Baton Rouge is Louisiana’s capital city. The Baton Rouge metropolitan area is comprised of nine parishes with a total population of over 830,000 per the U.S. Census’s 2017 estimate, making metropolitan Baton Rouge the nation’s 71st largest metropolitan statistical area. East Baton Rouge Parish, the regional anchor, contained over 440,000 residents as of the 2019 U.S. Census update estimate, making it the most populous parish in Louisiana.
East Baton Rouge Parish is comprised of residents living in the cities of Baton Rouge, Baker, Central, Zachary and in unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish. The City of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish are governed by a consolidated government structure that features a combined Mayor-President and Metropolitan Council, commonly referred to as City-Parish government. The cities of Baker, Central and Zachary have their own separate municipal governments while falling under the Mayor-President and the Metropolitan Council in their capacity as heads of East Baton Rouge Parish.
Present day Baton Rouge is home to the state’s flagship university, Louisiana State University, one of the nation’s largest historically black colleges and universities, Southern University, and the Baton Rouge Community College. The Port of Greater Baton Rouge is the 10th-largest in the nation. Situated directly north of downtown on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River, ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge oil refinery is the fourth largest oil refinery in the nation and the twelfth largest in the world. It is one of many petrochemical facilities located on the river and stretching from Baton Rouge south to New Orleans. Despite the dominance of the petrochemical industry, state government and Louisiana State University are the region’s largest employers.
Baton Rouge owes its historical importance to its location upon the Istrouma Bluff, the first natural bluff upriver from the Mississippi River Delta and the Gulf of Mexico. When the city was incorporated in 1817 the Spanish Town and Beauregard Town neighborhoods were already established. The city replaced New Orleans as the state capital in 1846 and the next year construction began on the capitol building designed by architect James Dakin. His Neo-Gothic style has been described as the “most distinguished example of Gothic Revival” architecture in the state and has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
In 1862, during the Civil War, the state capital was moved to Opelousas and ultimately Shreveport prior to the Battle of Baton Rouge and returned in 1882 after the end of Reconstruction. Baton Rouge grew slowly in the decades after the Civil War and never exceeded its pre-war population of roughly 5000. Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy moved from Pineville to Baton Rouge in 1870 and renamed itself Louisiana State University. LSU’s Baton Rouge campus became an anchor institution for early Baton Rouge.
In 1909, Standard Oil, the forerunner to ExxonMobil, converted a 225-acre cotton plantation north of downtown Baton Rouge and on the banks of the Mississippi River into what was billed as “the largest oil refinery in the world.” In January 1919, The Lamp – Standard Oil’s nationally circulated trade publication- wrote glowingly about the refinery as a replacement to the area’s cotton fields and the primitive slave economy. It declared the refinery “an agent of Post-Reconstruction reconciliation” uniting northern expertise and southern natural resources.
In 1914, Southern University relocated from New Orleans to Scotlandville, Louisiana, then a small community immediately north of Baton Rouge and the new Standard Oil plant. Southern University faculty and staff quickly populated Scotlandville and the University sponsored the area’s first professional offices and financial institutions. In segregated Baton Rouge, Black settlement was limited to Scotlandville, Old South, and the Eden Park area. These areas grew into hubs for Black political, social, economic, and cultural activity in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Shortly after the opening of Standard Oil, residential development expanded beyond Beauregard and Spanish Town to the Garden District, Capital Heights, Southdowns, Ogden Park, Hundred Oaks, Old South Baton Rouge, and the neighborhoods of the Plank Road corridor. Downtown took on the commercial character of traditional downtowns with the erection of commercial and civic buildings, some of which remain to this day. In 1925 Louisiana National Bank built the city’s first modern skyscraper with 12 stories located at 150 Third Street. In 1926, Louisiana State University relocated from downtown to its present campus south of the Old South neighborhood. The move and the University’s expansion reflected the city’s rapid growth.
