Honorable Mayor Mueller and City Council Members, I am writing to thank you for your leadership on climate action, with the proposed Reach Codes: “updated building codes and local amendments to the 2019 California Energy Code to require higher levels of building electrification and solar production for newly constructed buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” I hope this means NO gas lines, so that folks won’t want to buy gas appliances. Adopting Reach Codes is the single biggest climate action that the city can take this year. Reach Codes enable all-electric, carbon free building that makes homes and buildings safer, healthier, and more affordable, as well as helping us meet climate action plan goals. It will also help protect us when natural gas becomes more expensive or harder to obtain. The Reach Code will help Menlo Park and its residents: Save money – All-electric homes save at least $6,000 in construction costs. Improve health and safety by avoiding indoor pollution and highly flammable combustion sources inside homes & buildings. Make a visible and practical step forward to address climate crisis, by breaking the cycle of fossil fuel dependency in building. Each new electric home saves up to 4 tons of carbon per year over how we have been building. I love being a role model for other cities! All-electric Reach Codes will be a strong signal to spur market development towards more carbon-free, electric solutions for existing homes. Maybe more folks will install solar on their roofs, as I did in 2003! I hope you will support the Reach Codes as an important climate action to phase out fossil natural gas fuel use in our homes and buildings. Let’s work together towards a fossil free, climate-stable future! Appreciatively, Darshana Maya Greenfield Menlo Park CA 94025 Received on Sun Aug 25 2019 - 14:11:02 PDT
