Dear Orange County Commissioners: (Cc Manager Hammersley and Director Root)
I hope this note finds you well and preparing to have a restful holiday.
Although we originally sent the below message to Chapel Hill leaders, Dan Levine (Ccd) and I thought it might be of general interest to you too. We hope it provides some helpful information. Have a wonderful holiday season and let us know if the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition’s members can ever be of assistance in the county’s housing efforts.
Thank you for your attention and for your public service,
Jennifer Player, 2020-2021 Co-Chair of OCAHC
Dan Levine, 2021-2022 Co-Chair of OCAHC
From: Dan Levine
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2021 12:18 PM
To: mayoran...@townofchapelhill.org
Cc: man...@townofchapelhill.org; Sarah Vinas (svi...@townofchapelhill.org) <svi...@townofchapelhill.org>;
Jennifer Player <jpl...@orangehabitat.org>
Subject: LIHTC Information and Support
Dear Mayor Hemminger and Town Council, Cc to Housing Advisory Board members (please forward), Manager Jones, and Director Viñas,
I hope this message finds each of you well. We are writing on behalf of the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition (http://www.orangehousing.org/), in order to share some thoughts on how the Town can and should continue to support development of affordable multifamily rental housing, which as you know is a critical part of the housing continuum for lower income community members.
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is easily the most significant affordable rental housing production program in the country, but until recently was rarely used in Chapel Hill. There have been a total of 10 competitive LIHTC awards to Orange County (just 4 in Chapel Hill) for new construction in the last 30+ years. This compares to 30 such developments in Durham, 26 in Buncombe, 40 in Guilford, and 96 in Wake County. (You can look up multifamily funding awards by jurisdiction and/or by other criteria at https://www.nchfa.com/rental-housing-partners/rental-developers/find-awarded-projects.) We are happy the history of little LIHTC development in the county is changing, with Greenfield Place and Greenfield Commons (Legion Road) and Perry Place (Merritt Mill) as recent examples.
We hope that Carraway Village, Jay Street and Trinity Court will be additional examples of successful LIHTC development in the near future. While we are not familiar enough with the details of each of these three proposed projects to be able to comment on the proper financing approach and sequencing to maximize impact and minimize local subsidy required, we do want to share some general thoughts presuming they will all be LIHTC developments. It’s important to understand several responsibilities of the Town to support developments that utilize LIHTC as a funding source:
Once the LIHTC funding award is made, which is usually August, there will be additional expectations of the Town—e.g., the Town will need to be sure that all its site/building review and inspection processes are well-coordinated to meet the tight deadlines for placing the developments in service.
Please let us know if we can provide any additional information as you continue to learn about what the Town can do to increase the success of its housing partners. For example, the OCAHC includes four nonprofit partners who have developed or are in the midst of developing LIHTC projects—DHIC, CASA, Self-Help, Community Home Trust—and can help address any questions or concerns. Affordable housing development requires leadership, expertise, land, and subsidy; you have the power to continue to provide each of these key ingredients and we look forward to supporting your efforts. Presuming that the Town wants to have developers submit 9% tax credit applications for both Jay Street and Trinity Court, we look forward to your vote on January 12th to grant site control from the Town to the developers to allow funding applications to happen in the 2022 LIHTC 9% cycle.
Sincerely,
Dan Levine, 2021-2022 Co-Chair
Jennifer Player, 2020-2021 Co-Chair