The finance committee voted unanimously to forward Ordinance 2025-232 to full council with a recommendation to accept $10,000 from the Virginia Department of Energy to create a Virginia Energy Resilience Planning special fund in the Office of Sustainability.

Laura Thomas, director of sustainability, said the small state grant will fund structural engineering drawings to assess whether a facility in the East End — specifically census tracts 201, 202 and 204 — could serve as a resilience hub and incorporate solar. "It is a simple project that will help us advance and create some structural engineering drawings for a facility to see if it can serve as a resilience hub, particularly in terms of incorporating solar onto the facility," Thomas said.

Committee members asked for maps of eligible locations; Thomas said staff have potential-location maps and will provide them. After a public hearing with no speakers, the committee voted to forward the ordinance to full council for approval. Miss Lynch, Vice Chair Jones and Chair Robertson recorded "aye" on the motion.

The grant will fund preliminary engineering and planning work to inform whether and how the city might develop a resilience hub in high-energy-burden neighborhoods in the East End.