Fort Worth affordable housing developments receive $8 million in tax credits
FORT WORTH — The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs recently announced more than $95 million in housing tax credits to develop or renovate 63 rental properties across Texas to address the affordable housing need.
Eleven of the developments are slated for North Texas.
"It's a big issue for all cities," said Amy Connolly, the assistant director of City of Fort Worth Neighborhood Services. "In the DFW area, growth is just so tremendous."
Fort Worth in particular has been impacted by the population and business boom.
"We're building a lot of apartments and we're building a lot of single-family homes, but we're not really keeping up with the affordable housing need," Connolly said.
According to the city, there's about a 23,000-unit gap in housing affordability in Fort Worth.
"So that ranges from people that are making between 80% of area median income, which is somewhere around $50,000 a year down to people that are making no income," she said.
That's why the city is backing four prospective developments designed to meet the growing need. Each just received $2 million in housing tax credits.
"It is critical," said Alice Cruz, project manager for O-SDA Industries, which is developing three of the four properties given credits. "It's one of the biggest tools to get affordable housing built in any given city. That's urban cities or rural cities. They don't happen without it."
O-SDA Industries plans to turn the former Binyon-O'keefe building downtown into a 95-unit development for seniors. An existing apartment complex on Altamesa Blvd, west of Hulen Ave, will be renovated and will stay affordable for at least 30 years.
The former Victory Arts Center on W Shaw Street will become a 90-unit family community. O-SDA Industries plans to add a high-quality preschool program on the site too.
"To get another pre-K option in that part of town, we think will just be so great," Cruz said. "Not just for our residents, but great for the neighborhood as well to have more resources available to them."
Fort Worth Housing Solutions will put the tax credits toward the continued construction of a massive housing redevelopment in the Stop Six neighborhood. The Former Cavile Place public housing will be replaced with new apartment buildings.
"We want to make sure that we have a thriving economy, and that thriving economy includes people of all incomes and households of all incomes," Connolly said.
None of these projects have broken ground yet, but the city hopes that in about two years, the developments will add around 400 units of new affordable housing in Fort Worth.