Code of Vermont Rules › Agency 80 - ADMINISTRATIVE AND ADVISORY AGENCIES › Sub-Agency 140 - HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY › Chapter 006 - Grants, Loans and Advances to Assist the Planning, Construction, Rehabilitation, and Operation of Redidential Housing; Mortgage Loans to Housing Sponsors for Single Family Development Rules › Section 80 140 006 - Grants, Loans and Advances to Assist the Planning, Construction, Rehabilitation, and Operation of Redidential Housing; Mortgage Loans to Housing Sponsors for Single Family Development Rules

Current through June, 2024
CHAPTER ONE SCOPE
			 AND DEFINITIONS
Section 1 Authority
These rules are made and published pursuant to sections 621(5),
				(12) and (17) and section 624 of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency Act of 1974
				as amended, (the "Act").
Section
			 2 Background and Purpose
By No. 77, § 3, effective June 7, 1989 (the "Amendment")
				the Vermont General Assembly amended
				10 V.S.A. §
												621(5) to empower the Agency
				to provide "such grants, loans, or advances as will assist the planning,
				construction, rehabilitation, and operation of residential housing primarily
				for persons of low and moderate income, including but not limited to assistance
				in community development and organization, advisory services, the formation of
				cooperative housing corporations, and to encourage community organizations to
				assist in developing same."
The Agency finds that reductions in the amount of federal
				financial assistance in the provision of safe and decent housing at costs
				affordable to persons and families of low and moderate income has created a
				crisis in the availability of such housing, that incentives for private
				developers and private lenders to participate in the creation and preservation
				of such housing have declined, and that the excess of demand for such housing
				over the supply will increase at an expanding rate in the absence of flexible
				and timely strategies designed to marshall [marshal] all resources available
				from time to time, including land, existing structures, public funds, and
				private funds.
It is the purpose of these Rules to encourage an adequate
				supply of safe and decent housing at reasonable cost, to interpret, limit, and
				implement, in part, the provisions of
				10 V.S.A. §
												621(5), as amended by the
				Amendment, and to establish criteria for mortgage loans to housing sponsors for
				Single Family Developments.
Section
			 3 Definitions
The following words and terms, unless the context clearly
				indicates a different meaning, shall have the following meaning:
(1) "Advance" means a direct expenditure of
			 funds by the Agency for the purpose of planning, constructing, rehabilitating,
			 or operating Residential Housing primarily for persons and families of low and
			 moderate income;
(2) "Agency" means
			 the Vermont Housing Finance Agency created by the Act;
(3) "Bonds, notes and other obligations" or
			 "bonds, bond anticipation notes or other obligations": means any bonds, notes,
			 debentures, interim certificates or other evidences of financial indebtedness
			 issued by the Agency pursuant to the Act;
(4) "Eligible Borrower" includes a housing
			 sponsor, non-profit entity, or other legal entity qualified to receive a loan
			 for a Single Family Development or a Mixed Use Development under the provisions
			 of these Rules;
(5) "Grant" means a
			 grant of funds which the recipient is not obligated to repay or which the
			 recipient is obligated to repay only in the event of a breach of conditions
			 imposed by the Agency with respect to the use of the funds;
(6) "Land value" means the appraised value of
			 the land as determined by an appraiser approved by the Agency; if purchased
			 less than two years prior to the date of application the purchase price of the
			 land or the appraised value, whichever is lower;
(7) "Limited Profit". A housing sponsor is
			 organized on a limited profit basis if its organizational document, whether
			 directly or by reference to a controlling agreement (which may be a lease, a
			 loan agreement, a Regulatory Agreement, or other agreement between the Agency
			 and the Borrower), imposes significant limitations on rental charges or sale
			 prices, builder's and developer's fees, the right of disposition of the
			 sponsor's property and franchise, or other sources of profit as the Agency may
			 determine on a case by case basis;
(8) "Mixed Use Development" means Residential
			 Housing, a portion of which will be devoted to non-housing facilities, provided
			 that all or a portion of such non-housing facilities are not designed or will
			 not be designed primarily for the benefit of the occupants of the dwelling
			 units;
(9) "Multi-Family Rules"
			 means the Agency's Rules pertaining to Loans to Multi-Family housing
			 sponsors;
(10) "Non-Profit Entity"
			 means a department, division, board, commission, agency or other
			 instrumentality of this State, a political subdivision of this State, an agency
			 of any such political subdivision, an "exempt organization" within the meaning
			 of section 501(c)(2), (3), or (4) of the Internal Revenue Code, a non-profit
			 corporation organized as such under the laws of this State, an entity owned, or
			 whose day-to-day management is controlled, under the terms of a partnership
			 agreement, by any of the foregoing, or a "limited equity cooperative" within
			 the meaning of Chapter 14 of Title 11, Vermont Statutes Annotated;
(11) "Residential housing" means single or
			 multi-family residential dwelling units designed primarily to provide principal
			 dwelling accommodations for persons or families, including the land and
			 improvements thereon and such non-housing facilities or services considered
			 necessary or convenient by the Agency in connection with the residential
			 housing. "Residential housing" includes, but is not limited to, single or
			 multi-family dwellings, congregate homes, residential care homes as defined in
			 18 V.S.A. § 2002, nursing homes, transitional housing, emergency shelters
			 for the homeless or displaced, mobile homes, single room occupancy dwellings,
			 and group homes for the mentally ill or developmentally disabled. "Residential
			 housing" also means cooperative interests and mobile home parks as defined in
			 10 V.S.A. Section
			 6201. Non-housing facilities or services
			 shall be deemed necessary or convenient in connection with the residential
			 housing in any case in which the Agency finds that the particular facilities or
			 services are designed primarily for the benefit of the occupants of the
			 dwelling units or that the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of the
			 dwelling units would not be economically practicable except in connection with
			 the economic benefits to be obtained from such facilities or
			 services.
(12) "Single Family
			 Development" means real property acquired or to be acquired for the
			 construction, rehabilitation, or operation of Residential Housing primarily for
			 occupancy by persons and families of low and moderate income, and which
			 consists primarily of individual dwelling structures, condominium apartments,
			 or cooperative interests owned or to be owned by the occupants of the
			 Residential Housing.
Terms used in these Rules and in the Act, and not defined
				above, shall have the same meaning as they have in the Act, as amended from
				time to time.
Section
			 4 Waivers
The provisions of these rules may be waived by the
				Commissioners upon their determination that the application of such rules, in
				specific cases, may result in undue hardship, and that such waiver will not
				result in a violation of the Act.
Section 5 Separability
If any word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, section or part of
				these rules is finally adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to be
				invalid, such judgment shall not affect, impair, or invalidate the remainder of
				these rules.