Committee presses staff to clean benchmarking spreadsheet and separate exempt properties from non-reporters

Members of the Healthy Buildings Technical Committee, meeting without a quorum, spent much of their workshop pressing staff to fix gaps in the city’s benchmarking data so the group can set meaningful targets and target outreach.

A committee member, Stephanie (Committee member), said many entries on the public “covered buildings” spreadsheet list properties as either “exempt” or “did not report,” but the file often lacks a primary property-type field. That makes it difficult to tell which nonreporting entries are multifamily buildings, civic facilities or true exemptions such as properties with approved demolition permits or new construction that have no activity to benchmark. She urged staff to separate truly exempt records from those that simply failed to report so the group can prioritize outreach to landlords and building owners.

Staff noted the ordinance’s exemption criteria discussed in the meeting: properties with a demolition permit approved or buildings that have had no occupancy for 12 months (new construction) are treated as exempt. Staff also reiterated they publish only what building owners report and do not edit owner-supplied fields on the public spreadsheet.

Committee members said the short-term goal is to convert as many of the 'did not report' entries as possible into active reporters by confirming building type and ownership, then to remove confirmed exemptions from the outreach list. One member proposed sharing the public spreadsheet with multifamily provider groups to crowdsource missing property-type data.

Members asked staff to re-circulate a powers-and-duties spreadsheet prepared by staffer Gabriella (Staff member) that outlines assignments and schedules. They said that clean, clearly labeled data is necessary before the committee can responsibly propose interim performance targets, alternative compliance forms or enforcement steps.

The committee deferred any formal action because the meeting lacked a quorum and agreed to use Slipstream’s forthcoming EUI analysis to understand how many buildings would meet candidate interim targets once the data are cleaned. The group scheduled follow-up discussion after Slipstream’s mid-June deliverable.