Program Design
The first step is to create the blueprint for your program. Together with our partners, we collaborate with your staff to create a comprehensive program implementation plan. We start by providing an off-the-shelf municipal lending program template ( "HERO program" ) designed by Renovate America and its partners for municipalities. The HERO program template includes a full set of deliverables that incorporate best practices utilized by other municipalities. This ensures the design of your program builds on the experiences of other programs, while at the same time allowing your municipality to modify the program's plan to meet your unique requirements. In the design phase, our team will:
Renovate America and its partners guide municipalities through the legal steps necessary to create a Special Financing District (essentially, an expanded "Special Improvement District"). This includes adoption of new ordinances and resolutions, establishing the special tax/assessment/parcel lien recording process for county and city records, and property owner notarization and disclosures. The Renovate America team and municipalities work together to gather an inventory of local and regional municipal programs and resources that may assist us in designing your program. Our team of experts also reviews existing policies, such as permitting policies, building codes, change in ownership policies, and property tax laws, to determine how these will affect your program. The Renovate America team analyzes the implications of recent state and federal incentives, legislative mandates, and current economic circumstances to assist staff in defining the objectives of your program. Objectives may include increasing tax revenue, local job creation, meeting any renewable energy adoption targets, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Goals are established as a baseline to later quantify and measure the success of your program. We consult with staff to determine the scope of the target market. With our help, you decide if your energy or water improvements program will focus entirely on retrofitting existing buildings or if it should include new construction. Also, it is necessary to determine if your program will include commercial properties or only residential properties. We provide staff with prioritized lists of potential eligible products and their related financial and environmental benefits. The whole building approach and climate zone are taken into account to help identify which products will best accomplish the defined program objectives. Eligible products may include renewable energy (solar PV, solar thermal, etc.), energy efficiency (heating systems, cooling systems, lighting, windows, insulation, etc.) and water efficiency (low-flow toilets, weather based sprinkling systems, etc.). Renovate America also quantifies energy and water efficiency minimum standards (SEER, EER, Energy Factor, U Values, R Values, etc.) for various eligible products. Renovate America recommends establishing a timeline for the program. Implementation of your program may be in phases based on both available capital and eligible products. The program and its timeline should be transparent to the community. Based on our template documents, we provide all the necessary documents your constituents need to participate, including applications, financing documents and special tax documents. Together with our partners, we develop an effective and targeted marketing and customer support plan. Marketing plans focus not only on ensuring demand is created, but also on managing expectations within the community. The support plan includes customer support for program participants after they have received funding.After we have finished designing the program and it has been approved by your staff, the next step is Marketing and Customer Service.