In 1932 construction finished on a new state capitol. The structure immediately marked the city’s skyline and was a testament to the vision of Governor Huey P. Long. It was then and remains the tallest state capitol in the nation. A year later four separate donors gave LSU a tupelo cypress swamp next to campus. They stipulated that LSU turn the swamps into lakes and parks for public use. The LSU lakes were created by hundreds of men employed by the Works Progress Administration, a federal agency created during the Great Depression. They were adjacent to the City Park Golf Course which was built in 1926 as the community’s first municipal golf course and is one of 20 courses in the country to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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As the city approached the middle of the twentieth century, it matured into a mid-sized city with a defined urban character, infrastructure, society and national profile. Baton Rouge’s population grew more than 340% between 1940 and 1956. During World War II Baton Rouge’s petrochemical plants benefited from increased wartime production. The city’s identity matured during these years as well. The Goudchaux downtown department store opened in the late 1930’s and quickly became a retail icon locally and nationally. The Belmont Hotel opened in 1946 at the intersection of Airline Highway and Greenwell Springs Road. In the decades after its 1946 opening Carey Grant and Jane Fonda were guests and its convention facilities were frequent venues for the city’s society scene. Because of segregation, Black celebrities visited the Lincoln Hotel which opened in 1955 on Eddie Robinson Drive. Visitors included James Brown, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, and Nat King Cole.
In 1949 voters approved the creation of a consolidated government that would pursue a regional approach to governance, planning, and development. The aspirations for a unified government were noble, but Baton Rouge – like all of the South – was a Jim Crow city, and the city’s black residents had long organized to fight for equality. Those struggles had national significance and foreshadowed many of the city’s future urban development challenges. The city’s 1953 bus boycott served as a model for the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott, which led to the emergence of a young leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When the city’s school system refused to integrate its public schools after the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a lawsuit was filed that would become one of the longest school desegregation battles in the nation and a significant driver of the city’s urban development.
By the 1950’s the city had developed past Airline Highway as the first period of intra-parish suburbanization unfolded, primarily on its northern and eastern edges. Neighborhoods like Broadmoor, Glen Oaks, Southern Heights, Westdale Heights, and Southdowns offered Baton Rougeans both modest and large ranch homes on spacious tree-covered lots and quiet cul-de-sac streets. Upscale developments along Jefferson Highway, including Goodwood, Bocage and Jefferson Terrace catered to the region’s wealthy elite. As Baton Rouge’s low-density urban form spread, developers planned for car-oriented strip-mall shopping centers. Following the 1953 opening of the Westmoreland Shopping Center at the corner of Government Street and Acadian Thruway, the Delmont Village Shopping Center opened at the corner of Plank and Lorraine Street in 1955. The city’s first mall, Bon Marche, opened in 1960 on Florida Boulevard, the burgeoning retail strip of the era.
The interstate development greatly impacted development patterns in Baton Rouge and, as was the case in virtually every other metropolitan area, set the stage for suburban sprawl.
The passage of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 led to the creation of over 41,000 miles of highways and marked a new chapter in the nation’s urban development. Baton Rouge was connected to the state’s network of highways with U.S. 190, Airline Highway, which linked the city with southwestern Louisiana and New Orleans. U.S. 190 entered the city across the Huey P. Long-Oscar Allen Bridge, which opened in 1940. By the mid-1950s plans were underway for another bridge that would connect Baton Rouge with a new national highway system.
The northern route of Baton Rouge’s interstate system began downtown with an independent freeway known as the Baton Rouge Expressway that opened in 1957. The first section extended roughly one mile between Spanish Town Road and Plank Road and comprised what is known today as Interstate 110. Interstates 10 and 12 were planned in the 1950’s and added to the national highway system in 1957. Construction of the expanded interstate system began in the 1960’s and the Horace Wilkinson Bridge opened in 1968, bringing I-10 across the river just south of downtown. Interstate construction continued until the mid-1970s, by which time the city had stretched out along I-12 and was beginning to grow along I-10 towards New Orleans.
The interstate development greatly impacted development patterns in Baton Rouge and, as was the case in virtually every other metropolitan area, set the stage for suburban sprawl. Interstate construction cut almost exclusively through the city’s Black neighborhoods, literally splitting the Old South and Valley Park neighborhoods down the middle. Across the nation interstate development targeted Black neighborhoods as a way to effect “slum clearance” and remove Black residents from valuable land in and near downtowns. The highway systems also offered White suburban residents easy access to employment and commerce downtown and the new bedroom communities developing on the edge of town. “White flight,” as it was termed, characterized a new phase of residential racial segregation subsidized and facilitated by an unprecedented level of federal spending and national policy. In the decades that followed the impact of these policies reshaped the shape of American metropolitan regions, and Baton Rouge was no exception.
As interstate construction came to an end in the mid-1970s, Baton Rouge was benefiting from the 1970’s oil boom. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s downtown Baton Rouge saw the construction of the 21-story Chase Bank building between Florida and Laurel Streets and the 24-story One American Place building between Main and North Streets. Both buildings changed the city’s skyline. But downtown declined in the 1970’s as strip shopping center and mall development drew retail activity away from downtown.
