While the City generally uses a 15-or 20-year affordability period in administering its HOME grant program, it imposes a longer affordability period when it subsidizes housing with a grant made from the City’s Affordable Housing Fund or when the affordable housing is created under the City’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance.
In discussing the length of time the affordability period should last under the City’s Guidelines for the Administration of the City’s Affordable Housing Fund, Alderman Edmund Moran, 6th Ward, said at the City’s Planning and Development Committee meeting held on April 23, 2007, that the City should use the longest affordability period that could be obtained. He said the longer the affordability period, the more the City was leveraging the community’s investment in the property.
Under the guidelines adopted by City Council, if the City provides $30,000 or more from its Affordable Housing Fund to subsidize a housing unit, then the home is subject to a resale restriction “for as long as allowable by law.” During the affordability period, the property must be sold to a qualified household earning 100 percent or less of the Area Median Income. The sale is to be at a price that includes the original subsidized price, plus three percent per year, plus certain capital improvements to the home.
In a similar fashion, the City’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance provides that any affordable housing units required under the ordinance “shall remain affordable in perpetuity or as long as allowable by law.”