Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

In case you haven’t already noticed, this issue of Tax Credit Advisor clearly demonstrates that the 50 states and the District of Columbia are at the vanguard of developing innovative housing solutions.

A small city, or even a small town, doesn’t have to have a small housing footprint. Cases in point: National City, CA, where a tiny staff works on big affordable projects, and Kittery, ME, a place so small it doesn’t have its own housing department but still dreams of attracting tax credit deals.

The tax credit equity market was relatively stable in 2019, but there is change in the air for 2020. We came heartbreakingly close to a flat four percent Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) for bond-financed projects in the year-end funding and tax extenders package, which gives us reason to be hopeful in 2020.

After eight years of struggling for the attention of Governor Jerry Brown, who seemed to prefer speed rail to housing, the affordable housing industry appears to be more of a priority of the administration of Governor Gavin Newsom, who took office in 2019. The nation’s most populated state includes five of the country’s ten most expensive cities to live in along its coast.

“Our agency has no power to make people do anything. We can only convince through advocacy and stories,” says Rebecca Davis, deputy director of Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).

There’s a sentiment among housing analysts and advocates—whether right or wrong—that the market can’t fully produce affordable housing. Especially in overheated real estate climates, like New York City and San Francisco, where land values are high and building lots of housing in certain neighborhoods will not necessarily make housing affordable in those neighborhoods. Instead, if they’re to be available to all income groups (which is a worthwhile goal given the economic and health benefits of living in good neighborhoods), policies need to be more intentional. The government, goes the thinking, needs to directly spur affordable housing production in these overheated areas.

When it comes to housing innovation urgency, states are where the action is. Stories in this issue ably document what and how, and as a big-picture counterpoint, allow me to tell you why, and what that means for your state.

An idea that got its start at a kick-the-tires session about the future of Indianapolis four years ago has blossomed into an at least $15 million effort to enhance transit-oriented housing development (TOD) along that city’s expanding bus routes.

In the summer of 2017, a collection of institutions bet on the idea of “healthy” developments and neighborhoods. Seeing the health disparities in different parts of metro Boston, they financially backed the construction of buildings designed to spur good health outcomes for residents.

There is a lot of noise both in the air and on the air. A lot of loud and fast talking and a fear of listening. I like to view our magazine as a thoughtful sanctuary from the fracas, a rest stop where you can quietly and patiently mull over ideas, innovations and transactions.