"EOHLC says it isn't publishing new per-unit cost limits this cycle, MassHousing's own conduit loan requires state prevailing wages on new construction of 11+ units regardless of what the public-works statute would otherwise require, and every project has to hit both Enterprise Green Communities and the Stretch Energy Code as a threshold, not a scoring bonus — so what's actually capped, what's actually mandatory, and what's genuinely left to case-by-case underwriting?"
No published cost-limit table right now — only a basis cap and a per-project ceiling
EOHLC does not currently publish a recommended per-unit or per-square-foot Total Development Cost limit, and says so directly: "In the 2025-2026 QAP, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities is not including recommended limits... Until [costs stabilize], it is unlikely that HLC will release new recommended cost limits." The QAP attributes this to persistent post-COVID cost pressure — supply chain disruption, material shortages, regional labor shortages, high interest rates, schedule delays, and permitting delays — and warns that "sponsors of extremely high-cost projects should anticipate that HLC is likely to deny their applications in favor of less expensive projects." The only two hard numbers the current QAP states are a basis cap ("the basis cap per unit typically will be limited to $250,000") and a 9% per-project allocation ceiling ("typically will be $1,000,000 at the time of application").
This is worth flagging as a real inconsistency between two of EOHLC's own live, official pages, not just a stale citation: EOHLC's general LIHTC overview page still describes a more granular, tiered basis cap — "$250,000 per assisted unit for projects within the Boston metro area and $200,000 per assisted unit for projects outside the Boston metro area," with preservation capped at "$175,000 per assisted unit" — and a $1,000,000 project maximum with a stated exception "up to a maximum of $1.3 million" for large-scale neighborhood-impact projects. The current QAP's own Section IX states only the flat $250,000 figure and the $1,000,000 figure, without repeating the metro/non-metro/preservation tiers or the $1.3 million exception. Which of these two live documents governs a specific application is exactly the kind of thing to confirm with EOHLC directly before underwriting, rather than assuming either page alone is authoritative.
Developer's fee and overhead: a real sliding scale, with a separate cash-payable limit on large deals
| Cost tranche | Maximum fee/overhead |
|---|---|
| Acquisition costs | 5% |
| First $3,000,000 of total replacement costs less acquisition | 15% |
| $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 of the same base | 12.5% |
| Amount over $5,000,000 of the same base | 10% |
Final 2025-2026 LIHTC QAP, Appendix J-1/J-2. "Total replacement costs" means total development costs net of project reserves and syndication costs; EOHLC does not permit calculating a "fee on fee."
For larger projects, EOHLC separately caps how much of that fee can actually be paid in cash out of the development budget, on top of the tiered schedule above: "For projects with total replacement costs less acquisition between $15 million and $25 million, the paid fee shall be equal to the fee as calculated above plus 7.5% of the amount over $15 million... For projects with total replacement costs less acquisition that exceed $25 million, the paid fee shall be equal to the fee as calculated above plus 5% of the amount over $25 million." A related-party acquisition caps the fee tied to that acquisition specifically at 2.5% of the acquisition cost. Anything above the paid-fee ceiling can be deferred and repaid from operating cash flow — and a deferred-fee note's repayment "may have payment priority over HLC cash flow repayment requirements provided that the terms... are acceptable to HLC."
EOHLC checks the fee calculation at three separate points — application, carryover, and Form 8609 — and reduces the tax credit allocation if the fee exceeds the allowable limit at any of them. It also disallows fee increases that result mainly from cost growth after application: "HLC reserves the right to disallow increases in total developer's fee and overhead that result primarily from increases in replacement costs after the time of application." Reserves or escrows intended to stay in the project more than five years are excluded from the fee calculation entirely; 80% of reserves intended to stay less than five years count toward it. And a project that exceeds EOHLC's cost limits doesn't just risk a denied application — its maximum allowable fee can be independently "reduced by 10% of the amount that the project exceeds the cost limits."
Contractor certification and a builder's-profit cap that exists — but isn't stated in the QAP itself
EOHLC requires every contractor and subcontractor on a Massachusetts LIHTC job to sign a "Certificate of Compliance" before doing any work, attesting that the firm will follow applicable wage and hour laws, properly classify employees, and comply with OSHA and Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards requirements; that it is not currently debarred by any federal or state agency; and that it has not been found, within the past three years, to have committed a serious wage-and-hour or labor violation above specific dollar thresholds. Before signing a construction contract, the project owner must independently check the general contractor (and require the same of every subcontractor) against five separate lists: the Attorney General's Office debarment list, the AGO's civil-enforcement-action listing since July 1, 2021, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance's debarred/suspended/decertified list, the Department of Industrial Accidents' debarment list, and the federal excluded-parties list. This is EOHLC's own universal responsible-contractor policy — it applies to every EOHLC LIHTC deal regardless of whether the state prevailing wage statute independently applies to that job (see below).
