OHCS survey to help plan future changes to 4% LIHTC program

To help OHCS better plan next steps with their 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and Private Activity Bond resources, they are asking developers who are planning projects to use 4% LIHTC with Private Activity Bonds in the coming years to complete a survey. This information will be used to help them anticipate upcoming projects to program these limited resources more efficiently.

Complete 4% / PAB Pipeline Survey HERE

Tax-exempt Private Activity Bonds are federal allocations to each state. If a housing project uses PAB tax-exempt financing for 50% or more of the project costs, then it can also leverage 4% LIHTC. 4% LIHTC is designed to cover 30% of project costs.

Due to increased utilization of 4% LIHTC due to additional State funding, City of Portland and Metro construction bond measures, OHCS has projected they will exhaust 4% resources in 2022. Therefore, OHCS must transition 4% LIHTC from a non-competitive system to a prioritization and competition-based allocation.

Proposed changes will affect LIFT rental, PSH, and Preservation programs that are intentionally designed to leverage 4% LIHTC. Changes would include:

LIFT Rental
• Limiting 4% LIHTC leverage to approximately half of the available LIFT rental resources.
• The remaining half would not be leveraged with 4%, but instead would leverage small projects or those with another source of leverage.
• Allowing under-subscribed LIFT resources to be used to fund net-new units in preservation / redevelopment of sites.

Permanent Supportive Housing
• Restricting 4% LIHTC / PAB leverage to 80% of PSH development uses and establishing a small project path.

Preservation
• Restricting 4% LIHTC leveraging to $40 million in preservation NOFA resources removing 4% LIHTC leverage from Preservation Pool and PuSH resources.