Developers who want a property tax exemption from McKinney's housing agencies would have to set aside more of their apartments for the lowest-income renters, and show bigger rent savings for each dollar of taxes forgiven, under a revised scoring system the City Council is scheduled to vote on Tuesday night.
The Affordable Housing Scorecard is the yardstick the McKinney Housing Finance Corporation, McKinney Housing Authority and McKinney Public Facility Corporation use when a developer asks one of them to partner on a tax-exempt project. The council first adopted it on Feb. 18, 2025.
The housing finance corporation approved the updated version on Oct. 9, and the council had it on a 3 p.m. work session agenda Tuesday ahead of the 6 p.m. regular meeting.
The main changes
According to the staff report from the Housing and Community Development Department:
- Deeper affordability. The minimum share of units for households at 30% of area median income rises from 5% to 10%. The floor of at least half the units at an affordable rate stays the same.
- A new savings floor. Projects must deliver at least 50 cents in rent savings for every dollar of total tax exemptions over 10 years or be disqualified. The old card awarded points for savings measured against McKinney's own exemption; the new one counts exemptions from all taxing entities.
- Single-family over apartments. Apartment projects earn fewer points, a shift staff says is meant to encourage single-family rentals.
- Less weight on location and rehab. The west side keeps a scoring edge, but location counts for less. Buying a property with no improvements now disqualifies a project.
- Equal finishes. A project is disqualified if its affordable units lack the same finishes, equipment or access as market-rate units.
East side projects also lose points if they sit within a mile of housing that won tax exemptions in the past three years. The old card used a 2-mile radius with no time limit.
Why now
Staff says the rewrite reflects an update to Section 394.004 of the Local Government Code under House Bill 21 from the 89th Legislature and the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs' 2026 Qualified Allocation Plan. The city's Front Porch group gave feedback in September.
