The Boston City Council Committee on Environmental Justice Resiliency in Parks.

Today is April 21st, 2026.

The exact time is 1101 a.m.

In accordance with chapter two of the act of 2025 modifying certain requirements of the open meeting law and relieving public body with certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct this meeting in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public.

The city council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom.

This hearing is being recorded, it's also being live streamed at Boston.gov City dash council dash TV and broadcast on Affinity Channel 8, RCM channel 82 and files channel 964.ep at Boston.gov.

It will be made part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing.

Individuals be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

Have not done so, please email our central staff liaison Shane Pack at SHANE dot PAC at Boston.gov for the Zoom link to your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on Docket Number Zero Two Six Zero.

Message in order for the confirmation of the appointment of Samira Samira Amadi as a member of the building emissions reduction and disclosure ordinance review board for term expiring May 23rd, 2026.

This matter was sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wood and referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026.

Docker number 0760.

Message in the order for your approval and appropriation order in the amount of eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars to the cemetery division of the parks and recreation department in the trust office of the treasury department to be funded from the cemetery trust fund established under chapter 13 of the act of 1961.

Docket number 0761.

Message in the order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expend the amount of 375,000 in the form of a grant.

These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle will refer to the committee on April 8th, 2026.

Thank you, Mr.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, uh members of the Boston City Council.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to uh give you a few words about my background, and um I'm here to answer any questions that you may have.

My name is Samira Amadi.

I am the funding principal of NV Energy Studio.

Uh we are a Boston-based energy and sustainability consulting firm.

I am also a resident of the city of Boston.

Um I have a background of more than 15 years um experience in energy and sustainability consulting, uh, working mostly in the greater Massachusetts New England area.

Um and for the past few years, I have been very much involved with assisting um building owners, uh, mostly large residential and commercial buildings in Boston and Cambridge, complying with Birdow as well as Bodo uh requirements, but also helping a lot of affordable housing, building owners meeting um the decarbonization goals in the city of Boston.

Um I have a background in architecture and engineering, and um again I have been working in the world of energy and sustainability consulting for the past 15 years, and I look forward to uh hopefully serving on the Birdo board and I um appreciate the opportunity to be here and answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Uh you're joined by Councillor Fitzgerald.

Uh County Picard, the floor is yours to uh ask any questions of uh Sumera, and I say that right, sorry.

That is correct, yes.

It is Amadi, who is a Berdo board appointee.

Uh thank you, uh Chair.

Uh appreciate it, Samara.

Samira, thank you so much uh for for being here today, and congratulations uh on being selected uh to the board.

Um just a question more not so much about um uh more about the general category.

When you say you work with uh affordable housing developers and others to talk about helping them get over the Birdo regulations and other things that can prove costly during this otherwise very expensive time to build.

Um what are some of the things that you're hearing that they're they're most concerned about besides just cost?

Like if you could just dive into it just a little so I have a better understanding of that, that'd be very helpful.

Sure.

Uh so I should say a lot of our especially affordable housing clients that we help with them, they actually come to us with the goal of not specifically meeting Birdo requirements, it's more of uh it's an existing building, it needs improvement, and now that they have the opportunity to make improvement, they want to go through electrification and decarbonization.

So most of the time it's about how we can actually phase this work because being sustainable and green is very important to them.

They want, but at the same time, provide um um indoor environmental quality and affordability for the future tenants of these buildings.

So it's more about looking into array of options to make sure that when we are going through electrification and decarbonization, we make um improvements that also bring down the cost, the utility cost and the operational cost of the building, and that's generally what we do.

And also, does it need to be a phase decarbonization or can it happen all at once?

So those are generally the questions that they have.

What do you think?

And thank you for that answer.

What do you think has been the the option more chosen?

Uh I know it depends building the building, but do you think people are doing it all at once, or is the phased approach sort of the more I my guess is if you did it all at once, you start seeing the savings more quickly, right?

So it might make sense for their bottom line to say, let's just do it all in one take and rip the band-aid off.

In other states, I could see, well, let's just take it bit by bit and given you know how much money they have to work with, etc.

What have people been doing the most?

So we have a combination of both.

If they if the building is vacant, we generally, and if they can raise the money, the uh the off-front costs, we generally suggest that we do it all at once because you want to make improvement to the building envelope before you electrify the building.

But we also have cases that they choose the phase uh to phase decarbonization because majority of these buildings are not subject to any um immediate regulation when it comes to like beardo ACPs that they need to pay so they have time to actually go through the phase decarbonization.

It all depends on whether the building is fully occupied or if the building is vacant.

Um their preference is always if the building is vacant to actually do the full uh retrofit and decarbonization day one.