Title
Notice/Advertisement Title: Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee Hearing
Contact Name: Chelsea Golterman
Contact Telephone Number: 614-645-3091
Contact Email Address: CLGolterman@columbus.gov
Body
Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee Minutes
Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:30 PM Council Chambers, Columbus City Hall
CALL TO ORDER
Call to Order: 3:34 P.M.
Present: Councilmember Christopher L. Wyche, Chelsea Golterman, Skyler Goody, Mark Carter, Councilmember Otto Beatty, Aryeh Alex, Joe Lombardi, Cassie Johnson, Bill Updike, Courtney Anderson, Derek Valenti, Tim Swauger, Suzan Mchao
INTRODUCTION
Opening Remarks:
[Chair Wyche] Good afternoon everyone! Thank you for joining us to hear leaders in sustainable development and waste diversion discuss building performance standards policy, available recycling programs, and the circular economy in Central Ohio.
I want to highlight that this is an informational hearing. We are not hearing feedback on a specific code change.
The first call I got as a councilmember was about litter and a bulk of the constituent work my staff handles each week are related to trash.
We have some amazing waste diversion programs currently available to residents and there are many efforts to expand reuse and recycling in our city.
We will start today’s hearing learning about the existing circular economy in central Ohio, as well, a little about our landfill.
Any opening remarks from my colleague, Councilmember Beatty?
[CM Beatty] No
[Chair Wyche] With that, let’s kick off the Waste Diversion portion of the hearing with a presentation from our Department of Public Service.
PRESENTATION - WASTE DIVERSION
Presenting for the Department today, we have Tim Swauger the Refuse Administrator and Aryeh Alex, the Sustainability manager.
Administrator Swauger, the floor is yours.
[Tim Swauger, Refuse Administrator] We visit 300,000 residents every single week, we have refuse compliance investigators who look into illegal dumping, illegal dumping crews who go around looking to address illegal dumping, and then we have Keep Columbus Beautiful who do recycling and litter clean ups
We have a lot of programs we use to expand the lifespan of our landfill. 40% of what residents throw away could be recycled under our current recycling programs. With the bi-weekly yard waste program we’ve diverted 16,577 tons in 2024 and in 2024 the weekly recycling amounted to 34,277 tons diverted from the landfill.
One other thing we want to highlight is the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, a program to divert food waste from the landfill. This is a major step that the city has committed to, and we can do a lot of things to prevent food waste entering the landfill.
We’ve done a few things like the Food Rescue Pilot at the Jazz and Rib Festival, and we were able to divert that food waste to area nonprofits to feed people in the area. We also have 9 free food scraps drop-off locations around the city and have diverted 100 tons so far.
OSU and the USDA did the largest Food Waste Study to continue reducing the amount of food hitting the landfill.
We are also working at improving recycling access at city properties like parks and offices. We also have an OSU “can fairy” contest to divert cans from entering the landfill and a multifamily recycling pilot. We also have the OSU campus move-out and move-in waste diversion programs, as well as annual special collection for pumpkins and yard signs.
We have two convenience centers we’ve opened, they’re free and open to the public to drop off materials. We’re open Tues-Saturdays. We’ve diverted 240 tons this year already with these centers. We can collect furniture, clothing, and other things you wouldn’t think about.
[Chair Wyche] What would the implications be for residents in Columbus if we ran out of space in our landfill?
[Administrator Swauger] Our challenge is the cost of disposal is based on many things, including location. Costs would increase if we had to get another landfill because trash would have to travel further. It could introduce new costs to residents.
[Chair Wyche] How are the Waste and Reuse Convenience Centers helping keep materials out of the landfill?
[Administrator Swauger] If you were to go to these centers, a staff member meets with you to tell you about programs we have to divert this waste before it goes to the landfill. We get these materials and repair them or send them to specialty recycling facilities. These are products that if you put them on your curbside, would go to the landfill. When you go to the convenience center, it prevents it from going to the landfill.
[Chair Wyche] Are there plans to expand and make more of these centers?
[Administrator Swauger] Yes, we’re looking to expand on the Northside or in another community, we just struggle to get the land.
[Chair Wyche] Is there good collaboration with departments on getting land and making these new centers?
[Administrator Swauger] Yes, it’s just a matter of finding a good spot for it
[Chair Wyche] I’d like to also ask you about what we’re doing in terms of food waste
[Aryeh Alex] We had another successful food rescue this year at Jazz and Rib. We know that composting isn’t the best use of all food waste because food still has usefulness while it’s still good. We have a high amount of food insecurity in Central Ohio and we want to use tools like food rescue to try and address the gaps.
