The St. Joseph City Commission has instructed city staff to look more into a program that would help businesses pay for energy efficiency improvements. The PACE program enables a special tax assessment to be applied to a specific property so an efficiency project can be paid off over time instead of all at once. The commission heard about PACE from Cornerstone Alliance at a meeting in July and at that time referred the matter to its sustainability committee. At last night’s commission meeting, the committee’s Laura Goos gave an update.
“It’s the Property Assessed Clean Energy program,” Goos said. “It allows for a special tax assessment to be done through a lender where you could pay for upgrades for HVAC systems, other environmentally friendly upgrades to a commercial property only.”
Goos said the special assessments would only be paid by the property owners who get them, and there would be no cost whatsoever to the city taxpayers. She added the lender working with a commercial property seeking to do energy upgrades would pay the administrative costs. With PACE, the special assessment made to the property would stay with the property until it’s paid off, even if it’s sold. PACE has been adopted by 29 counties in Michigan. The commission voted Monday to have city staff study the program some more.
