Department of Housing and Urban Development June 15, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The proposed information collection requirement described below has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Department is soliciting public comments on the subject proposal. Builders request approval for changes to accepted drawings and specifications of proposed construction properties as required by homebuyers, or determined by the builder to increase market appeal. Builders submit the forms to lenders, who review them and submit them to HUD for approval.

Section 8(c)(1) of the United States Housing Act of 1937 (USHA) requires the Secretary to publish FMRs periodically, but not less than annually, adjusted to be effective on October 1 of each year. Today's notice proposes FMRs for FY2007. The proposed numbers would amend FMR schedules used to determine payment standard amounts for the Housing Choice Voucher program, to determine initial renewal rents for some expiring project-based Section 8 contracts, and to determine initial rents for housing assistance payment (HAP) contracts in the Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy program. Other programs may require use of FMRs for other purposes. The proposed FY2007 FMRs continue to use the revised Office of Management and Budget (OMB) area definitions that were issued in 2003 and were used in establishing FY2006 FMR areas and FMRs. They also continue to use the same calculation methodology. They differ, however, in that a limited number of additional modifications to the county- based statistical areas as defined by OMB have been made in response to public comments received on the December 16, 2005, Federal Register notice on the proposed FY2006 income limit calculation methodology. In the FY2006 FMRs, HUD disaggregated OMB-defined areas when the FMRs of their components as defined by FY2005 FMR areas differed by more than 5 percent to better reflect housing market relationships. Most FY2006 FMR areas consisting of multiple FY2005 FMR areas after the 5 percent test was applied to rents had similar income limits among the component parts. A few such areas would have substantial declines in income limits for some of their component parts under the FY2006 FMR area definitions. Income limit decreases are disruptive to certain HUD and other Federal housing subsidy programs. Income limit areas generally have the same boundaries as FMR areas. In order to minimize large changes in income limits in these combined areas with similar rents but differing income levels, HUD is proposing for FY2007 FMRs to form FMR sub-areas within OMB-defined metropolitan areas in all cases where sub-area median family incomes differ from OMB-defined area median family incomes by more than 5 percent. The FMR estimates have been trended to April 2007, the mid- point of FY2007.