Cincinnati City Council has approved unanimously an ordinance allowing the City to enter into a memorandum of understanding to create a new mechanism for financing more market-rate housing and commercial development.
The Build Cincinnati Development Fund (BCDF) will work as a revolving loan fund, providing pre-development loans for residential projects and small businesses in some of the City's underserved neighborhoods.
BCDF will replace the $100 million Cincinnati Housing Development Fund (CHDF), a program developed in 2003 and administered by the Cincinnati Development Fund.
The push for BCDF came from the Department of Community Development, Cincinnati Development Fund, developers and community development professionals, who believed that CHDF needed to be expanded to tap into other City development efforts such as GO Cincinnati, place matters, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
To date, CHDF has finance 429 proposed units of owner-occupied housing in the City, with an estimated 300 completed in more than a dozen Cincinnati neighborhoods. It has closed a total of 25 loans totaling more than $34.2 million, creating housing with an estimated value of $60 million.
City manager Milton Dohoney Jr. has said that if BCDF does not make loans and commitments totaling at least $28 million over its first 24 months, the program will be re-evaluated.
Previous reading on BC:
Program restructuring could stimulate housing, commercial development (8/5/09)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Underserved neighborhoods to see new fund for housing, commercial development
