Posts Tagged ‘Low Income Housing Tax Credit’

Case Study in Excellence: The Birches at Esopus

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

New York, NY:  The New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH) honored Birchez Associates’ affordable senior community, The Birches at Esopus, as Case Study in Excellence at a reception and presentation held in New York City at the REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York) headquarters.

Already recognized by NYSAFAH as Project of the Year — Upstate for 2010, The Birches at Esopus served as a case study in successful public and private partnership, innovative financing, and green energy efficiencies. At its ribbon cutting, the community was also acknowledged as an Energy $mart Building by NYSERDA, in part because 70% of domestic hot water and 30% of the heat comes from solar thermal panels. Further, The Birches at Esopus was one of four national finalists for Senior Project of the Year in Affordable Housing Magazine.

The panel (shown to the right) was introduced by Jay Seiden, Seiden & Schein, PC, and comprised Birchez Associates Founder & Managing Member, Steven L. Aaron, The Honorable John Coutant, Supervisor of the Town of Esopus, John Kelly, Esq. of Nixon Peabody, Marian Zucker of New York State Homes & Community Renewal, Peter King representing the Federal Home Loan Bank – NY, and Rita Wyatt Esq., principal of Wyatt & Co. Judy Wells Aaron and K.J. McIntyre both of Birchez Associates also participated in the presentation. Available for the Q&A were the Town of Esopus clerk, Diane L. McCord, town council member Gloria VanVliet and chair of the planning board Roxanne Pecora (shown in the lower left photo from right to left).

Key topics introduced both by panel participants and the audience included:

  • Finding financing for affordable housing projects and how that has changed in today’s economic market
  • Creating market rate amenities to both attract residents and to fulfill aging in place goals
  • Structuring a public – private partnership and the political courage it takes to succeed in bringing quality affordable housing to a community
  • Changing environment in the now combined DHCR and nyhomes, now New York State Homes and Community Renewal

Attendees included developers, financiers, architects, attorneys and other members of NYSAFAH.

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Challenges in the Affordable Housing Market

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Hudson Valley Business Journal, December 20, 2010:

The New York Hilton hosted the New York Housing Conference (NYHC) and the National Housing Conference 37th annual awards luncheon and symposium “Solutions for a New Landscape.” The role of the NYHC is to advocate for affordable housing policy in Washington DC as well as in New York State. While much of the content and conversation was somber, given the current economic outlook and the result of the midterm elections for Congress, there were some bright spots brought into focus by some symposium speakers. Among these is the case for sustainability in both new building and rehab, and the breadth of the sustainability efforts.

Participants on the panel addressing “Sustainable Financing from Dollars to Development” spoke of the wide-ranging impact of sustainable practices in the affordable housing arena. A Seattle study, which Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., hopes to replicate in New York through a partnership with Mt. Sinai Hospital, demonstrated the impact of air quality improvements during rehab of workforce housing. Emergency room visits were cut to a third, with annual savings of nearly $1,500 in medical costs per family studied. While such savings do not line a developers pocket, they do make an impressive case for the impact of green practices in both rehab and new construction settings. Abby Jo Sigal, Vice President and Impact Market Leader (NYC) for Enterprise, suggests this is one way of getting Washington’s – and Albany’s – attention in funding projects.

Far less hopeful words, such as inertia and gridlock, were heard in the “Affordable Housing Post Midterm Elections” symposium. One area of concern is the lead time new leadership will require in bringing themselves up to speed on housing issues. A Senator’s staff was quoted as anticipating months that would be required to review existing programs before there’s any hope of consideration of new initiatives.

Meanwhile the aptly named “Government Funding Options in Tough Times” symposium addressed the new integrated funding process of New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR). This year under the leadership of Commissioner Brian Lawlor, the former Division of Housing and Community Renewal and NY Homes as well as other housing agencies have been combined into one agency to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the programs while reducing costs. Under this new umbrella the alphabet soup of programs administered include: SONYMA, HTFC, HFA, AHC, MIF, MBBA, TSFC and DHCR.  The agency administers the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program for the state, itself the subject of another symposium.

