Bainbridge Island’s electric vehicle charging requirements were shocking to some entities.
Helpline House and Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network recently told the council the requirements were “burdensome.”
So the City Council asked its Climate Change Advisory Committee to research the issue and return with recommendations. That happened at the council’s Sept. 24 meeting.
Deputy city manager Ellen Schroer said the committee came up with some recommendations. Reduce commercial requirements to equal state standards for new construction. For redevelopments, new EVs will be proportionate to the parking spaces added. For multi-family housing, encourage EV charging with incentives. One idea is if solar is built that could count toward EV spaces.
Arguments against so many EV spaces in commercial parking lots were many. They include:
-It’s not required to provide gas pumps for drivers to refuel gas-powered cars. Why should they be required to provide refueling for EVs?
-In a commercial setting, visitors tend to be parked for a short time, while employees tend to park for longer periods.
-The primary place on BI where EV owners charge their vehicle is at home (primarily overnight).
-EVs have an average range of at least 300 miles, with experts forecasting affordable 400-mile range within several years. BI is about 5 miles wide and 10 miles long, so EVs can make many trips across BI without needing to recharge.
-The state exempts certain commercial projects with less than 10 parking spaces, and other types require EV charging infrastructure for designated employee parking spaces. The uses of different commercial facilities vary widely.
Councilmember Kirsten Hytopoulos said they were only trying to “push the envelope” in favor of the climate by requiring more than the state standards.
“We want to be a leader in this,” Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki agreed. He said the state standards are good, but people won’t be willing to buy electric cars if charging stations aren’t readily available. He said they have to be in garages or carports because, “They don’t work with extension cords.”
But while Moriwaki admitted more people charge their electric cars at home, ones available to the public are “not just for Bainbridge Island, but for everyone,” including visitors. He also said chargers at home take many hours, while fast chargers most often used in public can do the same job in two hours.
Councilmember Leslie Schneider said she liked the earlier tougher standards, but “Maybe we missed the mark.” She agreed more should be done with incentives for fast charging. “You can have less parking if you put in more expensive fast charging,” she said as an example.
Mayor Joe Deets said the process worked. “We did learn from constituents, and we’re adjusting,” he said. However, Deets added because it’s so expensive to have EV charging at home, the city needs to work with utilities to see how that cost could be reduced using incentives.
By the numbers
17 public charging stations
7 stations are free
6 popular ones at IslandWood, Town Square, Town & Country Market, CIBO, Fieldstone Rolling Bay and Walgreens.
*ChargeHub statistics for BI