A cap on builder's profit, overhead, and general requirements is real but not spelled out in the QAP's own text: where a developer and general contractor are affiliated, the QAP requires an unrelated third-party cost consultant to prepare the construction cost pro forma, and states that "related party contractors are subject to the maximum allowable builder's profit and overhead and general requirements indicated in the program guidelines" — a specific percentage this research could not locate in the QAP itself or confirm from EOHLC's separately referenced "LIHTC Guidelines" or design/construction standards documents. Do not assume a specific builder's-profit percentage for Massachusetts without confirming it directly against EOHLC's current Program Guidelines.
Green building: Enterprise Green Communities and the Stretch Energy Code are mandatory thresholds, not scoring options
Unlike a QAP that scores sustainability as an optional bonus, Massachusetts makes it a pass/fail gate for every LIHTC project: "All LIHTC projects receiving HLC awards under this QAP must meet Enterprise Green Communities Certification Standards. After project completion, sponsors must obtain ESG Certification for the project type." The QAP's scoring section restates this as a floor rather than a ceiling: "HLC now requires all projects to meet both the Massachusetts Stretch Energy Code and to achieve Enterprise Green Communities Certification Standards as minimum threshold requirements" — both standards, stacked, before any of the 21 additional sustainability points become available. With "very few exceptions," EOHLC also mandates electric heating and cooling for new construction and adaptive re-use projects seeking its funds.
The January 2026 amendment softened the certification mandate slightly, not the underlying performance requirement: sponsors may now "request a written waiver to the EGC requirement, based on the fact that their projects will fully meet a comprehensive alternative standard such as a LEEDv certification," and a sponsor pursuing Passive House certification may submit an architect's self-certification of EGC-equivalent (or EOHLC-approved-alternative) performance, with a fallback certification required if the project ultimately doesn't achieve Passive House. EOHLC states it "will only approve an alternative standard if it is a widely accepted comprehensive standard" — a case-by-case waiver, not an open substitution.
| Category | Maximum points | Example thresholds |
|---|---|---|
| Building Energy Performance | 10 | HERS Index ≤70 (5 pts) or ≤60 (7 pts) for rehab; Passive House pre-certification or Specialized Stretch Code compliance for new construction (10 pts) |
| Electrification | 4 | 2 pts for electrified heating/cooling; 2 pts for electrified (non-resistance/high-efficiency) domestic hot water |
| Clean Energy Systems | 4 | Up to 4 pts for on-site solar PV (per the Enterprise Green Communities evaluation approach); 2 pts solar hot water; 1 pt energy storage; 1 pt clean-energy PPA or community aggregation |
| Reduced Embodied Carbon | 3 | Low-embodied-carbon concrete per Carbon Leadership Forum targets; low-embodied-carbon exterior insulation; reduced-embodied-carbon structure/enclosure/hardscape materials |
Final 2025-2026 LIHTC QAP, Section XI, Criterion B-9. Sponsors pursuing Passive House points must agree to provide EOHLC with annual per-unit operating cost reports for at least five years post-occupancy.
Accessibility got its own mandatory bump in the January 2026 amendment: "HLC will promote enhanced production of accessible units by requiring all sponsors of new construction elevator projects to include at least ten percent fully accessible units within their projects." Adaptive re-use and moderate rehabilitation sponsors are "strongly urged," but not required, to exceed code minimums.
Prevailing wage: a real state statute, cited narrowly by EOHLC, and imposed independently by MassHousing as a lending condition
Massachusetts has a real, longstanding, currently active prevailing wage law generally described as M.G.L. c.149, §§26-27H, applicable to public construction contracts. But EOHLC's own Certificate of Compliance cites a narrower slice of that statute, and only conditionally: contractors certify they will "follow all applicable wage and hour laws (including G.L. c. 151, §1, G.L. c. 149, §148, and, only where applicable, G.L. c. 149, §§26-27D)." That "only where applicable" qualifier matters — it signals that EOHLC itself does not treat every LIHTC job as automatically triggering the state prevailing wage law; whether a given deal meets the statute's own "public works" trigger (generally understood to turn on a public awarding authority contracting for the construction, not merely on public subsidy flowing into the deal) is a fact-specific determination this research could not resolve in the abstract for a purely privately owned LIHTC deal financed with EOHLC tax credits alone.
