Affordable housing and market-rate projects are not that different from each other, Innovan Neighborhoods founder and managing partnerThe land, construction and quality are the same for affordable housing developments as it is for market-rate communities. The main differentiator, Parker explained, is the source of funding.
The participating developers combined have built over 400 single-family homes, 25 multifamily projects and more than 20 commercial real estate projects, Parker said. All of the above. Usually, for affordable housing, you're using things like tax credits. You’re using some sort of federal funding, community development block grants, or you're using HOME dollars, which is another federal program. There's a laundry list of different sources. Some of them may come from the local government, the county, the federal government or the philanthropic sector.
It's important to think about the administrative components. Depending on your source of funds, you may have to hire people at a certain wage, or you may have to have a certain percentage of the project that has MWBE requirements. Those are all things that you have to document. I’m really big on checking the neighborhood plans for the areas because that usually gives me some sense of where the community wants to what. If you can’t build whatever, then when you have to get a zoning change. They’ll want you to reference the neighborhood plan. So that’s another resource to give some guidance. Between that and building relationships with the local community and those in the decision-making position, those are probably the key things on the zoning side.