"Does this site actually clear 50 of the Site Evaluation's 68 points — and is the Amenities math run on drivable miles or a straight-line radius?"
One agency, one round, four regions — and Amenities is the single biggest lever in the whole QAP
North Carolina's 9% Housing Credit program runs through NCHFA as sole administering agency, with one preliminary application deadline per year rather than Florida's multiple simultaneous RFAs. But geography still splits the competition: new construction credits are awarded within four geographic set-asides that compete internally against each other, so a site's county decides its competitive pool before its score does anything.
| Region | Share of new construction credits | Representative counties |
|---|---|---|
| West | 16% | Buncombe, Watauga, Ashe, Haywood, Henderson, McDowell, and 22 other western counties |
| Central | 23% | Alamance, Orange, Chatham, Randolph, Rowan, and 27 other Piedmont counties |
| Metro | 38% | Buncombe, Cumberland, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Wake (7 counties only) |
| East | 23% | Beaufort, New Hanover, Pitt, Robeson, Wayne, and 36 other eastern counties |
Within Site Evaluation's 68 points, Amenities alone is worth 46 — more than two-thirds of the section, and by far the largest single scored component anywhere in the QAP. It splits into Primary Amenities (grocery, shopping, pharmacy — 26 points max) and Secondary Amenities (a second primary amenity, service, healthcare, public facility, public school, other retail — 20 points max), each scored on a sliding scale by driving distance, with materially looser thresholds in towns under 10,000 people.
| Amenity | Category | Max points | Standard-area distance for max points | Small Town distance for max points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grocery | Primary | 12 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Shopping | Primary | 7 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Pharmacy | Primary | 7 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Other Primary Amenity | Secondary | 5 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Service (restaurant/bank/gas station) | Secondary | 3 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Healthcare | Secondary | 3 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Public Facility (park/library/rec center) | Secondary | 3 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Public School | Secondary | 3 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
| Other Retail | Secondary | 3 | ≤ 2 mi | ≤ 3.5 mi |
Points step down at each of four distance tiers out to 4 miles (standard) or 5.5 miles (Small Town), then hit zero. A 'Small Town' is a municipality with a population under 10,000 per the Office of State Budget and Management's Certified Population Estimates — an unincorporated area not on that list needs Agency approval before the preliminary deadline to be treated as one. Two alternate paths can substitute for the Amenities matrix entirely: a $250,000+ tribally-appropriated funds commitment (6 points) or a qualifying fixed-route bus/transit stop within 0.25 walking miles with a covered waiting area (6 points, or 2 points without), each capped at whatever the Amenities subtotal allows.
Documenting distance is a GIS exercise with photo evidence, not an estimate
NCHFA doesn't take a developer's word on proximity. Driving distance must be Google Maps mileage on a drivable route as of the preliminary application deadline, shown in satellite-view map format, with a photo of each claimed amenity. The measurement runs from the point closest to the site entrance to the point closest to the amenity entrance — and any driveway, access easement, or other distance over 500 feet between the nearest residential building and the public road gets added to the total. For scattered-site projects, the amenity distance is measured from whichever parcel has the longest drive.
Only one establishment counts per row: a site with both a park and a library within 2.5 miles still gets a single Public Facility score, not two. And the qualifying-establishment lists are specific rather than generic — NCHFA maintains named lists of what counts as a Grocery (Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Aldi, Publix, Walmart Supercenter, and roughly two dozen named others) and Shopping (Target, Walmart, Dollar General, Big Lots, and similar), so a locally-owned market or boutique retailer that isn't on the list scores zero regardless of what it actually sells.
Neighborhood Characteristics, Site Suitability, and the Redevelopment Project escape valve
Neighborhood Characteristics (10 points) is a three-tier call: Good (10 points) if structures within a half mile are well maintained, Fair (5 points) if there's visible deterioration, Poor (0 points) if nearby structures are 'Blighted' (abandoned, substantially deteriorated, a public nuisance, or violating health/safety standards) or carry physical security modifications like barbed wire or barred windows. A Poor site isn't automatically dead, though: a site that separately qualifies as a Redevelopment Project — local-government-initiated, with documented community development investment in the half-mile area within the last 10 years, plus land donation, a fee waiver, or a funding commitment ($750,000 in the Metro region, $250,000 elsewhere) — scores the full 10 points regardless of surrounding blight, and the QAP guarantees at least two Redevelopment Project awards regardless of where they rank statewide.
Site Suitability (12 points) breaks into four 3-point sub-criteria: no Incompatible Use within specified distances (airports, hazardous materials storage, landfills, and similar uses within a half mile; jails, factories, and adult establishments within 500 feet; electrical substations and high-speed roads within 250 feet); no negative physical features (flood hazards, steep slopes, wetlands, ravines); visibility to potential tenants near existing residential/commercial/institutional use; and safe traffic access, meaning no blind-curve exit and no crossing three or more same-direction lanes. On top of all of this, the Agency can still deduct up to 3 Site Negative Points at its discretion if it determines a site is unsuitable for housing even after meeting every listed criterion — a real, if narrow, catch-all.
The 2026 Helene overlay reshapes site economics in 29 western counties — and a separate -40 point trap has nothing to do with the parcel
The 2026 QAP carries a substantial, cycle-specific disaster-recovery package for Tropical Storm Helene. Twelve percent of available credits are added to the West region ahead of its normal set-aside. New construction applications in 29 counties designated HUD- or State-Identified Most Impacted and Distressed (MID) — Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Clay, Cleveland, Gaston, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Lincoln, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mecklenburg (zip 28214 only), Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Surry, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga, Wilkes, Yadkin, and Yancey — get 1 bonus point (unless already covered by the separate DHHS priority-county point) and are eligible for a 30% Agency-designated basis boost, versus 10% standard. MID counties can also receive a second new construction award once every eligible county in the region has one, and the Agency will adjust awards to guarantee Buncombe County at least one Metro-region award. A narrower 16-county subset is additionally eligible for CDBG-DR gap loans ($500,000–$3,000,000 for 9% deals) carrying Davis-Bacon and HUD environmental-clearance obligations. Because this entire package is dated to the 2026 cycle's disaster response, confirm the current-year list before assuming a county still qualifies in a later round.
Separately — and unrelated to site quality — any application can lose up to 40 points, the single largest point swing anywhere in the QAP, if the Applicant, any owner, Principal, or affiliate is involved in a Section 1602 Exchange project anywhere with uncorrected material noncompliance. This attaches to the sponsor's portfolio, not the parcel, which makes it a deal-screening item as much as a site-screening one: a clean, high-scoring site can still be sunk by an unrelated partner's compliance history.
Where this goes wrong
- Screening amenities with a straight-line GIS radius instead of NCHFA's required Google Maps drivable-route distance — actual driving distance is almost always longer, especially in rural western and eastern counties without a grid road network, and can silently drop a site a full distance tier.
- Assuming Small Town's looser distance thresholds apply because the site 'feels rural' — Small Town status is defined by OSBM's Certified Population Estimates for incorporated municipalities, and an unincorporated community not on that list needs Agency approval before the preliminary deadline to qualify.
- Assuming a grocery-anchored parcel banks the full 26 Primary Amenity points — Grocery, Shopping, and Pharmacy each cap individually (12/7/7), and only one establishment counts per row even where multiple qualifying options sit within range.
- Missing that a long private driveway or access easement gets added to the measured driving distance once it exceeds 500 feet — a site set back from the public road can lose a distance tier that a windshield survey wouldn't catch.
- Treating 'no visible blight nearby' as the only path to full Neighborhood Characteristics points without checking whether Redevelopment Project qualification is available — it can turn a 0-point Blighted-area site into a full 10-point score, but only with local-government initiation and investment history documented before submission, which can't be assembled retroactively.
- Treating the Section 1602 Exchange point deduction as immaterial because the site itself is clean — it attaches to any owner, Principal, or affiliate across the sponsor's other deals, so due diligence on the site has to be paired with a compliance check on every party to the application.
- Assuming the 2026 Helene bonus point, second-award allowance, and 30% basis boost are permanent QAP features rather than a disaster-specific, dated package tied to a named priority-county list that the Agency can revise cycle to cycle.
- Ignoring the discretionary Site Negative Points deduction — a site can satisfy every listed Site Suitability and Neighborhood Characteristics criterion and still lose up to 3 points if the Agency separately judges it unsuitable for housing.
- HUD
- LIHTC
- State QAPs
- IRS § 42
- Housing Finance Agencies