251.20. - Purpose.
The city council of the City of Minneapolis finds and declares that the City of Minneapolis faces potential serious shortages in energy resources and that implementing energy conservation measures requires expanded authority and technical capability in order to minimize the use of traditional energy sources in the housing sector; that accomplishing energy conservation is a public purpose; that it is in the public interest to authorize the City of Minneapolis to provide existing single-family, existing multifamily and existing rental housing loans for energy improvements.
(a) The city's energy futures committee, which functioned in an advisory capacity to the city council and the mayor in 1980 and 1981, established a goal of reducing home energy consumption in Minneapolis by thirty (30) percent by 1990.
(b) The need for a major city emphasis on conservation is based on future committee projections of a sharp rise in nonrenewable energy costs over the next ten (10) years. Excluding price increases due to inflation, home energy costs are expected to increase by seventy-two (72) percent between 1980 and 1990, from one hundred fifteen million dollars ($115,000,000.00) a year to one hundred ninety-eight million dollars ($198,000,000.00).
(c) Because Minneapolis must import its fossil fuels from outside Minnesota, energy cost increases will continue to drain an ever larger share of the city's economic resources.
(d) Home energy conservation represents an important tool for combatting this economic drain. According to data developed by the Minnesota Energy Agency, every dollar diverted from fuel expenditures to conservation generates two point twenty-one (2.21) million dollars in additional net economic activity in the area.
(e) The futures committee goal can be accomplished by assuring that major energy efficiency improvements are made in all existing housing units in the city. According to research conducted by Princeton University, these improvements can reduce energy consumption in a typical Minneapolis home by up to thirty (30) percent.
(f) Currently, lack of affordable financing represents a major barrier to achieving the futures committee goal. While many city residents will find that they can recover the initial cost of the energy improvements in less than ten (10) years through fuel cost savings, they do not have access to the capital needed to cover these initial costs.
(g) A city-sponsored loan program, which provides long term, below-market-rate financing for conservation improvements in existing housing, can enable Minneapolis residents to make affordable, cost-effective improvements which will reduce the city's dependence on nonrenewable energy resources. (81-Or-151, § 1, 6-12-81)
