The Connecticut Housing Finance Authority’s (CHFA) Small Multifamily Rental Development Strategyand the Palm Beach County Workforce Housing Program (WHP) have been selected as finalists for the 2015 Robert C. Larson Housing Policy Leadership Awardby the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing. The annual program recognizes exemplary state and local programs, policies, and practices that support the production, rehabilitation, or preservation of affordable and workforce housing.
The finalists were selected by a jury of renowned housing experts. The winner, which will be selected by the jury later this year, will be announced at the ULI Fall Meeting in San Francisco, October 5–8.
“These finalists are making a positive difference in the lives of people who live and work in their communities by encouraging the much-needed development of housing that is affordable to the workforce,” said Patrick L. Phillips, ULI global chief executive officer. “We are pleased to recognize their efforts through the Larson Award program.”
The CHFA Small Multifamily Rental Development Strategy is designed to help meet the needs of the state’s small multifamily developments, which make up a substantial share of the affordable housing stock but often struggle from lack of access to technical expertise and financial resources.
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CHFA conducted an assessment of the market and determined that nearly 10 percent of housing units in Connecticut are in structures with five to 19 units. CHFA’s strategy centers on a partnership with the state’s community development finance institutions (CDFIs), which provide the knowledge and capacity to serve smaller properties and their owners with financing and technical assistance. Since formation of the partnership, the CDFIs have financed more than 2,200 units of affordable and mixed-income housing in Connecticut.
CHFA’s other strategies to serve small multifamily properties include an innovative partnership designed to revitalize small underused properties in downtowns, and a new fund to support the creation of affordable housing as part of transit-oriented development near rail and bus rapid transit lines.
Together, these efforts to meet the needs of small multifamily properties are seeking to increase the affordable housing stock in the state, bring vacant and blighted properties back into productive use, and help revitalize downtowns and low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
Palm Beach County’s WHP is an inclusionary zoning program created to help counter the effects of the dramatic rise in the county’s median housing prices between 1995 and 2005. The WHP— developed through a task force with representatives from the building, economic development, and advocacy communities—calls for a percentage of units in certain new residential developments to be affordable to households earning 60 to 140 percent of the area median income.
These households earn too much to qualify for typical housing assistance programs but still struggle to afford the high cost of housing in the area. Thirty-six development approvals with an affordable component associated with WHP have been completed since the program was initiated.
The goals of WHP are to provide affordable housing opportunities to meet identified needs with limited public expenditures; create economically diverse communities; reduce the impact of overly concentrated areas of affordable housing; and allow for housing near dispersed employment opportunities.