[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 90 (Wednesday, May 9, 2001)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 23770-23830]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-11697]



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Part III





Department of Housing and Urban Development





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24 CFR Part 888



Fair Market Rents for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and Moderate 
Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program: Fiscal Year 2002; 
Proposed Rule

Federal Register / Vol. 66, No. 90 / Wednesday, May 9, 2001 / 
Proposed Rules

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DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

24 CFR Part 888

[Docket No. FR-4680-N-01]


Fair Market Rents for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and 
Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program: Fiscal Year 2002

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, HUD.

ACTION: Notice of proposed fiscal year (FY) 2002 fair market rents 
(FMRs).

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SUMMARY: Section 8(c)(1) of the United States Housing Act of 1937 
requires the Secretary to publish FMRs annually to be effective on 
October 1 of each year. FMRs are used to determine payment standard 
amounts for the Housing Choice Voucher program, to determine initial 
renewal rents for some expiring project-based Section 8 contracts, and 
to determine initial rents for HAP contracts in the Moderate 
Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy program. Other programs may 
require use of FMRs for other purposes. Today's notice proposes revised 
FMRs that reflect estimated 40th and 50th percentile rent levels 
trended to April 1, 2002.

DATES: Comments Due Date: July 9, 2001.

Electronic Data Availability

    This Federal Register Notice is available electronically from the 
HUD news page: http://www.hudclips.org/cgi/index.cgi. Federal Register 
Notices also are available electronically from the U.S. Government 
Printing Office web site: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su__docs/aces/
aces140.html.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding 
HUD's estimates of the FMRs as published in this Notice to the Office 
of the General Counsel, Rules Docket Clerk, Room 10276, Department of 
Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 
20410. Communications should refer to the above docket number and title 
and should contain the information specified in the ``Request for 
Comments'' section. To ensure that the information is fully considered 
by all of the reviewers, each commenter is requested to submit two 
copies of its comments, one to the Rules Docket Clerk and the other to 
the Economic and Market Analysis Staff in the appropriate HUD Field 
Office. A copy of each communication submitted will be available for 
public inspection and copying during regular business hours (7:30 
a.m.--5:30 p.m. Eastern Time) at the above address.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Gerald Benoit, Director, Real Estate 
and Housing Performance Division, Office of Public and Assisted Housing 
Delivery, telephone (202) 708-0477, is responsible for decisions on how 
fair market rents are used. For technical information on the 
methodology used to develop fair market rents or a listing of all fair 
market rents, please call HUD USER at 1-800-245-2691 or access the 
information on the HUD Web site, http:\\www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr.html. Further questions on the methodology may be addressed to 
Marie Lihn, Economic and Market Analysis Division, Office of Economic 
Affairs, telephone (202) 708-0590, (e-mail: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="1974786b707c4646753746467570717759716c7d377e766f">[email protected]</a>). 
Hearing-or speech-impaired persons may use the Telecommunications 
Devices for the Deaf (TTY) by contacting the Federal Information Relay 
Service at 1-800-877-8339. (Other than the ``800'' TTY number, 
telephone numbers are not toll free.)

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 8 of the United States Housing Act 
of 1937 (the Act) (42 U.S.C. 1437f) authorizes housing assistance to 
aid lower income families in renting decent, safe, and sanitary 
housing. Housing assistance payments are limited by FMRs established by 
HUD for different areas. In the voucher program, the FMR is used to 
determine the ``payment standard amount'' used to calculate the maximum 
monthly subsidy for an assisted family (see Section 982.503.) In 
general, the FMR for an area is the amount that would be needed to pay 
the gross rent (shelter rent plus utilities) of privately owned, 
decent, safe, and sanitary rental housing of a modest (non-luxury) 
nature with suitable amenities.

Publication of FMRs

    Section 8(c) of the Act requires the Secretary of HUD to publish 
FMRs periodically, but not less frequently than annually. HUD's 
regulations provide that HUD will develop FMRs by publishing proposed 
FMRs for public comment and, publish final FMRs after evaluating public 
comments (see 24 CFR 888.115).
    Schedule B of the proposed FY 2002 FMR schedules at the end of this 
document lists the fair market rents for existing housing, including 
housing assisted under the housing choice voucher program. Schedule D 
lists FMRs for the rental of manufactured home spaces in the housing 
choice voucher program for areas where HUD has approved FMRs greater 
than 40 percent of the 2-bedroom FMR, based on public comments.
    For the purpose of determining the maximum initial gross rent (at 
the beginning of the HAP contract term) for a unit assisted in the 
Section 8 moderate rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy (SRO) program, 
the fair market rent is 120 percent of the applicable existing housing 
fair market rent in Schedule B (see 24 CFR 882.408(a)). For the purpose 
of determining renewal gross rents for a HAP contract under the 
moderate rehabilitation program (other than a contract under the 
Section 8 moderate rehabilitation SRO program), the FMR is the 
applicable existing housing fair market rent in Schedule B.