[CM Beatty] Is there anything with health regulations that hurts these initiatives? Can catering from events and things be donated, I have personal experiences with this being a barrier.
[Aryeh Alex] There is actually a recent change in federal laws that helps us expand what we can do, as long as food is not off of someone’s plate it should be safe. We also work with the Local Food Action Board, Ohio Restaurant Association, and Columbus Public Health. It’s really an education piece about telling people that they can donate food.
[CM Beatty] What is Columbus Food Rescue
[Aryeh Alex] Columbus Food Rescue and Ro’s Kitchen are programs of Local Matters that works to make these bulk ingredients into meals
[Chair Wyche] We have been big supporters of food rescue since we started at Council. Can you talk more about your education efforts
[Administrator Swauger] We want to have consistent messaging so that people have a solid understanding of recycling no matter where they live in Central Ohio. We’re able to recycle a lot of things are communities can’t so it’s really important to reach people.
We also have been working on the multi-family recycling project and going door-to-door to educate people in these units. 1500 homes were reached, and 500 of those homes increased their recycling in response. We’re targeting certain areas to expand our reach, we have an ambassador program.
Since residents don’t pay for refuse services through the city, we struggle to reach new residents so we have to be strategic with our outreach.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for all the great work. I have to commend the Department of Public Service's entire team for ushering this City towards many of our climate action plan goals.
Next we have Joe Lombardi, the Executive Director of SWACO.
Mr. Lombardi, please come to the podium.
Thank you for joining us this evening.
[Joe Lombardi, Executive Director of SWACO] SWACO is the solid waste district for all of Franklin County and we also provide educational programming and technical assistance. We are proud that the landfill tonnage remains relatively flat despite the increase in population. People are getting better at recycling and more people are composting everyday. 145 local businesses work with SWACO to start recycling.
However, there is so much more that we can do. The average home in the region only recycles 40% of what they can. We’re increasing access to information so that families can prevent reliance on the landfill. We estimate families spend $2,000 dollars on food every year that isn’t eaten. A lot of it can be leftovers, SWACO has a save more than food program to encourage families to repurpose foods so they can expand their use. Our community is also home to 30 food waste drop off sites to support compost.
We’re excited at SWACO because we just launched Project Greenprint, a project that rethinks how we manage waste. We encourage multiple facets of waste diversion in this program and want to make it easier to recycle products that are difficult to recycle currently.
SWACO also recently launched a monthly podcast called Waste Ed to educate people on waste management. We only have one Earth and we need to take care of it.
[Chair Wyche] Thank you for all of this amazing work. It seems counter intuitive that the entity that makes revenue from waste tonnage would work so hard to reduce the tonnage coming to the landfill. Can you discuss why you work so hard to expand diversion practices and keep tonnage flat?
[Director Lombardi] Our goal is to provide transformational programs in safe disposal of the waste stream. We would love to see all of our waste diverted. We only have one landfill in Central Ohio, we have until 2062 as of a 2016 study. Our population however has grown. Closing a landfill also creates problems for the districts. This is a costly process that would be an expense to residents and a hit to the City General Fund. We feel that this is an asset and we should take care of it.
[Chair Wyche] What is the estimated useful life of the landfill with the projected growth in the region?
[Director Lombardi] We don’t have an updated number for how many years left, but we are working with a consultant to get an updated estimate.
[Chair Wyche] I know your team has been working with the Apartment Association to remove barriers to initiating recycling services. Can you talk a little bit about how those efforts have been going?
[Director Lombardi] We continue to work with the Apartment Association to address this issue, it is a struggle to get recycling at these multi-family units. We will reimburse some of the costs of starting these programs, help educate residents, and help them start their programs. We know that the varying codes across jurisdictions makes this difficult as well.
[Chair Wyche] We know that educating new residents, especially with our population growth, is going to become so important moving forward.
Before we move into the next portion of the hearing, is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak about waste diversion or speak to what you just heard?
Seeing no one, we will move into the sustainable building practices portion of the hearing.
PRESENTATION - SUSTAINABLE BUILDING PRACTICES
[Chair Wyche] I heard from residents during the zone-in gallery events that residents want to make sure our city is thinking about green space, resource conservation, and air quality as we grow. Today, we will be learning about what programs are currently available in Columbus experts in sustainability
Next, I would like to ask everyone to turn their attention to the tv screens in front of the room for a virtual presentation from the Smart Surfaces Coalition. An organization committed to the rapid, cost-effective global adoption of Smart Surfaces to enable cities to decrease urban heat, save billions of dollars, reduce flooding/mold risk, and strengthen urban livability, resilience, and equity.
