Special Committee on Environment and Resiliency | Regular Meeting | April 20th, 2026 | 5:30pm
Resolution on Stormwater and Sewer Management Funding
The committee discussed a resolution to promote sustainable and equitable funding for stormwater and sewer management in the city. Members highlighted the importance of proactive planning to address climate change, flooding, and infrastructure challenges.
Resolution Endorsing State Building Benchmarking Legislation
The committee considered a resolution endorsing state legislation for building benchmarking and reporting based on Providence's existing ordinance. Sponsors explained how the bill would require large commercial and state buildings to report energy usage to help reduce carbon emissions.
Presentation on Building Energy Reporting and Carbon Neutral Ordinances
The Department of Sustainability presented an update on the implementation of the Building Energy Reporting Ordinance and the Carbon Neutral Municipal Buildings Ordinance. The presentation detailed energy savings, electrification progress, solar assessments, and the development of a green revolving fund.
Public Comment
A local resident provided public comment offering to assist the city in coordinating with stakeholders for the PCTA rebuilding project. Committee members welcomed the connection and discussed next steps for collaboration.
Speaker 0
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Tonight, the first two will be pretty quick, and then we
Speaker 1
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will also be set for them on three.
Speaker 0
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So could you please read item one into the, record? Item number one, resolution to promote sustainable and equitable funding for stormwater and sewer management. Awesome. So we I think councilman Davidson and I both put this resolution forward earlier this year, recognizing the great work that the city, under the leadership of director De La Cruz has been doing on stormwater, knowing that there is an increasing issue with stormwater in our city, increased flooding, increased effects of climate change. This is saying that we want to work together with the city's sustainability department, assess all options available to address stormworks, spread issues, and investigate best practices from similar sized similarly sized cities and potentially and most likely introducing more kids later in this session, to address some of those challenges.
Speaker 0
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So this just is a resolution acknowledging and the second is for water plan that's a good forward task force. The campaign and the impact task force is a very thorough process. It's great to participate in. There's folks from across the community, some of institutions, all sorts of folks made a presentation on that meeting at birth.
Speaker 2
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Guys. No. I I just would like to, you know, act as a new member to this process. It was just incredible to come into such great work
Speaker 1
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having already been done.
Speaker 2
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The stock of planning to the proactive thinking about the future is absolutely responsible way to our governance. And it will save this it will save people's property and probably their health quite a bit. It will save you money. The city a tremendous amount of money in terms of liability. And just can hardly make a power overpaid investment.
Speaker 2
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So I'm very, very eager to support this
Speaker 0
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process. And also to share, if folks haven't had director Dale Cruz and her team present to your community meetings in that storm water, that was an opportunity back in December. Still I think still more than, freight forward or happy to do so. So if folks want a 100% to your boards, Definitely reach out. I would just recommend.
Speaker 0
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Nice. Awesome. Any questions or comments about the solution?
Speaker 3
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Yes. I am. I just wanna ask. I'm I'm really you know, like, 60% of the score by itself.
Speaker 0
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We've seen sequels. Like, if you were to keep it since work, there were sequels that happened.
Speaker 2
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There were there yeah. And along Bockstein Boulevard, there were sequels, and there are, at least two houses into sewage entered as a result of collapsing. So But did the, task force come up with a ballpark numbers? The approximate,
Speaker 4
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the ballpark size Yeah. Replace normal fields.
Speaker 0
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So in the report that the task force put out, there are some ballpark numbers, but I know the department of sustainability is working with the consultant to, like, look different options for how we fund that. Right back where all these houses have been sewage issues. There's not to potentially, like, take waste of that. Is infrastructure is forbidden. So we've been Yeah.
Speaker 2
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Yeah. Martinez? So this is for people who may or may not be familiar, this is where Butler and Black Zone intersect. They're like a Black Zone becomes, like, a one way on each side on the southern end of it. And that whole area is at the end of a watershed.
Speaker 2
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All of the water in the area comes literally one but actually one house I know. In that neighborhood. And they have had repeated floods. They have erosion in their backyard. It's been a a very big deal.
Speaker 2
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So the initial plan that the city developed in conjunction with the Blackstone, Park Conservancy was to, as Catherine Antoine mentioned, to establish a large area of green and construction using plants and so they could produce did the bird absorb the strong water. However and then in a moment, when I was really planning, the Department of Public Works pointed out that many of the pipes underneath that area are compromised all the wrong sides. There's one
Speaker 1
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and remember, this is, like, where
Speaker 2
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we need stormwater to burst the boats. And right there, there's a place, I believe, where pipes go from 60 inches to 40 inches back to 60 inches. My papa had to, like, cool. Like, just, you know, floorplanning or just patchwork sort of work being done over the years. So what's happening now, actually, is the city is first placing the underground infrastructure.
Speaker 2
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That is happening now on board, and
Speaker 0
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I really wanna bring a lot
Speaker 2
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of attention and energy to it. We're going to be setting up a tour, for anybody who wants to participate, and all council members will be invited to be able to see take a look at this area, to see the great work that DPW was doing to replace those pipes and and demonstrate what it's like for city you know, different parts of the city, DPW and Parks in this case, to work together with an independent nonprofit to coordinate and get all this work done. Very excited about it. But I think the really important thing to note is before we do anything above the ground, and we can, when we can, it's important to look underneath the ground, which really is why we need to be able to find a way to fund that. In this case, it's all that I
Speaker 0
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the ground. So we can back off that out, and that's all think that's all online now. Yeah. I'm still looking for that. Yes.
Speaker 0
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That's all online.
Speaker 1
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Yeah. Yeah. You can send me your address. It seemed
Speaker 0
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like it was like yeah. So that was also a really platform. This city is so old. Have no idea.
