Texas Pace Authority – Laura Sanchez Bolanos – 2016

Goals

TX PACE Authority wants to streamline the implementation of PACE-funded clean energy and water saving projects to increase the funding tools that property owners can access for rehabilitation projects and efficiency retrofits. EDF Climate Corps fellow Laura Sanchez Bolanos was enlisted to author a White Paper that addresses the opportunities for PACE financing in the affordable housing sector. The goal of the report was to introduce PACE as a financing tool for energy and water efficiency retrofits and distributed generation investments, provide a guide for stakeholders in the affordable multifamily housing sector for incorporating PACE financing in the capital structure of rehabilitation projects and identify potential pilot projects in Central Texas. 

Solutions

Laura used these goals as the framework for her report. She highlighted the opportunities for governments to leverage PACE financing as means to preserving housing affordability. To overcome existing confusion, she clarified the approval process of a PACE assessment when public subsidies, in the form of rental assistance or direct capital, are involved. The report highlights which party benefits from utility savings attained through retrofits to properties with utility allowances. She then lists the steps for identifying affordable multifamily housing properties that can leverage PACE financing. For a reference she included two precedent affordable multifamily housing projects that included a PACE assessment in their rehabilitation capital structure and identified two pilot projects in Central Texas. The report concludes with seven recommendations addressed to governments at the federal, state and local level.

Potential Impact

There are significant opportunities nationwide for affordable multifamily housing properties to access PACE financing for retrofits and investments, giving property owners the opportunity to achieve bottom line savings. This report will help identify properties in other cities that can also benefit from PACE financing.

Focusing on Texas, the report identifies affordable housing properties that can more readily access PACE financing:

• Properties in RAD conversion (multiphase and portfolio awardees only): There are 6,000 units in Texas including 1,500 units in Austin.
• USDA RD-funded properties: There are 49 properties (over 2,000 units) located in PACE jurisdictions, with 11 properties (340 units) located in Williamson and Travis Counties (central Texas).