icon Blueprint for January

Build On

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3 min read

In order to get our editorial and design staff home for the holidays, we are putting this issue to bed a week before the leaders of both houses of Congress ascertain they will vote on tax change. At this juncture, we are still not certain what, if anything, may go through. But it does seem as if strong, smart advocacy by our industry and, perhaps, just plain common sense will preserve the programs we depend upon.

The threats over the past couple of months to private activity bonds, New Markets and Historic Tax Credits and other funding tools have been disconcerting—but not defeating. Though I have only sat in this editor’s chair for a few years, I have been observing the affordable housing industry for a few decades through my brother Peter Bell, NH&RA’s president and CEO, and I have continually admired the members’ ability to weather storms via creativity. Be it confronted by a Savings & Loan crisis or a Great Recession, you have continued to build.

Inspired by this history, rather than reeling, the recent threats invigorated us to look at alternatives to the most common current practices of funding and developing. And, so, this past month we dispersed our writing staff to look at creative approaches that would survive any potential program eliminations.

We begin this section with “The Big ‘What If?’” in which staff writer Mark Fogarty surveys a variety of affordable projects, both new and preserved, currently in development that have been funded by means other than tax credits. This is followed by the first in a series of stories we are planning over the next few months on cost containment strategies as staff writer Mark Olshaker provides a corporate profile of Katerra, an exciting multi-dimensional development and construction firm devoted to adapting methods that have boosted other Silicon Valley products to their industry. Depending upon prefabrication and its own trained construction team, Katerra constructs a 24-unit building in just two weeks.

Olshaker also reports on a panel discussion at NH&RA’s Fall Forum in Boston in November that explored preservation funding tools conceived and provided by different localities (states and cities) as opposed to the federal government. (Local Preservation Tools) And, just to reiterate and keep present the contribution made to communities and their residents by the availability of private activity bonds, Fogarty speaks with some of those who have utilized them about their impact.

In the face of recent hurricanes and fires, we thought it important to look at how what we do contributes to relief efforts. And so columnist David A. Smith shares his thoughts on city’s approaches to reconception (The Guru Is In) and Scott Beyer finds one viable and rapid solution (Housing in the Face of Disaster)

Everybody likes a good ending, so in this issue we introduce a new feature to conclude your journey through our pages called “Game Changer,” which will look at breakthrough projects that were precursors of trends. We kick off with Jessica Hoefer’s discussion of a new documentary feature about the Manhattan Plaza complex that established the value to a community of artist housing and has been the early home for many stars, including Alicia Keyes and Larry David. (Miracle on 42nd Street)

By the time you receive this issue, we will be into a new year and the staffs of both the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association and Tax Credit Advisor wish you, your loved ones and your colleagues a happy, healthy, productive and successful 2018.

Marty Bell
Editor