anyone have personal experience with this? my community implemented an affordable housing plan 7 May of this year. the city will loan a developer $1.4 million (from the city workman's compensation fund) in a 40 year 1% non-recourse loan and will also donate the building, surrounding areas, and provide funding or labor for an open-ended amount of infrastructure (sewer, water, electric, parking, parks, landscaping, the list goes on). the projected cost of the development will be $12 million. it will be Section 8 housing, and the mortgage finance authority of NM will be involved.

a local tea party group is attempting to fill a negative referendum petition to put this issue to a vote and the council members and mayor are fighting hard against them. but, for the most part, it seems people are apathetic.

from what i understand, the plan speaks of "smart growth," "green communites" "weatherization" etc. i'm just trying to figure out how this all (including the affordable housing itself) will be tied to any sustainable development.

another concern i have: in the research i've done, cities seem to be getting sued by affordable housing special interest groups-- by both developer and the "consumer advocacy" groups, by not providing enough affordable housing via their AH plans or my trying to retract the plans/funding.

what really gets me is that the city council and mayor (who is a Broker/owner of a real estate agency here interestingly enough) and proponents of this plan (mostly real estate agents) are using the military base's growth in personnel (the base employs over 50% of the people in this area and is growing) and a lack of rentals ("housing crisis") in this town as ammunition for getting the community to accept this plan. This base was on the BRAC in 2005 and this community (and NM Senators) pushed very hard to keep it open, and they succeeded. The mission of the base changed and the local .gov as well as the DoD full well knew that the infrastructure (base and community) here was inadequate but "promised to do something about it". By the way, the new home construction industry here is booming. But, obviously, no builders want to build and rent when they can build and sell. Now, it seems, the local government is using government grants and tax dollars to subsidize housing rehabilitation projects. By the way, the poverty line here is something like 19% (I'm sure that's not including all of the illegal immigrant population), so, go figure. Oh, and our aquifer is running out of water so the community is (has been for something like 10 years now) trying to implement a plan to have water piped in from the nearest body of water which is 70 miles away. brilliant.

i believe i could stir up a hornets nest with the military personnel here, the unfortunate and unique situation in this town is that one must be a registered voter in the city to take part in the petition and the potential vote, but those military members (and spouses) are registered to vote elsewhere.

anyway, sorry for the spiel. if anyone has any words of wisdom or references for me, i'd appreciate it.