PLG’s CEO and COO advocate in MN legislature for pending C-PACE changes

Minneapolis, Minnesota (May 16, 2024) – PACE Loan Group’s CEO and Founder Rafi Golberstein and COO Bali Kumar, both leaders in the national C-PACE industry, have been instrumental in guiding changes to Minnesota’s legislation to broaden the requirements for C-PACE financing and make the tool available to more commercial property owners in the state.

C-PACE – Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy – finances property improvements in energy, water, building resiliency, and efficiency through a property tax assessment. While the legislation has public oversight, with the St. Paul Port Authority managing Minnesota’s program, no public dollars are used in the financing. In current legislative sessions across the country, eight other states added C-PACE or expanded the program to impact more property financing or refinancing options.

Minnesota, which has been a national leader in C-PACE financing with more than 533 completed transactions since 2017, has experienced a slowdown in use of the tool because it only allowed the financing over 20 years and limited it to 20% of the property’s value.

Traditionally, C-PACE can be up to 30% of the property value and be financed over 30 years.

The changes approved by Minnesota’s legislature and included in the Omnibus bill slated to pass this weekend increase the financing term to 30 years and the loan-to-value cap to 30 percent. The bill also eliminates a savings to investment ratio requirement, which often disqualified projects due to high construction costs, and adds water conservation and resiliency improvements to the list of eligible improvements.