HCD Infill Infrastructure Notice of Funding Available Released
This afternoon the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has released the $240MM Notice of Affordability for the Infill Set-Aside of PROP 1C. You may download the Department’s explanatory memo, the Final Infill Guidelines, and the NOFA itself at: http://www.hcd.ca.gov/fa/iig/ .
HCD will host workshops for those considering making an application by the April 4 deadline – March 5 (Los Angeles); March 7 (Sacramento); and March 11 (Fresno).
Overview: following a second series of written comments received by the Department on February 4 (including CHC’s letter, attached) and lobbying by Senator Perata, HCD has released the initial $240MM NOFA for the Infill Set-Aside to provide housing-related infrastructure subsidy for mixed-income rental and ownership housing. Among the highlights:
- Qualified Infill Projects vs. Qualified Infill Areas – $50MM will be awarded to Qualifying Infill Projects ($250k to $500k minimum for rural and urban areas, respectively; maximum of $20MM) and $190MM for Qualifying Infill Areas ($1MM to $2MM minimum for rural and urban areas, respectively; maximum $30MM; multi-phased projects of 200+ units may elect to be scored under this pot); this 20-80% split between Projects and Areas differs from HCD’s original proposal of 58%-42% ($140MM-$100MM) and from CHC’s latest recommendation 42%-58% ($100MM-$140MM);
- Regional Distribution – 45% to SoCal, 10% Central Valley, and 45% NoCal (counties enumerated); this is similar to CHC’s latest recommendation of 50-10-40;
- Miscellaneous – density adjustment factors were enhanced to reward projects achieving densities well above the 30-unit-per-acre minimum for urban jurisdictions; scoring criteria still favor rental housing proposals over homeownership housing proposals; and recommendations by CHC and others to adjust affordability scoring to proportionally reflect moderate income targeting were not adopted.
We encourage CHC members to attend HCD’s regional workshops to seek further clarifications on this unprecedented NOFA. Together with the PROP 1C set-asides for brownfield cleanup and transit-oriented development, the Department expects to announce $400MM in awards by June (the end of this fiscal year).
