If Oak Park is going to meet its ambitious environmental sustainability goals, then the village must help residents make their homes more energy efficient.
That’s the aim of the village’s energy navigator program, now moving toward a full rollout after the village board awarded a new $500,000 contract to Elevate, the non-profit consultant that’s spent months setting up the program for the village. The Oak Park Energy Navigator, or OPEN, will provide energy assessments to residents, information on potential energy savings, customer service support and “roadmaps” giving guidance on how to finance energy efficiency improvements through village grant programs and other funding sources as part of a “one stop shop” for energy efficiency help, according to Oak Park Sustainability Chief Lindsey Roland Nieratka.
“This navigator is, the roadmap, and it’s the assistance in the implementation, but it’s not the implementation itself,” Roland Nieratka said. “We can direct them to our rehab programs if the roadmap shows them that. Insulation, heat pump, solar, we have the grants and the loans for that. We’re following up with participants in those programs to try to get a measure of what the energy savings have been, what the emission savings have been. So that’s an ongoing process with all of those programs.”
The program rose from the village’s Climate Ready Oak Park Plan, which hopes to cut Oak Park’s carbon emissions by 60% before 2030 in a bid for net-zero emissions by 2050. About 70% of Oak Park’s emissions come from commercial and residential properties, according to the village.
Oak Park’s village board approved the new contract with Elevate unanimously.
Over the last several months, Elevate has completed energy assessments at eight properties, the consultant said. Elevate has also run residential energy programs for communities like Chicago, Evanston and Ann Arbor, MI, according to the group.
The consultants said they hope to work with 80 properties in Oak Park during year one of the OPEN program, including both single family and multifamily residences. They said they want 40% of participants to come from “priority communities,” including residents making less than 80% the area median income, residents spending more than 30% of their income on rent or more than 6% on energy payments and elderly or disabled residents.
The Climate Ready Oak Park Plan calls for 40% of the village’s sustainability funding resources go to support “the most vulnerable.”
“We need then to get the word out beyond those people who already have this on their mind,” Village President Vicki Scaman said. “Your goals are to help folks who might not otherwise be able to do this without this assistance and without the grants of the village, versus people who might already be planning it on their own.”
The program will run in collaboration with community volunteer group the Oak Park Climate Action Network’s climate coaching program. Elevate will likely refer “100% of navigator clients” to volunteer OPCAN climate coaches, the consultants said.
“This is very exciting, this is many years in the making,” said Trustee Derek Eder, an OPCAN member. “It’s very awesome to see this evolution come about and see all the work and thought that was put into this. So, it is a great day.”
The cost for the village is projected at $6,275 per property served, according to the consultants.
