No waivers for TE bond disaster housing

In the comments section attached to Saturday's Rita/Katrina item, an anonymous reader made an excellent point: that while IRS has issued waivers through Notice 2005-69 to help house Katrina evacuees in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties, there does not appear to be any corresponding waiver for properties financed with tax-exempt private activity bonds. A further comment cites the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority guidance for LIHTC owners wishing to house Hurricane Katrina victims, which writes:

Important! – Please note that the Notice does not refer to projects financed with tax-exempt bonds. Those projects must still comply with federal tax law requirements.

AHF Senior Editor Cynthia Hunter checked with a source and wrote additionally:

A prominent housing finance agency official who prefers to remain anonymous provided Affordable Housing Finance magazine with his take on the matter:

My understanding is that only LIHTCs are covered by the notice, not the separate bond requirements. From what I've heard, the IRS does not consider it to have the same ability under the statute to waive those two requirements.

Many thanks for this clarification to all concerned. And if anyone else has information or thoughts on the bonds issue do please post it in the comments thread to this item up here where new visitors will be more likely to see it.

Incidentally, this is just the kind of information-sharing community discussion that we hope will begin to happen more often in our comments sections here.