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County staff outlines split between 100% affordable program and workforce housing incentives
Summary
County staff described a reworked housing incentive framework that separates a 100% affordable program (aimed at projects using low-income housing tax credits) from a workforce policy that targets mixed-market developments; committee members said they will review the policies at a later meeting.
County staff briefed the Committee on Finance on two separate incentive policies intended to target different housing needs: a 100% affordable housing program and a workforce housing policy aimed at partially market-rate developments.
Mister Norris, who said he helped draft the policies, told the committee the prior 2022 policy combined workforce and affordable housing and had been used in several deals. "We have taken it to, be applied to only projects that are a 100% affordable as opposed to before it was kind of tiered," Norris said, describing the reworked approach. He said the county and staff decided to split the single policy into two separate tracks to better fit the types of projects the county wants to incentivize.
Under the revised 100% affordable program staff described, projects must be fully affordable and target income tiers originally expressed as 40/60/80 AMI but later amended by a council motion to 30/50/70, with a strong emphasis on units at or below 50% of area median income. Norris said supportive services (financial counseling and other services) are required and that the policy contemplated that the cost of those services could amount to "approximately 50% of the anticipated dollar value of the credits." The policy leaves the special source revenue credit (SSRC) at county discretion up to 50% and sets the potential term at 20 years.
By contrast, the workforce policy is intended for developments that are not necessarily fully subsidized: those projects can include a mix of market-rate and workforce units. Norris described AMI thresholds in the workforce policy that start higher (for example, 60% and 80% AMI levels) and said the SSRC under that policy would start at 20% and could reach up to 50% with monitoring and annual certification required.
Norris also said the policies are designed so projects already using federal or state low-income housing tax credits would be directed to the 100% affordable program rather than the workforce track. Council members asked clarifying questions about location requirements, and Norris said there is no specific location requirement in the workforce policy text, though projects must be placed into a multi-county park to receive certain credits and county consent is required if a project is inside a municipality.
Committee members did not take a vote on either policy at this meeting. Chairman Blunt said the committee would "take that up at a different time" to allow council members to review the materials further before any formal action.
The briefing outlined differences in income targeting, monitoring, SSRC structure and supportive services between the two policies and indicated county staff and counsel will return to committee with any recommended edits and proposals for implementation details.
