Low-income housing tax credits, often referred to as LIHTC (pronounced Li- tech), were first introduced in 1986 under the Tax Reform Act, passed during President Ronald Reagan’s second term.
It allows the Department of Housing and Urban Development to give state and local agencies the equivalent of $10 billion to issue tax credits for acquisition, rehabilitation or new construction of affordable housing.
The Park City Council has set a goal to house 15% of the city’s workforce by 2032. City Housing and Development Coordinator Sara Wineman said LITHC is a critical tool in reaching that goal.
“LIHTC helps us have less burden as a city and be able to develop more [housing],” Wineman said. “Especially for it being such a high cost resort town, it’s one of the ways that we make our housing financially viable for the city, the workforce and the future. And truthfully, without LIHTC, we probably will have a very difficult time meeting that 15% goal. It just makes it unrealistic.”
Under the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” which President Trump signed last month, the federal government plans to expand the LIHTC program.
Summit County Economic Development and Housing Director Jeff Jones said the changes include more funding for housing projects and less-stringent financing requirements for developers.
“I think that is actually going to be a really good thing,” Jones said. “[LIHTC] is such a valuable program. We have a number of tax credit projects in Summit County and in Park City, and these are the projects that we’re able to get the lowest rent for people. Because we have a service-based economy, that’s really, really important.”
Changes to the LIHTC program are scheduled to go into effect next year.
In Utah, LIHTC funding is allocated through the Utah Housing Corporation, which handles funding applications for projects.
Mountainlands Community Housing Trust Executive Director Jason Glidden said it is a highly competitive process. Glidden said he’s still working to fully understand the coming LIHTC changes, but is optimistic.
“I have not seen any real figures yet, but of course with how over subscribed the requests have been at the state level over the last couple of years, it’s got to be a bonus,” Glidden said. “It’s going to hopefully help to fund more projects in the future.”
Mountainlands has been unable to get LIHTC funding for its redevelopment of the Holiday Village and Parkside apartments in Park City over the past two years. Glidden said they expect to receive scoring results, which determine funding, from their third application soon.
While the LIHTC program is getting a boost, the Trump administration does plan to cut funding for Section 8 housing subsidies, which will largely impact high population states like California, New York and Texas.
Park City Municipal and Summit County are financial supporters of KPCW.
