More than $4 billion in loan authority and $840 million in grant funding will be available for investment in clean energy initiatives at multifamily properties that receive U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assistance.

The funding–which is available in three categories with application deadlines beginning in March 2024–is to encourage investment in a variety of clean energy that improves the housing quality and the resilience of those properties. The Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) was part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 to facilitate investments that save utility costs and mitigate environmental hazards at the properties.

Housing Notice H 2023-5 highlights three goals of the GRRP:

• to reduce energy and water use in HUD-assisted multifamily properties,
• to make HUD-assisted multifamily properties more resilient to extreme weather events and natural disasters, and
• to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from HUD-assisted multifamily properties.

The notice highlights that achieving those goals will reduce utility bills and costs of operations for properties, which benefit tenants. Additionally, achieving those goals will reduce greenhouse gas emissions (the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% cumulative across all participating properties and to reduce modeled energy consumption by at least 25% in each property.) HUD emphasized that most developments will require multifaceted, integrated retrofits to achieve multiple GRRP goals.

Eligible properties are those receiving HUD assistance through Sections 8, 202, 811 and 236. The GRRP will provide funding in three categories, each with a separate notice of funding opportunity (NOFO):

Element Awards are for properties that are materially advanced in a recapitalization transaction that includes targeted utility efficiency, carbon emissions, reduction, renewable energy and/or climate resilience measures.

Leading Edge Awards are for properties with a significant capacity to execute a rehabilitation that will achieve an advanced green certification.

Comprehensive Awards are for range of properties, including those not yet developed, where the property owner is interested in improving the utility efficiency and resilience to climate hazards.

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Property owners can apply in only one category. Those properties that receive the awards will perform initial utility consumption and emissions benchmarking to identify their baseline. All GRRP investments will require at least five years of extended affordability and a minimum of 15 years of affordability.

Previous significant efforts by HUD to address similar issues have been by using the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program in presidentially declared disaster areas. This is the first broad HUD program to address these proactively.

Applications are available through Grants.gov under the funding number cited within the category’s specific NOFO. HUD also published a series of documents, including a GRRP overview and a 15-minute webinar on the topic.

For guidance on next steps and what you need to do to prepare your application, contact a member of the Novogradac HUD team.