Title
Resolution Approving a Grant Agreement Between the City of Ann Arbor and the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum for Improvements to Decarbonize the Energy House at Leslie Science & Nature Center and Sustainability-Related Engagement and Education ($450,000.00) (8 Votes Required)
Memorandum
Through the A2ZERO Plan, Ann Arbor has set the goal of community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030. One of the key elements of this work is decarbonizing our buildings and doing so in a way that helps others understand and learn from these experiences. Put another way, the City understands the importance of having living, learning laboratories of sustainability in action where individuals can interact with sustainability technologies in engaging and non-threatening ways. Building in this way helps normalize decarbonization while demystifying what can often seem like foreign concepts (e.g., heat pumps, programmable appliances, energy storage).
In light of this, the Ann Arbor Office of Sustainability and Innovations (OSI) has been collaborating with the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum’s Leslie Science & Nature Center (LSNC) to identify a facility on its campus that could be converted into a living, learning laboratory of decarbonization. Through this collaboration, the team identified the Energy House as a strong contender. In the course of exploring what it would take to decarbonize the Energy House, the team also identified that the naming rights for the site were expired (it is currently the DTE Energy House).
Given this, OSI and LSNC are interested in making improvements that transition this facility into a fully decarbonized building and renaming the facility to the A2ZERO House. Through the collaboration, OSI will help fund improvements to the building while LSNC will help with education and engagement activities about the decarbonization technologies. This engagement also creates space for OSI and LSNC to collaborate on public events and outreach.
As part of this partnership, O...
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