LIHTC Advances

Although the recent tax reform bill has many affordable housing advocates justifiably concerned about a potential drop in affordable housing production through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, there were a couple of recent items of positive news on the LIHTC front – first, the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) released the final version of its"best practices" guide for state Housing Finance Agencies, recommending, among other things, that states’ annual Qualified Allocation Plans (QAPs) should not include extra points or threshold requirements for local municipal approval or financial contributions to a LIHTC development, that QAPs should include meaningful content for the federally required preference for developments consistent with a "concerted community revitalization plan," and that QAPs should balance community development objectives with opportunities for low income families to access housing in lower poverty areas of opportunity. These recommendations reflect more than a decade of advocacy and dialogue at the federal and state level, as well as mirroring the (bi-partisan) fair housing provisions of the 2017 Senate bill (which were unfortunately dropped from the final tax reform bill).