Developers aspiring to construct new buildings in Oak Park will be required to uphold a new building code calling for all-electric construction to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions.
In June 2023, the Village of Oak Park Board of Trustees adopted an electrification ordinance as part of the building code. The ordinance requires any new building constructed after January 1, 2024, to be fully electric. This means there will be no natural gas hookups within the structure.
The goal of the ordinance is to help Oak Park achieve its climate action goals laid out in the Climate Ready Oak Park Plan. The objective of this plan is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the community by 60 percent by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. This intention mirrors guidelines set by global climate scientists to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Electrification is a necessary step to achieve this goal because burning natural gas makes it impossible to reach community-wide net zero emissions, Former Oak Park Chief Sustainability Officer Marcella Bondie Keenan said. Residential and commercial buildings in Oak Park are collectively responsible for roughly 70 percent of the community’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“This [ordinance] is a way of avoiding the problem getting worse,” Bondie Keenan said.
According to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, Oak Park is the first municipality in the Midwest to approve an electrification ordinance. While the ordinance only affects newly constructed buildings, it could potentially include buildings undergoing major renovations in the future, depending on what the Board of Trustees decides, Bondie Keenan said.
Since the ordinance only applies to new construction which there is not a ton of currently, Village of Oak Park Trustee Susan Buchanan, who co-founded the Oak Park Climate Action Network, said it is more symbolic than effective in reducing Oak Park’s current emissions. However, she sees this ordinance as the first step, the next being electrification in remodeled buildings.
The community has been supportive of electrification, Bondie Keenan. Residents in Oak Park will not experience much of a change from the ordinance, but developers constructing new buildings in Oak Park will have to adapt.
“There’s no way for the village to do this alone,” Bondie Keenan said. “It’s definitely a community effort.”
Electrification will improve air quality. Gas stoves emit air pollution and can affect or even worsen respiratory illnesses, according to NPR. Energy efficient buildings could also provide affordable housing to the community because of the reduced energy bill cost, Bondie Keenan said.
Local architect Tom Bassett-Dilley, who founded Tom Tom Bassett-Dilley Architects in 2006, works to design and renovate energy efficient buildings. He works to help people understand what it takes to create buildings that are more resilient, affordable and comfortable to run.
“I really believe that architecture and the way we live should be in harmony with nature,” he said. “If we’re living in such a way that we’re ruining our environments, we can’t do that.”
OP-CAN advocated for concrete action to reduce the community’s greenhouse gas emissions. The best way to phase out use of fossil fuels is to not allow new infrastructure that emits them to be built, Bassett-Dilley said.
“I’ve been doing all-electric buildings for over 10 years, and I can see how much better they are than fossil fuel buildings from a health and emissions standpoint,” he said.
A potential next step to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions could be to require gas appliances that are replaced to be traded out for electric appliances, such as heat pumps, he said. Ensuring buildings have proper insulation can also reduce energy waste.
Cynthia Klein-Banai, a member of Heat Pump Neighbors, advocates for accelerating electrification in homes by replacing appliances such as a furnace, air conditioning unit, or boiler with a heat pump. This technology is highly efficient, only requires electricity and helps the air quality in homes, she said.
Heat pumps are more expensive to install than replacing the existing appliances, she said, but there are some incentives for doing so, such as tax credits.
Not everyone can afford to make these changes, however, Bassett-Dilley said.
“We have to be very, very careful we don’t shift the energy burden even more to impoverished neighborhoods,” he said.
Buchanan said while she expected backlash from gas companies, there has not been any. Some developers have been worried about the cost of electrification in new buildings but when constructing new buildings, all-electric facilities are cheaper than natural gas, she said. The cost would, however, fall on the developers to ensure this new building code requirement is met.
Laura Derks, lead facilitator of OP-CAN and director of the Nature, Culture and Human Health Network, said OP-CAN has been calling for electrification for the past three years. She is also hopeful that major renovations will be required to implement all-electric systems in the future.
Derks said OP-CAN is also encouraging residents who are replacing appliances in their homes to install electric ones and take advantage of renewable energy. While the ordinance will not affect many current residents, Derks said she hopes they will advocate for electric conversions in single-family homes to help Oak Park reach its reduced emissions goals.
“[Oak Park] is known for a commitment to green space,” she said. “We’re just hoping other municipalities adopt an ordinance without the natural gas industry getting in the way.”