Statutorily Mandated Designation of Difficult Development Areas and Qualified Census Tracts for 2022

BROADCAST EMAIL – Regulatory Update

To today’s Federal Register, HUD published a Notice entitled, “Statutorily Mandated Designation of Difficult Development Areas and Qualified Census Tracts for 2022” for purposes of the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC). LIHTC developments in DDAs or QCTs are eligible for as much as 30 percent more LIHTC subsidy.

The designations of DDAs in this notice are based on modified Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs), FY 2021 nonmetropolitan county FMRs, FY 2021 income limits, and 2010 Census population counts. In addition, HUD has implemented a minimum population requirement for metropolitan Small Difficult Development Areas in order to avoid designating areas unsuitable for residential development, such as airports. This notice also designates QCTs based on new income and poverty data released in the American Community Survey (ACS). HUD relies on the most recent three sets of ACS estimates to ensure that anomalous estimates, due to sampling, do not affect the QCT status of tracts.

The effective date of the new QCTs and DDAs is January 1, 2022.

Please contact the CARH national office at carh@carh.org or 703-837-9001 should you have questions or concerns. For other news and information affecting the affordable rural housing industry, please visit the Newsroom on CARH’s website, www.carh.org.