Zoning proof, not a pathway election — Missouri

Zoning: proof in hand, not a plan to get there

Missouri's zoning item sits inside the FY2027 Application Checklist's "Site Review" category (itself part of a broader "Supplemental Documents" heading) as one flat line: "12a. Zoning Letter," a PDF required of "All applications," with the Comment column left blank. Nothing in that column offers an alternative to submitting the letter — no either/or, no description-of-process option, nothing conditioning the requirement on the site's current zoning status.

That blank comment column is easy to read past, so it's worth confirming MHDC actually knows how to write an either/or requirement into this same checklist when it means to. Two items later, in the "Site Control" category, it does exactly that: the comment for items 13a through 13d reads "Either 13a,13b,13c or 13d is required," and the comment for items 13f and 13g reads "Either 13f or 13g is required." The Zoning Letter's comment column carries no equivalent language anywhere in the current checklist.

The current Sample Zoning Letter template confirms the same reading from the opposite direction. Its operative sentence has the local government confirm the land "has a zoning classification of ___, briefly described as ___, which is adequate to allow the development, construction, operation, maintenance, management, rental and use of the above-referenced housing development," with only two checkbox options for the project itself: "proposed to be constructed" or "completed." Both options assume the zoning classification already exists at the time the local government signs the letter. There is no third checkbox, and no blank, for a project whose zoning is still moving through a local process.

This research checked every current-cycle document available for a surviving not-yet-zoned alternative and did not find one: the 2027 QAP's own text no longer states a zoning standard at all (that detail now lives in the Application Guide, covered next); the FIN-125 comment column for item 12a is blank; the Developer's Guide mentions "zoning" exactly once in the entire document, in a Firm Commitment-stage contractor-compliance clause about codes and permits generally, unrelated to the application-stage exhibit; and the Sample Zoning Letter has no field for describing a pending process. None of that proves MHDC would flatly reject a not-yet-zoned site — the QAP's general waiver mechanism lets an applicant request, in writing, to waive any checklist exhibit "no later than seven (7) business days before the applicable NOFA deadline," and a waiver could in principle reach zoning the same as anything else. But a discretionary waiver MHDC can refuse is a materially weaker position than a QAP that states the alternative path in its own text, which is what the prior cycle did and the current one does not.

A QAP that stopped itemizing — what changed since the prior cycle

The 2027 QAP's Phase I: Document Review still separates Threshold Documents from Secondary Documentation, but it structures both more sparsely than the cycle before it. Threshold Documents are now a short, closed list of four categories — "a. Certified MAAP Submission... b. Application Fee... c. Market Study... d. Financing Commitment" — full stop. There is no fifth item, and none of the four is a local-notification document of any kind.

Secondary documentation is where the bigger structural change sits. The prior (2026) QAP cycle itemized secondary documents directly in its own text, by letter, running from Site Review Information through a distinct lettered Zoning line — the same line carrying the "evidence of proper zoning or a letter... describing the process and timeframe for approval" either/or this guide is correcting. The 2027 QAP's equivalent section is one plain sentence, with no letters at all: "Applicants must submit the secondary documentation listed in the Application Guide by the application deadline." The itemized list a reader would previously have found directly inside the QAP now lives exclusively in the Application Guide — in practice, the FIN-125 checklist this guide draws from throughout.

The Cure Date mechanic that governed the old lettered list survived the restructuring essentially word for word: "MHDC may reject an application if five (5) or more secondary review documents are missing or are incomplete. If four (4) or fewer secondary documents are missing or are incomplete, the applicant will be notified in writing of deficient items and a date by which deficiencies must be cured ('Cure Date'). If the requested documents are not received by the Cure Date, the application may be rejected." A missing or incomplete Zoning Letter is one of the documents this mechanic reaches — it just isn't called out by its own lettered line inside the QAP anymore, only inside FIN-125.

Local notification: the applicant's six items, and MHDC's own separate outreach

FIN-125's own local-notification documents sit under "Other Documents," as items 19d through 19i:

Two things about that list are easy to miss if a reader remembers the prior cycle's version. First, a Head of Local Law Enforcement notification (19h) now sits alongside the legislative and housing-authority contacts — this research did not have a verified copy of the prior cycle's FIN-125 in hand to confirm directly, so treat this as a likely new addition to this cycle rather than a confirmed one. Second, and confirmed directly: there is no Chief Executive Officer or Mayor notification item anywhere in this six-item list, and none in the four-item Threshold Documents list either. The applicant-facing CEO notification document is gone from the checklist.

"Gone from the applicant's checklist" is not the same as "gone from the QAP." Phase IV: Underwriting/Selection Criteria's "Notifications" section puts the same notification in MHDC's own hands instead: if an application satisfies Initial Review and Primary Documentation Review, MHDC will send notification to the chief executive officer of the local jurisdiction, the state senator and state representative for the district of the proposed development, and the executive director of the local public housing authority — giving each a reasonable opportunity to comment, and separately publishing a public-comment notice, posting the application list online, and holding a public hearing. A Community Impact scoring factor, two subsections earlier in that same Phase IV text, lets MHDC weigh "Local Jurisdiction and Community Comments... including, but not limited to, chief executive officers and community members" — meaning a CEO's comment, once solicited by MHDC itself, can now feed into a scored evaluation factor rather than just a filed notice.

