larger solar system on them. That's basically the difference. Over 4000 square feet. And then the second part of this question does this encourage development of new construction to stay under 4000 square feet. I, I think the answer here is that, and maybe Mike Champa can chime in here is that it doesn't necessarily, unless you think about the mixed fuel pathway here so if, if you're, if you're going to do a construction that is is mixed fuel and it's over 4000 square feet you're going to have lots of additional requirements that that zero energy or that the all electric pathway. So in that sense, you could say that it does encourage that less than 4000 square foot construction, because there aren't going to be additional requirements imposed. Mike, do you have anything to add to that. No, that's a no okay you're great. And we can share the slides because Ellen is reminding me that our slides also share some more information about that but I see that we're at 830 and I want to be mindful of everybody's time here. So, I don't see any other questions. I just want to thank all of our extraordinary panelists for taking the time to join us tonight and thank you all for your participation and your great questions. Again, we are recording this, we will post the recording in the slides on the clean energy future committee website which you can navigate to from the town website. And I believe that link was put in the chat as well. Thanks again. Have a great night everyone.