Corporate Mall opened in 1974 at the intersection of Corporate Boulevard and College Drive next to a 22-story Hilton Hotel that opened in 1976 and previewed a wave of multi-story hotel development in the area over the following decades. In 1976 Cortana Mall opened at the intersection of Airline Highway and Florida Boulevard, at that time still the urban fringe. It featured 1.2 million square feet of space, making it the largest shopping mall in the south and the 14th largest in the nation at that time. In the late 1970s home buyers were settling in large ranch home-dominated neighborhoods such as Sherwood Forest, Villa Del Rey, Park Forest, Monticello, and the neighborhoods of the rapidly growing Perkins Road corridor, including Concord Estates, Stratford Place, Pollard Estates, Kenilworth, Mayfair, and Magnolia Woods.
The city’s school desegregation fight continued into the 1980s, and in 1981 forced busing was mandated by the federal courts, resulting in waves of white and middle class flight out of the public school system and out of Baton Rouge. 7,000 white students moved from public to private schools in 1981 alone. School desegregation had an undeniable imprint on the city’s urban development.
After a decade of downtown office tower and suburban mall construction, Baton Rouge suffered as the oil bust impacted development in the 1980’s. By the mid-1980’s downtown Baton Rouge was suffering the same cycles of urban blight affecting downtown’s across the nation. A plan to revitalize the city’s downtown warehouse district resulted in the opening of Catfish Town in 1984, a $28 million festival marketplace that opened with great fanfare but was shuddered less than two years later. The legalization of riverboard gambling in the early 1990s resulted in two gaming establishments in downtown Baton Rouge and the slow revival of the area’s nightlife.
The city’s school desegregation fight continued into the 1980s, and in 1981 forced busing was mandated by the federal courts, resulting in waves of white and middle class flight out of the public school system and out of Baton Rouge. 7,000 white students moved from public to private schools in 1981 alone. School desegregation had an undeniable imprint on the city’s urban development. Population migrated outward along I-12 and I-10, and a new suburban identity emerged in the increasingly upscale neighborhoods of South Baton Rouge.
The improved national economy of the mid-to-late 1990’s resulted in a new wave of home construction in Baton Rouge, and new neighborhoods opened even further down Perkins Road as Bluebonnet Road, Siegen Lane, and Highland Road became new population centers. In 1997 The Mall of Louisiana opened on Bluebonnet Drive near the Jimmy Swaggert Bible College, becoming the largest mall in Louisiana. The mid-scale, contemporary mall signaled a dramatic shift from the Airline/Florida urban growth of mid-century Baton Rouge to the 21st century prominence of the new South Baton Rouge.
When the school desegregation case was finally settled in 2003, the East Baton Rouge Parish School System served a majority black and poor population. Significant growth and development was occurring in Livingston and Ascension parishes. Population growth in neighboring parishes and in the growing East Baton Rouge Parish cities of Zachary and Central reflected both the long backlash to school desegregation in Baton Rouge public schools and the emerging metropolitan character of the Baton Rouge region. By the turn of the century the city was much more aware of this metropolitanization and launched planning efforts to revitalize downtown, which was still desolate and blighted. The first decade of the 21st century saw downtown revitalization take off with the consolidation of state government into several new office buildings, the Shaw Center for the Arts, the North Boulevard Town Square, the revival of the 1927-built Hiedelberg Hotel, and the construction of a state of the art courthouse for Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District.
The city’s population swelled in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, but the city was already experiencing steady growth when the storm struck. The traffic gridlock after the storm marshalled a political response that resulted in the first major road construction program for East Baton Rouge Parish in over 60 years. The “Green Light” program not only increased the capacity of urban roads, it improved connectivity and made significant improvements in the city’s disjointed street grid. While road construction impacted the entire parish, roads like south Baton Rouge’s Siegen Lane experienced dramatic transformations that increased automobile throughput, but often without any meaningful provisions for pedestrians or mass transit. The access challenges for anyone without a car underscored a bigger problem: Baton Rouge had become a “tale of two cities” with stark disparities between the parish’s more affluent and developing southern side and its abandoned, blighted northern side. “North Baton Rouge” became synonymous with concentrated black poverty, urban blight, and dangerous crime.
Baton Rouge celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2017 and today is the center of the nation’s 71st largest metropolitan area.
