In November 2013, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted 7-1 to sell 8.5 acres of town-owned land on Legion Road to Durham-based affordable housing developer, DHIC, Inc, for $100 (the property was valued at $2 million) for the development of 170 units of affordable housing. One of the steps in that development was the need for DHIC to apply for tax credits from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to assist with funding for the development.
On Monday, DHIC president Greg Warren announced that, because a document was missing from the application, the application had been eliminated from consideration. Because of the incomplete application, DHIC must wait until 2015 to apply for the opportunity again, delaying the completion of an important affordable housing project as we continue to face a housing crisis.
Friends and allies for affordable housing in Chapel Hill---
Most of you have probably heard that the Legion Road tax credit project did not receive positive newson Friday from the NC Housing Finance Agency. We at DHIC are extremely disappointed that we were not successful in the competition.
The application was rejected because it was deemed incomplete since it did not include a commitment letter from DHIC to the to-be formed project ownership entity verifying our agreement to contribute $300,000 of our own funds to the project. Shortly before the application due date in mid-May, we decided that DHIC funds were necessary to compete effectively with other low-cost communities in the central region of NC--- this is not something that we do on a regular basis.
We had hoped that the NC Housing Finance Agency would accept our overall assurance that the application was complete and true but this was not the case. While it is difficult to be definitive, we think that the project would have had a good chance of winning a tax credit award had it not been thrown out of the competition.
The Town of Chapel Hill and the DHIC team have expended considerable time and money positioning this project to go forward and we are very disappointed that this much-needed housing will be delayed. But we are also confident that it can secure funding in the future.
For our part, we are willing to try again and submit another tax credit application for this property in 2015. The NC Housing Finance Agency has the option of revising its application selection process and we hope that promoters of affordable housing in Chapel Hill will actively participate with DHIC in advocating for changes that ensure that worthy projects like what we proposed are supported in the future.
You have been great champions for the cause of affordable housing in your community and supportive of DHIC’s work and we hope that we can move beyond this setback and secure the financing that will allow us to go forward to produce quality affordable rental housing in Chapel Hill.
Thank you again and we will be in touch-
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