Method Used to Develop FMRs

FMR Standard

    FMRs are gross rent estimates; they include shelter rent and the 
cost of utilities, except telephone. HUD sets FMRs to assure that a 
sufficient supply of rental housing is available to program 
participants. To accomplish this objective, FMRs must be both high 
enough to permit a selection of units and neighborhoods and low enough 
to serve as many families as possible.
    The level at which FMRs are set is expressed as a percentile point 
within the rent distribution of standard quality rental housing units. 
The current definition used is the 40th percentile rent for most areas, 
the dollar amount below which 40 percent of the standard quality rental 
housing units rent. The 40th percentile rent is drawn from the 
distribution of rents of units which are occupied by recent movers 
(renter households who moved into their unit within the past 15 
months). Newly built units less than two years old are excluded, and 
adjustments have been made to correct for the below market rents of 
public housing units included in the data base.
    The interim rule establishing 50th percentile FMRs was published on 
October 2, 2000 (65 FR 58870) and became effective on December 1, 2000. 
HUD set fair market rents for 39 areas at the 50th percentile rent 
(i.e., the median rent) effective January 2, 2001 (66 FR 162). HUD set 
the 50th percentile FMRs to give lower-income families who participate 
in the voucher program access to a broader range of housing 
opportunities throughout a metropolitan area. FMRs have been increased 
to the 50th percentile rent in those 39 areas metropolitan areas based 
on the criteria established in the interim rule, which seeks to promote 
residential choice, help families mover closer to job growth areas, and 
deconcentrate poverty.

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    Paragraph 888.113(c) provides:

    (c) Setting FMRs at the 50th percentile rent to provide a broad 
range of housing opportunities throughout a metropolitan area.
    (1) HUD will set the FMRs at the 50th percentile rent for all 
unit sizes in each metropolitan FMR area that meets all of the 
following criteria at the time of annual publication of the FMRs:
    (i) 70 percent or fewer of the census tracts with at least 10 
two bedroom rental units are census tracts in which at least 30 
percent of the two bedroom rental units have gross rents at or below 
the two bedroom FMR set at the 40th percentile rent;
    (ii) The FMR area contains at least 100 census tracts; and
    (iii) 25 percent or more of the tenant-based rental program 
participants in the FMR area reside in the 5 percent of the census 
tracts within the FMR area that have the largest number of program 
participants.
    (2) If the FMRs are set at the 50th percentile rent in 
accordance with paragraph (c)(1) of this section, HUD will set the 
FMRs at the 50th percentile rent for a total of three years.
    (i) At the end of the three-year period, HUD will continue to 
set the FMRs at the 50th percentile rent only so long as the 
concentration measure for the current year is less than the 
concentration measure at the time the FMR area first received an FMR 
set at the 50th percentile rent. HUD will publish FMRs based on the 
40th percentile rent for FMR areas that do not qualify for continued 
use of the 50th percentile rent.
    (ii) For purposes of this section, the term ``concentration 
measure'' means the participants in the FMR area who reside in the 5 
percent of the census tracts within the FMR area that have the 
largest number of program participants.
    (iii) FMR areas that do not meet the test for continued use of 
FMRs set at the 50th percentile will be ineligible to use FMR set at 
the 50th percentile for a period of three years.
    (iv) A PHA whose jurisdiction includes one or more FMR areas 
that are no longer eligible to use FMRs set at the 50th percentile 
may be eligible for a higher payment standard under Section 
982.503(f).