The early decades of the 21st century saw South Baton Rouge’s affluent identity reflected in an explosion of luxury home development along Highland Road and in neighborhoods like Santa Maria, University Club, Willow Grove, and Bocage Lakes.The Perkins corridor continued to densify as developments like Perkins Rowe added a new experiential and decidedly upscale dimension to the city’s shopping. During the same period the neighborhoods of North Baton Rouge experienced rapid disinvestment, a trend that had been taking place since school desegregation and intensified after the turn of the century.
If the big-box shopping centers of Siegen Lane were emblematic of South Baton Rouge’s commercial boom, the vacant and blighted storefronts of Plank Road were emblematic of North Baton Rouge’s rapid demise. In 2013 Earl K. Long hospital closed its Airline Highway location, a staple in the area since the early 1960’s and the only emergency room for miles. The closure became a rallying cry for community activists across the city who worried about continued disinvestment and a neglected North Baton Rouge. Across town, a petition drive to form a new city out of the southern, unincorporated areas of East Baton Rouge Parish began in 2015. The initial effort fell short but a second effort in 2019 was successful and voters in the area proposed for incorporation approved the petition to create the new city of St. George. The matter is currently in litigation.
The north-south divide and its racial implications were magnified in the July 2016 shooting of Alton Sterling, which was followed by the ambush and murder of three Baton Rouge police officers. The internationally-covered event gave rise to discussions about the impact of racial and spatial stratification not only on the bonds of community, but on the city’s economic development competitiveness. A month later and as these conversations were growing, Baton Rouge was hit with record flooding that impacted over 70,000 structures in the metropolitan region. The back to back strategies placed an international spotlight on the city and elevated the community’s focus on resiliency. Flood recovery continues and conversations about the perils of racial and spatial stratification for the city’s identity, economic fortunes and general appeal are ongoing.
Baton Rouge celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2017 and today is the center of the nation’s 71st largest metropolitan area. Recent efforts focused on reviving Mid-City neighborhoods, turning the tide of disinvestment in North Baton Rouge, a major widening of I-10, and an overhaul of the City-Park/LSU Lakes underscore the ever-evolving nature of the city’s built environment. New voices are advancing conversations about racial equity, transit-oriented development, and climate change. These conversations are already shaping new urban development pursuits and will undoubtedly influence the shape of the city in the years ahead.
Accessory Dwelling Units
An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a second dwelling unit created on a lot with a house, attached house or manufactured home. The second unit is created auxiliary to, and is smaller than, the main dwelling. ADUs can be created in a variety of ways, including conversion of a portion of an existing house, addition to an existing house, conversion of an existing garage or the construction of an entirely new building.
Acq
Acquisition
Acquisition
The cost of purchasing the land or land and buildings to be developed.
Acquisition/Rehab
A project where the purchase of land and buildings and construction rehabilitation of the property are both included in the loan request. Affordable Housing: housing affordable to persons or families whose income is at or below 60 percent of MFI. (Housing affordability is imputed at thirty percent or less of gross income at 60 percent MFI).
Affordability / Affordable
Describes the relationship between household income, housing costs and established standard of affordability. The standard for "Affordable" means the following:For rental housing: the agency utilizes the HUD affordability standard, which states that the rent plus expenses associated with occupancy, such as tenant paid utilities or fees, does not exceed 30% of the gross household income, based on unit size, at the level of the rent restriction.For homeownership units: the purchase price, for which the sum of debt service and housing expenses (including an allowance for utilities and other required ownership fees), when compared to the annual gross income for a family, adjusted for family size, does not preclude conventional mortgage financing.
After Value
The property's market value based on the probable condition of the property after completion of the proposed rehabilitation or construction as determined by a certified fee appraiser or Prosper Portland staff.
Agr
Agricultural
Allowed Expenses
The sum of the following: (A) Operating Expenses, (B) all deposits to cash reserves established and funded for payment of anticipated or contingent partnership expenses that must be paid pursuant to a loan agreement to which the Project Sponsor is a party, plus (C) payments pursuant to the Preferred Developer Promissory Notes for deferred developer fees, to the extent the total capitalized fee and deferred fee do not exceed the agency's Maximum Allowable Developer Fee, less equity requirements not funded through other contributions.
AMI
Area Median Income
Anchor Institutions
Large organizations, most often public or nonprofit, that are primarily anchored in place—colleges and universities, hospitals and health-care facilities, utilities, faith-based organizations, museums, and arts centers. Anchor institutions are key drivers of local and regional economic opportunity. Anchor institutions offer stable jobs, many with career ladders and good wages and benefits, and strong purchasing power of goods and services.
