Broward County Commission Regular Meeting
Director's Name: Leonard Vialpando
Department: Resilient Environment Division: Housing Finance Division
Information
Requested Action
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MOTION TO APPROVE gap financing for five affordable housing projects and associated amounts as follows: 1) Sunshine Shipyard LLC, or its affiliate (The Arcadian) at $5,000,000 (100 affordable units out of 478 total units); 2) Pine Island Park, LLC or its affiliate (Pine Island Park) at $5,400,000 (120 affordable units); 3) HTG Vista, Ltd. or its affiliate (Hollywood Vista) at $6,490,000 (118 affordable units); 4) HTG Paramount, Ltd. or its affiliate (Paramount Place) at $6,500,000 (110 affordable units) and 5) Village of the Arts, Ltd. or its affiliates (Village of the Arts) at $5,000,000 (143 affordable units out of 162 total units); authorizing the County Administrator to execute all agreements related to the listed gap financing projects, subject to the foregoing monetary limits and approval as to legal sufficiency by the Office of the County Attorney; and authorizing the County Administrator to take the necessary administrative and budgetary actions. (Commission Districts 6, 8 and 9)
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Why Action is Necessary
Board action is required to approve agreements with outside agencies and to create a new capital project above $25,000.
What Action Accomplishes
Allows the County Administrator to execute agreements for gap financing for five affordable housing projects totaling $28,390,000 (591 affordable units).
Goal Related Icon(s)
☒County Commission
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☐MAP Broward
Previous Action Taken
None taken.
Summary Explanation/Background
THE RESILIENT ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT AND THE HOUSING FINANCE DIVISION RECOMMEND APPROVAL OF THE ABOVE MOTION.
This item supports the Board’s Value of “ensuring residents have an affordable place to live by offering sustainable, compatible, innovative, accessible, affordable housing options for all income levels, including integrated, permanent supportive housing and zoning that helps residents build equity."
On February 9, 2024, the Housing Finance Division issued a Request for Applications (RFA) in the amount of $25,000,000, soliciting affordable housing organizations to utilize “gap” financing for the new construction or acquisition and rehabilitation of multi-family affordable housing rental units. The RFA provided for two funding allocations:
1). Up to $20,000,000 for the new construction or acquisition and rehabilitation of multifamily rental units that are affordable for households whose income is 80% or below the area median income (“AMI”). A maximum of $7,500,000 per project was available and required a minimum of 70 affordable units; and,
2). Up to $5,000,000 for the new construction or acquisition and rehabilitation of multifamily rental units that are affordable for households earning 120% or below the AMI. A maximum of $5,000,000 per project was available and each project was required to have a minimum of 70 affordable units.
The Applications were due on March 22, 2024. Six Applications were submitted in a timely manner and accepted for the RFA. Prior to the Evaluation Committee scoring of the Applications (see Exhibit 1 for the list of all applications submitted and the Evaluation Committee’s scoring/ranking), staff managing the RFA process reviewed all Applications for minimum requirements and Fatal Flaw criteria. All six Applications were deemed responsive to the requirements of the RFA.
The top three ranked projects for the $20,000,000 available for affordable units at 80% or below the AMI were: 1) Pine Island Park; 2) Hollywood Vista; and 3) Paramount Place. The highest ranked Application for the $5,000,000 available for affordable units restricted to 120% or below the AMI was The Arcadian. A total of $25,000,000 in funding was allocated from the Broward County Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) to the RFA. The funding was sufficient to satisfy the funding requests for these four Applications, amounting to a total of $23,390,000, and left $1,610,000 remaining.
The Village of the Arts application received the second highest overall score for the RFA allocation for affordable units at 120% or below the AMI and made a funding request for $5,000,000. With available funds from the Broward County Land Use Mitigation Account (LUMA) ($3,284,450), the remaining ($1,610,000) allocation from the RFA, and rollover funds available from previous projects available in the AHTF ($105,550), the Village of the Arts Application can be funded. The locations of these developments are depicted in Exhibit 2.
After Board approval, a loan agreement and other related loan documents will be drafted for each affordable housing project to be executed by the County simultaneous with the closing of the financing for each project. The terms of the loan agreements will include a minimum term of 50 years for the affordable housing land use restriction and a 0% interest rate loan with a minimum term of 30 years, with the loan to become payable on the maturity date, or upon sale, change of title, or refinancing, whichever occurs first, subject to the provisions of the loan agreement. It should be noted that Pine Island Park, Hollywood Vista, Paramount Place, and Village of the Arts committed to keeping their projects affordable for a minimum of 99 years.
The applicants agree that contractor and vendor awards to County Business Enterprises (CBE) are crucial to the achievement of the County’s CBE participation objectives. Although these RFA’s do not have assigned CBE goals, the applicants agree that whenever possible, every effort will be made to utilize the services of Broward County certified CBE firms and shall include this provision in any subcontract they enter into pursuant to the agreement.
Staff recommends fully funding the five projects for a total of 591 affordable units from the AHTF and LUMA for a total allocation of $28,390,000.
Source of Additional Information
Ralph Stone, Director, Housing Finance Division (954) 357-5320.
Fiscal Impact
Fiscal Impact/Cost Summary
The agenda item proposes to utilize $25,105,550 from the AHTF and $3,284,450 from the Land Use Mitigation Account (LUMA) for new construction of multi-family affordable housing rental units.