Application assembly and submission — Illinois

Two filings, not one: the PPA gates every dollar before an Application is even accepted

Every Sponsor seeking any Authority resource -- 4% Tax Credits, 9% Tax Credits, the Permanent Supportive Housing Development Program, or IHDA's other multifamily programs -- must first submit a Preliminary Project Assessment (PPA) and receive an approval before IHDA will accept a full Application. The PPA is submitted electronically through IHDA Connect at ppa.ihda.org using the current Universal PPA Workbook, after requesting a Project ID ("PID") and IHDA Connect account; IHDA states that if a PID or account request is not fulfilled within three business days, Sponsors should follow up directly by email. Nothing is accepted in paper form.

The PPA is evaluated across five separate categories -- Project Concept, Site, Market, Financial Feasibility, and Development Team -- and each category independently receives one of three outcomes: Approval, Conditional Approval, or Denial. An overall PPA outcome is then derived from the five: if every category is approved (with or without conditions), a full Application can be submitted; if any single category is denied, the overall PPA is denied and "an Application will not be accepted by the Authority." A Sponsor cannot offset a weak category with a strong one the way a purely additive point system would allow -- a single Denial anywhere in the five stops the Application before it starts.

PPA validity periods differ sharply by program: a 9% Tax Credit PPA evaluation and notification letter is valid for both the 2027 and 2028 competitive scoring rounds under this QAP, while a 4% Tax Credit PPA is valid for 12 months from issuance or until the QAP expires, whichever comes first. A PPA letter issued under a prior QAP is not valid under the 2027-2028 QAP at all -- a Sponsor who received a PPA approval but no Tax Credit allocation under an earlier plan must resubmit a fresh PPA. The Authority also reserves the right to rescind an already-approved PPA before an Application is filed if its own allocation of resources in the Project's market area changes the underlying market conditions -- a live risk for a Sponsor sitting on an approved PPA for more than a few months while other awards are made nearby.

The Authority may issue a Clarification Letter by email after reviewing a PPA, typically allowing no more than 10 business days to respond in writing; a Sponsor's response cannot introduce new information beyond what the Clarification Letter specifically asked about, and a non-response leaves the PPA to be evaluated on the record as it stands, which can result in denial.

What actually gets evaluated before an Application is even accepted

The Site and Market categories at PPA do real, independent work that a Sponsor's own third-party reports do not substitute for. For Site, IHDA determines its own Primary Market Area ("PMA") in-house, using its own mapping tools and an in-person site visit -- and that PMA is used for PPA review purposes only; it does not have to be, and often will not be, the same PMA the Sponsor's own Site and Market Study defines later for the Application under Section VIII.L. For Market, IHDA reviews only publicly available data organized into indicators it publishes on its own Market Research website -- the Affordable Rental Unit Survey (ARUS), the Affordability Risk Index (ARI), and Revitalization Impact Areas (RIAs) -- and layers on a Food Access requirement with defined NAICS business categories and Set-Aside-specific proximity radii (1 mile in the Chicago Metro, City of Chicago, and Other Metro Set-Asides; 5 miles in Non-Metro), where convenience stores never satisfy the requirement regardless of what they stock.

None of this PPA-stage market work is a rubber stamp once the real Application arrives. Section VIII.L states that if the Site and Market Study submitted with the Application contradicts the earlier PPA market approval, "the Authority reserves the right to reverse the market approval" -- on grounds that explicitly include increased Authority investment in the same Primary Market Area since PPA, Project or market details not disclosed at PPA, a unit-mix or rent-schedule change with a negative market implication, changing market conditions and demographic outlook, and declining occupancy at existing affordable properties signaling the market cannot support more units. A Sponsor treating the PPA market Approval as locked in is exposed to a live reversal risk at the Application stage.

Financial Feasibility at PPA already has to be consistent with IHDA's Underwriting Standards Guide, and Development Team certification forms -- Sponsor, General Contractor, Property Manager, Architect of Record, and (for Permanent Supportive Housing applicants) Service Provider -- are all required at PPA, not deferred to Application. A Project seeking consideration under more than one Authority program at PPA (for example, both the PSH Development Program and 9% LIHTC) must complete every applicable tab in the PPA Workbook for each program scenario, and once PPA approvals for more than one program come back, the Sponsor still has to pick exactly one program to actually pursue with the Application, communicated to IHDA by email by the date the LIHTC Program Timeline sets.

Mandatory Components: everything in Section VIII has to clear before Section IX scoring even runs

Section VIII of the QAP -- "Application: Mandatory Components" -- lists eighteen lettered requirements (A through R) that apply to every 4% and 9% Application alike, independent of score: Certificate of Consistency, Community Revitalization (for QCT/R-ECAP sites), Site Control, Zoning, Site Physical Information, Historic Preservation, Phase I Environmental, Design/Construction/Regulatory Compliance, Construction Cost Breakdown, Rehabilitation & Adaptive Reuse provisions, Relocation, Market Study, Development Team, Financial Feasibility, Enterprise Green Communities, Policy and Priority Population Considerations, Qualified Contract Waiver, and the combined Application Certification / Organizational Chart / Identity of Interest Certification. Section IX.D.ii states plainly that Applications failing to meet one or more Mandatory requirements, even after any clarification period, "will not be formally scored" -- Mandatory Components are a threshold gate, structurally separate from the point table.