As Is Value
The property's current market value as determined by a certified fee appraiser or the most recent assessed value by the County Assessor as verified or modified by Prosper Portland staff.
Asst
Assistance
AW
Airport Way
BID
Business Improvement District
Bldg
Building
Bridge Loan
Loan funds available to fund project costs on an interim basis, until other debt and/or equity sources are available for the project. This is sometimes considered part of the construction loan, but most specifically refers to a period after completion of construction until permanent or take out financing is available.
Business Technical Assistance
Services provided to individuals to help them start, stabilize and grow a business. Typically advising centers around business planning, financial planning, marketing, access to capital, legal and human resource issues.
C/P
City Parish
CDBG
Community Development Block Grant, Federal
CDC
Community Development Corporation
CEA
Cooperative Endeavor Agreement, or an inter-governmental agreement between two agencies
Comm.
Community
Community development
A process wherein community members come together to take action and generate solutions (economic, place-based, social, environmental, and cultural) to common problems.
Construction Loan
A short-term loan usually made to finance the actual construction or renovation of improvements on land. The funds are disbursed as needed or in accordance with a prearranged plan and the money is repaid on completion of a project usually from the proceeds of a permanent loan.
DA
Development Agreement
DCR
Debt Coverage Ratio
DDA
Disposition and Development Agreement
Debt Coverage Ratio (DCR)
The ratio equal to net operating income divided by regularly scheduled (amortized) loan payments.
Deed Restrictions
Legal document recorded against the completed property or project. (See also 'long-term affordability period').
DEQ
Department of Environmental Equality
Designated Affordable Units
Units that must be affordable to, and occupied by, households earning at or below an agreed upon income level, as determined by HUD and the Project Sponsor. The number, type and targeted household incomes of the Designated Affordable Units are recorded in the funder's loan documents as conditions of the loan or other financing agreements.
Designated Distressed Areas
A residential area of the city that the Planning Commission designates for special assistance programs (e.g. limited property tax exemption) by virtue of the deterioration or the housing stock.
Dev
Development
Developer
Is the central member of the development team who is responsible for coordinating all aspects of the transaction. The developer may assume other roles such as general contractor, property manager, and general partner of the partnership that owns the property. Both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are developers of affordable housing; sometimes they form joint ventures.
Developer Fees
Developer fees include developer overhead, profit, and fees for services normally performed by the developer such as development consultant fees, and project management.
Development Budget
A development budget includes preliminary construction line item costs, site acquisition costs, off-site costs (if applicable), soft costs, and other detailed cost information pertinent to the project.
Development Consultant or Owner's Rep
An individual or group of individuals hired by developer(s) who generally is responsible for budget preparation, application preparation, compliance with funding requirements, and other technical details of the project. Development consultant fees are considered a part of developer fees.
Development Team
Group of individuals or firms who carry out a development project, usually including the developer, the architect and engineer, the contractor, legal counsel, accountant and the development (technical) consultant.
Disparities
Differences between population groups in the presence of any form of outcomes, including access to services. Disparities include both acceptable and unacceptable differences.
Dwelling Unit
A building, or a portion of a building, that has independent living facilities including provisions for sleeping, cooking and sanitation, and that is designed for residential occupancy.
EAH
Employee Assisted Housing
Economic development
Work to improve the standard of living and economic competitiveness; activities include business retention, expansion and recruitment, international trade, and entrepreneurship development.
Economic opportunities
The ability for people to create wealth through activities such as: accessing employment, building businesses, and purchasing property.
ED
Economic Development
Eligible Non-Profit Organization
Organizations must be one of the following:A 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), or 501(c)(6) corporation,A certified Housing Authority, orA Limited Partnership or Limited Liability Corporation which includes one or more organizations which qualify under definition 1 above, and meet both of the following:the 501 (c)(3) or (c)(4) organization or a certified Housing Authority has regular, continuous and substantial activity in the development and operation of the portion of the project seeking financing available only to non-profit organizations, andthe public investment can be demonstrated to further one or more of the objectives of the tax exempt non-profit entity.
Emp
Employee
EPA
Environmental Protection Agency
Equity
The "after value," or if not documented, the "as is" value of the property less all indebtedness secured by the property.
Excess Cash Flow
The amount, if any, by which Net Cash Flow exceeds 115% of Permitted Loan Payments.
Extremely Low Income Households
Means household income at or below 30% MFI.
