The Texas housing board will vote Nov. 5 on a rewritten rulebook for deciding which apartment developments get the state’s share of federal housing tax credits. It is the last stop before the plan goes to the governor, who may accept, reject, or change and accept it.
The qualified allocation plan is the closest thing Texas has to a map of where subsidized apartments get built. It ranks applications for a credit developers want far more of than the state can hand out. Staff rewrote this one with the governor’s regulatory efficiency office and an outside consultant, cutting about 28 percent of its length. The board approved a draft for publication Sept. 3 and comment closed Oct. 9. Under state law the board has to send the plan to the governor by Nov. 15 and he has until Dec. 1 to act on it.
The industry’s trade group, the Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers, objected in writing to several pieces: a new ceiling on the rents a project may assume when it shows its numbers work, a tighter limit on how much of a neighborhood’s renter demand a bond-financed deal may claim, and a requirement that new buildings use electric heat pumps, which the group wants kept as an optional scoring point, not a condition of applying. Staff signaled it would revisit at least one of the objections. The board’s meeting book had not been posted when this was written, so the text members vote on is not yet public.
Thirty-eight other items sit under it. Eleven adjust the deed restrictions on single developments, most of them senior properties from the mid-2000s. Four ask the board to take back and reissue credits after events owners say were beyond their control. The board also adopts tighter monitoring rules for the public corporations that let apartment owners out of property taxes in exchange for renting some units below market, an arrangement the Legislature overhauled in 2023.
One item names people. The board will consider debarring a family trust and two individuals, along with a proposed agreed penalty, over a rural rental property in Caldwell County built with federal HOME money. No findings have been made in this matter; under the department’s rules a debarment reaches the board only after a staff referral and an informal conference, and members may lengthen or shorten what staff recommends. The two individuals signed an agreed order over the same property in 2016 — findings they neither admitted nor denied, a $1,000 deferred penalty, no debarment — and department records show a separate voluntary non-participation agreement on the property in 2023. Anyone wanting to speak has to appear in person; the notice offers no online option.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 10:00 AM, Thursday, November 5, 2026. TRD 2026006434 was filed October 28 at 2:49 p.m.
- Where
- Dewitt C. Greer State Highway Building, Williamson Board Room, 125 E. 11th St., Austin.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs Governing Board — seven seats the governor appoints to staggered six-year terms. Kenny Marchant is vice chair and took the gavel at the close of the Oct. 8 meeting, which Leo Vasquez said was his last as chair; the department has announced no change. Bobby Wilkinson is executive director.
- Format
- A 28-item consent agenda and 11 action items. The board may close the meeting for personnel, legal advice, real estate, or fraud and audit matters, and must reconvene in open session to act.
- Live video
- The department streams board meetings on the day; no Nov. 5 link was posted when this was written. Materials appear on the department’s Legistar page.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · board meeting information center
Board members
- Kenny Marchant — vice chair; Coppell; former U.S. congressman; term to 2031.
- Leo Vasquez — Houston; corporate finance consultant; term to 2029.
- Cindy Conroy — El Paso; community outreach director, WestStar bank; term to 2027.
- Anna Maria Farías — San Antonio; former HUD fair housing official; term to 2027.
- Holland Harper — Paris; chief development officer, Harrison, Walker and Harper; term to 2029.
- Ajay Thomas — Austin; head of public finance, FHN Financial; term to 2031.
- One of the seven seats is unfilled.
Names, titles and term dates from the department’s board page, checked October 29, which describes a seven-member board and lists six without using the word “vacant.” That page is out of date on the chairmanship: an affordable housing trade group reported that Vasquez presided over his last meeting as chairman Oct. 8 after nine years and handed the gavel to Marchant. The Dispatch found no department or governor’s announcement, so the roster above keeps Vasquez as a member and names no chair. Cities and occupations come from the governor’s appointment releases. No appointment to this board has been announced since the January 2026 reappointments of Marchant and Thomas. Government Code §2306.032(c) requires board materials to be posted no later than the third day before the meeting. Meeting contact: Michael Lyttle, (512) 475-4542.