{"id":290,"date":"2025-06-08T06:06:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T06:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/?post_type=objective&#038;p=290"},"modified":"2026-06-02T19:03:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:03:37","slug":"retrofit-incentives","status":"publish","type":"objective","link":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/objective\/retrofit-incentives\/","title":{"rendered":"Incentives for building retrofits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Municipalities can support energy efficiency and emissions reductions in existing buildings by facilitating retrofit financing through a Local Service Area. With homeowner approval, this mechanism allows the municipality to fund upgrades, such as heat pumps, insulation, or solar panels, using external grants or loans, and recover costs over time via parcel taxes on participating properties. This approach helps reduce upfront costs for homeowners and enables a structured, community-scale retrofit program aligned with climate goals.<\/p>\n<p>Revitalization tax exemptions are a long\u2011standing tool that local governments can use to incentivise energy efficiency retrofits in existing buildings. Under section 226 of the <em>Community Charter<\/em>, municipalities may establish a revitalization tax exemption program by bylaw that temporarily reduces or exempts property taxes for eligible properties. When designed carefully, this tool can help offset retrofit costs for targeted building types\u2014such as older rental buildings\u2014while supporting local climate and housing objectives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Municipalities can support energy efficiency and emissions reductions in existing buildings by facilitating retrofit financing through a Local Service Area. With homeowner approval, this mechanism allows the municipality to fund upgrades, such as heat pumps, insulation, or solar panels, using external grants or loans, and recover costs over time via parcel taxes on participating properties. This approach helps reduce upfront costs for homeowners and enables a structured, community-scale retrofit program aligned with climate goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":733,"template":"","categories":[9],"class_list":["post-290","objective","type-objective","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-existing-buildings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/objective\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/objective"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/objective"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/objective\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":885,"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/objective\/290\/revisions\/885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityenergy.ca\/tools\/powertoact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}