QCTs/DDAs published for tax credit housing

[UPDATED]

It's a big day for the tax credit business: this morning's Federal Register carries the annual HUD notice designating Qualified Census Tracts (QCTs) and Difficult Development Areas (DDAs) for recipients of low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC).

The labels go to either individual census tracts or larger areas where affordable housing development is considered particularly challenging due to high contrast between local incomes and local housing costs. Projects in these designated areas receive a 30% boost in tax credits.

This year it's only the DDAs that are changing: the QCTs remain as before -- mercifully for local developers' ability to plan. The relatively early timing of the announcement is also a boost to developers' planning; the previous announcement fell in November 2004, and HUD acknowledged around the same time that the announcement before that one, in December 2003, had caused difficulties for projects whose designations were changed on so little notice.

This year's DDA list may, however, provoke a different kind of controversy, as the figures used for "housing costs" are HUD's much-criticized Fiscal 2005 "Fair Market Rents." For these, and also for background and previous announcements on the DDAs/QCTs, see the "Data Sets" section of HUDUSER.