    Schedule B of this document lists the proposed 2002 FMRs for all 
areas, including FMRs for the 39 FMR areas where the FMR is set at the 
50th percentile rent level (as specified in Section 888.113(c)), and 
other areas, where the FMR is set at the 40th percentile rent. An 
asterisk in Schedule B identifies the 39 FMR areas for which HUD has 
set 50th percentile FMRs.
    HUD has set 50th percentile FMRs for the following metropolitan FMR 
areas:

Albuquerque, NM
Atlanta, GA
Austin-San Marcos, TX
Baton Rouge, LA
Bergen-Passaic, NJ
Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY
Chicago, IL
Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Detroit, MI
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland, MI
Houston, TX
Kansas City, MO-KS
Las Vegas, NV-AZ
Miami, FL
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI
Newark, NJ
Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, VA-NC
Oakland, CA
Oklahoma City, OK
Orange County, CA
Philadelphia, PA-NJ
Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
Richmond-Petersburg, VA
Sacramento, CA
Salt Lake City-Ogden, UT
San Antonio, TX
San Diego, CA
San Jose, CA
St. Louis, MO-IL
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
Tulsa, OK
Ventura, CA
Washington, DC-MD-VA
West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL
Wichita, KS

Data Sources

    HUD used the most accurate and current data available to develop 
the FMR estimates. The sources of survey data used for the base-year 
estimates are:
    (1) the 1990 Census, which provides statistically reliable rent 
data for all FMR areas;
    (2) the Bureau of the Census' American Housing Survey (AHS), which 
is used to develop between-Census revisions for the largest 
metropolitan areas and which have accuracy comparable to the decennial 
Census; and
    (3) Random Digit Dialing (RDD) telephone surveys of individual FMR 
areas, which are based on a sampling procedure that uses computers to 
select statistically random samples of rental housing.
    The base-year FMRs are updated using trending factors based on 
Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for rents and utilities or HUD regional 
rent change factors developed from RDD surveys. Annual average CPI 
contract rent and residential utility cost data are available 
individually for 96 metropolitan FMR areas and for the four Census 
Regions. RDD regional rent change factors are developed annually for 
the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan parts of each of the 10 HUD 
regions. The utility component of RDD surveys is updated using CPI 
regional utility cost change factors. The RDD factors are used to 
update the base year estimates for all FMR areas that do not have their 
own local CPI survey.

Utility Costs

    HUD's standard methodology for incorporating changes in utility 
costs into FMRs relies on the most current CPI data on annual changes 
in residential utility costs. Annual rather than point-to-point monthly 
comparisons (e.g., July 1999 to July 2000) are used because monthly 
utility price indices are volatile and often not reflective of the 
annualized cost of utilities. The annual cost indices take into account 
changes in prices and consumption patterns over the course of a year.
    In developing the proposed FMRs for FY 2002, HUD has determined 
that the standard methodology does not adequately capture the unusual 
increases in natural gas prices that occurred at the end of calendar 
year 2000. (The standard methodology does capture increases in fuel oil 
prices, however.) The standard FMR methodology captures a 17 percent 
increase in natural gas prices from 1999 to 2000, but December 1999 to 
December 2000 prices increased by an average of 37 percent and 
Department of Energy projections for 2002 are very similar to the 
December 2000 prices. For purposes of estimating FY 2002 FMRs, the 
Department has therefore modified the natural gas inflation component 
to use December-to-December costs when available, and to use second 
half to second half of the year figures for CPI areas where December 
2000 data were not available. This is a one-time change made to respond 
to unusual circumstances; HUD expects to return to the standard 
methodology next year.
    The impact of this change is modest for most areas for three 
reasons. First, the change accounts for increases in the price of 
natural gas per unit of consumption, but not for increases in 
consumption associated with the unusually cold winter of 2000-2001. 
Second, on a national level, natural gas comprises only 27 percent of 
utility costs, and utility costs typically average 8-15 percent of 
total rent costs in metropolitan areas. This means, for instance, that 
a 50 percent increase in natural gas prices only increases FMRs by a 
little over 1 percent in the typical metropolitan area. Finally, since 
FMRs reflect monthly housing costs, the increase in FMRs due to this 
methodological change is spread across the course of an entire year 
rather than

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just the December-February heating season. The impact of this change 
would appear to be more substantial if it were aggregated over a three 
or four month heating season, rather than the entire year.

State Minimum FMRs

    FMRs are established at the higher of the local 40th percentile 
rent level or the Statewide average of nonmetropolitan counties, 
subject to a ceiling rent cap. These State minimums have the effect of 
increasing FMRs for a number of nonmetropolitan areas plus a small 
number of metropolitan areas.

