TAX CREDITS CREATE AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING - 7

TAX CREDITS CREATE AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING

By Steve Wright
While many are trying to make historic tax credits more available for affordable housing preservation, the state of Ohio is among the leaders in setting aside conventional Low-Income Housing Tax Credits for the restoration and preservation of existing units.

Ohio is one of eight states that reserves 25 percent or more of its LIHTC for preservation. To make sure preservation really works on older properties, the state requires extensive rehabilitation work to bring the existing up to modern code, to boost energy efficiency and to upgrade to minimum accessibility standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“We are making a number of efforts to preserve affordable housing,” said Kevin Clark, the Housing Credit Allocation Manager Ohio Housing Finance Agency. “We set aside a quarter of our tax credit allocation for preservation of existing affordable housing -- most for preserving a Section 8 building, or properties financed by HUD, some created with rural development funds and also older tax credit properties, deals that had to be affordable for 15 years but now could go market rate.”