House bill could unlock new affordable housing options

According to the Minnesota Housing Partnership, the state needs more than 100,000 affordable homes to meet the needs of low-income renters.

Rep. Fue Lee (DFL-Mpls) hopes to help fix that problem through HF1340, which would allow the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency to use housing infrastructure bond proceeds on adaptive reuse for the development of supportive and very low-income housing.

“This bill would expand the use for building conversion and adaptive reuse so if there’s an empty building in any of our districts that doesn’t serve a purpose of housing, if there was a nonprofit developer who may want to take over that building to help build the housing that’s needed in our community, that that’s an eligible use. There are different uses and different needs across the entire state of Minnesota,” Lee told the House Capital Investment Committee Tuesday. No action was taken.

State law allows use of those bond proceeds on adaptive reuse — reusing an existing building for a purpose other than it was originally designed for — for the development of senior and single-family housing.

Tom Parent, senior operations officer for Minneapolis Public Schools, said the bill would help school districts repurpose their old sometimes vacant buildings.

“When a school district determines that a building is no longer needed, it is important for the district to get fair market value for the property, as the proceeds from the sale go back to the debt service to offset future property tax increases,” he said.