Oregon Private Activity Bond Committee Allocates More than Requested to OHCS Rental Projects, 1/3rd of Request from Lakeview Biomass Plant, and Kills Portland MCC Homebuyer Program.

At the Wednesday meeting of the PABC the Committee made the following 2019 Carry Forward allocations:

• 100% ($248M] of 2019 carryover funding to OHCS for rental housing. This was actually more than the $225M OHCS requested. (The 2019 Oregon legislature also directly allocated to OHCS another $250 million in PAB bonds for the biennium. OHCS also has additional GO supported biennium bond allocations of $200+ million for the LIFT progam and permanently supported housing).
• 0% of the requested $40M to the Portland Mortgage Credit Certificate homebuyer program (which Portland Housing  Bureau staff said accounted for half of new home owners helped by the Portland Housing Bureau). This effectively kills the Portland MCC program.

PABC Allocated $15M to the Lakeview Red Rock Biomass Plant, 1/3rd of Their $45M Request
After an executive meeting closed to the public the PABC allocated $15M from the 2020 allocation to the Lakeview Red Rocks Biomass plant instead of the $45M requested.

Coupled with the $20M recently approved by the Business Oregon Department from their 2020 allocation the total PAB add for Red Rock for 2020 is $35M, instead of a total request of $65M.  [The Red Rock request showed a projected total increase of $95M in uses, so it is not clear what the impact will be from approval of only $35M in total additional PAB sources will be].

Adding to the $245M in prior PAB and Business Oregon Department bond allocations, Red Rock's total PAB allocation is now $280M. [More discussion about the Red Rock project, ,including other subsidies, can be found in my prior post HERE].

The January 22 PABC meeting audio should be posted shortly on the web page HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.