Bedroom Size Adjustments

    FMRs have been calculated separately for each bedroom size 
category. For areas whose FMRs are based on the State minimums, the 
rents for each bedroom size are the higher of the rent for the area or 
the Statewide average of nonmetropolitan counties for that bedroom 
size. For all other FMR areas, the bedroom intervals are based on 1990 
Census rent relationships for the specific area.
    Exceptions have been made for some areas with local bedroom size 
rent intervals below an acceptable range. For those areas the intervals 
selected were the minimums determined after outliers had been excluded 
from the distribution of bedroom intervals for all metropolitan areas. 
Higher ratios continue to be used for three-bedroom and larger size 
units than would result from using the actual market relationships. 
This is done to assist the largest, most difficult to house families in 
finding program-eligible units.
    The FMRs for unit sizes larger than 4 bedroom are calculated by 
adding 15 percent to the 4 bedroom FMR for each extra bedroom. For 
example, the FMR for a 5 bedroom unit is 1.15 times the 4 bedroom FMR, 
and the FMR for a 6 bedroom unit is 1.30 times the 4 bedroom FMR. FMRs 
for single room occupancy (SRO) units are 0.75 times the 0 bedroom FMR.

Random Digit Dialing (RDD) Rent Surveys

    RDD surveys are used to obtain statistically-reliable FMR estimates 
for selected FMR areas. This telephone survey technique involves 
drawing random samples of renter units occupied by recent movers. RDD 
surveys exclude public housing units, other assisted units for which 
the market rent cannot be determined, units built in the past two 
years, seasonal units, non-cash rental units, and those owned by 
relatives. A HUD analysis has shown that the slight downward RDD survey 
bias caused by including some rental units that are in substandard 
condition is almost exactly offset by the slight upward bias that 
results from surveying only units with telephones.
    Approximately 12,000-15,000 telephone numbers need to be contacted 
to achieve the target survey sample level of 200 eligible recent mover 
responses. RDD surveys have a high degree of statistical accuracy; 
there is a 95 percent likelihood that the recent mover rent estimates 
developed using this approach are within 3 to 4 percent of the actual 
rent value. Virtually all of the estimates are within 5 percent of the 
actual value.
    Today's notice includes proposed FMR revisions based on RDD surveys 
conducted in early 2001 for the following areas:

Proposed FMR increases above normal update factor:
    Cleveland County, NC
    Jackson County, NC
    Knox County, IN
    Louisville, KY
    Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
    Muncie, IN
    Payne County, OK
    Phoenix, AZ
    Polk County, NC
    Rutherford County, NC
    San Diego, CA
    San Francisco, CA
    San Luis Obispo-Atascadero-Paso Robles, CA
    St. Louis, MO-IL
    St. Mary's County, MD
    Stockton-Lodi, CA
    Vallejo-Fairfield-Napa, CA

Proposed FMR decreases:
    Dallas, TX
    Detroit, MI
    Hartford, CT
    Newark, NJ

Survey Supports Increasing FMRs by normal update factor:
    Chicago, IL
    Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, NC
    McDowell County, NC
    Milwaukee, WI
    Philadelphia, PA-NJ
    Riverside-San Bernadino, CA
    San Jose, CA

Manufactured Home Space FMRs

    In the tenant-based voucher program, a family that owns a 
manufactured home may receive assistance for the rental of a 
manufactured home space. The FMRs used to calculate the housing 
assistance payment for rental of a manufactured home space are 
generally 40 percent of the applicable Section 8 existing housing FMRs 
for two-bedroom units. Cost of utilities is now included in the 
manufactured home space rent (see 24 CFR 888.113(e)).
    HUD will consider modifications of manufactured home space FMRs 
where public comment demonstrates that the 40 percent FMRs are not 
adequate. In order to be accepted as a basis for revising the 
manufactured home space FMRs, comments must contain statistically valid 
survey data that show the 40th percentile space rent for the entire FMR 
area.
    The published manufactured home space FMRs are updated annually 
using the same data used to update the other FMRs.

