From Mayor Bill Finch:
On Monday night, the City Council approved an agreement with the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA) to create a Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program, also known as C-PACE, for businesses and industrial buildings in the city. Bridgeport is the first municipality in the State to offer the C-Pace program.
Under C-PACE, the cost of an energy project may be funded by special financing arranged through CEFIA and repaid annually by the property owner through a special “benefit” assessment on their property tax bill.
“Through our BGreen2020 efforts, the City is working diligently to reduce its carbon footprint, including making our municipal buildings more energy efficient. Through the C-PACE program, in partnership with CEFIA, we can now help private businesses operate their buildings more efficiently, lowering their energy costs without having to spend a lot of money on energy improvements,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “Thank you to the City Council for approving this agreement, which will help create jobs and lower our greenhouse gas emissions.”
With the City Council’s approval, the City of Bridgeport has now opted-in to the program to create a C-PACE district, and will now have an established Memorandum of Understanding between the City and CEFIA.
Bridgeport businesses will now be able to engage with contractors to work on energy upgrades to their facilities. Businesses then seek approval for these energy upgrades from CEFIA, the C-PACE program administrator. CEFIA will arrange low-cost financing for these energy upgrades.
“One of the pillars of our BGreen 2020 initiative is to create incentives for the private sector to develop more energy efficient facilities, which will positively impact their bottom lines by helping to reduce operating costs. Ultimately, such actions will assist the City as a whole by enhancing and increasing economic development here,” said Ted Grabarz, Director of Sustainability for the City of Bridgeport.
Benefit assessments are a common municipal finance tool that has been used for many projects, including street paving, water and sewer systems and street lighting. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia have PACE enabling policies.
The C-PACE program was signed by Governor Dannel Malloy on June 15 following a special session of the Legislature on June 12.
Hey Bill, applaud this!!! What the hell are you doing to protect our safety? Whatever it is, it’s not working. All this clean and green bullshit is for naught if you are shot dead on the streets of Bridgeport.
Bill, do a survey and see if the residents give a shit about clean and green.
Finch is thinking long term–good for him (or the people who do it for him) but forgetting none of us are going to be around to see it. Taxes off the chart, crime off the chart, democracy not on the chart. Who will stick around?
*** Let’s hope it works out for the future of Bpt. It’s got very little going for it now, no? ***
For a green mayor Finch isn’t very green. How about all the businesses that moved to area towns and now the employees have to drive further to get to work? And what about the crime, Bill?