At the awards banquet approximately 1,500 housing and financial leaders gathered to salute awardees in the affordable housing industry. Among the honorees was the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, saluted for its 20th anniversary year of its Affordable Housing Program. The program has supported more than 1,200 projects with grants totaling more than $350 million, creating more than 50,000 units of affordable housing and generating nearly $6 billion in total development costs.

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Pictured left to right following the awards ceremony: Robert Lehrman, Trustee of the National Housing Conference and Advisory Board Chairman of Lodestone Banking Consultancy Inc., Luncheon Chairman Alfred A. Dellibovi, President and CEO of The Federal Home Loan Bank, Steven L. Aaron, Founder and Managing Member Birchez Associates LLC and Pathfinder Sponsor of the event, Daron Tubian, New York Housing Committee member representing Bank America Merrill Lynch, and Judith Calogero, CEO, New York Housing Conference.

Boost for Affordable Housing

Friday, August 28th, 2009

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In what is good news for upstate builders of affordable housing, a new threshold for loans has been established that will allow smaller commercial lending institutions leeway to invest in affordable and senior housing in their communities.

Before the recession hit, many large banks invested in affordable housing to receive federal tax credits. But as programs and profits dried up, so, too, did such financing. The new program encourages smaller local and regional banks to get involved in affordable housing projects by lowering the minimum investment in a tax credit fund from $1 million down to $250,000, bringing it within reach of smaller financial institutions.

The new equity fund has been established by Great Lakes Capital targeting smaller community based banks and financial institutions to induce them to invest in a Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, called the Upstate New York Community Fund (UNYCF).

The new fund provides an option for financial institutions to invest in their own communities and will provide a double benefit, says James L. Logue III, chief operating officer of Great Lakes Capital Fund.  “Regional banks have a double bottom-line opportunity to do well by doing good,” said Logue. “They can get a good economic return on their investment through tax credits and strong interest rates, and an important social return by supporting affordable housing, stimulating job creation and economic activity, and fulfilling their requirements under the (federal) Community Reinvestment Act.”

“I think it’s important to the entire affordable housing industry in upstate New York,” said Steve Aaron, founder and managing partner of Birchez Associates, a company that has developed and operates four senior public housing projects in Ulster County. “All of us are facing the same problem, the availability of equity through tax credit. This puts another player in the game focused on making these deals in upstate New York work to make sure there is financing available for these projects. It’s a very important step toward addressing what has become a very important problem.”

“The economic crisis has jeopardized the ability of developers to secure funding from some traditional sources,” said Deborah VanAmerongen, commissioner of New York State Division of Housing & Community Renewal. In recent years, much of the funding for affordable housing projects stemmed from tax credit programs from profitable mega-banks. But with those banks suffering losses, there are no profits that require tax credits to offset, and thus no investment.

But most of the nation’s local and regional banks did not embark on the subprime mortgage roller coaster and have not seen losses like bigger banks have suffered. “That’s why we are encouraging our local and regional banks to participate in the Upstate New York Community Fund,” said VanAmerongen.

She was speaking at a meeting of bankers, government officials and community representatives held last month at The Birches at Esopus, one of several senior living communities built by Birchez Associates (with a “z”), and which will have a ribbon cutting ceremony to show off the facility September 3. Aaron said he wanted to host the gathering to show bankers that while the terms affordable housing and affordable senior housing sound scary, the reality is a tidy well-built community that is a sound investment

Modeled after larger national equity funds, the Upstate New York Community Fund will help investors keep their investments local and add to the vibrancy and economic stability of their own communities.  Aaron said that since the meeting was held earlier this summer, officials at Great Lakes have been contacted by various officials from banks throughout the Hudson Valley and upstate to begin investigating investment possibilities.