Housing board ‘in the final stretch’ of $200 million worth of infrastructure awards

Makenzie Huber, South Dakota Searchlight

The South Dakota Housing Development Authority Board has awarded about $113 million in taxpayer funding to help pay for infrastructure at 73 housing projects across the state in the last six months.

The board did not award any new grants or loans from the state’s Housing Infrastructure Financing Program at its March meeting, marking its first since September without a list of infrastructure applications to consider.

“We’re in the final stretch of getting that out and getting deals closed,” said Scott Erickson, board chairman, during the group’s Tuesday meeting.

The program is a $200 million pool of state and federal money designed to ease the burden of high inflation for homebuilders in a state with a high need for workforce housing. Lawmakers created the program in 2023, after legal wrangling held up the funds the previous year. It covers up to one-third of the cost of a development’s roads, sewer lines, street lights and other costs associated with building new neighborhoods.

The board has received 97 applications worth about $143 million so far. Director of South Dakota Housing Chas Olson said the organization is working with three current applications, with two on the waiting list for funds “in the event that any grant funding is returned or underspent.”

Several other projects are close to submitting applications for the infrastructure program, Olson said.

“We anticipate several closings to occur between now and the April board meeting,” Olson said. “So, we should really start so see some of the funding getting disbursed to some of these projects here in the near future.”

Aside from the program update, the Housing Development Authority approved housing tax credit waiver requests for Hidden Valley Stables in Sioux Falls and Americana Apartments in Pierre, and it committed to additional funds for Hi Mountain Estates in Box Elder.

The most recent grants and loans from the infrastructure program were awarded at the board’s meeting in February.