Oregon Housing & Community Services announced $30 million in funding availability on a first come, first served basis for The Affordable Housing Land Acquisition Program (LAP) starting April 1, 2022. Approximately $12 million is set-aside for multifamily development.
The purpose of LAP is to assist eligible organizations in Oregon to purchase land suited for affordable housing development (see OAR chapter 813, division 037). Eligible organizations include the following:
- Local governments;
- Local housing authorities;
- Nonprofit community or neighborhood-based organizations;
- Federally recognized Indian tribes in Oregon; and
- Regional or statewide nonprofit housing assistance agencies.
Successful loan recipients will demonstrate sound experience and strong development capacity. LAP is a revolving loan program intended to assist with site acquisition for eventual use as affordable housing; LAP is not a short-term acquisition bridge financing program.
Oregon Housing and Community Services also released a new permanent rule for its Land Acquisition Revolving Loan Program (LAP). The rule changes reflect references to an updated version of the program guidelines, clarify definitions and descriptions and update statute reference numbers in response to the 2021 legislative session (HB-5006), which provided another $30 million of resources for funding loans to purchasers of naturally occurring affordable housing stock or land upon which housing will be developed. OHCS determined that $20 million of these resources will be infused into the already established and successful LAP program and this program has been broken down to target location specified funds and set asides for culturally specific organizations. The rule is effective as of March 1.
