Looking for the Nation’s Best Developments

Since 2005, Affordable Housing Finance has recognized some of the most outstanding affordable housing developments across the nation as part of its annual Readers’ Choice Awards.

Past winners have included 990 Polk Street by Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. and Citizens Housing Corp. in San Francisco; Capitol Hill Housing’s Broadway Crossing in Seattle; Community HousingWorks’ Solara in Poway, Calif.; Volunteers of America’s Lord Tennyson Apartments in Hayward, Calif.; Maverick Landing by Trinity Financial, Inc., and East Boston Community Development Corp. in Boston; and Domingo Viernes by Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority in Seattle.

This year will be no exception. I know many projects have been stalled across the nation over the past year, but I still have been receiving a plethora of press releases about projects breaking ground and grand openings. We want to hear about the great projects you’re involved with that were completed in 2009 or that will be completed this year.

You only have 38 days left to turn in those nominations. There is no fee to nominate a development.

You can nominate projects in 10 different categories: family, green, historic rehab, homeownership, master-planned/mixed-use, preservation, rural, seniors, special-needs, and urban.

The editors and industry leaders who are selecting the finalists from the submitted nominations are scoring based on how the projects meet our main award criteria. Please pay attention to the following criteria and showcase these characteristics of your projects in the nomination form. It also aids in the judging process if you submit photos and sources of funding.

• Impact on the community by adding substantially to the affordable housing stock or improving the immediate social or economic fabric
• Role in overall community revitalization or social change
• Sets a new standard or pioneers a new method (taps new funding sources; demonstrates new efficiency in capital costs and/or maintenance/operating costs,  etc.)
• Employs cost-effective or innovative design and/or construction, including energy efficiency and sustainable development
• Offers outstanding social services for tenants
• Received broad community support, including state and local government financial assistance.
• Addresses a unique challenge
• Demonstrates creative problem-solving
• Evidence of cost-effectiveness, i.e., producing housing at substantially below-market rents or home prices, at a reasonable subsidy per unit

The finalists will be featured in the July/August issue of Affordable Housing Finance, and readers will then vote to decide the winners in each of the 10 categories as well as one overall winner. These winners will be honored at a luncheon at AHF Live: The 2010 Affordable Housing Developers’ Summit Nov. 3-5 in Chicago.

Don’t delay, the deadline for nominations is April 16. For more information, download the Readers’ Choice Awards FAQs and the nomination form.