Although the transaction's scale is unprecedented and may nothappen again, "You'll see more deals like this in terms of figuringout ways to bring private money into HUD programs," Abby Jo Sigal,VP and New York director of Enterprise Community Partners, tellsGlobeSt.com. "It picks up on a lot of the work that Shaun Donovandid when he was the city's housing commissioner, to leverageprivate resources to make the public dollar go that much further."Enterprise is advising the New York City Housing Authority oncompliance with the federal tax code's Section 42, which provides aframework for credits on low-income housing.

The complex agreement, which came together within a six-monthperiod, entails all 21 developments getting sold to an entitycreated and controlled by NYCHA, thus qualifying them for federalassistance. The entity will be a limited partnership of NYCHA andCiti Community Capital, the community development arm of Citigroup.NYCHA will finance the acquisition and rehabilitation of the 20,000housing units by issuing tax-exempt and taxable bonds, backed bycredit support from Citi.

With the $400 million-plus in public and private funds, NYCHAwill rehabilitate the projects over a period of two years. Theprojects will then qualify for $65 million to $75 million infederal subsidies for ongoing maintenance each year thereafter.