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When he’s home, Erik Olsen is in Lakeview. When he’s at work, he’s at the city’s Department of Construction and Permits, running the accelerated permit program for city buildings that meet some basic green standards. (As Olsen told me earlier this year, “Routine projects involving three or fewer units can typically be approved on a fast track within ten days, following a process that can be diagrammed on a Post-it.”)
“Like essentially all new office towers in Chicago, this is an all-electric building, including electric resistance heat, which is almost never environmentally preferable (see here or here–scroll almost to bottom–to understand why). Although one man’s rantings can’t change the market in Chicago, I will always complain about this. For commercial office towers it isn’t quite as egregious because they primarily require cooling, but the electric heat trend seems to be growing in residential buildings as well.”
