Tue Mar 02, 2010 at 14:51:11 PM EST
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The Gulf Coast can't catch a break, NFL aside. When what the region needs most is investment and opportunity, the economic crisis continues to stunt available options.
And now, a new hurdle. Because of a stipulation in one of the first laws designed to help the area rebuild, affordable housing projects must be completed by the end of 2010 in order to receive a tax credit. In other words, a developer seeking tax relief for a project building affordable homes needs to go from design to occupancy in ten months - a process that normally takes a year-and-a-half.
In an editorial today, the New York Times advocates a solution: move the occupancy date out until 2012, allowing investors more time to see the projects to completion. From the editorial:
Unless Congress moves quickly to pass it, the Gulf states could potentially lose financing for more than 70 housing projects and 6,000 units of affordable housing. The loss would be especially devastating for New Orleans, which is desperately short of housing for the low-income workers who are essential to the city’s service economy.
Reasonable people can disagree on other efforts to reduce the impact of the faltering economy, but it's hard to see where opposition could arise in this effort. In the end, the primary stumbling block may come from an arena outside the realm of political machination: time. |
| Philip Bump :: A Roadblock For Gulf Coast Housing |
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