03-17-2025 JDA Agenda Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Commissioner Monson questioned if there was an increase or decrease in funding from the County in 2024. Ms. Mitchell stated she believed the County had provided a similar amount of funding in 2024 and 2023. d. Approve Sustainability Design Guidelines Ms. Mitchell stated in late 2023, the JDA engaged Ever-Green Energy and LHB to analyze implementation strategies for the JDA’s Green Energy Vision. This analysis consisted of a comprehensive energy analysis to understand the energy demands of the planned development, a description of strategies to reduce that energy demand (primarily through high- performance building design), and analysis of renewable energy technologies to meet the remaining energy demand. As a part of this process, consultants and staff met with project developers to discuss sustainable development and clean energy strategies. Ever-Green Energy and LHB presented their initial findings at the October 2024 JDA work session and their final report, the Clean Energy Analysis Report, was accepted by the JDA at the November 2024 meeting. At the November meeting, the JDA approved a Clean Energy Policy: Rice Creek Commons seeks to be an all-electric, carbon-free community. Ms. Mitchell commented that included in the Clean Energy Analysis Report was a draft of Sustainability Design Guidelines (SDG) (Appendix I), which describes feasible development standards that tangibly support the Green Energy Vision and Clean Energy Policy. These include standards for LEED certification, building energy efficiency, all-electric buildings, photovoltaic (PV) system installation, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and reporting. At the November 2024 meeting, the JDA expressed a desire to understand the waiver process and implications of SDG standards for the development prior to approval. Staff subsequently worked with the consultants at LHB and the JDA attorneys to address these items, and the SDG have been updated to describe implementation and compliance (Section 3), including the waiver approval process. Ms. Mitchell reported as described in Section 3 of the Sustainability Design Guidelines, the compliance process would run concurrently with other JDA review processes and be supported by the consultant team at LHB. LHB would help developers align with the SDG (identifying alternative technologies, strategies, and financing tools), manage the waiver process (including JDA review and approval), and provide a memo describing the development’s SDG compliance measures. The JDA staff would incorporate these measures into the development agreement for JDA approval. Rick Carter, LHB, provided the JDA with a high-level overview of the sustainability design guidelines noting they support the development being all electric, carbon free and certified LEED for communities. He suggested each building within the development receive the LEED silver certification. He explained the development would have all electric buildings, and commented on how exceptions would be considered.