House approves Rep. Potter’s affordable housing bill

STATE HOUSE – The House of Representatives today approved legislation sponsored by Rep. Brandon Potter to improve transparency around affordable housing development. The legislation is part of House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi’s legislative package to help address the state’s housing crisis.

The bill (2022-H 7947A), which now goes to the Senate, requires the Division of Statewide Planning to issue an annual report providing information about affordable housing developments in the works.

The report must include:

·         The number of letters of eligibility issued for low and moderate income housing for applications for subsidy programs, and the number of proposed subsidized units involved, by city and town,

·         The number of comprehensive permit applications for which building permits issued, including the number of market rate housing units, the number of low- and moderate-income housing units, and the income restrictions associated with them, and

·         The number of comprehensive permit applications which have had certificates of occupancy issued, including a breakdown by municipality.

“With the scope of our housing shortage, Rhode Island needs to be able to evaluate our existing efforts to develop affordable housing, where those efforts are taking place, and the number of units we can expect to be available in the near future. With that information, we can tell where to concentrate our efforts for more housing, which municipalities are getting nearer to their affordable housing goals, and how we can improve our efforts. We have a lot of work ahead in developing the housing we need, and this information will help guide that work so it’s as effective as possible,” said Representative Potter (D-Dist. 16, Cranston).