While I agree 100% that density here is important and should be increased to the maximum extent possible, Payton is correct that the way tax credits are allocated by the state punishes projects with higher per-unit costs. They will have to get pretty creative and/or the Council will have to allocate potentially millions more to bridge that gap. At that point it comes back to a situation similar to the bus system, do you go for more total units across the city or do you ensure that the ones you build are the densest possible (or coverage vs frequency in transit)? Can’t always get both. Or we can lobby the NC Housing Finance Agency and their overlords to update their QAP (Qualified Allocation Plan) to stop punishing urban locations in their scoring methodology.
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