Irving holds community workshop on affordable housing tools, with residents urging better outreach and targeted rehab funding

City of Irving planning officials and consultants outlined a menu of tools to address the city’s tight housing market and asked residents for input at the fifth public meeting in a four-part affordable housing series.

Steve Reed, director of planning and community development, opened the meeting and introduced Maureen Milligan of the National Development Council, who led a presentation that used a Market Value Analysis (MVA) and maps to show where housing is unaffordable and where aging multifamily housing and concentrated poverty overlap. "In Irving ... the demand for housing at all income levels is higher than the supply," Milligan said, describing limited vacant land and a large stock of older rental units that may need reinvestment.

The presentation summarized existing city tools—Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME funds, a fee-waiver program for projects receiving federal funds, and past support for low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) projects—and proposed additional options including a multifamily rehabilitation loan or grant program, neighborhood empowerment zones (NEZs) that permit locally tailored incentives (fee waivers, tax abatements and project “shepherding”), targeted density bonuses tied to affordable-unit commitments, and leveraging tax-increment financing (TIF) or HUD 108 loans for larger projects.

Milligan and staff walked attendees through trade-offs for program design. On down-payment and purchase assistance, the presentation noted an available purchase-assistance program (presentation referenced 'up to $30,000'); Reed later described four recent city-supported homes where staff provided $50,000 in down-payment assistance to make sales affordable to buyers. Reed described home-repair and accessibility assistance available to low-income owner-occupants, including property assessments and a program that can fund up to about $75,000 for major rehabs with Housing and Human Services Board approval and, in many cases, be forgivable.

Several residents urged practical outreach and program design changes. "The reason why these programs are not being taken advantage of is no one knows about them," one attendee said, urging neighborhood newsletters and in-person outreach for people without internet access. A local realtor warned that small investors buy and flip older homes if homeowners can’t afford needed repairs, and recommended larger, targeted homeowner rehab funds so owners can capture equity rather than sell to investors.

On regulatory limits, Milligan told the room that Texas law significantly constrains local governments’ ability to mandate inclusionary zoning; consequently, many of the tools discussed would rely on negotiated incentives (density bonuses, tax abatements or TIF support) rather than mandatory requirements. Milligan also suggested pairing code-enforcement data with any multifamily rehab program to identify properties most in need and to target limited funds.

What happens next: staff said they will compile answers to the online questions, share the presentation slides and maps on the planning website, accept written note cards and email comments (planning@cityofirving.org), and use resident feedback to shape program design that could require future council resolutions or state-level changes for items such as land banking or homestead preservation districts.

The meeting closed with staff staying afterward for additional feedback and requests for materials to be made easier to find online.