Good morning, everyone.

I'm Charles Allen, Ward 6 Councilmember and Chair of the Council's Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

Today is Friday, May 8th, 2026, and we are convening in person in room 500 of the John A.

Wilson building and virtually of the Zoom platform.

The time is now 1112 a.m.

And I'm calling to order this budget oversight hearing of the committee.

Today we're going to hear from public witnesses and government witnesses regarding the mayor's FY 2027 proposed budget for the following agency, the Green Finance Authority.

The Green Finance Authority, DC Green Bank, was created to provide access to capital to grow the clean economy and develop a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable district.

It offers innovative financing solutions for this purpose and focuses its investments on solar energy, greener and more efficient buildings, infrastructure resilience, and sustainable transportation.

The mayor's proposed FY27 operating budget for the Green Bank from is from the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund is $3.75 million, representing no change from the FY26 approved budget.

The Green Finance Authority's budget is not solely supported by local funding because it's able to support operations through returns on investments on certain fees from deals.

The Green Bank does not have a capital budget.

So we have a panel of public witnesses that we're going to turn to first.

After that, we'll then bring up our Green Finance Authority representatives.

First panel is all online and virtual.

So let me go ahead and call out their names and then we will turn to them for their testimony.

We have Tyrell Holcomb, who's the Vice President of External Affairs with Jubilee Housing, Matt Pestronk, who's president with Post Brothers, David Schatz, Vice President of New Vene Green Capital, Gilbert Campbell, co-founder of Volt Energy, and Samuel Vonar, policy director with DC Community Wealth Builders.

All right.

I don't think we have Mr.

Holcomb online yet, but if he's able to join us, we'll make sure we bring him over.

But Mr.

Pestronk, I think we've got you here.

So why don't I turn to you for your testimony?

If you're ready, we'll have you go first, and then we'll see if Mr.

Holcomb comes and we'll add him back in later.

I am right over there.

Thank you, Councilmember Allen.

Excellent.

Good morning.

Uh, whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

My company um is a real estate development company undertaking, currently undertaking multiple large mixed-use projects, primarily focused on coastal markets in the U.S.

We're based in Philadelphia.

Native Washingtonians undertaking a very large project in Washington at next next to the Washington Hilton at Connecticut, Florida and T, the former the former Universal Buildings.

If anyone wants to drive by, we're uh under making a tremendous amount of progress in our early construction.

And the project was instrumental in getting financed by the DC Green Bank through a loan program called CPACE, where the district um issues uh an assessment against the property that investors through typically through a private uh a private uh activity private placement agent, uh in this case UV Green Capital, um sells the future revenues of the project to investors who want to buy uh a fixed income product or a bond, typically a bond in the form of a bond, with no exposure to the district.

So the district does not guarantee the bonds, the district district does not guarantee our financing in any way, and the real estate tax assessment, the real estate taxes that are payable to the district, um, are paid prior to the um C-PACE assessment.

So the Green Bank has been was an indispensable ally to us in getting the project financed both in general uh through their knowledge of multiple uh multiple economic development tools available in the district and some that are proprietary to them and what the green banks um the green bank I think is a very interesting um test case within the DC government because I believe it's an instrumentality of the government, but they make money to support themselves mostly through the private sector by virtue of servicing revenues of financial products.

So we pay the green bank um debt service on our C-PACE assessment, and the Green Bank gets uh gets revenues to pay its overhead from that product.

And the financing market, the private sector financing market was very challenging.

Although the green bank, the private sector market financing market was extremely challenging, even for residential, even in that location for the better part of two years, and it's sort of it's it started to come back, but um the green bank is able to attract investors who want to finance sustainable development, and they will take a slightly lower return than a regular commercial lender, and that just works better for everybody.

It makes more sustainable development financed, our project has significant a fairly significant component of affordable housing, and it's gonna be lead gold, and we saved an enormous amount of embedded carbon uh by not demolishing the buildings, and and the fact they're going to be lead gold with their put back in service.

So I think the green bank has been a um has been a uh fabulous uh sustainable economic development advocate in Washington, and we're definitely going to we look forward to working with them on our next project, which everyone will hear about soon, but we're not ready.

I'm sure you don't want to break any news, Mr.

Pestronk.

You know, there's a saying when the when the gelt hits the felt.

All right.

Well, we will keep our eyes out for that.

Um, all right, thank you very much for your testimony.

If you can hang in for a moment, I'm gonna turn to some others and come back with some questions.

Uh so n let sorry, next let me turn to David Schatz with uh Nuveen Green Capital.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and members of the committee.

Um my name's Dave Schatz.

I'm VP of Policy and Market Development at uh Nuveen Green Capital, and as Mr.

Pestronk mentioned, um we've uh been involved in a number of C-PACE transactions in the DC area and and within the district.

Um, most notably at the end of last year, we closed two projects, the Geneva that Mr.

Pestronk mentioned and um the Citizen M project in Georgetown.

Together they represented more than a half a billion dollars in private investment that we provided in the district.

Um, and we we've done so through the very successful C-PACE program that the DC Green Bank administers and through both of those transactions and transactions that we've done for over a decade in the district.