PACE Loans

Creating a Property Assessed Clean Energy Local Improvement District (known as PACE) will allow Colorado counties to loan money to property owners for efficiency and renewable energy improvements. This program is needed to help property owners finance the high upfront cost for things like insulating and weatherizing a home, replacing old, inefficient appliances, and installing solar panels or a geothermal heat pump.

The county will loan money to participating property owners and the loan is paid back through the taxes on the property receiving the benefit. This is not a tax increase and does not cost the county any money (costs are covered through the loan). Only those choosing to participate in the program pay for it. The state will provide capital for the county to loan to homeowners. To loan money to commercial properties the county will have to pass a ballot initiative to issue county bonds. Eagle, Pitkin, Gunnison, and Boulder Counties have each created these programs.

In most cases the loan and improvements can be structured so that the money saved on energy bills is more than the loan payment, so property owners can see a net savings. Money spent on energy bills leaves the community. Money spent on property improvements goes to local contractors and energy businesses, thus circulating in the local economy. Boulder County has loaned out over $10 million and created work for over 280 contractors through their program over the past two years. If we all made our buildings as efficient as possible we could cut energy consumption by half. This would release millions of dollars that could be spent locally. It would also greatly reduce our contribution to environmental destruction and extend the life of limited resources such as coal and natural gas. If we cut consumption by half, renewable sources such as wind and solar could meet most, if not all, of our building energy needs. The PACE program puts us on the path of doing just that and it invests millions of dollars into creating jobs for local building and energy contractors without encouraging growth and sprawl!

This idea is only two years old in Colorado and our county commissioners are not convinced that there is demand. So it is up to us to tell them what we want! We want to make sure that the program is as affordable as possible, that it covers efficiency and renewable energy improvements, and that it is available to residential and commercial property owners.

Write a short note to your County Commissioners. Say what you like and please personalize your letter. They should know that:

you want the County to join other counties in providing affordable loans to residential and commercial property owners for efficiency and renewable energy improvements. Include your address and be sure to ask for a reply, we need to know that they are listening.

Below is the contact info for county commissioner that we are targeting

Larimer Summit Garfield La Plata Broomfield

Jefferson Clear Creek

Please email us to confirm that you wrote to the commissioners as soon as you send it. If you get a response please forward that to us so that we can monitor feedback and progress.

Thanks!