Affordable Housing and Community Development

Katten’s Affordable Housing and Community Development Practice brings together attorneys experienced in real estate, secured lending, public finance and tax to provide comprehensive advice to a broad cross-section of market participants—including for-profit and nonprofit developers, equity and tax credit investors, municipalities, underwriters and lenders—on a variety of multifamily, retail, public use and mixed-use projects.

Our attorneys have substantial experience in the use and syndication of low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs), new markets tax credits (NMTCs), rehabilitation (historic) tax credits and energy tax credits, the placement of tax-exempt bonds, and other incentives and financing programs including FHA and other HUD loan programs, public housing funds and tax increment financings. Clients benefit from the full breadth and depth of the firm’s Real Estate and Tax Practices in both routine and complex affordable housing and community development transactions.

The firm has served in recent years as:

• Lender counsel in a variety of permanent loan transactions across the United States involving LIHTCs and historic tax credits, including workouts and foreclosures.
• Lender counsel in connection with the refinancing of a portfolio of 30 affordable multifamily housing projects located in five states. The refinancing involved 30 separate municipal bond transactions totaling $171 million and included tax-exempt and taxable bonds and associated derivative products.
• Developer counsel in a $25 million LIHTC project combined with historic tax credits and HUD guaranteed tax-exempt bonds.
• Developer counsel in connection with obtaining seven tranches of financing (including TCAP and Section 1602 LIHTC exchange, AHP funds, tax increment financing and “green” grants).
• Developer counsel in connection with a mixed-use project financed with LIHTC equity, TCAP funds and California redevelopment agency support.
• Developer counsel in a mixed-finance transaction involving HOPE VI and other public housing grant funds, private first mortgage financing, tax increment financing (bridged with a public housing authority loan) and LIHTC equity.
• Investor counsel in connection with investments in various 80-20 New York affordable housing projects.
• Investor counsel in connection with the monetization and sale of a portfolio of low-income housing tax credit investments.
• Fund counsel in syndication of LIHTCs generated from portfolio LIHTC investments.
• Syndicator counsel in a real estate project valued at approximately $200 million involving the sale of historic tax credits and facade easement deduction.
• Tax opinion counsel on several LIHTC transactions in New York.
• Developer counsel in a municipal airport project combining NMTC syndication with tax-exempt bond leverage.
• Developer counsel in a mixed-use project using NMTC equity.
• Counsel to a nonprofit educational institution in connection with the development of athletic facilities using NMTC equity.
• Counsel to a nonprofit educational institution in connection with the development of a mixed-use student center using NMTC equity.
• Counsel to investors on foreclosure of buildings financed with historic tax credits.
• Counsel to the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) in several mixed-finance transactions.
• Trustee counsel in CHA bond issuances in which HUD receipts were pledged as security for the payment of the bonds.
• Counsel to a public housing authority in connection with a mixed-finance transaction involving public housing grants (including stimulus act capital grants), HOME funds and tax increment financing.
• Bond counsel in numerous placements of tax-exempt bonds involving a wide range of facilities and projects (housing, pollution control, waste disposal, airports and port facilities).

Professionals