Energy law still has property owners, city at odds, while sense of partnership with Eversource builds
Construction at 907 Main in Central Square in September 2019. (Photo: Marc Levy)
Business leaders continued to express dismay Tuesday over how Cambridge’s Building Energy Usage Disclosure Ordinance has been implemented, and the potential for them to face earlier deadlines to comply. Condo owners, on the other hand, are getting more time to meet the law’s requirements.
The meeting of the Economic Development and University Relations committees continued one from November that included representatives from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and business leaders wanting input on changes to the regulation. The conversations now also includes Eversource, Cambridge’s electricity distributor.
The Community Development Department submitted amendments in 2021 to Beudo that add emission reductions requirements. It was part of a planned review of the 2014 regulation, which required disclosure of emission levels for certain large buildings in Cambridge but did not have the effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The City Council has proposed an amendment making the required date that business buildings become net zero 2035 instead of 2050.
Building owners, however, will need to start paying penalties as early as 2025 if they don’t manage to bring net emissions down to 80 percent of what was measured in 2018 and 2019 for existing buildings, with further reductions required year over year. If the buildings became occupied later, they would be required to start paying penalties four years after the initial two-year measurement period. They will be allowed to use offsets to reduce their net greenhouse gas emissions, but only until 2045.
Non-residential buildings will be expected to be net zero by 2035, followed by affordable housing and existing market-rate housing in 2050.
Patrick Barrett, who represented the Central Square Business Improvement District as owner of its Sonder 907 Main hotel and developer of a new Middle East nightclub complex, was the meeting’s most vocal critic of the regulation and amendment process. He is concerned that the conversation over the new requirements does not make it clear that building owners need to start paying penalties in 2025.
“The Beudo man cometh,” Barrett said. “And we’re terrified of this.”
He said he was not made aware of Beudo – neither the reporting or new penalty section of the ordinance – during the design stage of 907 Main, which opened in 2020. Friends who are developing buildings right now haven’t been made aware of Beudo either, he said Monday.
Condo owners also only recently learned of their Beudo requirements, and have begun complaining. But the deadline on their compliance has been rolled back to 2050 from 2035, city councillor Patty Nolan noted Monday, with the city promising access to a source of carbon-free electricity by that time. If it’s impossible for condo owners to meet Beudo requirements at that time, they won’t be penalized, Nolan said.
Carrots and sticks
Beth O’Neill Maloney, the executive director of the Kendall Square Association, said she prefers incentives over what she called draconian penalties – but appreciated the conversation.
“Bringing everyone here to the table is critical,” Maloney said. “Because I think everybody’s goal here is to combat climate change.”
David Maher, president and chief executive of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and a former mayor of Cambridge, said the “business community is a willing partner” in addressing climate change that has “outdone the city.”
Nolan shot back at Maher, Maloney and Barrett, saying that emissions have gone up.
“So while we’ve tried, I believe in carrots and sticks, because carrots haven’t worked,” Nolan said. “Having no sticks hasn’t worked, so I just want us to move forward with incentives and some kind of requirements.”
Siting electricity infrastructure
The tensions between lawmakers and property owners was only a small part of a meeting dominated by conversation about increasing the amount of electricity in Cambridge to allow for a transition away from using fossil fuels in buildings.
More electricity infrastructure will be needed, including substations that will take a minimum 10 years to build, said Maija Benjamins, director of strategic project development transmission for Eversource. The most challenging part of the process is working with the state Department of Public Utilities, she said.
“If we continue to partner with the city and make sure that we’re addressing the environmental justice concerns in the future development that’s projected, that would help streamline the process, especially when we have vocalized support from the City of Cambridge,” she said.
Identifying city property to host Eversource infrastructure would help, Benjamins said, but Gerhard Walker, Eversource’s manager of distribution and planning, noted that location matters. Putting power infrastructure on municipal property that’s far from where the electricity is needed “doesn’t help that much,” Walker said.
A couple points of clarification:
1) Condo owners start paying in 2030 for a similar reduction requested of commercial property owners.
2) Nolan said the city “tried” but in no way described how they tried. It is also important to note that the period of increase she is citing millions upon millions of sqft of new construction was added. So while the there has been an increase in overall emission and a slight per sqft increase when you look at what as added and what existed there have been significant reductions in emissions across the board through increased efficiencies that are ongoing.
