What One Stimulus Buck Could Do

Sounds like a fantasy, but Santa Fe-based architect Edward Mazria has done the math, and his “14x” plan, which he calculates will generate $14 in private spending for every stimulus buck spent, is creating major buzz in city halls and statehouses across the country.

Mazria was in Washington, D.C., last week pitching his plan to senators, administration officials, and perhaps more importantly, to a luncheon crowd of about 250 mayors, council members, and county commissioners at a national climate change summit hosted by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).

… The politicians were riveted by Mazria’s talk, says Michelle Wyman, ICLEI’s executive director. They even stopped eating to pay closer attention, and when Mazria finished his spiel, they gave him standing ovation. “You could almost see in the audience light bulbs going on as he put flesh on the skeleton of his concept,” says Mayor Patrick Hays of North Little Rock, Ark. “It was like a preacher giving a sermon and by the end we were singing out of the same hymn book and there were ten or twelve of us lining up to be baptized.”

This is real. The idea is that instead of using municipal stimulus money for a one-off project, it’s used to pay points on a mortgage refinancing for a private borrower getting them a lower interest rate as long as that borrower makes energy efficiency investments in the property. Click through for more detail. Brilliant.