Speaker 3
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Good job. What's the next step in this? What's
Speaker 0
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the Yeah. So first, we'll approve the transcription, but then Priscilla and her team are working with the consultant, and we'll work together collectively across the council and the administration to develop an ordinance that would figure out how we can start with us. So that would be presented to the council. Tier, just a question. So we would be the first, municipality in Rhode Island to do some of this.
Speaker 0
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We're potentially gonna be the first municipality in Rhode Island. We're also talking with New Port and New Beretin. We're at the same time. So there was a question, like, should we raise to be first? And then it was also, like, maybe we can all both answer them together.
Speaker 0
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So we've been in conversation with the director of resiliency and DPW for Newport about that. She's like, if you director operations, then, like, does Lindsay it's Tracy Brown.
Speaker 1
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Yeah. Directors she's like the resiliency director Yeah. And then also their name
Speaker 0
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director. Yeah. They, like, combined. So we're also in conversation with her to see if there's, like, a holding hands version.
Speaker 3
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For this
Speaker 0
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record? Item number two. Resolute endorsed in the urgent passage by the general assembly of house bill twenty twenty six h dash seven one eight three in senate bill twenty twenty six s dash two two six zero in act relating to health and safety dash building benchmarking benchmarking and reporting act of 2026. Awesome. So I sponsored this resolution, and I don't normally do the resolutions in support of general assembly bills because that's their purview, not ours.
Speaker 0
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But, this one is, written based upon the building energy reporting ordinance that this council passed unanimously in 2023. So, representative Kislag and Sarah Coleman, who were, actually, my count my general assembly reps, are the sponsors of this, and it's built off of what we passed. And I General assembly did look at how and we're about to hear a presentation on it, how well the city's already been implementing it. It was not like it's like a pretty baseline thing to do for carbon emissions. And so since we were the first city in Thailand to pass the bureau, the building and reporting
Speaker 2
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Would it be the state buildings only?
Speaker 0
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Well, when I went or would every municipality be required? It'd be state buildings, like, how so our bureau is municipally owned buildings first, and then large buildings since this would be all large buildings, including statements. And right now, the state is starting to, like, volunteer to leave their buildings, but they're not, like, required to do it. And as we're gonna hear, like, even just and, like, what they presented last year, the state will. Even you can
Speaker 1
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just starting to do the benchmarking. You, like, learn a
Speaker 0
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lot and you start to save money. And so but this would be would that be doing their buildings in commercial buildings above a certain size across the state. So there's certain municipalities, like, probably, don't know, don't have buildings large enough to apply. So it's not really, like, a Providence going first is a is a big step and takes care of the. So David and I just wanna shout out.
Speaker 0
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I'm gonna hear from you in a minute. But David and Priscilla and the state department did, like, yeoman's work, working with Rhode Island Energy, which is a PPL company. They had never done this. It's a building energy recording when this was first being drafted in the last council, along with council Nancy, National Grid was the utility, and they had done this kind of thing in Cambridge and in Boston, and they had all this experience. And PPL did not have this experience experience with with the the digital two of the utility with of the the business.
Speaker 0
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Digital business. And they did a lot of work to, like, clear the gap. This is now some the person's now hospital. They take advantage of the paperwork that they did. It's a big process for her.
Speaker 0
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Yeah. PPO multiple. Serve across the country? Yes. They're based in so they have so
Speaker 1
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in terms of, like, energy efficiency, clean energy, and all that. Okay.
Speaker 0
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And Priscilla and I both served on the state's energy efficiency council, so we've had similar experience. We also don't understand being in a energy efficiency, feeding state that Possibly, I have it. Can you please repeat the item for me? Presentation from Department of Sustainability and Implementation of Building Energy Reporting Ordinance and Carbon Neutral Municipal Buildings ordinance. By the speakers are Priscilla Dela Cruz, director of department of sustainability, and David Guerrero, energy resilience administrator Thank
Speaker 1
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so much. I'm sure directors fit really with the city of Providence. And, David, we're very lucky to have him as our now director of energy operations for the city of Providence. So I'll kick things off and give you a quick overview of where we're at with our building energy reporting ordinance, the bureau program, since we have developed the program over the last few years. And then David will get into the two year progress where we've been since we all passed the energy efficiency and carbon neutral ordinance for municipal buildings.
Speaker 1
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And I'll talk about the our road map, and, also, we'll talk a little bit about the the the full screen revolving fund and how we came about. So first, just quick reminder of department sustainability, who we are, what we do. You know, at high level, we work to create policies and programs to create a healthy, low carbon climate resilient and environmental environmentally just city. We are a team of six, and every year, we're lucky to have a URI energy funnel. But in short, how I'd like to describe us, we are your team for, achieving achieving how we improve quality of life in the city of Providence, and we do that by finding innovative ways to save money and also avoid costs and generate revenue once we fulfill our big mission of, oh, how do we make this a better place to live?
Speaker 1
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So so that's the team you're hearing today for me and David. We're also deputy director, Kevin Strong, our managing manager, Andrew Brucklow. He is now the crane behind the operations of the Billscape Energy Reporting Programs. He couldn't be here today, but what you'll hear about reflected in his report over the past two years now. And then we have our fiscal and communications coordinator, Julie, here then, Toby Morris Barnum is our sustainability policy.
Speaker 1
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Alright. So the directive. We have a 2019 climate justice plan. It's nationally recognized. There's over 50 plus strategies in that plan.
Speaker 1
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It really looks intersectionally at the issue of climate justice by looking at transportation, housing, energy, you make it. Right? It's really a holistic plan. What we'll focus on for this presentation is the lead by example. Right?