As Fair Shot February Kicks Off, Mayor Bowser Announces First Ever Housing Production Trust Fund Investment in Ward 3

As Part of $135 Million in New HPTF Awards, Over 800 Homes from 10 Total Projects Will Be Delivered

(Washington, DC) – Today, Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) announced the selection of 10 projects from the Priority Evaluation round of the 2021 Consolidated Request for Proposals (RFP), including the first project applied and awarded in Ward 3. The selections are made possible by Mayor Bowser’s historic $400 million investment in the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) in Fiscal Year 2021 and 2022, which brought the Mayor’s total HPTF investment since 2015 to $1 billion. The financial plan also features Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP) funding to better target funds to deeply affordable units at or below 30% of the Median Family Income (MFI), or about $38,700 for a family of four.

“I set bold goals for new housing, for new affordable housing, and for new affordable housing in every neighborhood of the District because we know where you live affects your pathway to the middle class,” said Mayor Bowser. “Today’s selections move us closer to all three of those goals and particularly getting us to a more equitable distribution of affordable housing in the city.”

The selected projects requested $135,500,000 in Housing Production Trust Fund and federal gap financing along with a mix of Local Rent Supplement Vouchers and 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credits. These investments will produce 797 net new units of affordable housing while preserving 30 units of affordable housing through substantial rehabilitation of a cooperative. During further underwriting, DHCD comprehensively vets every aspect of the project and negotiates the final development program and the type and amount of subsidy resources. This Consolidated RFP has two application windows and today’s selections exemplify the District’s highest priorities, including location and shovel readiness, set in the RFP. The second application window closes on February 15 and additional selections will be made later this Spring.

“In May, Mayor Bowser announced a historic $400M investment for the Housing Production Trust Fund that helped us clear the clog of projects awaiting funding and get them moving to construction and will now deliver new funding to more critical projects,” said Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development John Falcicchio. “These selections today only confirm what we already know – to deliver housing affordability, we need more investment in our affordable housing toolkit if we have any chance of hitting our goals, especially in high opportunity areas.”

These new projects will now move into DHCD’s affordable housing underwriting pipeline and include:

• Ontario KEB (Ward 1) – This project will produce 52 net new units of affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Jubilee Housing, Inc.
• Lisner Independent Affordable (Ward 3) – This project will produce 93 net new units of affordable, senior housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Lisner Home, Inc., and Urban Atlantic.
• Aspen Street Cooperative (Ward 4) – This project will preserve 30 units of affordable housing through substantial rehabilitation of an existing limited equity cooperative. Housing Provider: Aspen Street Cooperative, Inc.
• Fort Totten Senior (Ward 4) – This project will produce 93 net new units of senior, affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing and EYA in partnership with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.
• Edgewood Commons V (Ward 5) – This project will produce 151 net new units of affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Enterprise Community Development, Inc.
• 2911 Rhode Island Avenue (Ward 5) – This project will produce 101 net new units of affordable housing at a range of incomes. Housing Provider: Lincoln Westmoreland Housing, Inc.
• NoMa/Union Market Affordable (Ward 6) – This project will produce 115 net new units of affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Marshall Heights Community Development Corporation and NRP Holdings LLC.
• Dix Street Residences (Ward 7) – This project will produce 47 net new units of affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Atlantic Pacific Communities and Nix Development Company.
• Hope View Apartments (Ward 8) – This project will produce 48 net new units of affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: T&H Mid-Atlantic and Anacostia Economic Development Corporation.
• Wagner Senior (Ward 8) – This project will produce 67 net new units of affordable housing at a range of income levels. Housing Provider: Miller Housing and Justice Housing, Inc.

This announcement follows Mayor Bowser’s housing update given in December 2021 highlighting the need to do more to meet the planning areas goals set in the 2019 Housing Equity Report. Through this priority round, the District made even more clear its intentions to fund projects in these priority areas while focusing on shovel ready projects that will produce affordable housing targeting the lowest income households. Mayor Bowser also announced new tools that will be coming online this spring to spur construction of new affordable housing units, including a tax abatement for affordable housing in high opportunity areas, a pilot program to covenant individual units in the Rock Creek West planning area, and a pilot program to finance the construction of accessory apartment units. 

“Our priority focus on high opportunity areas, to build net new units targeting extremely low-income households, has allowed us to bring projects into the pipeline that more directly reflect our push to make the District a more equitable, inclusive city,” said Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) Interim Director Drew Hubbard. “We look forward to the second window of this RFP to close on February 15 for the opportunity to add even more projects to our affordable housing pipeline.”  

At the start of her second term, Mayor Bowser set a bold goal to deliver an additional 36,000 units of housing – including at least 12,000 units of affordable housing – by 2025. By further equitably distributing these goals across the District’s ten planning areas, Mayor Bowser made DC the first jurisdiction in the nation to create affordable housing goals by neighborhood. From January 2019 through December 2021, the District has produced 20,603 net new units, of which 3,590 are affordable. You can track the District’s progress toward #36000by2025 at open.dc.gov/36000by2025.