BANFF – The Town of Banff is a step closer to offering residents help with financing for upfront costs for energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades to their homes.
Council has passed first reading of a bylaw to authorize the municipality to borrow $1.16 million from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) for the Clean Energy Improvement Program (CEIP).
Officials say the program would provide low-interest loans to residential property owners to support energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades to their homes, adding loans would be repaid over time via a charge on residential property tax payments.
“The money is to basically form the loan budget that we will in turn loan that money to residential homeowners,” said Michael Hay, manager of environment for the Town of Banff, during a Jan. 8 council meeting.
“This is fully funded. There’s no tax funding required for this program.”
The program will be funded by the $1.16 million FCM loan and a $436,208 long-term internal borrow from the municipality’s environmental reserve.
There is a separate operating grant of $581,600 as part of the FCM agreement.
The core budget would support approximately 18 residential upgrade projects with an average value of $21,000, plus program startup costs, as well as administration and staff costs.
Hay said full details of the program will be presented to council in March.
“There’s details of how we’re going to roll it out, there’s the final numbers, there’s the final parameters of who is able to apply, who is eligible,” he said.
Second and third reading of the borrowing bylaw are expected Feb. 12.
