Selwyn Township is applying for a grant to help retrofit old homes for better energy efficiencies.
During the Dec. 12 council meeting, Gaby Kalapos, Executive Director at Clean Air Partnership (CAP) updated council on a possible partnership to allow residents to take advantage of a Home Energy Retrofit Program.
Kalapos told council that this retrofit program would be through the help of CAP, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and Community Efficiency Financing Program (CEF).
She explained that FCM would fund up to 80 per cent of the total program costs with the township being responsible to fund the other 20 per cent.
However, the township is able to put their 20 per cent into repayable loans while FCM would be grant funding for the program. This means that while the township would be creating debt, it is repayable debt that they would recuperate over time.
Township staff recommended entering into a partnership with CAP to apply for this grant and if successful start the retrofit program that would be called Better Homes Selwyn. It would allow for 150 households over a four year time frame based on a $6M budget of which $1.5M would be funded through township reserves.
According to a staff report presented to council, advancing a Selwyn Home Retrofit Program is beneficial to the Township because buildings contribute 30-50 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and retrofitting can significantly reduce this impact. As energy costs are likely to rise, improving home energy efficiency will help homeowners save on costs.
The idea behind the Better Homes Selwyn program is that residents will be able retrofit their homes and repay the loan amounts for the program with the energy cost savings they incur over the years.
The report stated that average loan amounts for Selwyn are projected to be $30,000. In addition, these programs are designed to include incentives. Types of incentives for Selwyn could include:
- Incentive grants e.g. $2,500 for homeowners that convert to heat pump, improve building envelope (insulation, windows and doors), improve lighting, install EV charging unit
- Set amount written off loan if a set GHG reduction is achieved e.g. $2,500 to reduce GHG’s by 15 per cent
- Interest free loan for a housing archetype with a “Hot” rating (meaning costly to heat)
Mayor Sherry Senis asked if any other municipality in Peterborough County is going down this road. Kalapos said only the City of Peterborough is doing something similar, no other municipalities.
Coun. John Boyko asked how the partnership would work if the grant application was successful.
Kalapos explained that CAP would administer the program and oversee many of the aspects with the township being the authorizing authority with homeowners.
Deputy Mayor Ron Black asked if the loans would be interest bearing.Kalapos and staff both told council that the township has full authority to determine what interest rates to place on their loans, though many municipalities find it easiest to stay in line with what FCM places on loans which tend to be low rates of around two per cent.
Black also asked about getting information out to residents and who would be building the website for the program.
Kalapos said that CAP would be the ones to do that stating Selwyn would have a page on a larger Better Homes Ontario website with all relevant information there for residents to find.
Boyko then asked staff if they were confident they would have the capacity to take on this program.
Staff responded saying yes, they were confident especially because most of the administration of the program will be done through the third part (CAP).
Boyko also asked if they were confident in the reserve funding to be able to pay for this program in the long run.
Staff once again said yes, their reserve are very healthy and can definitely accommodate the $1.5M in loans especially since this program will be spread out over a four year period.
Black moved the recommendation which was seconded by Boyko and was carried.
