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Affordable Housing AP -55 Affordable Housing — 91.220(g) Introduction As noted earlier, the most important impediment to providing affordable housing is due to limited Federal and State resources for affordable housing initiatives. The lack of programs and resources to reduce excessive rent or mortgage burdens to qualified persons is a key factor. Another barrier to providing affordable housing in Santa Ana is the high cost of housing created by a demand for housing, both existing and new, which exceeds the current; supply. Housing prices, both ownership and rental, remain high, especially for lower income households. In addition, the cost of site acquisition is very high, and development costs are also very high. These factors make affordable housing construction expensive and put affordable housing out of the reach of low- income households. The Housing Needs Assessment also identified that stringent criteria in the mortgage origination process still remains, which also is outside the scope and control of City policy. In some instances, issues revolving around personal finances (lack of funds for a down payment, poor credit history) effect the availability of affordable housing for Santa Ana residents. In an effort to mitigate these barriers, Santa Ana has undertaken the following actions: - In 2015, the City Council revised and adopted an inclusionary housing ordinance referred to as the Housing Opportunity Ordinance (H00) `applies to residential projects with a zone change that allow residential development where such uses were not previously allowed, and include more than 5 units, to provide either 10% of all new units to be affordable to very -low income households or 15% of all new units to be affordable to low - income households. - The City utilized limited public resources to fund the development and /or the acquisition and rehabilitation of rental housing units. This public assistance will result in lower rents for assisted units thus partially offsetting the impacts of some of the barriers listed above. - The City's Housing Authority conducted outreach to rental property owners to encourage participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program. OMB Control No: 2506 -0117 (exp. 07/31/2015) Annual Action Plan 2017 21A-36 01A