General News

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker joined WinnDevelopment and its partners to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new project to transform the Nockege Mill in downtown Fitchburg, MA, into 96 units of mixed-income housing.

An aging 200-unit property, owned by an affiliate of The Community Builders, will be demolished and replaced by modular, prefabricated homes. MassHousing provided $53 million in financing for the transaction, which includes Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and a renewed 20-year Section 8 HAP contract.

HUD designated the Difficult to Develop Areas (DDA) and Qualified Census Tracts (QCT) that will be effective July 1, 2016. This is the first year Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) were used to designate metropolitan DDAs instead of metropolitan-area Fair Market Rents (FMRs).

According to a recent alert from NixonPeabody, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 includes partnership audit reforms.

Enterprise will offer guidance on engaging members of Congress to restore funding to the HOME program through a series of statewide and national webinars. The Senate Appropriations Committee’s proposed cuts to HOME would essentially defund the program.

WinnDevelopment is transforming the historic former Malden Mills manufacturing site into affordable housing. WNC, which provided approximately $12.7 million in low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) equity to fund the adaptive reuse project, announced the completion of Malden Mills Phase II – Loft Five50, comprised of 62 units of affordable housing in Lawrence, Mass.

AIA is seeking entries to its AIA/HUD Secretary’s Awards and AIA Housing Awards. Entries to both are due November 20.

According to the report, states and communities have invested $26 billion in HOME funds–leveraging an additional $117 billion in public and private resources–to build or preserve nearly 1.2 million affordable homes and provide direct rental assistance to 270,000 families at risk of homelessness since 1992.

The LIHTC and bond caps are the greater of $2.35 and $100, respectively, being multiplied by the state’s population, or a predetermined amount. The notice also indicates that rehabilitation expenditures will be treated as a separate new building.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund released the Notice of Allocation Availability for the calendar year 2015 round of the New Markets Tax Credit Program. Applications are due December 16.

After months of back-and-forth with the affordable housing community about proposed changes to tax credit regulations, the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee posted its final proposed version.

House Financial Service Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) is looking for ways to improve HUD programs and USDA rural housing programs. Feedback is due Nov 1.