Site control and due diligence — Wyoming

Site control scores points, but the tiers are blunter than they look

WCDA scores Site Control as its own line item worth up to 10 points, and the scale has only two real tiers: full ownership is worth 10 points, and either an option to buy or a WCDA-approved 99-plus-year lease held prior to application is worth 5 points. There is no partial-credit tier for a shorter option, an unapproved lease, or a letter of intent to purchase -- a site that isn't owned outright and hasn't cleared WCDA's own lease pre-approval scores the same as a site with no site control instrument at all.

This scoring category sits on top of, not instead of, an actual submission requirement: every application must include "fully executed site control documentation as applicable," and WCDA's own instructions are explicit that "all lease forms of ownership must be pre-approved by WCDA PRIOR to application." That pre-approval step is a real, separate deadline that doesn't appear anywhere on WCDA's own published cycle calendar (Letter of Intent, application, NOFA) -- a leasehold strategy has to build in time to get that approval well before the application deadline itself, not treat it as part of the application package.

For projects layering in HOME and/or NHTF funding specifically, WCDA restates the same underlying rule in its Program Requirements section: "the owner/applicant must secure appropriate title prior to funding," defined as "fee simple title or ninety-nine plus (99+) year lease," with the same pre-application lease pre-approval requirement repeated. New construction or rehabilitation projects that will displace existing occupants must also submit a relocation plan consistent with the Uniform Relocation Act as part of this same site-control documentation.

The Phase I Environmental Assessment does double duty -- due-diligence document and scored category

A Phase I Environmental Assessment completed within the last year (specifically, within 12 months of the application deadline) is a required submission item. New-construction projects requesting tax credits only -- with no HOME or NHTF funding in the deal -- get a real timing break: they may submit the Phase I within 90 days of award instead of at application. That exception does not extend to any project that also carries HOME or NHTF funding, which needs the Phase I in hand at application to support the federal environmental-review chain described below.

The same Phase I also feeds directly into the Environmental Items/Inappropriate Location scoring category described in Phase 1 above -- worth up to 5 points if the report finds no Recognized Environmental Conditions (RECs) or Areas of Concern (AOCs), and as much as -200 points if it doesn't. WCDA's own text adopts the ASTM Standard E1527-21 definition of a recognized environmental condition verbatim: "(1) the presence of hazardous substances or petroleum products in, on, or at the subject property due to a release to the environment; (2) the likely presence of hazardous substances or petroleum products in, on, or at the subject property due to a release or likely release to the environment; or (3) the presence of hazardous substances or petroleum products in, on, or at the subject property under conditions that pose a material threat of a future release to the environment." WCDA also states plainly that "a project may also receive negative points if it is located in or near a heavy industrial/commercial area, contains hazardous materials, and/or unfit for affordable housing" -- rehabilitation projects are exempted and receive maximum points in this category automatically.

Floodplain due diligence is a flat, non-negotiable gate rather than a scored trade-off: WCDA's own language states "WCDA will not accept any project located within a 100-year floodplain," and flood-plain documentation, including a map, is a separate required submission item on top of the Phase I itself.

Federal environmental review only attaches when HOME or NHTF money is in the deal

HOME funding triggers a full National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review under HUD's implementing regulations at 24 CFR Part 58. WCDA leads that review, but the owner has real obligations inside it: certifying it has taken no "choice-limiting actions" before WCDA notifies it of HUD's release-of-funds approval, disclosing any new environmental information immediately, and -- distinctively -- an explicit duty that "if human remains, bones, artifacts, foundations, or other indications of past human occupation are unearthed during the course of site work, construction, or other activity, Owner will immediately stop work and notify WCDA and the State Historic Preservation Office."

NHTF funding on its own is a different track: WCDA's AHAP states plainly that "NHTF is not currently subject to 24 CFR part 58," relying instead on NHTF's own outcome-based property-standard and environmental provisions under 24 CFR 93.301(f)(1)-(2). Combining NHTF with HOME funding, however, triggers the full Part 58 review after all, which must then also separately satisfy NHTF's own environmental provisions on top of it.

The practical read for a due-diligence sequence: on this record, a 4% or 9% LIHTC-only Wyoming deal -- with no HOME or NHTF layered in -- does not trigger federal NEPA/Part 58 review at all. The Phase I ESA and WCDA's own Environmental Items scoring category are the operative environmental gate for a credit-only deal. A deal that layers in HOME or NHTF funding takes on the added federal review track on top of everything else in this section, including the WCDA-led choice-limiting-action certification and the human-remains stop-work duty.

SHPO clearance, ALTA endorsements, and Wyoming's split mineral estate

A determination letter from the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), "clearing the site for improvements or necessary mitigation requirements," is its own separate, independent submission item -- it is not produced by, or a substitute for, the Phase I Environmental Assessment.

For projects carrying HOME and/or NHTF funding specifically, WCDA's Program Requirements list a specific set of ALTA title-policy endorsements the lender's title policy must carry -- a real, checkable due-diligence list rather than a generic instruction to "get title insurance."

That mineral-endorsement requirement is not incidental. Separation of surface and mineral ownership -- a "split estate" -- is common across Wyoming, dating back to the state's earliest oil, coal, uranium, coalbed-methane, and trona (soda ash) development, where minerals were reserved or conveyed separately from the surface going back to the 1800s. Wyoming's Split Estate Act, W.S. 30-5-401 through 30-5-410, specifically governs the relationship between a surface owner and an oil-and-gas operator when the two estates are held by different parties. The Bureau of Land Management's own "What We Manage: Wyoming" page states that the BLM manages "approximately 18.4 million acres of public lands and 42.9 million acres of federal mineral estate" in the state -- meaning the federal government's mineral holdings alone reach across more than double the surface acreage BLM itself administers, onto land whose surface is privately or state-owned.

This research did not find anything in the AHAP itself requiring a dedicated mineral-title search or a severed-estate disclosure as part of WCDA's own due-diligence checklist beyond the ALTA 9.06/100.29 endorsements listed above for HOME/NHTF deals -- the broader split-estate risk is a general Wyoming real-property fact this research surfaced independently, not a WCDA-specific requirement. A specific parcel's mineral ownership, and whether an active or historic extraction right could affect the site, should be confirmed through a title company or a Wyoming mineral-title attorney rather than assumed either way from general state-level statistics.