MARCH 2021

Dear NHC Members and Stakeholders,

This legislative session, Nevada is poised to take an important step towards the preservation of our valuable affordable housing stock through SB 12. The bill, which was introduced by the State Advisory Committee on Housing in November and received its first hearing by the Senate Government Affairs Committee on March 8^th, would require the owner of any housing that has been financed by federal low-income housing tax credits or money provided by a governmental agency and that is subject to affordability restrictions to provide written notice before terminating those restrictions.

Why is Notification Important?

The notification provisions in SB 12 will give the Nevada Housing Division and local governments advanced notice of properties exiting the affordable housing program. It will buy us some time to connect properties for sale with good affordable housing stewards and to assemble the resources to preserve some of these developments. Two years ago, we lost 500 units in downtown Reno at Courtyard Center and City Center to the Qualified Contract process. By the time the City of Reno learned of this sale, it was too late to act.  With SB 12, the owner would have been required to notify the City in advance of opting out of the affordability restrictions. The bill also has tenant notification requirements that are unique to the Nevada bill, and will provide residents also with a heads up on the disposition plans for their development and resources for accessing other housing in the community.

We have 7,500 Units at High Risk of Losing Affordability Over the Next 5 Years.

Over the last several years Nevada has lost affordable units almost as fast as it creates new units, due to properties expiring out of their affordability restrictions or owners exercising a loophole in the regulations to opt early in a process called Qualified Contract. In fact, even with increased production over the last couple of years, Nevada’s net increase of affordable housing over the past 10 years has averaged just 136 units a year!

Based upon the National Low-Income Housing Coalition 2021 “Gap Report,” which was released this week, Nevada again has the least housing per capita in the country available to both low-income (< 50% of AMI) and extremely low-income households (<30% AMI)—by a wide margin!

Rehabilitating existing developments and keeping them affordable costs much less than building new, and of course, takes less time. That’s why preservation is essential component of a statewide affordable housing strategy. 

SB 12 is a Great First Step Towards Preserving Our Valuable Affordable Housing Portfolio

We want to thank the Advisory Committee on Housing and its Chair, Senator Ratti, for their extraordinary work on this bill as well as the legislative working group that has made a number of suggestions for improving the original bill language.

If you have not yet submitted your thoughts on the need to preserve our existing affordable housing, please do so now! And if you want to stay up to date on all affordable housing activities this legislative session, please join NHC to receive our weekly updates that focus on NHC led bills and other bills we are monitoring.

Thank you for your support and engagement, Eric