Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission — Skokie, IL
Date: 2022-10-25

Village of Skokie
 Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission
 AGENDA

 October 25, 2022
 7:00 pm
 Village Council Chambers
 Also live streamed at www.youtube.com/user/thevillageofskokie
 Public Comments: sustainability@skokie.org


  I. Approval of minutes

 II. Community Development Director Johanna Nygren
 a. Comp Plan Update
 b. Draft Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance

III. Old Business
 a. Sustainability Plan Update

IV. New Business
 a. Waste Sub-committee update
 b. Pumpkin composting – Sunday November 6th Farmers Market

V. Next meeting

VI. Adjournment

Memorandum
TO: Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commissioners

FROM: _______________________________________________________________________
 Andrew D. DeCanniere, Commissioner, Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission

DATE: November 15, 2022

SUBJECT: October 25, 2022 Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission (SEAC)
 Meeting Minutes

Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers at Skokie Village Hall. This
meeting was also streamed live on YouTube. A recording of this meeting may be viewed by
going to the following web address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omf3BFyhC1I

Present: Chairperson Jennifer Grossman, Commissioners Christopher Buccola, Andrew
DeCanniere, Michael Gershbein, Lisa Gotkin, Alma Likic, Olivia Mahoney, Jim McNelis, Rick
Moskovitz, Emily Okallau, Charles Saxe, Trustee Liaison Khem Khoeun, Trustee Liaison Ralph
Klein, Director of Public Works / Staff Liaison Max Slankard, and Assistant to the Director of
Public Works / Staff Liaison Elizabeth Zimmerman

Also Present: Johanna Nyden, Community Development Director, Village of Skokie
 Skokie resident Kimberly Polka

Absent: Commissioner Robert Render

I. Approval of Minutes

Minutes from the September 22, 2022 meeting of the Sustainable Environmental Advisory
Commission were unanimously approved.

II. Community Development Director Johanna Nyden

 a. Comp Plan Update

 Johanna Nyden, Community Development Director for the Village of Skokie, proceeded
 to introduce herself. She noted that she previously worked for the City of Evanston, but
 that she is a resident of Skokie. She went on to say that she knew, coming into the
 position, that there would be some work to do where bird-friendly actions are concerned.
 That’s great, as she was already doing a lot of that in Evanston. They had been working
 with the bird-friendly community for several years, and one of her last projects prior to
 her departure from Evanston was to get an ordinance passed to address bird strike
 mitigation for new construction. So she was happy to bring that experience with her, and
 to build upon that for the Village of Skokie.




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First, however, she said that she wanted to begin by talking about the Comprehensive
Plan Update. One of the inherited items was a new chapter in the Comprehensive Plan. If
there are those who are unfamiliar with what a Comprehensive Plan is, it is the Village’s
guiding document for how future land use should be looked at. So, it covers everything
from housing, transportation, population growth, commercial and economic development
activities, and, more recently, such plans have also begun to integrate sustainability as
well, recognizing that climate change is real, and we need to integrate sustainability into
all aspects of the plan.

Though Skokie’s Comprehensive Plan is quite old, one of the interesting things about it is
that it is rather cutting-edge in that it is designed to be adopted in sections. They did not
plan one sweeping overhaul. Things tend to get modified and adopted in sections. She
said that they will hopefully begin to embark on some updates, which should occur over
the next few years. The first piece of this is creating a Sustainability chapter. The chapter
that was before the Village Board at their last meeting will move forward and will be
added to the Comprehensive Plan. Once the new Environmental Sustainability Plan is
adopted, pieces of that will begin to be integrated into the Comprehensive Plan, probably
based upon some sort of implementation schedule or prioritization.

Ms. Nyden went on to say that in the grand scheme of things, when people
look at what Skokie will look like in the future, one would hope that as a city planner
you would look at the Comprehensive Plan to see what the guiding vision of the
community is. It’s a guiding document of how you want to see things take place in your
community.

She stated that sustainability must be integrated into all aspects our our Comprehensive
Plan. Examples include housing, transportation, economic development. It all has to
come together. So far, she has been pleased with her experience here in Skokie, because
she thinks that simply by the level of staff involvement at various points, it hasn’t been a
siloed exercise as it is in other communities. There has been a very integrated approach to
it.

She stated that one last thing that she wanted to add, to go back to Commissioner
Okallau’s question, is that we do need to make sure that everyone knows that there is a
Comprehensive Plan and that there needs to be better communication. She thinks that is
another piece of things. Often, plans just sit on shelves. We need to make sure that the
Comprehensive Plan is something people can use and is a living document. If you open
up the plan, you will see that is the goal. This is a live and active document. It is usable.
It doesn’t just collect dust. That’s really laudable.

Additional discussion ensued.




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b. Draft Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance

Ms. Nyden then presented the Draft Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance to Commissioners.
She stated that, if we checked out their website, we would see that the American Bird
Conservancy has a number of different ordinances from around the United States and
Canada, meant to provide people with ideas where bird strike mitigation is concerned.
So, they created a sort of “laundry list” of what we would like to see here in Skokie
and then, a couple of weeks ago, through a series of discussions, they concluded that
perhaps it makes more sense to maintain a regional approach. So, the guidelines that
are in the document that has been shared are Chicago’s guidelines, which Evanston
has also adopted, and which it is now being proposed that Skokie adopt as well, because
birds don’t make a plan as to the safest route along which they are going to travel. If we
can continue to build on a regional approach, having similar guidelines to other
communities in terms of how we manage bird strike mitigation, then this helps for us to
effectively be a leader in helping manage this issue.

