Cook County isn’t alone in its shortage of employee housing, and the county is expressly mentioned in a workforce housing tax credit bill that looks like it has some legs in the legislature.
The bill authored by Rep. Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, if passed, would create a refundable workforce housing tax credit. It would also allocate $40 million (spread from 2018 to 2023) to the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) to give to people who invest in developments that qualify under the bill’s provisions.
To date, the House Job Growth and Energy Affordability Policy and Finance Committee approved HF1020 and sent it to the House Taxes Committee. A companion bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Goggin, R-Red Wing, awaits a hearing by the Senate Taxes Committee.
The credits would equal 40 percent of the investor’s investment, to a maximum of $1 million for a $2.5 million investment. Multiple investors in a single qualifying project would each be eligible.
The definition of a qualified investor is one that has been certified by the commissioner and a qualified workforce housing project is one where market rate residential rental properties with a minimum of three dwelling units at an average construction cost per unit of no more than $250,000 and no less than $75,000 per unit, receive more than half its financing from other sources and not include funding that requires tenants’ incomes to fall under set limits, or that is for flood recovery.
The bill was crafted to fill the need for housing outside the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area, in low-population density areas (specifically including Cook County), cities with at least 500 jobs and areas within 15 miles of a city where the rental housing vacancy rate has been no higher than 4 percent for two of the last five years.
Cook County isn’t mentioned by name, but is singled out by legal definition when the bill cites “Greater Minnesota means the areas of Minnesota located outside the metropolitan areas as defined in section 473.121, subdivision 2, which was written for Cook County: (e) joint county-city economic development authority means an economic development authority, formed under Laws 1988, chapter 516, section 1, as a joint partnership between a city and a count and excluding those established by the county only.”
Hamilton’s bill is different because it is aimed at filling the gap between housing for lower income people and higher income people who own houses or choose to live in expensive rental units.
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