Albemarle County Chief Human Services Officer Kaki Dimock outlined revisions to the county’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund review process during the May 20 Board of Supervisors meeting.
When Albemarle’s fiscal year begins on July 1, there will be $7 million set aside by the Board of Supervisors to help keep the cost of housing down—at least for some places.
“The Affordable Housing Investment Fund was created in 2019 with the intention to fund projects that created or preserved affordable housing in several forms, including rental units and home ownership,” said Kaki Dimock at the May 20 Board of Supervisors meeting.
Earlier this year, supervisors delayed a vote on awarding about $4 million in the first cycle to go through a competitive process. The elected officials had questions about the role staff was playing in the review process and, as a result, made a change to the protocol.
“We believe it’s important for the Office of Housing staff to not be formal reviewers to avoid the potential appearance of bias, but also want to make sure that their expertise is available to our outside experts,” Dimock said.
The application window for the second cycle will open July 1.
Construction for affordable housing is just as expensive as market-rate work, so projects need multiple layers of financing. An earlier deadline allows for projects to be better suited to earn tax credits requiring rents to be held below market rate.
“There are certainly other sources of funds and community foundations that people will be seeking,” Dimock said. “And we want it to not be in the way of your budget decision-making process.”
The Board will be asked to approve staff recommendations on October 8 and the review team will comprise different people, including some from the development community.
Each project will be reviewed by a team of experts on how well it meets certain criteria. Points will be given for site readiness, the development team’s experience, budget, and consistency with Albemarle’s policies.
Until the current fiscal year, there was no dedicated source of revenue for the fund until supervisors assigned 0.4 cents of a real property tax rate increase to AHIF, generating $1.2 million a year. The rest comes from transfers from other county funds, including $2 million that otherwise would have been spent on economic development.
Neil Williamson of the pro-business Free Enterprise Forum said the county should instead consider using money from the housing fund to cover some of the costs to build affordable units.
“What if AHIF paid all the connection fees for all housing developed as affordable under Housing Albemarle?” Williamson asked.
The Albemarle County Service Authority doesn’t give breaks on water and sewer connection fees. According to the draft FY2027 budget, tap fees paid by developers will increase from $15,000 per unit to $16,500.
Supervisor Ned Gallaway said the county should work with the ACSA to help lower the cost of units.
“The growth that we see in this county is luxury market growth,” Gallaway said. “Affordability is about retaining people. It’s not a growth tool. This is a human retention tool.”
Dimock said connection fees could be studied as an incentive for affordable housing and that could be discussed on August 5 when supervisors will be asked to review and renovate the county’s overall housing policy, which was first adopted in July 2021.
