Normal Mayor Chris Koos has turned up support of addressing climate change amidst President Joe Biden calling it and “existential threat.
However, two Normal council members voted against the development for Uptown South due to a plan that looks to ban natural gas from the development entirely.
Koos discussed climate change in a WGLT interview in early August where, according to their article, he said “governments at every level will need to respond faster to climate change. ”
Koos said, “I think that’s the direction we need to go in the long term. I think it’s something we should build into our zoning code for future development. Climate change is getting to be a significant issue and we’re going to have to do things outside of the realm of just makes economic sense.”
During an Aug. 7 council meeting Koos said being economic feasibility is not as important as adressing climate change.
“We are reaching the point where that is no longer going to solve the issue that we are dealing with in the world…and that’s climate change,” said Koos. “Any opportunity to further our ability to remediate and make our world more livable for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren, we have to take a look at these things and we have to stand up for these kinds of issues and look at these and make the hard decisions.”
Council member Scott Preston proposed an amendment that would have deleted two recommendations from the plan.
“The first of which was the plan recommended that the town not extend gas utility service, natural gas utility service, under the streets,” said Preston. “The second recommendation in this plan was that the town require all larger buildings that were going to be developed here, to meet the PHIUS standards,” Preston said, “which are all electric and then some.”
PHIUS is a non- government organization founded by a German architect Katrin Klingenberg.
Preston said he doesn’t believe, “it is the town’s place to be pushing that kind of agenda.”
“Everybody knows Normal,” said Preston. “If it is in a plan it is going to end up in the code down the line because that’s the whole point of the plan in the first place. If not why are you even doing the plans?”
Enshrining this is Normal Ordinance code might raise legal concerns for the town.
This case where the California Restaurant Association sued Berkeley, California over an ordinance making natural gas pipelines illegal to install in one building.
The court found Berkeley, California violated the Energy Policy and Conservation Act because the ordinance indirectly regulates appliances that use natural gas.
Preston confirmed that these requirements are a deal breaker for him. At this time he no longer supports the Uptown South plan.
Preston is not alone.
Council member Kathleen Lorenz also objects to prohibiting natural gas in Uptown South development.
“We do have a long history of planning our work and working our plan,” said Lorenz. “I for one think that putting something specific, about to do or not to do, running gas or requiring electric, is a step too far in a plan,” said Lorenz.
According to Lorenz, the role of government is to create the campus upon which the developers would come in and make decisions based on best practices, market conditions and global conditions.
Former council member Stan Nord went further than Lorenz and said the town shouldn’t be developing projects like this at all, but rather sell the land to a private developer.
“It’s very expensive these days to build and the fewer restrictions and requirements that we put on developers, especially now, the better,” said Lorenz. “In my opinion our advisor, our urban planner, went a step to far in putting forth his or some of his subcontractors opinions.”
Neither Preston nor Lorenz has raised concerns about the legality of this recommendation nor the legality of a future ordinance that might violate the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (a federal law), according to court precedent.
Preston and Lorenz received campaign contributions this past election cycle from Republicans and Democrats. Lorenz also received money from a green-energy lobbyist, who Andy Byars (another council man) works for.
Andy Byars voted for Uptown South ultimately but made an objection to the recommendations.
Lorenz said that the requirements in the plan excluding natural gas from Uptown South development are a deal breaker for her and she no longer supports it.
