HUD Reauthorizes Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, Giving Relief to Stalled Projects
by Pamela Martineau for TaxCreditAdvisor, featuring POAH's President/CEO, Aaron Gornstein
Developers of multifamily properties may now move forward with energy efficient retrofits funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) after the agency issued a notice in January announcing the relaunch of the program starting March 1. The GRRP had been in limbo following administrative change in January 2025 and subsequent program suspension.
In the relaunch notice, HUD announced a number of critical changes to the program, including a removal of the option to award the funds as grants, instead requiring that they now be surplus cash loans. Additionally, funds may no longer be used for solar upgrades, and all requirements to lessen or measure greenhouse gas emissions have been removed.
Though developers must now weigh consequences of those changes, there can now be a sigh of relief for projects held up due to the frozen funds.
“GRRP has been a crucial resource,” says Aaron Gornstein, president and chief executive officer of Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH), which has received 19 awards totaling $70 million for projects in seven states and the District of Columbia. “The funding freeze impacted many organizations across the country,” he says. “We’re very pleased that the program has been fully restarted by HUD, so we are now able to close and move into construction.”...