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Mayor's office outlines revisions to Inclusionary Housing procedures to speed sales and strengthen rental monitoring
Summary
The Mayor's Office of Housing presented updates to the Inclusionary Housing Procedures Manual, proposing loan preapproval, a pricing cushion for new ownership units, expanded rental monitoring and land-dedication rules; the changes will require conforming ordinance amendments and return for formal approval.
The Mayor's Office of Housing presented a package of changes to the city's Inclusionary Housing Procedures Manual on Nov. 8, describing a mix of consumer-facing clarifications and developer-focused adjustments intended to speed sales and strengthen monitoring.
Shaundra Egan of the mayor's housing office said the manual clarifies financing rules and adds a loan preapproval requirement for buyers to make sale transactions quicker and more reliable: "We've collected about $50,000,000 in affordable housing fees through the program to build deeply affordable housing," she told the Planning Commission, noting the program has produced about 1,200 units since 1992. The presentation said the manual would add a modest "cushion" in qualifying income for some new ownership units to help otherwise-qualified buyers obtain loans.
The presentation also laid out several changes to the rental program, including new monitoring and recertification requirements for below-market-rate (BMR) rentals, allowable reasons to reject or evict tenants (nonpayment, nuisance, illegal use, lease breach) and a plan to move re-rentals onto a lottery system rather than first-come, first-served. Staff said recertification will require annual or biannual reporting by owners and tenants.
For developers, the manual clarifies timing and review for off-site units, ties certificate-of-occupancy timing to off-site delivery, and sets out due-diligence steps for land-dedication in eastern neighborhoods. Several changes (SRO pricing, pricing cushions, income-target adjustments after marketing) will require ordinance revisions before they take effect; presenters said they will return to the commission in December with conforming legislation.
Commissioners asked for more demographic and program-performance data in the packet when the matter returns, including how many units used down-payment assistance and how many households actually live in the city and work in the jobs the city tracks. Egan said the office will supply additional data in follow-up materials and that the manual is intended to increase transparency and to reduce the time a unit sits unsold by ensuring buyers are loan-ready.
