Westchester County’s Housing Flex Fund

On behalf of Westchester County’s Department of Planning, HR&A Advisors designed and implemented a new $90M fund to allocate the County’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The Flex Fund is projected to support the development of approximately 1,500 new affordable homes across the county. 

HR&A began with analyzing the County’s housing market conditions and evaluating existing affordable housing programs administered by the County, public housing authorities, local municipalities, and other public entities. HR&A conducted a series of interviews with key local and regional housing developers to understand their development pipelines and any barriers they felt obstructed the development of workforce and affordable housing development in the county. Based on a combination of these quantitative and qualitative findings, HR&A recommended the creation of a new two-year Housing Flex Fund, designed to meet the market’s short-term needs and strengthen the affordable housing system in the long-term. 

In preparation for the project’s implementation phase, HR&A analyzed the financial proformas of 10 recently completed affordable housing deals and modeled 15 alternative funding scenarios to understand how the Housing Flex Fund could impact forthcoming housing deals — including Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and non-LIHTC deals alike. HR&A recommended an approval process that built on the strengths of existing funding processes while providing greater flexibility and an expedited funding timeline.  

Working in close consultation with County staff, HR&A established an approval process and project scoring criteria. The scoring criteria and approval process ensure that the Housing Flex Fund will maximally achieve the County’s public policy goals. HR&A also supported the County in scoring all of the applications received and underwriting selected potential projects for investment. 

Explore 

Learn more about the Housing Flex Fund on Westchester County’s website 

Press 

Westchester County launches Housing Flex Fund —NY Real Estate Journal  

Westchester $100M program expected to increase new affordable housing units — Westfair Business Journal