About C-PACE, NJPACE, &
Program Implementation

Introducing the new Garden State C-PACE Program being Rolled Out by NJEDA

About Us

The role of NJPACE is to accelerate the market adoption of C-PACE as a community development tool. We assist municipalities in leveraging the program’s strengths to upgrade their building stock to today’s resilient and climate-savvy standards. We also assist property owners and developers in sourcing the best financing for their needs.

In principle, C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) has everything going for it:

  • It involves commercial real estate investment, still one of the best and most stable investments
  • It saves owners money, is self-liquidating, and transferable
  • It provides ready availability of capital for 100% of retrofits and up to 35% of the capital stack for new construction and gut rehabs or conversions
  • It increases building quality, comfort, and asset valuations
  • It offers improved economic development opportunities
  • And it means reduced carbon emissions from the buildings where we work, shop, and live (in multifamily housing)

It should be wildly successful in New Jersey, one of the most dynamic of the old industrial states, whose buildings are sorely in need of updating. It should be widely used to improve the entire built environment, reduce toxic emissions, and increase resilience.

T/he challenge is that it’s unfamiliar to most building owners and developers (as well as to their trusted advisers such as architects, engineers, and lawyers). Its innovative approach involves attaching the cost of the improvements to the property itself as a Special Assessment which is repaid through the property tax system. This has multiple advantages:

  • It’s not a loan to the owner, and thus does not increase the owner’s liabilities or deplete his/her capital. (It’s sometimes called a “loan,” and C-PACE capital providers are often called “lenders,” but technically it’s a third-party investment in the property.)
  • It’s typically off-balance-sheet, and the repayments are treated as operating expenses (like other property taxes). It does not increase the owner’s liability 
  • The obligation travels with the property if it’s sold or transferred.
  • It uses private capital, not government, taxpayer, or ratepayer funds.
  • It’s typically available at low market-rate interest, and repayments are spread out over the useful life of the improvements, so it’s a “pay-as-you-go” model.
  • For investors, it provides stable, profitable, and low-risk returns.

It essentially uses the model that municipalities have employed over multiple decades to create sidewalks, sewers, libraries, and other public works. Funds are obtained at low rates of interest over long terms, typically up to 30 years, and usually in the form of bonds. The cost of repaying these is then distributed amongst the property owners who benefit from the improvements through a Special Assessment, typically a small charge tied to the benefit received.

NJPACE (New Jersey PACE) is a nonprofit arm of Possible Planet, a NJ 501(c)(3) originally registered as the Center for Regenerative Community Solutions.

We have advocated for PACE in New Jersey since 2012 and have helped the law pass three times in the NJ legislature, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Governor Phil Murphy finally signed it into law in 2021. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) was tasked with writing the guidelines and administering the program. The regulations were developed, approved, and published in 2024.

The NJEDA is currently rolling out the necessary forms and documents required to make the Garden State C-PACE Program available in municipalities throughout the state. Towns are required to pass an ordinance to opt into the Program and sign a Program Agreement with the Authority for properties within their jurisdiction to be eligible.

If you have a project or need, contact us today

Meet the Team

Jonathan Cloud

Executive Director
jcloud@newjerseypace.org

Serial entrepreneur and nonprofit executive, designer/builder, conservation, and renewable energy expert. Formerly Senior Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Jonathan has been helping catalyze action toward sustainable development in municipalities, communities, and businesses since the early 1970s. He consults to corporations of all sizes, nonprofits, municipal, state, and national governments, and colleges and universities. His expertise and interests include energy and environmental technologies, community financing mechanisms, local food systems, and renewable energy systems, along with sustainable innovation, entrepreneurship, community engagement, and transformational leadership for social change.

Jonathan has been an entrepreneur, consultant, educator, community organizer, policy analyst, journalist, and researcher in several fields of environmental and social change. He worked for the Federal Government of Canada in policy, research, program management, and evaluation of energy and environmental issues. Jonathan ran a solar design and construction firm pioneering green building techniques, urban agriculture, and other areas of sustainability, in both Canada and the U.S.

Victoria Zelin-Cloud

Director of Business Development
vzelin@newjerseypace.org

Business development consultant, former Deloitte Sustainability Practice Business Development leader, Yale MBA

Victoria is the Co-Founder of Possible Planet, aka the Center for Regenerative Community Solutions (CRCS) and Director of Development for Regenerative Financing and New Jersey PACE (NJPACE). She speaks publicly and has been published on the subject of sustainability (“Who Will Be the Rock Stars of Corporate Sustainability?” Science, Wisdom, and the Future: Humanity’s Quest for a Flourishing Earth, Collins Foundation Press, 2012).

Victoria Zelin co-founded New Jersey PACE (NJPACE), which has championed the passage of C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) legislation in NJ since 2012. NJPACE is now one of several projects of the larger nonprofit, Possible Planet, where Victoria is Director of Development. Possible Planet’s mission is to regenerate communities using financing and other Sustainable Local Economic Development tools. To accelerate carbon reduction in areas where C-PACE is not available or appropriate, Possible Planet makes available other financing structures as well as alternatives developed within its Regenerative Financing division.

Gus Escher

Director of Finance
gescher@newjerseypace.org

Business and program development professional with experience as an Investment banker, licensed NJ land use planner, and former NJ local elected official. Gus is also principal of First Enterprise Consulting, LLC, a project finance advisory firm in central New Jersey. The firm specializes in Alternative and Renewable Energy Facilities. He consults on projects from Concept – to Development Management – to Financial Structuring/Proformas – to Team Coordination – and to Equity and Debt Execution.

Gus’s recent positions include Business Development Manager at a leading Commercial Solar Design/Build company and as a Project Manager for a prominent non-profit corporation in Trenton, NJ.

Prior to these, he served in leadership positions at Citicorp Securities, PNC Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets, and BB&T Capital Markets – all specializing in project development and finance. Gus has held licenses issued by the SEC/FINRA in all 50 states, with Series 7, Series 63, and Series 79 designations.

He holds a BA from Princeton University, and a Master of Architecture and Urban Planning, also from Princeton University.

 

 

Trustees at Large

PeterBurgess

Peter Burgess

Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics developing Multi Dimension Impact Accounting

Peter Burgess has formal training in engineering, economics, and accountancy which has given him the background to understand problems from many perspectives and introduce effective practical solutions.

The same skills that were effective in the corporate environment were also very effective in planning and evaluation in the field of international socio-economic development. Peter did many assignments for the World Bank, the UN (mainly UNDP) as well as private commercial clients. Worked in more than 50 countries over a period of more than 20 years.

 

Matt Polsky

Sustainability Change Agent

Matt Polsky is a sustainability change agent and Senior Fellow for Sustainability Innovation and Multidisciplinary Thought at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Institute for Sustainable Enterprise.

He has unique cross-sector experience working in business, government, environmental groups, and as an adjunct professor. He was the Sustainability Team Leader at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. He has taught sustainability and energy courses at six New Jersey colleges. He was a marketing manager at AT&T Microelectronics’ Energy Division, a market researcher at Lane Bryant, and a marketing coordinator at BBD&O. Matt was co-chair of one town’s Green Team, advised another town’s Green Team, is on two Sustainable Jersey Working Groups, and is advising Sustainable Jersey in their development of “Gold” level certification for municipalities. He has also worked with a number of municipalities to preserve open space.