Request for Comments

    HUD seeks public comments on FMR levels for specific areas. 
Comments on FMR levels must include sufficient information (including 
local data and a full description of the rental housing survey 
methodology used) to justify any proposed changes. Changes may be 
proposed in all or any one or more of the bedroom-size categories on 
the schedule. Recommendations and supporting data must reflect the rent 
levels that exist within the entire FMR area.
    HUD recommends the use of professionally-conducted Random Digit 
Dialing (RDD) telephone surveys to test the accuracy of FMRs for areas 
where there is a sufficient number of Section 8 units to justify the 
survey cost of $12,000-$15,000. Areas with 500 or more program units 
usually meet this cost criterion, and areas with fewer units may meet 
it if actual two-bedroom rents are significantly different from the 
FMRs proposed by HUD. In addition, HUD has developed a version of the 
RDD survey methodology for smaller, nonmetropolitan PHAs. This 
methodology is designed to be simple enough to be done by the PHA 
itself, rather than by professional survey organizations, at a cost of 
$5,000 or less.
    PHAs in nonmetropolitan areas may, in certain circumstances, do 
surveys of groups of counties. All grouped county surveys must be 
approved in advance by HUD. PHAs are cautioned that the resulting FMRs 
will not be identical for the counties surveyed; each individual FMR 
area will have a separate FMR based on the relationship of rents in 
that area to the combined rents in the cluster of FMR areas. In 
addition, PHAs are advised that counties whose FMRs are based on the 
State minimum will not have their FMRs revised unless the grouped 
survey results show a revised FMR above the State minimum level.
    PHAs that plan to use the RDD survey technique should obtain a copy 
of the appropriate survey guide. Larger PHAs should request HUD's 
survey guide entitled ``Random Digit Dialing Surveys;

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A Guide to Assist Larger Public Housing Agencies in Preparing Fair 
Market Rent Comments.'' Smaller PHAs should obtain a guide entitled 
``Rental Housing Surveys; A Guide to Assist Smaller Public Housing 
Agencies in Preparing Fair Market Rent Comments.'' These guides are 
available from HUD USER on 1-800-245-2691, or from HUD's Worldwide Web 
site, in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat format, at the following 
address: http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr.html.
    HUD prefers, but does not mandate, the use of RDD telephone 
surveys, or the more traditional method described in the survey guide 
intended for small PHAs along with the simplified RDD methodology. 
Other survey methodologies are acceptable as long as the surveys 
submitted provide statistically reliable, unbiased estimates of the 
gross rent. Survey samples should preferably be randomly drawn from a 
complete list of rental units for the FMR area. If this is not 
feasible, the selected sample must be drawn so as to be statistically 
representative of the entire rental housing stock of the FMR area. In 
particular, surveys must include units of all rent levels and be 
representative by structure type (including single-family, duplex and 
other small rental properties), age of housing unit, and geographic 
location. The decennial Census should be used as a starting point and 
means to verify whether the sample is representative of the FMR area's 
rental housing stock.
    Local rental housing surveys conducted with alternative methods 
must include the following documentation:

--Identification of the 40th percentile or 50th gross rent (gross rent 
is rent including the cost of utilities) and the actual distribution 
(or distributions, if more than one bedroom size is surveyed) of the 
surveyed units, rank-ordered by gross rent.
--An explanation of how the rental housing sample was drawn and a copy 
of the survey questionnaire, transmittal letter, and any publicity 
materials.
--An explanation of how the contract rents of the individual units 
surveyed were converted to gross rents. (For RDD-type surveys, HUD 
requires use of the Section 8 utility allowance schedule.)
--An explanation of how the survey excluded units built within two 
years prior to the survey date.
--The date the rent data were collected so that HUD can apply a 
trending factor to update the estimate to the midpoint of the 
applicable fiscal year. If the survey has already been trended to this 
date, the date the survey was conducted and a description of the 
trending factor used.
--Copies of all survey sheets.

    Since FMRs are based on standard quality units and units occupied 
by recent movers, both of which are difficult to identify and survey, 
HUD will accept surveys of all rental units and apply appropriate 
adjustments.
    Most surveys cover only one- and two-bedroom units, in which case 
HUD will make the adjustments for other size units consistent with the 
differentials established on the basis of the 1990 Census data for the 
FMR area. When three- and four-bedroom units are surveyed separately to 
determine FMRs for these unit size categories, the commenter should 
multiply the 40th percentile survey rents by 1.087 and 1.077, 
respectively, to determine the FMRs. The use of these factors will 
produce the same upward adjustments in the rent differentials as those 
used in the HUD methodology.
    Accordingly, the Fair Market Rent Schedules, which will be codified 
in 24 CFR part 888, are proposed to be amended as follows:

    Dated: May 2, 2001.
Mel Martinez,
Secretary.