Online, we have Bill Updike the Program Manager to tell us about the Coalitions work and their Cities for Smart Surfaces Program, the tools and data coming out of that program, and the economic benefits to climate resilient building practices.
Thank you Bill. The Coalition is doing some amazing research. I know my office has truly enjoyed the Peer networking group that is hosted by the Coalition. My staff has learned a lot from those conversations.
[Bill Updike, Program Manager at Smart Surfaces Program] The Smart Surfaces Coalition is a nonprofit organization dedicated to mitigating urban heat island effect and stormwater flooding in a way that is cost effective. We know that we can expect increases in flooding and extreme storms, as well as extreme heat.
Our work is focused around transforming surface infrastructure to mitigate these problems. Urban Heat Island is an issue that can increase temperatures by up to 20 degrees, all related to how our cities are built. We know these multi-day heat events can be incredibly dangerous, with an uneven burden in low income areas.
Smart surfaces are infrastructure solutions in urban areas to mitigate for heat and stormwater flooding. This can be many things like permeable surfaces, green surfaces, energy generating surfaces, etc.
We developed a Cities for Smart Surfaces Program that we have expanded since our initial pilot to get them to implement some of these programs and share out their findings with peer cities.
We have multiple working groups to provide assistance to cities on policies, community engagement, and acquiring funding.
The foundation of our work is heat modeling, as well as cooling potential modeling to estimate the potential impact of these strategies.
We also have a publicly available Smart Surfaces Policy Tracker that makes it easier for policymakers to see what peers are doing to address these infrastructure issues.
There are significant energy efficiency benefits of smart surfaces in reducing the amount of energy it takes to cool our buildings. Something that is very timely is the potential reduction of peak demand by investing in Smart Surfaces. We can reduce citywide temperatures, and thus reduce demand for cooling. This would reduce the danger of blackouts during extreme heat events.
These strategies can be incorporated into other cities goals like street safety by adding rain gardens bumpouts.
Other cities have seen reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and stormwater reductions.
Other benefits of Smart Surfaces are things like increased property values, deterrence of crime, wildlife benefits, and improved neighborhood wellbeing.
[Chair Wyche] Can you talk a little bit about any challenges you have seen cities face as they work to implement smart surfaces into development plans?
[Program Manager Updike] I would say our biggest challenge is inertia and siloing, we are hesitant to try something different because we’ve done things the same way for so long. Agencies need to communicate with each other so we can get the best outcomes. We need to shift our thinking about these infrastructure projects, because while they may have a large upfront cost they can amount to large lifecycle benefits.
[Chair Wyche] The first graphic you showed appeared to show our region seeing a large increase in flood risk. I think flooding is very top of mind for everyone with the tragedies caused by the flooding in Texas over the last few weeks. Can you elaborate on those projections and highlight the strategies that could be utilized to lower the risk of extreme flood damage to our communities?
[Program Manager Updike] There are multiple sources of flooding, the benefit here is these strategies can help resolve some flooding issues. Things like tree plantings, permeable pavings, rain gardens, and other strategies can be cost effective ways to reduce flooding and slow down stormwater. And the benefit is that these strategies can also reduce urban heat island impact while reducing flooding. These are solvable problems, we created our cities and we can create these solutions.
[Chair Wyche] Next we will hear from the City of Denver’s office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resilience.
Presenting today is Courtney Anderson- the Director of Buildings and Homes and Derek Valenti- Building Performance Program Administrator
Thank you Courtney and Derek for your willingness to present your work from across the country. Denver is light years ahead on climate resilience and we are excited we will be able to learn from your expertise today.
The floor is yours.
[Courtney Anderson, Director of Buildings and Homes] We work with our community to make sure we addressing climate change, pollutants, and waste and try to focus on our most vulnerable communities. Buildings and Homes is one of 8 teams in our Office. We have a Climate Protection Fund, a voter initiated fund that is intended to address climate risk and vulnerabilities.
In Denver, 66% of our GHG emissions come from homes and buildings. We have goals to reduce emissions to zero by 2040. We have a few high impact regulations.
We also have a Green Buildings Ordinance, this gives options for new and existing buildings over 25,000 sqft to do cool roofs. New buildings require this at construction and existing are required at the time of changing roof.
