The post-award readiness clock — New York

Project readiness is scored before award, then re-tested for real after it

Project Readiness is one of the QAP's 17 scoring criteria, worth up to 10 points, based on the likelihood of achieving the shortest possible time to construction closing — assessed at application through the status of financing commitments and supporting measures like infrastructure improvements, property tax relief, and rezoning. That's a paper assessment made before an award exists. HCR's 2025 RFP then makes the same underlying question operational after the award: it states plainly that awarded projects are expected to achieve closing on construction financing within one year of the award, and that projects failing to progress within that timeframe risk having the award rescinded and reallocated to a project that can move faster. A sponsor's readiness is effectively assessed twice — once on paper for points, and once for real against a clock that can cost the credits.

HCR targets notifying applicants of allocation decisions within 150 days of the application deadline. Once an Award Letter issues, it's explicitly described as a preliminary notification, not a commitment — the awardee's development team is then required to participate in a Project Development Meeting with HCR staff, scheduled roughly 30 business days after the Award Letter, before HCR issues the documents that actually carry the enforceable deadlines.

The reservation-to-final-allocation sequence, and what breaks it

The regulation is explicit that noncompliance with the deadlines in either the credit reservation or the binding agreement lets DHCR revoke the reservation or binding agreement and require the applicant to reapply for credits — that revoke-and-reapply mechanic is the only consequence the QAP actually publishes; there's no separately codified extension or waiver process for a missed reservation deadline described in the regulation text. One protective detail does run the other way: when DHCR issues the carryover allocation, it's barred from imposing deadlines more restrictive than those already set in the credit reservation — the carryover step can't tighten the clock, only hold it or (implicitly, at DHCR's discretion) work within it.

The 10% test itself is a federal requirement, not a New York invention — IRC §42(h)(1)(E)(ii) requires that more than 10% of a project's reasonably expected basis be incurred, generally within 12 months of the carryover allocation, and DHCR's own carryover step is where that certification gets submitted. The federal placed-in-service backstop sits on top of that: under IRC §42(h)(1)(E)(i), a building generally must be placed in service by the end of the second calendar year following the year the carryover allocation was made. Neither figure is restated as a distinct New York-specific number in the QAP text reviewed here — they're federal Code deadlines that NY's carryover process is built to satisfy, not separate state deadlines layered on top.

HTFC's soft-money awards run a parallel, separately-binding clock

For a deal that also carries HTF, SHOP, CIF, PHP, MIHP, SENR, HOME-ARP, NCP, CEI or SFA funding, HTFC Board approval is required for those awards separately from DHCR's LIHTC determination, and the instrument that makes that financing binding is a Funding Commitment Letter (FCL) — considered a binding agreement once signed and returned by the applicant, distinct from the 9% LIHTC/SLIHC Reservation Letter and its own binding-agreement step. A sponsor running a mixed-source deal is effectively managing two binding-agreement tracks issued at different points in the same process, not one unified schedule — missing that they're separate instruments is a real way to lose track of which deadline governs which piece of the stack.