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Editor’s Welcome

This summer, I went with my son, a 19-year-old University of Missouri student, when he signed his first apartment lease. I wrote the check for the deposit, and he and his roommate will be paying the monthly rent. The English Tudor duplex on Stewart Road was just what they wanted, an apartment close to campus with “character” and a modest price.

None of us asked for the average monthly cost to heat and cool the apartment.

The omission hit me when the subject of rental properties came up during the CBT’s Power Lunch, a forum on Columbia’s electrical supply and demand.

Editor David Reed

Jan Weaver, director of the MU Environmental Studies Department, spoke with pride about how her son, with no prodding from her, factored in utility costs before deciding which apartment he would rent this school coming year.

Forum participants were talking about unsuccessful efforts to reduce energy use in Columbia’s rental properties. They called it an example of the difficulties in conservation efforts, either through government requirements or incentives.

The problem is significant, because more than half of the residential properties in Columbia are rented. And if Columbians want to avoid costly increases in power supply, the construction of a coal-fired power plant, for example, they will have to use less electricity.

Weaver said most potential renters look at the cost of renting the home and rarely take energy prices into account. “Then they get that heating bill, and it’s $400,” Weaver said. “There are no incentives for the renter to make the home more energy efficient.”

Bob Roper, a banker and member of the Power Supply Task Force, said he usually believes that the free market system will take care of supply and demand problems. “But I don’t know what you do if you have an owner that has no incentive to change and a renter that bears the cost.”

City Manager Bill Watkins said energy used in government-subsidized duplexes for low-income residents has been historically high, but there was very low participation in a program offering low-interest loans to finance improvements to make them more energy efficient.

Should the city government strengthen building codes to make rental property owners have a certain amount of insulation and energy-efficient windows and heating systems? Should the government provide more incentives to get rental properties more energy efficient?

That’s just a sample of the issues the Power Supply Task Force and the City Council will begin addressing later this month.

The topic of energy efficient building also comes up in the architecture projects featured in this CBT, and in the profile of Mark Timberlake, owner of Timberlake Engineering.

Check out the vignettes and renderings of the Missouri Credit Union, Missouri Hall, Fay Street Lofts and the ECO Schoolhouse.

While many Columbians, like my son and I, are behind the curve when it comes to energy efficiency awareness, all of us are going to have to get behind the effort to manage the demand for electricity.