Referring to your March 23 article by Ellis Arnold and published in the Douglas County newspapers, the idiom “the devil's in the details” has been validated by our Douglas County commissioners who have met the devil and voted 2 to 1 approving the Ulyssses Development Group (UDG) application for a zoning change to permit the development of a 220-unit low-income housing project.

But wait, Commissioner George Teal is not one to be easily deceived and has taken the following actions after his Jan. 10 vote. First, he checked and is still working on having been told (hard to believe) that the UDG property does not meet Section 8 subsidized voucher qualifications.

Next, he then called the UDG team “on the carpet” (his words) based on much of my research accusing UDG of presenting false and misleading information. He found, for example, that an investor who lends $100 can earn $96 in federal tax credits in 10 years. Keep in mind that these great low hanging investor fruits are not available to residents such as you and me, but are only available to large institutional investors such as the recently collapsed Silicon Valley Bank, SVB. (This is true.) Having clarified the use of tax credits for financing UDG is now caught in the cross hairs of having lied during their presentation when UDG adamantly alleged that the insultingly misnamed “Workforce Housing” project is not government subsidized. The term “low-income housing” is considered politically incorrect and avoided by peddlers of rental “affordable housing” or “attainable housing” projects, however, low-income is properly named when it's subsidized by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) as quoted in March 23 article by Connor Larr, a UDG partner who clarified that the applied LIHTC is a federal tax credit.

Upon my request, Commissioner Teal requested the county attorney to either validate or nullify UDG's assertion that Workforce Housing is not subsidized in the context of the following (lookup MTSP):

“HUD refers to projects financed with tax exempt housing bonds for low-income residential rental development projects as Multifamily Tax Subsidy Projects (MTSPs).”

The county attorney, however, is now not responding because of the ensuing legal appeal by residents (to include myself) to reverse this zoning decision. However, if it walks and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, and the lesson learned is “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Smith Young

Parker