Family
For the purposes of this RFP, a family will be considered as one or more persons, whether or not related, living together in a dwelling unit.
Family Housing
Housing unit(s) two bedrooms or larger.
FAR
Floor Area Ratio
Fin
Finance/Financial
First-Time Homebuyer
An individual who has not held ownership interest in real property in the three years prior to purchasing a home.
Floor Area Ratio (FAR)
A measure of development intensity. FAR is the ratio of the amount of floor area of a building to the amount of area of its site.
Affordable For-Sale Properties
HUD and some other funders restrict the maximum allowable sales price and requires that the units be sold to households that meet the targeted income criteria.
Affordable Rental Properties
HUD and some other funders restrict the maximum allowable rents that may be charged and tenants to whom units may be rented for an agreed upon length of time.
Funded Affordable Unit
A unit, which serves households and has its rents set at a level which make it available to tenants with less than 80% of MFI, and require gap funding to make the unit economically feasible.
Gentrification
The process by which an undervalued neighborhood becomes desirable, which results in the displacement of lower income households due to the loss of affordable housing, often with a corresponding change in racial and ethnic makeup of a neighborhood’s residents and businesses.
GIS (Graphic Information Systems)
GIS technology is used to develop maps that depict resources or features such as soil types, population densities, land uses, transportation corridors, waterways, etc. GIS computer programs link features commonly seen on maps (such as roads, town boundaries, water bodies) with related information not usually presented on maps, such as type of road surface, population, type of agriculture, type of vegetation, or water quality information. A GIS is a unique information system in which individual observations can be spatially referenced to each other.
Green Building or Green Design
Building design that yields environmental benefits, such as savings in energy, building materials, and water consumption, or reduced waste generation.
Greenway
A linear open space; a corridor composed of natural vegetation. Greenways can be used to create connected networks of open space that include traditional parks and natural areas.
Gross Revenues
All cash and cash equivalents (i.e., any item immediately convertible to cash without substantial discount or reduction) received by the Project Sponsor that is specified as gross revenue on the Pro Forma for the development, but not including proceeds from refinancing, loans, capital contributions, tenant security deposits that the Project Sponsor is obligated to return, and any rentals paid more than one month in advance during a Fiscal Year.
HAMFI
Household Adjusted Median Family Income
HAP
Homeownership Assistance Program, traditionally downpayment assistance or soft second mortgages
Hard Costs
Include but not limited to all costs incurred in bringing a building to completion not including land acquisition, finance or sales costs.
HDF
Housing Development Finance
Historic Area
An area or building in which historic events occurred, or one which has special value due to architectural or cultural features relating to the heritage of the community. Elements in historic areas have significance that necessitates preservation or conservation.
HOA
Homeowners Association
HOME
Funding source HUD for housing a federal Housing Program
Household Adjusted Median Family Income (HAMFI)
See Median Family Income
Household Income
The gross household income computed in conformity with HUD income limits.
HUD
Housing and Urban Development, US Department of
Income
Means gross household income computed in conformity with HUD income limits.
Income Level Category
HUD utilizes the following categories of Median Family Income, as adjusted for household size, (HAMFI) to allocate resources for the development of housing that serves targeted populations in EBR:
- Extremely Low Income: Households with incomes from 0 to 30% HAMFI.
- Very Low Income: Households with incomes from 31 to 50% HAMFI.
- Low Income Households: Households with incomes from 51 to 60% HAMFI. (This term is also used generically to refer to all households at or below 60% HAMFI.)
- Moderate Income: Households with incomes from 61 to 80% HAMFI.
- Middle Income: Households with incomes 81% and 150% HAMFI.
- High Income: Households with incomes over 151% HAMFI.
Indirect Costs
Architectural, engineering, technical consultant, legal fees, application and loan fees, market study costs, etc. as distinguished from land and hard costs.Infrast
Infrastructure
Infrastructure
Water and sewer lines, roads, urban transit lines, schools and other public facilities needed to support developed areas.Innovative
Please see the appendix of this document for a detailed definition of "innovative".
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
The discount rate at which the present value of a project's cash flow income stream to the Project Sponsor equals the present value of the Project Sponsor's investment.
LEAD
Lead Abatement
Lease-up Reserves
An amount, either paid-in capital or funded through a loan, which anticipates an initial occupancy vacancy or short term lease-up shortfall. This amount is legitimate in projects undergoing substantial rehabilitation or new construction, and only when construction rather than operations create vacancy.
LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
LEM
Location Efficient Mortgage
LID
Local Improvement District
LIHTC
Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Federal
Loan to Value (LTV)
The total amount of all loans secured by subject property divided by the "after value" of the property expressed as a percentage. Grants requiring repayment only in the event of grant non-compliance, even if filed as a lien against the property, will not be considered loans for LTV calculation.
Long-Term Affordability Period
A period agreed to by funders and sponsors to ensure income and rent limits agreed to as condition of public funding through a recorded deed restriction on the project on a specified number of units in a project (See definition of funded affordable unit).
LTA
Limited Tax Abatement
LTV
Loan to Value
Market Rate Housing
Housing for which rents are not suppressed or restricted to below rents of the surrounding community generally considered to be 80 percent MFI or above although 'market' varies by neighborhood and location.
Median Family Income (MFI)
An income threshold set by Department of Housing and Urban Development, updated annually, generally in December. New thresholds are effective immediately.
MFH
Multi-Family Housing
MFI
Median Family Income
Mixed Income Housing
A housing development open to persons or families at varying income levels. More specifically at both affordable (below 60% MFI) and market rate income levels (above 60% MFI).
Mixed Use Development
Mixed use developments include residential, commercial, and business accommodations in one area.
Mixed Use Housing
A development that includes housing and commercial space or property containing both residential and non-residential uses.
Mixed-Income Project
A housing development open to persons or families at varying income levels. More specifically, the PDC uses the term Mixed-Income Housing to mean:Rental housing projects that include both Designated Affordable Units affordable to households at or below 60% MFI and units affordable to households above 60% MFI, orHomeownership projects that include both Designated Affordable Units affordable to households below 80% MFI and units affordable to households above 80% MFI.
Mixed-Use Project
The combination on a site of residential uses with commercial or industrial uses. (This is different from the definition of Innovative, see appendix for a complete "innovative" definition.)
MOU
Memorandum of Understanding
MPDU
Moderately Priced Dwelling Units
MBE/WBE
Minority-owned/Women-owned Small Business
Net Cash Flow
The amount, if any, by which Net Operating Income exceeds the sum of Permitted Loan Payments and Required Reserve Contributions.
Net Operating Income
Net revenues received from operation of the subject property, less total operating expenses.
New Construction/New Housing Development
Newly built project.
NMTC
New Market Tax Credit
NNL
No Net Loss
NOFA
Notice of Funding Availability
Operating Budget (also Pro Forma)
Pro forma, is a schedule that include a rent schedule, anticipated operating expenses, vacancy rates, and all other information pertinent to the operation of the property. Operating income and expenses are generally projected for at least ten years.
Operating Deficit Reserves
Set-asides necessary to cover anticipated and unanticipated shortfalls in cash flow due to decreases in income or increases in expenses or debt service. Operating deficit reserves are different from lease-up reserves.
Operating Expenses
All reasonable and customary expenses incurred in operating the subject real estate, including (but not limited to) utilities, on-site and off-site management, insurance, property taxes, maintenance, replacement reserves, and administrative charges which are associated with any compliance monitoring or reporting required by funding sources. Operating Expenses do not include contributions to operating reserves, depreciation, interest or principal payments.
People or communities of color
Native American, African American, Latino, Asian, Slavic, and African immigrant and refugee people or communities (per Coalition of Communities of Color).
Permanent Loan:
A long term loan, usually with a term between 10 and 40 years, the proceeds of which are used to repay a construction loan.
Permitted Loan Payments
The sum of the maximum debt service (including without limitation principal, interest, mortgage insurance premiums and credit enhancement fees such as letter of credit fees and/or other payment requirements) under any loans of the Project Sponsor relating to the project during the fiscal year. Permitted Loan Payments shall not include prepayments of principal not shown on the Pro Forma. Permitted Loan Payments shall not include any payments that are paid to an affiliate of the Project Sponsor.
Predevelopment funds
Funding to cover up front project costs such as architectural, engineering, legal and environmental services that are incurred before the funds to pay for project construction are available to the developer.
Preservation Properties
Federally subsidized property now at risk of opting out or prepayment, which would result in the loss of affordability commitments and project based Section 8 subsidies. Pro forma Income and Expense: a statement showing the projected annual income and operating expenses of a project.
Pro forma
Pro forma, is a schedule that includes a rent schedule, anticipated operating expenses, vacancy rates, and all other information pertinent to the operation of the property. Operating income and expenses are generally projected for at least ten years.
