Consultant outlines housing needs assessment and options: CDBG, missing‑middle housing and Opportunity Zones

Consultant Maureen Milligan of Grow America returned to Richardson City Council to present a housing needs assessment and a set of recommended tactics aimed at addressing home maintenance needs, missing‑middle supply, and affordable rental production.

Milligan identified three priority housing needs: (1) assistance to older, low-income homeowners for home repair and accessibility modifications; (2) more reasonably priced for‑sale housing for families; and (3) well‑maintained rental housing affordable to low‑wage workers. She framed four tactics aligned to those priorities: a CDBG‑funded home repair program (an estimated allocation of just under $700,000 annually was cited as an example), targeted rezoning and code updates to enable missing‑middle housing, pursuing Opportunity Zone designations to attract tax‑advantaged private capital, and creating Housing Finance Corporations (HFCs) and Public Facility Corporations (PFCs) to provide flexible tax/incentive structures for multifamily projects.

Milligan explained constraints and tradeoffs: CDBG funds must be spent on eligible activities (generally rehabilitation and activities benefiting households at or below 80% of area median income) and often require planning and annual reporting. Opportunity Zones offer tax advantages that can lower investor return requirements but do not by themselves obligate affordability; the city could design incentive packages to shape developer proposals. HFCs and PFCs carry legal structures intended to shift certain tax advantages and can be negotiated on a project‑by‑project basis; staff noted that liabilities and deal structures are typically organized to place most construction risk on developers, not the city.

Councilmembers asked detailed questions about income thresholds, program design, capacity to administer federal funds, and guardrails to prevent displacement when using Opportunity Zone incentives. Staff proposed a series of follow-up briefings — with CDBG and HFC/PFC topics in summer/fall and Opportunity Zones and missing‑middle work prioritized in spring/summer to meet external nomination timelines.

Why it matters: Richardson faces rising housing costs and aging housing stock; the presentation laid out practical program options the city could pursue, some of which would require accepting federal funds or creating new municipal entities.

What’s next: Staff will return with deeper briefings on each tactic, legal analysis on whether an HFC/PFC structure is appropriate, and an implementation timeline if the council opts to move forward.