California's impact fees eat into affordable housing subsidies

Assessing the Cost of Impact Fees on Affordable Housing: An Analysis of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Projects in California - Housing policy watchers may be familiar with the RAND report on how Californian multifamily development costs are more than twice as high as Texas, including the finding that Californian development fees can be between 10x and 40x higher than Texas. This new Terner report zooms in on how California’s uniquely toxic local housing fee regimes affect federally subsidized low income housing, with $300M/year in local impact fees consuming a troublingly high share of the value of California’s $550M/year allocation of new federal LIHTC subsidy awards.