At its April 24 meeting, Huntsville’s General Committee directed staff to continue working with Clean Air Partnership to move forward with an energy efficiency retrofit program designed for year-round Huntsville homeowners.
The Clean Air Partnership is an environmental charity funded through the Canadian Federation of Municipalities (which funds the program with federal dollars) and partners with municipalities to enable homeowners to access low-interest loans to help make their homes energy efficient while helping with rising energy costs. The loans are attached to the home and repaid through a local improvement charge on the property tax.
In its 2023, the Town set aside a $2M contribution to the BetterHomes Huntsville Reserve as part of its 20 per cent contribution requirement. The following September, it submitted an application for the program and was notified in January that it had been approved.
An estimated 300 homeowners are expected to benefit from the initial four-year term of the program, and numerous resources will also be made available to all Huntsville residents who are seeking to improve their home’s efficiency, according to Clean Air Partnership representatives.
The program involves a loan from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities (CFM) for about $5.3M coupled with a $2M contribution from the Town. The loan will go from CFM to the District of Muskoka, which will provide a debenture for the value of the loan. The Town of Huntsville will also be provided with a grant of about $2.6M to establish the program and cover costs such as the creation of a website, an intake portal, communication, legal advice, and other materials required to get the program up and running.
According to Kevin Behan, operations director for Clean Air Partnership, an estimated $900,000 will also be made available for incentives designed for low-income homeowners who want to improve their properties and for those who achieve the highest modeled energy reduction in their projects.
The first year of the program, set to open next year, will intake applications from 40 homeowners, 70 in the second year of the program, 85 in the third year, and 105 in the fourth year. “So the total operation costs is about $1.3M, as I say there’s about $900,000 in incentives which are allocated. There’s also $7.3M in repayable loans, there’s also $450,000 held in a loan loss reserve, which is removed as those loans are repaid, which is brought back into the program,” added Behan.
The loans will vary depending on the project, but the average loan amount will be about $24,000. The payback interest rate is two percent, and the repayment length will vary. The loans are placed on the property, not the property owner.
Projects that could qualify for a loan include high-efficiency furnaces, boilers, air conditioners, air source heat pumps, Window and door replacements, basement, attic, and exterior wall insulation, Air sealing, High-efficiency tankless water heaters, drain-water heat recovery systems, toilet replacements, solar hot water systems, electric vehicle charging stations (Level 2), and battery storage.
Staff will formulate a local improvement bylaw to enable the municipality to place the loans on the property tax bill for council approval and return to committee with the draft agreement with the CFM and program details.
Click HERE for the Clean Air Partnership presentation.
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Town of Huntsville moving forward with an innovative loan program for home retrofits
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