Cost, construction type, and the labor package — Oregon

No published cost ceiling -- containment runs through fee, profit, and contingency percentages

This research found no OHCS-published blanket per-unit or total-development-cost limit of the kind some other states' allocating agencies publish. Instead, the GPGM controls cost several ways at once: percentage caps on developer fees (varying by project size, new construction versus acquisition/rehab, and which credit is used); a percentage cap on contractor profit and overhead; a percentage cap on construction contingency; and a cost-reasonability review, in which OHCS "compares costs to significant data from our existing portfolio and identifies project costs outside of expected ranges," backed by a required Uniformat Schedule of Values and, if necessary, a third-party cost justification. OHCS's own per-unit gap-subsidy limit tables (which scale by AMI tier, bedroom count, and rural/urban location) cap how much OHCS itself will contribute per unit, but that is a limit on OHCS's own subsidy, not a ceiling on total project cost.

Contractor profit, contingency caps, and a flat ban on cost-savings clauses

Where the general contractor is a Principal, Related Entity/Person, or otherwise has an Identity of Interest with the applicant or owner, the GPGM limits the GC's combined profit, general conditions, and overhead to 10% of total rehabilitation/construction costs plus site work costs; an arm's-length contractor is limited to 14%. Maximum construction contingency is 5% for new construction and 10% for rehabilitation, applied across all combined contingencies -- owner, contractor, and other -- and covering hard costs, site work, and contractor profit and overhead together.

Both the GPGM and the ORCA Manual separately prohibit cost-savings clauses. The ORCA Manual frames the ban as a fraud-prevention measure directly: OHCS is "prohibiting 'cost savings clauses' that allow the contractor or developer to benefit from excess project resources, in alignment with national best practices to deter fraud and misuse of public funds." The developer fee itself is fixed once set: the ORCA Manual states OHCS is "establishing a developer fee at the Financial Eligibility step that may not be increased throughout the life of the development project without appeal." Deferred developer fee must be repaid by year 15 for LIHTC/Private Activity Bond projects, and by year 30 for all other OHCS-funded projects. Retainage is held at 10% of the largest OHCS-funded capital resource in a project (with a different, larger-of-HOME-or-HTF calculation where those sources are present) until closeout conditions are satisfied, though LIHTC projects can generally release retainage at Certificate of Occupancy rather than waiting for full closeout.

Green building: a mandatory third-party certification, plus a separate scoring bonus for going further

Every OHCS-funded new-construction or rehabilitation project must select and complete a Department-approved Sustainable Building Path, tracked through the OHCS Architectural Standards' Sustainable Design (SD) Form Series (Version 1.0, dated 2026.06.30) at four checkpoints: SD-1 early in the application, SD-2 at roughly 50% design development, SD-3 at finance closing, and SD-4 at construction completion. This is a mandatory threshold requirement, not merely a scoring option -- the SD instructions state that "one of the Sustainable Building Paths listed below must be selected and the path requirements must be integrated into the project design."

Oregon's Prevailing Wage Rate law: a broad "public works" trigger with a real, currently-litigated exemption

Oregon's Prevailing Wage Rate (PWR) law, ORS 279C.800 to 279C.870, is administered by the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) and is known for reaching further than many states' equivalent statute. "Public works" under ORS 279C.800(6)(a) includes not only projects a public agency directly contracts for, but also a privately owned project that uses $750,000 or more of "funds of a public agency," or one in which 25% or more of the completed square footage will be occupied or used by a public agency. The rule's definition of "funds of a public agency" specifically includes money loaned by a public agency, including some loans of conduit or pass-through revenue bond proceeds, for the specific purpose of financing a project -- but separately excludes tax credits and tax abatements outright, and excludes money from bonds loaned by a state agency to a private entity "unless the money will be used for a public improvement." Those two provisions create a real, fact-specific tension this research could not fully resolve from the statute and rule text alone; OHCS itself does not try to resolve it internally. The GPGM requires a BOLI determination letter for every single OHCS project at the Financial Eligibility step, and states plainly: "OHCS is not responsible for the determination of prevailing wages status on projects." As a general matter, the GPGM tells applicants a project may be subject to state prevailing wage requirements if it receives $750,000 or more in public funds and does not meet all of: 60% or more of occupants at or below 60% of AMI; no more than four stories; and no portion of the project constituting public works.

The statutory exemption those criteria track is Oregon's affordable-housing carve-out at ORS 279C.810(2)(d) and OAR 839-025-0100(1)(e): the PWR law "does not apply to privately owned residential construction projects that predominately provide affordable housing." "Residential construction" generally means "the construction, reconstruction, major renovation, or painting of a single-family house or an apartment building of no more than four stories in height." "Affordable housing" means occupant incomes no greater than 60% of area median income (80% for owner-occupants), and "predominately" means at least 60% of the project is so designated. Notably, this exemption reaches typical LIHTC ownership structures even where a public agency is involved in title: "affordable housing can be considered 'privately owned' even if it is owned by a public agency, as long as it is leased to a private entity for 50 years or more, or if the affordable housing is owned by a partnership, as long as the public agency is not a majority owner in the partnership."

That exemption is a live legal question, not settled trivia. According to contemporaneous news coverage (this research could not confirm the court's exact case citation or docket number from a primary legal source), the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled on or about September 16, 2026 that the affordable-housing exemption's "residential construction" definition reaches adaptive-reuse building conversions, not only ground-up new construction -- a ruling arising from DevNW's conversion of the century-old Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Salem into 17 affordable apartments, after BOLI had determined in 2022 that the project did not qualify because it involved renovating a church rather than constructing an apartment building or single-family home. Given that this is a very recent appellate decision reported only in news coverage as of this research, confirm its current precedential status and exact holding directly with counsel or BOLI before relying on it for a specific conversion project.

Layering with Davis-Bacon: both regimes can apply, but "residential" projects usually default to the federal schedule

When a project is independently subject to Oregon's PWR law and also uses federal funds that separately trigger the federal Davis-Bacon Act (as HOME or National Housing Trust Fund dollars typically do), both regimes apply at once -- BOLI's own guidance notes this holds "even if the project is funded solely with federal funds, because once federal funds are in the custody and/or control of a public agency, they become 'funds of a public agency'" under Oregon's own rule. On non-residential projects subject to both laws, a contractor must pay the higher of the state or federal prevailing wage rate for each classification.

Residential construction projects work differently, and counterintuitively: BOLI states plainly that it "does not survey or publish residential rates," so a "residential construction" project (the same ≤4-story apartment/single-family definition used in the affordable-housing exemption) that is subject to Oregon's PWR law generally uses the federal Davis-Bacon residential wage rates instead of a state schedule -- and BOLI is explicit that "the federal residential rates apply to residential construction projects subject to Oregon's PWR law, even if the project is not subject to the federal Davis-Bacon Act." In other words, a purely state-funded, non-federally-assisted LIHTC apartment project that fails the affordable-housing exemption (for example, because it is more than four stories, or restricts fewer than 60% of units at 60% AMI) does not get a distinct Oregon wage schedule to comply with -- it defaults to the federal residential rates by reference. If no federal residential rate exists for a given trade or classification, a special wage rate determination must be requested under 29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(ii).