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C-PACE financing for housing
C-PACE financing, also known as Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy financing, is a financing tool that allows property owners to borrow money for clean energy projects which is then repaid through a special assessment that appears as an addition to one’s...
Spotlight on Housing Initiatives: Don’t be afraid to ask a developer to include affordable housing
This is the third installment in our series spotlighting the different ways communities across North Carolina are tackling their housing needs. Here, we are recalling one of our favorite projects in Waynesville, which we first wrote about in 2023 (read that post...
Spotlight on Housing Initiatives: Encourage homeownership through town-sponsored “rent-to-own” homes
This is the second installment of our series spotlighting the different ways communities across North Carolina are tackling their housing needs. Here, we are highlighting the Town of Troy’s Smitherman Village rent-to-own program which is providing residents with an...
Sanford Holshouser PLLC’s Top Nine Tips for 1Ls
(Because 1Ls don’t have time for another Top Ten list.) 1 – Law school is something you’re doing, not who you are. Tape that reminder to your bathroom mirror if you have to. Some aspects of law school and the legal profession are designed to hammer your soul if...
Financing alternatives for stormwater improvements
Control of stormwater is a big problem and getting bigger. And it’s not just storms like Helene and Chantal that pose risks -- “average” storms are causing more frequent and severe flooding. The Stormwater Association of North Carolina (SWANC) created a stormwater...
Requiem for Special Assessment Revenue Bonds
Earlier this year, the authority of North Carolina local governments to issue special assessment revenue bonds lapsed. We are sorry to see it go. This type of financing has been very popular in other parts of the country, but it never got a foothold here. There were a...
Changes Coming to Opportunity Zones Law
This post updates a previous post, to now reflect the provisions of the final enacted legislation. “Opportunity Zones,” created in 2016 under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, were designed to encourage investment in “distressed areas” by way of deferrals and exclusions on...
Can we now start to talk about local revenue sources?
We’ve written before, and wondered with something like despair, if we would ever be able to have a productive discussion about diversifying local revenue sources in North Carolina. The situation for local governments is only getting worse....
“A developer has asked us to issue ‘conduit bonds’ to help finance their housing project. What does that even mean?”
Federal tax law, and North Carolina state law, allow tax-exempt bonds to be issued to benefit privately owned, for-profit housing developments. The very popular 4% low-income housing tax credit program in fact requires that bonds be issued to finance housing...
Spotlight on Housing Initiatives: Encourage preferred housing through water, sewer and streets incentives
This is the first installment in our series spotlighting different ways communities across North Carolina are tackling their housing needs. We heard about Morganton’s Housing Stimulus Program that offers forgivable loans to developers for water, sewer, and streets...