To meet the demand for affordable housing, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has announced the availability of more than $95 million in housing tax credits for the development or renovation of 63 rental units throughout the state.
North Texas is the intended location of eleven of the ventures.
According to Amy Connolly, assistant director of City of Fort Worth Neighborhood Services, “it’s a big issue for all cities. In the DFW area, growth is just so tremendous.” Particularly Fort Worth has been affected by the increase in both population and business.
“We’re building a lot of apartments and we’re building a lot of single-family homes, but we’re not really keeping up with the affordable housing need,” Connolly stated.
The city estimates that Fort Worth has a 23,000-unit affordability gap in housing.
“So that ranges from people that are making between 80% of area median income, which is somewhere around $50,000 a year down to people that are making no income,” she stated.
To address this expanding need, the city is supporting four potential developments. Each recently obtained housing tax credits totaling $2 million.
According to Alice Cruz, project manager of O-SDA Industries, which is working on three of the four properties that have been awarded credits, “it is critical. It’s one of the biggest tools to get affordable housing built in any given city. That’s urban cities or rural cities. They don’t happen without it.”.
That applies to both rural and urban areas. They would not occur without it.
O-SDA Industries intends to develop 95 senior housing units in the former Binyon-O’keefe building located in downtown. An affordable apartment complex located west of Hulen Ave on Altamesa Blvd will undergo renovations and remain such for a minimum of thirty years.
There are 90 family units planned on the site of the former Victory Arts Center on W. Shaw Street. On the property, O-SDA Industries also intends to establish a first-rate preschool program.
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“To get another pre-K option in that part of town, we think will just be so great,” Cruz stated. “Not just for our residents, but great for the neighborhood as well to have more resources available to them.”
The tax credits will be used by Fort Worth Housing Solutions to fund the ongoing development of a significant housing redevelopment project in the Stop Six area. There will be new apartment structures constructed in place of the former Cavile Place public housing.
“We want to make sure that we have a thriving economy, and that thriving economy includes people of all incomes and households of all incomes,” Connolly stated.
Although none of these projects have started, the city anticipates that in two years or less, the developments will contribute around 400 new affordable housing units to Fort Worth.
