Thursday Metro Council Meeting Has Second Reading of Affordable Housing Ordinance Authorizing Use of Existing Revolving Loan Fund.

Metro Council on Thursday will hear the second reading of a carefully worded ordinance that finds that an existing $850,000 Regional Housing Choice Revolving Fund is within its authority to use of specific regional affordable housing uses, even though matching funds originally contemplated have not materialized . (Metro meeting is in Council chambers, starting at 2 PM).

In the Board Packet for the meeting (page 61) HERE, Metro says that the specific use of this fund will be for :

"..loans for a term up to five years that aid in the construction of ownership or rental housing for persons and families of below average incomes in the centers, corridors and station areas designated for growth in Metro’s 2040 Regional Framework Plan, with such available for uses such as pre-development work, land acquisition and construction"

While Metro Council asserts that the ordinance does not require approval from the Metropolitan Policy Advisory Committee, I note that Metro did obtain a positive recommendation from that group at a January 27th MPAC meeting.

Transportation Federal Priorities Resolution Provides Template for Future Similar Metro Support for Federal Housing Funding That I Have Previously Recommended
A resolution on the Thursday metro agenda (page 79) recommends "Metropolitan Regional Federal Transportation Priorities for Federal Fiscal FY 2011" . In my prior December 2009 MS Word letter to Metro HERE my recommendation #3 was that Metro take a similar position in support of federal housing funding (I note that Metro transportation resolution has a project level fine level of detail that would not be useful in a future federal housing support policy statement).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog