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Show Tax breaks incentive for low income housing By SCOTT SUMMERILL The Utah Housing Finance Agency (UHFA) has awarded more than $2 million in 1990 federal tax credits to developers of 13 apartment apart-ment projects throughout the state that will provide housing for low income families. Three of the projects pro-jects are in Davis County. UHFA Executive Director William Erickson said one of the Davis County projects, the Twin Trees apartment complex in Layton, will provide 43 new units for low income housing. The other two projects, pro-jects, Lakeview Heights apartments in Clearfield and Heritage Place apartments in Bountiful, will be rehabilitation projects that will result in 90 refurbished units. The low income tax credits are allotted to developers to promote construction and rehabilitation of low income housing. Under the program, developers promise to keep rent low enough for low in come families to afford them for at least 15 years. 'It ensures that we don't have developers get the tax break and then raise the price of rent in two or three years," Erickson said. 'Many of the developers keep the price down for 30 to 50 years." To qualify, the total family income in-come cannot exceed 60 percent of the average family income in the county. In Davis County, a family earning less than $16,000 a year would qualify for the housing, which then restricts rent from going above 30 percent of the total income in-come for a maximum annual rate of $4,800 in the county. "We encourage them to bring the rents even lower," Erickson said. 1 'We give them points during evaluation for future projects if they do." Families who meet the guidelines must go to the apartment manager and verify their qualifications before they can rent a low income unit. The tax credit program was initiated in-itiated by Congress in 1987, and has awarded more than $4 million in tax credits to developers in Utah since then. The program was scheduled to end in this year, but was given a one year extension during the recent federal budget negotiations. |