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How Louisiana's QAP Rural Set-Aside Actually Splits -- A Real Example From Houma

How Louisiana's QAP Rural Set-Aside Actually Splits -- A Real Example From Houma
Policy & RegulatoryLouisiana

The Louisiana Housing Corporation (LHC) welcomed West Tunnel Lofts, a 40-unit workforce housing development in Houma, Terrebonne Parish, built for mixed-income households in one building with a community room, fitness center, and storm-resiliency construction. The project combines a $6,350,000 PRIME-3 CDBG award -- administered by LHC with the Louisiana Office of Community Development (OCD) for parishes hit by Hurricanes Laura, Delta, and Ida -- with a 9% LIHTC award under the 2024 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP), one LHC's release specifically identifies as the highest-scoring project in that year's rural-area new-construction pool. The developer is HRI Communities; other partners include Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government, Legacy Bank and Trust, U.S. Bank, HCI Architecture, and RNDG Builders, LLC.

The Rural Set-Aside Split, Straight From LHC's Own Quote

LHC Executive Director Kevin Delahoussaye's quote in the release lays out the exact structure of the 2024 QAP's rural set-aside: '$4 million for rural area projects, $2 million for the rehabilitation sub-pool and $2 million for the new construction sub-pool.' That is a real, specific allocation split a developer targeting a rural Louisiana site can use directly -- it shows not just that a rural set-aside exists, but that it is further divided by rehabilitation versus new construction, and that each of those two sub-pools competes against a much smaller field than the statewide 9% round. West Tunnel Lofts won the new-construction half of that $4 million by scoring highest among the applicants competing specifically within it.

Why the Sub-Pool Structure Changes the Competitive Math

A $2 million new-construction sub-pool inside a $4 million rural set-aside is a materially smaller competitive field than Louisiana's statewide 9% round overall. For a rural-market sponsor, that is a genuine strategic distinction: the relevant question is not just whether a project scores well against every 9% applicant in the state, but whether it scores well against the specific pool of rural new-construction applicants competing for that $2 million. A project that would rank in the middle of a full statewide round could still be the strongest application within its own sub-pool -- which is what LHC's release says happened here.

The Disaster-Recovery Layer Is Doing Real Work Too

The PRIME-3 CDBG award is not incidental financing -- LHC's release ties it directly to the storm-resiliency construction standard the property was built to, and frames the whole program around disaster-impacted parishes specifically. Combined with the 9% credit, that gives West Tunnel Lofts two separate compliance and reporting obligations running in parallel: standard LIHTC monitoring, plus whatever conditions come with a federally sourced, CDBG-DR-derived award. For a sponsor in one of Louisiana's hurricane-declared parishes, PRIME-3 or its next iteration is worth checking as a real, disclosed gap-funding source before assuming a rural 9% credit alone has to carry the deal.

Sources

This is EZFeasi’s own analysis of the news below, not the original reporting — read the source for the full story.

Originally reported by Louisiana Housing Corporation.

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