MINUTES

Energy Conservation and Green Building  Committee
Mayor’s Energy Task Force
February 3, 2004
3:00 - 5:30 p.m.
MGE, 133 South Blair Street

Meeting No. 7
Final

Amended 3/30/04

Resume

1. The agenda was reviewed by Sherrie Gruder for items to be discussed today.

2. Meeting minutes for December 16, 2003 were reviewed and approved by the committee without changes.

Meeting minutes for January 27, 2004 were reviewed and approved by the committee with the following changes:

Page 3; item 4;

Revise Objective 1 to read “To encourage the wise use of energy”.

Revise Objective 2 to read “To change policies to reflect energy efficiency and green values”.

3. Madison Dark Sky Committee, David Liebl, UW-Extension/SHWEC

David Liebl from UW-Extension presented information on the progress of the Dark Sky Committee. The purpose of the committee is to review Madison’s lighting ordinance and make it consistent with “DarkSky Principles”.

There first meeting was on November 3, 2003. Regular meetings are scheduled for the first Monday of the month at 4:00 p.m. Mike Rewey is the Chair. Members include city staff, lighting engineer, developer, UW-Extension, citizens, and the Plan Commission.

The existing Madison Lighting Ordinance 10.085 was enacted in 1992 to provide for plan review of parking lot lighting. The existing ordinance applies to all non-residential property, restricts light trespass, restricts illumination levels, and restricts glare (shielded fixtures). It does not provide for architectural lighting review.

The proposed revisions include inclusion of residential property, 1,000 lumen or less exemption, more easily enforced restrictions on glare and light trespass, reduced service station canopy illumination to 40 foot candles maximum, building permit review process, and curfews for outdoor display lots. Glare and light trespass are the key issues. Flag pole lighting and religious structure lighting will be exempt. Interior lighting is not included.

Revised language is currently under development. The committee wants to complete their recommendations in April and then submit to the Common Council.

Send comments to Mike Rewey before the next meeting scheduled for March 1, 2004. (michael.rewey@dot.state.wi.us)

Amended 3/30/04; Dark Sky comments from Lou Host-Jablonski.

a) Increased enforcement of existing lighting ordinance: Madison's existing outdoor lighting ordinance is already rather good. It needs one correction (below). However, it's just not being enforced much. Staff time is limited; enforcement usually only occurs after a specific complaint has been lodged. Even highly regulated lighting such as that required in the City's Urban Design Districts is almost never checked as to compliance after installation.

b) Cap light levels at outdoor lighting: There is one provision at least that we should suggest adding to the lighting ordinance provisions: a maximum light level (not just the "maximum average" of the current ordinance).

I recommend a performance standard, if one can be successfully devised, rather than a prescriptive or cookbook approach. This might take the form of a maximum wattage per square foot (this is common in designing interior lighting), or a maximum light level (for example, 10 footcandles at the ground plane at any location except for "special" conditions such as building entrances or handicapped facilities), or the lesser of these two. This is achievable; at Urban Design Commission we currently see outdoor lighting plans which already meet this standard.

An added benefit of this provision would be to reduce overall glare (i.e. areas of too-high contrast) and provide more even overall lighting, because the maximum uniformity ratio provision of the code would still have to be observed.

c) Reduce wattage at specific uses: Systematically examine specific lighting uses and make recommendations for maximum allowable lighting. Two good starting places are gas island canopy lighting and outdoor merchandising lighting such as car sales lots.

Gas island canopy lighting is often far in excess of what's needed for the tasks performed – typically pumping gas, wiping your windshield, reading the pump display etc. One could measure 30 to 50 footcandles at waist-height under some of these canopies. These are lighting levels typical of offices and classrooms, and have more to do with merchandising aims than visual needs. This use would be a good candidate for a maximum light level requirement.

(There is also a potential safety hazard with over-lit gas islands. Because the iris of the eye dilates rather slowly, drivers leaving a highly-lit area and entering a normally-lit street are temporarily night-blind. Elderly drivers are much more vulnerable, as the eye's acuity and performance degrade with age. This effect can lead to a rise in nighttime traffic accidents in the vicinity of brightly lit canopies.)

