Halton Hills Home Retrofit Acceleration Program

The Town of Halton Hills intends to develop a Local Improvement Charge/Property Assessed Clean Energy (LIC/PACE)-based home retrofit acceleration program to encourage homeowners to undertake deep energy retrofits. The proposed pilot project will recruit 20 low-rise residential dwelling units, develop an energy model/economic analysis, and develop a program design and administration process. The pilot project will use an innovative approach and emerging practices with regard to its financing model, communication and marketing strategies, and processes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the town's residential buildings. The implementation of the pilot project aligns with the town’s climate action plan, which is to achieve net-zero energy by 2030, a target set by council when the town declared a climate emergency in 2019. Focusing on the residential energy sector with an LIC/PACE-based home energy retrofit program aligns with that goal.

By providing a financing mechanism to encourage deep home energy retrofits, this initiative aims to address a number of challenges. These include high upfront capital costs, the difficulty of managing contractors, and the lack of awareness about options for energy retrofits and their impact. The town will be administrating the pilot program by working within the existing organizational structure. Establishment of a loan loss provision/fund will be considered during program design as part of the program’s risk identification and mitigation stage. Homeowners will repay their loans via their property taxes. One of the unique characteristics of the LIC as a financing mechanism is that because it is a special charge on the tax lien, LIC assessments stay with a property when it is sold, rather than with the former owner. The pilot project is intended to test a small cohort of homeowners before launching a full program to ensure that the proper administrative processes and capacity is in place so that the program can operate smoothly.

Innovative aspect(s):

• This initiative will be the first LIC/PACE pilot administered by a small municipality in Ontario and the first energy efficiency financing program offered by Halton Hills
• This is the first opportunity for the town to use an innovative financing tool to directly target energy and greenhouse gas reductions in the residential sector
• The project stands to help the town achieve net-zero by 2030, reduce homeowners’ operating costs and improve community resilience to climate change

Replicability:

The pilot will serve as an example for other municipalities, especially small ones, looking to develop community efficiency financing programs. A municipal toolkit for home energy retrofit will be developed (within the context of smaller municipalities) that will be shared with other smaller municipalities.

Environmental benefits

• The expected environmental benefits are considered significant given the size of the town—the project will help accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reduction from the residential sector, which is the second-largest emitter in the town
• It is expected that the average participant may realize a 30% reduction in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, as per the City of Toronto HELP program
• It is expected that the project will help extend the life expectancy of the buildings and improve community resilience to climate change

Economic benefits

• It is estimated that the project will generate energy savings of $550/home (as per statistics from the Toronto HELP program) over 12 years of payback
• The project is expected to attract financial investors, increase the home renovation market and increase home property value

Social benefits

• The project is expected to improve community resilience to climate change, extend the life expectancy of the building envelope and improve indoor air quality
• The project stands to improve the community’s quality of life and increase opportunities for public education and awareness on home retrofit and climate change