What removes that ambiguity on a large share of Massachusetts 4% deals is a separate, independent lever: MassHousing's own lending conditions. MassHousing's Long-Term Tax-Exempt Conduit Loan fact sheet states plainly, as a program requirement rather than a restatement of the public-works statute: "For the new construction of 11 or more units, state Prevailing Wages are required to be paid." That is MassHousing imposing prevailing wage as a condition of its own financing — it applies to a qualifying conduit-financed deal regardless of whether the underlying project would otherwise meet the state prevailing-wage statute's own public-works trigger. A sponsor evaluating labor cost exposure on a Massachusetts 4%/bond deal should treat MassHousing's (or MassDevelopment's, if it imposes a comparable condition — not independently confirmed in this research) own loan conditions as the operative, reliable trigger, rather than relying on an uncertain analysis of the state statute alone.
Separately, and unrelated to state law, federal Davis-Bacon wage requirements attach through HOME or National Housing Trust Fund financing regardless of anything in Massachusetts statute: under 24 C.F.R. §92.354, a construction contract for housing with 12 or more HOME-assisted units must include Davis-Bacon prevailing-wage provisions reaching the entire project's construction, not just the HOME-assisted units. This research did not identify an EOHLC-specific restatement of that federal trigger beyond general contractor-approval and bonding provisions in the QAP; it applies by force of federal regulation whenever HOME (or comparable federal) funds are layered into a Massachusetts LIHTC deal at that scale.
Where this goes wrong
- Assuming Massachusetts publishes a current, granular per-unit Total Development Cost table — EOHLC states outright it is not issuing new recommended cost limits under the 2025-2026 QAP because of post-pandemic cost volatility; only a $250,000 basis cap and a $1,000,000 9% per-project ceiling are stated in the current QAP text.
- Relying on EOHLC's general LIHTC overview page for the exact basis-cap figures ($250k Boston metro/$200k outside metro/$175k preservation, with a $1.3M large-project exception) without checking whether the current QAP's own Section IX — which states only a flat $250,000 basis cap and $1,000,000 ceiling — has superseded it; confirm directly with EOHLC rather than treating either page alone as authoritative.
- Treating the developer's fee schedule as a single flat percentage — it is a four-tier sliding scale (5% acquisition / 15% / 12.5% / 10% by replacement-cost tranche) with a separate, additional cash-payable-fee limit that only kicks in above $15 million and $25 million in replacement costs.
- Assuming the developer's fee, once approved at application, is locked in — EOHLC re-checks it at carryover and at Form 8609, and can disallow fee increases that result mainly from post-application cost growth, or cut the maximum allowable fee by 10% of any amount a project exceeds EOHLC's cost limits.
- Assuming a specific numeric cap on builder's profit, overhead, and general requirements without confirming it — the QAP itself only says such a cap exists "in the program guidelines" for related-party contractors; the actual percentage could not be located in the QAP text and should be confirmed directly with EOHLC.
- Treating Enterprise Green Communities certification (or, since January 2026, an approved LEED/Passive House alternative) as an optional scoring bonus — it is a mandatory threshold for every LIHTC project, stacked with a separate mandatory Massachusetts Stretch Energy Code requirement, before any of the 21 additional sustainability points become available.
- Assuming Massachusetts has no meaningful prevailing-wage exposure just because EOHLC's own Certificate of Compliance cites the state prevailing wage statute (G.L. c.149, §§26-27D) only "where applicable" — MassHousing's own Long-Term Tax-Exempt Conduit Loan program independently requires state prevailing wages on new construction of 11 or more units as a straightforward lending condition, regardless of the statute's own public-works trigger.
- Assuming MassHousing's prevailing-wage lending condition also governs a MassDevelopment-issued 4%/bond deal — this research confirmed the condition only in MassHousing's own conduit-loan fact sheet and did not independently confirm a comparable requirement in MassDevelopment's own published terms.
- Assuming a Massachusetts LIHTC deal is Davis-Bacon-free absent a state prevailing-wage trigger — federal Davis-Bacon attaches independently, and project-wide, once 12 or more units are HOME-assisted (24 C.F.R. §92.354), regardless of state law or EOHLC's own certification requirements.
- HUD
- LIHTC
- State QAPs
- IRS § 42
- Housing Finance Agencies