MANUFACTURING
ENERGY: Utility rates to double next year, sending energy prices soaring. PAGE 6
Great Day Improvements is on its way to becoming a national brand. PAGE 2 CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM I OCTOBER 24, 2022
Quest to regulate R-PACE lending Ohio House Bill 646 would put restrictions in place to control how loan financing companies could operate BY JEREMY NOBILE
An effort by controversial California company Ygrene Energy Solutions to offer a financing program for energy-efficient home improvement projects across Ohio that can be paid for through property tax bills — otherwise known as property assessed clean energy (PACE) loans — has stalled out before it ever got started. There are two types of PACE financing: residential and commercial. PACE lenders may offer both. R-PACE refers to the residential versions that are available to homeowners. Absent the passage of Ohio’s House Bill 646, which aims to regulate several aspects of how R-PACE financing is conducted, the fact no R-PACE loans are being offered on a statewide basis may be for the best, according to a coalition of consumer,
housing and lending industry officials who have lobbied for the legislation. That group includes the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association, the Greater Cleveland Reinvestment Coalition, and Ohio REALTORS, among others. However, while Ygrene and PACENation, a national trade group for PACE financing companies, suggest PACE lenders are not against consumer protections, they have claimed the Ohio legislation has anti-competitive components pushed for by the mortgage lending industry that don’t need to be there. According to statehouse testimony, Ygrene has argued certain restrictions could prevent R-PACE programs from functioning at all. See LENDING on Page 29
These executives are working to promote understanding and generate diversity and inclusion, for the benefit of all. PAGE 10 Newmark managing director David Hollister was diagnosed with degenerative motor neurological disease in March. | DANA HOLLISTER
A TRADITIONAL TABOO
Broker tackles disclosing illness in commercial real estate BY STAN BULLARD
In what he characterizes as his best year as a broker, Newmark managing director David Hollister is surprisingly seeking ways to reduce his workload. Hollister, 61, in March was diagnosed with degenerative motor
neurological disease, part of a family of illnesses associated with ALS. For his own reasons, Hollister is violating an unwritten rule within the local commercial brokerage community: Do not disclose any illness, as competitors might steal your business. In a commission business, where
the main determinant of survival, much less success, is performance, it is a widely held perspective that knowledge of serious illness may be potentially damaging professionally, though some agents say it is less common today than in the past. See ILLNESS on Page 28
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