One key difference, is that in Chicago bird strike mitigation is on a “menu” of several
sustainability items. It is not required. Her understanding is that bird strike mitigation
may become a requirement at some point, but that is not set in stone. Evanston has
made bird strike mitigation a requirement for certain types of developments that are
similar in terms of applicability. The only difference is that in Evanston this only kicks
in if you have an existing building, and you are rehabbing 100% of the façade. What
is being proposed here in Skokie is that this would kick in if you are rehabbing 70% or
more of the façade. This would apply to all new construction and to buildings that are
to be renovated or rehabbed. However, it would not apply to detached one- and two-
family dwellings, or to multiple single-family dwelling homes (such as townhouses)
or to residential buildings three stories or less in height above grade.

As proposed, there would be two options for compliance. The first option is “Compliance
Option A,” which breaks down portions of a building into different zones, and requires
that you have building collision threat factors of 15 or less. This calculation is made
based upon the types of materials, windows, screening and other things for different
zones of a building. It ascribes different values to each of those areas of a given building.
For “Compliance Option B,” it says that you are going to build the same kind of building
you would have built. However, you are going to put some kind of screens or mesh over
the windows in the designated glass areas, making sure that certain external features keep
the bird strikes to a minimum, and adds pieces of exterior lighting. Several types of
lighting would be prohibited, such as mercury vapor, search lights, upward-directed
fixtures, aerial lasers, etc. Additionally, all exterior lighting fixtures would be required to
be full cut-off to minimize uplighting conditions. Lighting must also have controls so
that it may be extinguished during certain periods of the year, in order to address
bird migration. Safety features and security lighting would be allowed.




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She then discussed the sample tables that were provided as examples of how the
calculations that were discussed would be done. The American Bird Conservancy
has all of these calculations for all of the different materials. So, they break it down
by glass type, brand, manufacturer, so on and so forth, so that you are then able to
calculate the threat factor. Those who do LEED Pilot Credit 55 would be exempt from
this, because they would be doing some similar calculations. She said that they will
change some of the language in the proposed ordinance. Where it says “Total building
permit fee,” they will change it to “Total fees associated with obtaining a permit.” So, it
will just use some slightly different language, here in Skokie. This would be 75% of the
fee. Additional discussion ensued.


III. Old Business

 a. Sustainability Plan Update

 Chairperson Grossman stated that the Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP)
 Team met for the last time today to review public comments, as the public
 comment period recently closed. All the public comments that were submitted
 have been collected. Public comments were reviewed and, where appropriate,
 will be incorporated into the Environmental Sustainability Plan.

 The revised draft of the plan is supposed to be available to the public by
 November 10th, and will be accessible via the Village’s website. Additionally,
 there will be a specially scheduled Village Board meeting on November 14th,
 at which the Environmental Sustainability Plan will be discussed. There will
 also be a regular Village Board meeting the following Monday, November 21st,
 at which the Environmental Sustainability Plan will once again be discussed.
 Additional discussion ensued.

IV. New Business

 a. Waste Sub-committee Update

 Commissioner McNelis said the Waste Sub-committee met and talked about
 Village-wide composting, and what it could look like, and Staff Liaisons Slankard
 and Zimmerman presented three conceptual ideas to them. They talked about
 what each of those three options would look like, what each would include and
 what each would not include, what the costs would be, what our Commission
 wants to accomplish with a Village-wide composting program, who we would
 want to have included in such a program, etc. It was a pretty wide-ranging
 discussion. Budget was a very important factor. They discussed what it would
 cost upfront, and they took a lot of questions back to Staff Liaisons Slankard
 and Zimmerman, for them to do some homework on various issues. The
 conversation will have to continue, as there is no recommendation as of yet.
 The three options basically boil down, from lowest-cost to most-expensive, to

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 the following: a drop-off program (where anyone could drop off their composting,
 so there would be no restrictions on who could participate), an opt-in program
 (where residents would get their compost picked up from their homes), and then
 an all-in program (where all residents would get a compost bin, and would receive
 service). Those were the three types of programs that were discussed thus far.
 They also considered what other communities are doing, what their programs
 looked like, and how successful those programs have been. Additional discussion
 ensued.


 b. Public Comments

 Skokie resident Kimberly Polka spoke, and asked whether fly-through zones are
 specifically addressed in the draft of the Bird Strike Mitigation Ordinance that
 was presented/discussed.

 Ms. Nyden said that she never would have imagined that a structure such as the
 Carvana structure would have been conceived of, and she doesn’t know if, when
 the guidelines that are being used were developed, that they imagined that a tower
 of glass such as that one could be built. However, one of the high-risk features
 that is looked at in terms of compliance in Option A is all exterior fly-through
 conditions. So, it does look at those things that may look architecturally “cool,”
 but that are not designed to be safe. If we’re familiar with Northwestern’s building
 on the lake, she thinks that there was work done in order to put mitigation
 measures on it, and she believes that the collisions have greatly reduced since they
 put those mitigation measures in place. It is right on the lake, and the building was
 built before local government became aware of these kinds of issues, and things
 have changed since then. So, you are able to retrofit buildings over time.

IV. Next Meeting

Based on the expected availability of Commission members, the next meeting will be held on
Tuesday, November 29, 2022.

V. Adjournment

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM.




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