3) The author has put a very light touch on what Eversource is saying needs to be done in order to even allow building and condo owners to be able to comply and thus not pay the tax. Eversource has essentially stated that one would have to shrink the Moon and put it in their pocket in order for this to all work by 2035. Further, I see no mention of the burden we will be placing on other towns as we require them to run transmission lines and create infrastructure to feed our City. I see no mention of Cambridge’s drain on the tri-state budget to the detriment of all our neighboring communities. This was all discussed at the meeting. The issue of equity raised by Vice Mayor Mallon.
Nolan stated that she understood Cambridge’s compliance would be a “drop in the bucket” on climate change (that maybe a slight paraphrase please watch the video). I was shocked by that statement. How much damage, displacement, financial harm is worth it a drop in the bucket?
We have already passed the specialized stretch code which will require electrification of new buildings and substantial upgrades. We are already one of the “greenest” communities in the area (see: NYTimes). Cambridge rivals most states when it comes to efficiency and finally most of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. Thus even if we all did what was being asked we’d still be burning fossil fuels. What is being asked of us is too much and ultimately will only cause harm, displacement, and drain much needed resources from other communities. This is a massive mistake.
Everything that everyone does is a drop in the bucket. It is a lame excuse not to do the right thing.
It’s also what people tell themselves when they get in their massive gas guzzling SUVs every morning.
Things are going to have to change and it would be better for the city to be ahead of the curve than behind.
And that’s the point we are currently doing more than most states (cambridge v. a state). Is it the “right thing” to rip out newly installed systems? Displace resident? Commercial tenants? Is adding a third property tax to Central Sq the “right thing?” BEUDO isn’t the “right thing” it’s virtue signaling on a citywide scale and outright theft from neighboring communities. The point is that “thing HAVE changed” and Cambridge pushing for a tax that’ll displace and create massive infrastructure cost for anyone living in a condo, owning large rental buildings, and any commercial building over 25k sqft. The cost isn’t worth the benefit and by the time 2050 rolls around all we will have accomplished is putting people out of home and out of business so the few asking for this can be that much more smug.
@ Patrick Barrett,
You’re absolutely right. It’s all about virtue signaling. But that’s what progressives enjoy doing. They don’t think of the real world consequences. Reality doesn’t seem to be a part of their makeup.
And , unfortunately, this city is not going to change. In fact, it is going to get worse until something drastic happens, and I think that will be fiscal, rather than anything to do with policy.
Registered voters don’t vote. They don’t care. Our election system is flawed. There is basically no accountability by the councillors to the residents of the city. And so… and so… what is happening now will continue. Reality is not a word that is understood by most councilors.
I believe in my city council even if they do not believe in me. Vigilance
Pat read the tea leaves:
Hi Rise on mass Ave
Christopher’s
Berryline
Bank of America
City sports
Darwin’s
Numerous Starbucks
Bourbon coffee
Run Pat run!
Never!
🤣
Glad to hear there some other well intentioned, reasonable people that are in wokeville.
c43 hit the nail on the head “it is going to get worse until something drastic happens” is spot on. All those amazing small local businesses gone so be it. So we now know that doesn’t matter.
Maybe:
– Rolling blackouts
– Large not small businesses moving out
– More crime
– 57% not 47% can’t read
– More open air drugs
Not sure what if anything will force a pivot in Utopia to team reality.
This Beudo is as close as it gets to shooting yourself in your foot!
This city council is so woke they are going to restrict shampoo ads so that bald people don’t get offended!
“So while we’ve tried, I believe in carrots and sticks, because carrots haven’t worked,” Nolan said. “Having no sticks hasn’t worked, so I just want us to move forward with incentives and some kind of requirements.”
I keep coming back to this statement by Nolan. When did the city “try” and what did they do? To date we still have many owners not reporting who had no idea (until we told them) that BEUDO exists.
Some City Council members care far more about their own agendas than they do about the well- being of residents and business owners. The first slide of one of their presentations states that the current BEUDO requirements are the result of collaboration among business, universities, the City Council and residents. Residents have never had a say in this, which is why condo associations are banding together to fight this.