We don’t allow gas furnaces for commercial and multi-family homes. We require single family homes to use 50% renewable or electrification. We updated energy modeling paths and prescriptive paths.
We are seeing an uptick in all electric properties, or those that do not have gas lines.
[Derek Valenti, Building Performance Program Administrator] Our building performance policy for existing buildings, we have a goal to be net zero energy by 2040. We are equity focused and want to make sure there are net positive outcomes.
There are 3 major sections of Energize Denver; benchmarking, performance, and electrification.
For small buildings, we require that building owners do one of two compliance pathways; by having 90% LED lighting or that they get 20% of their energy from on or offsite renewables. This is a one time compliance program
Larger buildings must send their annual energy consumption, we know we need 30% reduction for large buildings and we have to be pushing for progress towards these reductions. If buildings are not making progress, Denver reserves the right to fine these buildings.
Some challenges we faced was framing it as supportive, focusing on service providers, long-term planning, and unique building conditions.
We have many technical support services like coaching, trainings, compliance status reports, financial assistance, and portals for building and energy management.
In our first year, we had 75% compliance for information reporting. We now are at 90-95% compliance. In the first year, 15% were in performance compliance. In the last year, we have 44% of buildings in compliance and 30% close to. We use a bottom-up approach to ensure equity.
[Chair Wyche] For a growing city like Columbus, do you have any advice on the best ways to get started?
[Derek Valenti, Building Performance Program Administrator] Community buy-in, you have so many stakeholders. You also need to convey the benefits and end goals to really get people on board. We believe it can be a win-win scenario for everybody.
[Chair Wyche] You mentioned in your testimony that the original planned requirements did not align well with the long-term planning schedules of many building owners. How did you overcome that hurdle and align schedules?
[Derek Valenti, Building Performance Program Administrator ] A lot of 2021-2022 was to build our program, doing community engagement and come up with pathways to compliance to make it accessible, and flexible.
[Chair Wyche] As a follow up, you mentioned technical support, training, and consultations are offered to assist contractors and building owners. What is the cost associated with these supports?
[Courtney Anderson, Director of Buildings and Homes] For the energy codes, that was pretty minimal. They are stagnant resources. Energize Denver is a bit more expensive
[Derek Valenti, Building Performance Program Administrator] Initially when we started it was about 5 million dollars and then we expanded that a little bit more, 2 million to support our equity initiatives and paying for audits.
[Chair Wyche] When discussing sustainable building practices, I often hear the concern that creating sustainable building performance standards would increase the cost of housing at a time when we have an affordable housing shortage. However, you mentioned most of your newly constructed residential and multi-family affordable housing is mostly all electric and using a performance pathway. Can you expand on what you have learned about affordable housing after this policy was put in place? Do you have any advice on how Columbus could emulate the same success Denver has realized around sustainable affordable housing development?
[Courtney Anderson, Director of Buildings and Homes] We created a policy that doesn’t leave affordable housing behind, they also need to be apart of the solution. We want to make sure we have efficiency requirements. We had affordable housing representatives at the table with utility companies to really make sure we had the best fit for our requirements. It makes sense for affordable housing to do this and they want to do this. After the policy passed, we made sure we had the resources and tools.
Before I close out the hearing, is there any one else in the room who would like to provide testimony on sustainable building practices or policy?
Seeing no one, we will close out this hearing.
CLOSING REMARKS
[Chair Wyche] We also received a few pieces of written testimony. You can visit my council website to read those submissions. We hope to put the materials shared on our website and make these accessible to you.
If anyone did not want to testify but has any questions or comments they would like to share with me and my staff, please email my Aide Chelsea at CLGolterman@columbus.gov.
Thank you all again for joining us. I hope you all have a great evening.
ADJOURNMENT
Adjourned: 5:13 P.M.
Visit <https://bit.ly/WycheCBUSCityCouncil> to review submitted written testimony and draft code changes
All Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee Meetings can be watched at the City of Columbus Youtube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/cityofcolumbus>
Stay up-to-date by following Councilmember Wyche on Bluesky (@christopherwyche.bsky.social) and on Eventbrite <eventbrite.com/o/councilmember-christopher-l-wyche-81976334423>. You can subscribe to his monthly email newsletter by emailing his Analyst at <EMMorales@Columbus.gov>. You can reach Councilmember Wyche’s Aide at <CLGolterman@Columbus.gov>