Fair Market Rents for the Housing Choice Voucher Program

Schedules B and D--General Explanatory Notes

1. Geographic Coverage
    a. Metropolitan Areas.--FMRs are housing market-wide rent estimates 
that are intended to provide housing opportunities throughout the 
geographic area in which rental housing units are in direct 
competition. The FMRs shown in Schedule B are determined for the same 
areas as the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) most current 
definitions of metropolitan areas, with the exceptions discussed in 
paragraph b. HUD uses the OMB Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and 
Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA) definitions for FMR areas 
because they closely correspond to housing market area definitions.
    b. Exceptions to OMB Definitions.--The exceptions are counties 
deleted from several large metropolitan areas whose revised OMB 
metropolitan area definitions were determined by HUD to be larger than 
the housing market areas. The FMRs for the following counties (shown by 
the metropolitan area) are calculated separately and are shown in 
Schedule B within their respective States under the ``Metropolitan FMR 
Areas'' listing:
Metropolitan Area and Counties Deleted
Chicago, IL: DeKalb, Grundy and Kendall Counties
Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN: Brown County, Ohio; Gallatin, Grant and 
Pendleton Counties in Kentucky; and Ohio County, Indiana
Dallas, TX: Henderson County
Flagstaff, AZ-UT: Kane County, UT
New Orleans, LA: St. James Parish
Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV: Berkeley and Jefferson Counties in West 
Virginia; and Clarke, Culpeper, King George and Warren counties in 
Virginia

    c. Nonmetropolitan Area FMRs.--FMRs also are established for 
nonmetropolitan counties and for county equivalents in the United 
States, for nonmetropolitan parts of counties in the New England 
states, and for FMR areas in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the 
Pacific Islands. Nonmetropolitan area FMRs are set at the higher of the 
local 40th percentile rent level or the Statewide average of 
nonmetropolitan counties. (The State minimum also affects a small 
number of metropolitan areas whose rents would otherwise fall below the 
State minimum.)
    d. Virginia Independent Cities.--FMRs for the areas in Virginia 
shown in the table below were established by combining the Census data 
for the nonmetropolitan counties with the data for the independent 
cities that are located within the county borders. Because of space 
limitations, the FMR listing in Schedule B includes only the name of 
the nonmetropolitan county. The complete definitions of these areas 
including the independent cities are as follows:
Virginia Nonmetropolitan County FMR Area and Independent Cities 
Included
County/Cities
    Alleghany: Clifton Forge and Covington
    Augusta: Staunton and Waynesboro
    Carroll: Galax
    Frederick: Winchester
    Greensville: Emporia
    Henry: Martinsville
    Montgomery: Radford
    Rockbridge: Buena Vista and Lexington
    Rockingham: Harrisonburg
    Southhampton: Franklin
    Wise: Norton
2. Bedroom Size Adjustments
    Schedule B shows the FMRs for 0-bedroom through 4-bedroom units. 
The FMRs for unit sizes larger than 4

[[Page 23774]]

bedrooms are calculated by adding 15 percent to the 4-bedroom FMR for 
each extra bedroom. For example, the FMR for a 5-bedroom unit is 1.15 
times the 4-bedroom FMR, and the FMR for a 6-bedroom unit is 1.30 times 
the 4 bedroom FMR. FMRs for single-room-occupancy (SRO) units are 0.75 
times the 0 bedroom FMR.
3. FMRs for Manufactured Home Spaces
    FMRs for manufactured home spaces in the housing choice voucher 
program are 40 percent of the two-bedroom existing housing program 
FMRs, with the exception of the areas listed in Schedule D whose 
manufactured home space FMRs have been modified on the basis of public 
comments. Once approved, the revised manufactured home space FMRs 
establish new base-year estimates that are updated annually using the 
same data used to estimate the existing housing FMRs. The FMR area 
definitions used for the rental of manufactured home spaces in the 
housing choice voucher program are the same as the area definitions 
used for other FMRs.
4. Arrangement of FMR Areas and Identification of Constituent Parts
    a. The FMR areas in Schedule B are listed alphabetically by 
metropolitan FMR area and by nonmetropolitan county within each State. 
The exception FMRs for manufactured home spaces in Schedule D are 
listed alphabetically by State.
    b. The constituent counties (and New England towns and cities) 
included in each metropolitan FMR area are listed immediately following 
the listings of the FMR dollar amounts. All constituent parts of a 
metropolitan FMR area that are in more than one State can be identified 
by consulting the listings for each applicable State.
    c. Two nonmetropolitan counties are listed alphabetically on each 
line of the nonmetropolitan county listings.
BILLING CODE 4210-62-P

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[FR Doc. 01-11697 Filed 5-8-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4210-62-C


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