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McKinney council adopts unified affordable-housing scorecard to evaluate tax-exempt projects
Summary
Council approved a scorecard staff developed with housing partners to evaluate rental projects seeking tax exemptions through McKinney granting entities; the tool sets minimums and scores projects on eight categories including depth of affordability, location and community benefit.
Margaret Lee, McKinney’s housing and community development director, presented a unified affordable-housing scorecard that the city will use as an initial screening tool for rental projects seeking tax-exemption support from local granting entities.
Lee said the draft scorecard — revised since a December presentation and developed in collaboration with the McKinney Housing Authority — is intended to give the city consistent metrics to evaluate projects such as the number of affordable units, level of affordability, housing type, rent-savings-to-tax-exemption ratio, one-time and recurring benefits to granting entities, location and project type.
The scorecard would apply to rental projects only and would set a new minimum of 5% of units at 30% area median income (AMI) to target deeper affordability. Lee said the state’s Government Code enables tax-exempt deals through granting entities including the McKinney Housing Authority and McKinney Housing Finance Corporation and that the scorecard would help the council and those boards review proposals on a consistent basis.
Under the proposed process, developers would submit applications to the granting entity of their choice and staff would perform an initial scorecard screening. Projects that meet the scorecard would be referred to the relevant board or committee, and staff would present scorecard results to the council if the board sought council support. If the council supported a project, staff would prepare a more detailed quantitative analysis for the final board determination.
Council members asked clarifying questions about discretion and the interaction with the market; Lee and staff said the tool preserves council and board discretion and is intended to let the city evaluate proposals on the market’s timeline rather than only through periodic RFQs. After brief discussion, a council member moved to approve the resolution to adopt the affordable housing scorecard; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote.
The council directed staff to present the finalized scorecard to the McKinney Housing Authority and other granting entities for consideration and potential implementation.