Read together, this is a real structural shift, not a simplification. The burden of proving CEO notification happened has moved off the applicant's desk — there's no document left to assemble, label, and upload for it. But the underlying federal floor hasn't gone anywhere: IRC Section 42(m)(1)(A)(ii) still requires the allocating agency to notify the chief executive officer (or equivalent) of the local jurisdiction and give that official a reasonable opportunity to comment before an allocation is made. Missouri satisfies that floor by having MHDC do the notifying directly, rather than requiring the applicant to document it — which also means an applicant no longer controls the timing or content of that particular contact the way it still does for the state senator, state representative, councilperson/alderman, PHA director, law enforcement, and (conditionally) school superintendent notifications it must still make and document itself under FIN-125.

Zoning stays local — Missouri's statutes, unchanged by this QAP cycle

None of the QAP-cycle changes above touch who actually controls zoning in Missouri. There is still no Live Local Act, no CHFA-style threshold that reads differently by credit type, and no jurisdiction-wide density mandate — zoning authority remains delegated wholesale to local government. Cities, towns, and villages regulate land use under the Zoning Enabling Act; RSMo Section 89.020 grants the core power to "regulate and restrict the height, number of stories, and size of buildings and other structures, the percentage of lot that may be occupied...the density of population...and the location and use of buildings, structures and land." Counties regulate unincorporated areas under RSMo Chapter 64, with Section 64.090 granting a parallel power — but only to counties of the first classification that also have a charter form of government, not to first-class counties generally and not to second- or third-class counties. Neither the 2027 QAP nor MHDC's enabling statutes touch the pace or substance of a local zoning decision; the QAP's Development Standards simply require every MHDC-approved development to comply with "local zoning ordinances."

The one place state law does override local zoning discretion is narrow, and it is not about multifamily LIHTC development as such. RSMo Section 89.020.2 requires that the "single-family dwelling" or "single-family residence" classification include "any home in which eight or fewer unrelated mentally or physically handicapped persons reside," plus up to two additional persons acting as houseparents or guardians — a city cannot zone a small group home of that size out of a single-family district the way it could a larger multifamily use. Section 89.020.3 separately bars contracts entered after September 28, 1985 that would restrict such group homes or their location. RSMo Section 64.090.4 carries the same group-home language for counties of the first classification with a charter form of government. This matters for a Missouri LIHTC deal built at small-group-home scale under the QAP's Permanent Supportive Housing/Vulnerable Persons or Service-Enriched priorities — it does not reach an ordinary multifamily LIHTC development seeking standard multifamily zoning, which still runs entirely through the local jurisdiction's own process.

Missouri did enact a real land-use-adjacent preemption law in this same period, and it's worth naming precisely so it isn't mistaken for a zoning statute. House Bill 595 — passed by the legislature May 7, 2025, signed by Governor Kehoe on July 14, 2025, and effective August 28, 2025, codified at RSMo Section 441.043 — bars a county or city from enacting ordinances that regulate rent amounts, restrict a landlord's use of income-qualifying methods or credit/criminal-history screening, prohibit source-of-income discrimination, cap security deposits, or require a tenant's automatic right of first refusal. It regulates landlord-tenant relationships and lease terms, not land use or zoning entitlements, and this research found nothing tying it to the zoning or notification requirements addressed in this phase.

What MHDC's current documents still don't settle

A few things remain genuinely open across the documents reviewed for this guide, and a Missouri entitlement schedule should treat them as open rather than settled.

MHDC's Firm Submission Exhibits, as described in the 2027 Developer's Guide, do not include a standalone zoning re-check between Conditional Reservation and Firm Commitment. The items listed there — Site Control, Title Commitment, Survey, MHDC Form 3345 Plan Review Worksheet, and similar exhibits — assume the site is buildable by that point, but none of them is a zoning-specific document comparable to the application-stage Zoning Letter.

Neither the QAP nor the Developer's Guide describes what happens if the zoning classification named in an application-stage Zoning Letter is later challenged, downzoned, or overturned after a Conditional Reservation issues — the only lever either document points to is MHDC's general, undefined "sole discretion" over compliance with Conditional Reservation terms.

Whether Missouri's second- and third-class counties have an equivalent to RSMo 64.090's group-home carve-out was not confirmed in this research — only the first-class-with-charter statute was verified directly.

No Missouri jurisdiction's rezoning process was found, in this research, to publish an application-round-linked calendar the way Denver's Community Planning and Development office coordinates its rezoning submission windows with CHFA's deadlines in Colorado. That may reflect a gap in this research rather than an actual absence in Missouri's largest jurisdictions — St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield were not individually surveyed for this guide.