Outdoor merchandising lighting/car lots are notoriously over-lit, expressly for merchandising. We should recommend that, after business hours, such uses reduce (or turn off all together) all lighting that is over a certain maximum. (I believe that this requirement may already be "on the books", but again, not necessarily enforced.)

d) Stamp out Day-Burners: A lot of lights all over the city, including city street lights, burn all day long for whatever reason. Lights-out enforcement of course would be infeasible. And why spend a lot of money on a program for "educating" and cajoling owners who apparently aren't bothered now by the added energy and maintenance costs of wasted lighting?

I have a suggestion for high-profile, self-funding enforcement: The Common Council passes the Kids Against Day-Burners ordinance. It works like this: Kids 10 years old or under who report a day-burner get paid a dollar for each instance, collectible immediately upon verification. Kids file reports on a special website, which only works at set times between sunrise and sunset. First one to report a given infraction gets the dollar. The City pays the kids cash on the barrelhead, and then adds the amount (plus a small added fee to defray the cost of web maintenance) to the tax account of the owner of the day-burner. Finally, the website is set up to automatically send an email notification each time to the owner.

e) Reduce duplication of public and private exterior lighting: Currently, a property owner who wishes to install outdoor site lighting is required to submit a photometric plan and light fixture data to the City for review in order to get a permit. Lighting suppliers generally provide the computer-drawn photometric plans at no charge (provided you buy their lights, of course). The photometric plans typically show light levels at many points around the site -- but NO ONE EVER INCLUDES THE ADJACENT PUBLIC LIGHTING.

By requiring lighting designers to take into account ALL site and building-exterior lighting (not just their own products), including the existing public lighting at least, say, to the centerline of the street, we would see the true light levels on a site, and avoid the overlighting that currently results in many instances.

4. Advanced Building Guidelines, Abby Vogen, Energy Center of Wisconsin

Abby Vogen from Energy Center of Wisconsin presented information about Advanced Buildings.

Advanced Buildings provides a resource for design professionals, building contractors, building operators, and owners on the energy components of high performance buildings. They significantly exceed national codes and standards, and represent best practices for energy efficiency in design, technologies, and practices for commercial buildings. Advanced Buildings goes beyond traditional guidelines by providing a roadmap for how to design and construct highly energy-efficient buildings. They also establish a standardized method of measuring performance.

Advanced Buildings are a set of documents that consists of three parts:

• Energy Benchmark for High Performance Buildings (what to accomplish)
• Design Manual (how to accomplish it), and
• Owner’s Guide to High Performance Buildings (why it needs to be accomplished).

Together these three elements provide specific energy efficiency targets, design guidance, rational for building owners.

Energy Benchmark for High Performance Buildings (E-Benchmark) is a flexible system that addresses many aspects of high performance buildings. The nationally recognized criteria provides paths to achieving high performance buildings. It provides “guidelines” that defines an energy efficient building for the building envelope, mechanical systems, lighting & electrical systems, building control systems, and renewable energy systems. Specific criteria are identified for a wide range of technologies and practices. It follows a set of requirements based on ANSI procedures. E-Benchmark can be used for individual projects or for multiple building programs. Compliance is through self-evaluation or third party commissioning.

E-Benchmark criteria was designed to be compatible with LEED guidelines. It provides a match between LEED and local codes, utility programs, and state programs for energy performance. A separate guide is being developed to provide a more detailed description of how E-Benchmark works within the LEED system.

The first costs average $1.00 per square foot for the average commercial building with 20,000-80,000 total square feet. The average payback cost is 2 ½ years.

The EC&GB Committee could make a recommendation to require commercial and public facilities to comply with Advanced Building guidelines for energy performance.

5. Other business, prioritize guest speakers, next meeting agenda item, other.

Website links need to be updated, send to Sherrie Gruder.

Make suggestions for guest speakers, send to Sherrie Gruder.

Schedule Mike Arnie to speak on LEED.

6. Break into separate work group sessions; Energy Conservation working group, and Green Building working group.

7. Adjourn at 5:20 p.m.