The Development Team component (VIII.M) is also a Mandatory gate, not a scoring category: minimum experience thresholds apply to the Sponsor/Owner, General Contractor, Architect of Record, and Property Manager, and a list of "unacceptable practices" -- prior foreclosure or workout default on an IHDA-financed project, bankruptcy, a project that failed to close or place in service within 12 months of a prior Reservation Letter, material misrepresentation, construction-monitoring noncompliance, an uncured default or delinquency on any IHDA loan or grant, a history of uncorrected IRS Form 8823s, or a fair-housing violation -- can disqualify a Participant regardless of the rest of the Application's merit.

Scoring: 80 general points plus one policy track worth 20 more, inside four competing Set-Asides

Once Mandatory Components clear, a 9% Application is scored under Section IX. The maximum score for any Project is 100 points: up to 80 from General Scoring Criteria that every Application is evaluated against, plus up to 20 more from exactly one of three Policy Scoring Tracks the Sponsor elects at Application -- Creative Solutions, Permanent Supportive Housing, or Targeted Markets. Choosing a track locks the Application out of scoring in the other two tracks' categories; there is no way to mix points across tracks.

Applications compete only within their own geographic Set-Aside, not against the statewide pool. The QAP sets approximate 9% allocation goals of 40% for Chicago Metro, 20% for Non-Metro, 18% for Other Metro, 12% for a discretionary Statewide Set-Aside (which Sponsors cannot apply into directly -- IHDA moves qualifying Applications there at its own discretion), and 10% for the City of Chicago -- goals the Authority can modify, and which it can depart from further by capping the number of Projects or dollars funded in any Set-Aside "regardless of Applications' scores." The Authority also reserves the right to limit awards concentrated in one Sponsor or one geographic area where it has already allocated resources, and to allocate a portion of the annual Credit Ceiling (up to 10%) to Projects the Interagency Committee of the Illinois Housing Task Force selects through its own NOFA, bypassing the Set-Aside scoring competition for that slice of credits entirely.

If two or more Applications tie inside a Set-Aside, the 2027-2028 QAP resolves it through five ordered tiebreakers: first, the highest unit count; second, if still tied, the lowest per-unit construction cost; third, the lowest average AMI targeting across all units; fourth, a Project intended for eventual tenant ownership with a robust homeownership plan; fifth, historic significance. This order is a change from the prior 2026 QAP cycle -- IHDA's own 2026 Application Round FAQ answered a tiebreaker question by describing "lowest average AMI" as governing ties directly, without mentioning unit count or construction cost first. A Sponsor relying on that FAQ's ordering under the new 2027-2028 QAP text would be modeling the wrong sequence.

No published minimum score, no described appeal process, and fee amounts that live outside the QAP text

Two structural absences are worth stating plainly rather than guessing past. First, nothing in the 2027-2028 QAP's Section IX text sets a minimum point total an Application must clear to be considered competitive -- a real difference from a QAP like Colorado's, which states fixed minimum scores (130/115/95 points) as its own numbered Threshold requirement. Illinois's Mandatory Components (Section VIII) function as the pass/fail gate instead; once cleared, every scored Application competes on rank within its Set-Aside, with no separately published score floor. A screening tool should not invent a minimum-score threshold for Illinois that the QAP itself does not state.

Second, no formal appeal, protest, or reconsideration process for a scoring or eligibility determination was found anywhere in the 2027-2028 QAP's text. What the QAP does state, in its Authority Rights and Authority Limitations sections (Section II.B-C), is broad reserved discretion: the Authority can verify any submitted information, limit awards by Sponsor or by area of prior investment, and allocate credits to "the most competitive Project(s) across any of the scoring tracks within a Set-Aside" -- language that functions much like other states' explicit "no vested right to an award" clauses, even though the QAP does not use that exact phrase.

Fee mechanics are handled almost entirely by reference: the QAP states that fees for below-market-rate Authority resources (HOME, NHTF), and for IAHTC, are due at Application, and that the current Multifamily Fee Payment Form on IHDA's website governs the actual dollar amounts and payment instructions -- and that all fees paid are retained by the Authority even if a Project does not move forward, regardless of the reason. This research pass was unable to retrieve a working copy of the current Multifamily Fee Payment Form (the published link returned a 404 error) or a published 2027-round LIHTC Program Timeline document, so no specific dollar figures for the PPA fee, Application fee, or Reservation fee, and no specific 2027 calendar dates, are stated in this guide's keyFacts below. Confirm both directly against IHDA's Developer Resource Center before budgeting or scheduling a 2027 or 2028 filing.