Charlottesville issues public notice of funding for affordable housing projects

One of the directives in the Affordable Housing Plan adopted by City Council in March 2021 was to reform the way funding is provided. 

“Establish clear, transparent, and competitive processes to award grants and loans for affordable housing,” reads page 13 of the plan, which also calls for reform of the Housing Advisory Committee and creating a new committee to make recommendations on funds. 

Ultimately decisions rest with the elected members of City Council who officially vote to approve  the funding after staff has run applications through public processes. That begins with a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for four pools of money. 

• There’s $823,000 available in FY25 from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund which provides “flexible funding for the development and preservation of affordable housing units within the City of Charlottesville.” The application window is open from October 21, 2024 to November 22, 2024. 
• There’s $575,000 available in FY25 for Housing Operations and Program Support (HOPS) “to support the operational needs of non-profit organizations involved in affordable housing and homelessness prevention.” This application window is open from September 18, 2024 to October 18, 2024. 
• There is an estimated $410,468 in funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Community Development. This application window is open from January 6, 2025 to February 7, 2025. The purpose is “to support activities including homeownership, home repair, public and human services, economic development, and public infrastructure improvements.”
• There’s another $112,248 in the federal HOME Investments Partnership program “to support the creation and preservation of affordable housing through homeownership and rehabilitation programs.” This window is also open January 6, 2025 to February 7, 2025. 

“This is the opportunity for the city to continue to demonstrate its support for affordable housing development,” said City Manager Sam Sanders. 

There’s also a more general Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) for housing development partnerships.  This window has opened three times before in November 2021, November 2022, and November 2023 and is intended for affordable housing developers to signal their wish list for what they would like to build. 

“This information allowed us to estimate a funding requirement of $33.4 million for the period between 2023 and 2028,” reads the NOFO portion of the NOFA. 

For FY22, two groups sent in their projects and $25.24 million was allocated, all of it to projects submitted by the Piedmont Housing Alliance. 

This request for information (RFI) was first issued in November 2022 and the third round will be held this November. 

“In November we’ll be looking for any developer in this area that’s looking to produce housing to let us know what they’re thinking about doing so we can stay on top of what production is on its way and continue to identify where there may be gaps and opportunities for the city to partner,” Sanders said. 

The recent decision by Council to use $8.7 million over five years to back a loan for Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance to purchase the Carlton Mobile Home Park did not come from the RFI process. Neither did the $5 million City Council allocated to the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority to purchase 74 units. 

“The RFI was intended to gather information about 5-year project forecasts and funding gaps, not to commit or bind the City to any specific funding decisions,” said Alex Ikefuna, the city’s director of the Office of Community Solutions.

In the 2023 cycle, $39.163 million in requests were received from five entities including $3 million from Preservation of Affordable Housing for their project at 10th and Wertland for which the University of Virginia Foundation is donating the land but otherwise not contributing financially.

Another project submitted in 2023 is a $2.5 million request from the Enterprise Foundation for the redevelopment of 601 Cherry Avenue.

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