PACE program: risk mitigation program.

Existing law, known commonly as the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, authorizes a public agency, by making specified findings, to authorize public agency officials and property owners to enter into voluntary contractual assessments to finance the installation of distributed generation renewable energy sources or energy or water efficiency improvements that are permanently fixed to real property. Existing law also requires the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority to develop and administer a PACE risk mitigation program for PACE financing to increase its acceptance in the marketplace and protect against the risk of default and foreclosure. This bill would require the authority, upon an appropriation by the Legislature for purposes of the bill, to develop and administer the PACE risk mitigation program to address residential PACE-related mortgage and tax delinquencies in order to avoid default or foreclosure by awarding a grant, in an amount equal to at least one annual PACE assessment but not more than 4 annual PACE assessments, to an eligible property owner, as defined. The bill would require the authority to award the grants on a first-come, first-served basis.