Project Sponsor
The project owner or entity entering into agreements with a funder to obtain financing. Used in lieu of the term borrower, particularly for types of financing that are not loans (e.g. Equity Gap Contributions, fee waivers or tax exemptions).
Qualified Non-Profit OrganizationA 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) corporation that demonstrates the capacity and experience to develop and/or manage rental housing. Newly formed non-profit organizations must show evidence of mission, board training and commitment, individual staff training, adequate financial strength and experience and capacity, which are commensurate to the proposed project.
Recourse Debt
Debt repayment is based primarily on the property, but in the event of default to the extent the property cannot pay-off debt, the borrower is personally responsible for debt repayment.
Rehabilitation
Repair, upgrade of units within existing structure.
Rent-up Reserve
See lease-up reserves
Replacement Reserves
An account maintained by the borrower, funding of which is treated as an operating expense and used for repair or replacement of a project's infrastructure, i.e. roof, plumbing, mechanical, etc. For new construction PDC requires replacement reserves of $200 per unit per year.
Reservation of Funds
An informal set-aside of direct financial assistance funds for a specific project that is valid for a limited period of time and evidenced by a Reservation Letter issued by the funder. This is not a legal obligation to lend.
Reserves
Money set aside to pay for future anticipated expenses.
Restricted Residential Unit
A housing unit in a PDC funded project that is restricted as to affordability and rent limitations for a specified period of time according to a written affordability agreement.
RFP
Request For Proposal
ROF
Reservation of Funds
Single-Family Housing
A detached housing structure that contains 1 dwelling unit.
Site Control
Required for this RFP in the form of title, an option to purchase, a master lease agreement exceeding 99 years or other form of site control acceptable to PDC.
Smart Growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and development approach focused on creating compact, walkable, and mixed-use communities to curb urban sprawl and promote sustainable, equitable development. It prioritizes efficient land use, encourages public transportation and diverse housing options, and emphasizes environmental protection and community engagement.
Soft Costs
See Indirect Costs.
Sources and Uses
A schedule submitted as part of financing application that identifies the different sources of funding for the construction of the project and provides a line item identification of how these funds will be used in the construction process.
Special Needs Housing
Housing unit(s) that are available to a specific population, such as elderly, disabled, homeless, or person in recovery.
Sponsor
See Developer.
Sustainable Development
Development with the goal of preserving environmental quality, natural resources and livability for present and future generations. Sustainable initiatives work to ensure efficient use of resources.
Tax Increment Financing (TIF)
A program designed to leverage private investment for economic development projects in a manner that enhances the benefits accrued to the public interest.
Term of Affordability
A specific period of time during which project rents are restricted for a specified number of units and during which the borrower agrees to provide annual operating data to verify compliance.
Threshold Criteria
Minimum requirement proposals must meet to be considered by selection committee for funding.
TIF
Tax Increment Financing
Total Development Cost
All project related expenses including acquisition, refinancing, rehabilitation/construction, contingency, soft costs, closing, financing and developer's fees.
Transit Oriented Housing
Transit-oriented development (TOD) generally refers to mixed-use, high-density housing and commercial development designed around public transportation hubs like train or bus stations. The goal of TOD is to increase transit ridership, reduce reliance on private vehicles, and foster vibrant, walkable communities.
Unit (of housing)
A housing unit consists of one or more habitable rooms intended to be occupied by one family for living, sleeping, cooking, and eating; except in congregate housing, where certain facilities may be shared.
URA
Urban Renewal Area
Urban Renewal Area (URA)
A defined geography from which tax increment financing is both generated and spent.
Variance
The relaxation of requirements of a zoning district for a specific parcel or tract of land. Variances are often issued to avoid unnecessary hardships to a landowner.
Very Low Income
Means household income at or below 50 percent of MFI.
Wealth creation
Increasing individual net worth which is defined as the value of all assets owned net of all liabilities owed at a point in time.
Workforce development
A range of educational, training, and networking activities to create, sustain, and retain a viable workforce that supports economic security for individuals and meets current and future business and industry needs.
Workforce housing
Workforce housing can be rental and ownership market housing units that are affordable to households with incomes from Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDU) income limit up to Area Median Income (AMI).
Zoning
Local regulations (i.e. City of Portland Bureau of Planning for this RFP) establishing the use of property and the size, height, and location of structures placed on it.
Confused by terms like land banking, TIFs, or mixed-use development? This quick guide breaks down key redevelopment concepts so you can follow—and shape—the future of EBR.
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