Department of Housing and Urban Development November 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, (Pub. L. 113-76, approved January 18, 2014) (FY 2014 appropriation) authorizes the Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) to enter into noncompetitive cooperative agreements for research projects that are aligned with PD&R's research priorities and where HUD can gain value by having substantial involvement in the research activity. Research projects must be funded at least 50 percent by philanthropic entities or other Federal, state or local government agencies. This document announces the names, addresses and the amount awarded to entities selected to undertake research projects for PD&R.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

HUD has submitted the proposed information collection requirement described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act. The purpose of this notice is to allow for an additional 30 days of public comment.

This notice sets forth the schedule and proposed agenda for a teleconference meeting of the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC), Structure and Design Subcommittee. The teleconference meeting is open to the public. The agenda provides an opportunity for citizens to comment on the business before the MHCC.

As the Nation's housing agency, HUD administers programs designed to meet the goal of ensuring decent housing and a suitable living environment for all. In furtherance of this goal, in February 2012, HUD promulgated a final rule entitled ``Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity'' (Equal Access Rule), which requires that HUD-assisted and HUD-insured housing be made available without regard to actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status, and which generally prohibits inquiries into sexual orientation or gender identity for the purpose of determining eligibility for such housing or otherwise making such housing available. HUD's Equal Access Rule provides a limited exception for inquiries about the sex of an individual to determine eligibility for housing provided or to be provided to the individual when the housing is a temporary, emergency shelter that involves the sharing of sleeping areas or bathrooms, or for inquiries made for the purpose of determining the number of bedrooms to which a household may be entitled. At that time, HUD decided not to set national policy regarding how transgender persons would be accommodated in temporary, emergency shelters that involve shared sleeping quarters or shared bathing facilities, but instead decided to monitor and review its programs to determine if transgender individuals had greater access to temporary, emergency shelters as a result of the rule or if additional guidance or a national policy was warranted. HUD also committed to review the prohibition on inquiries contained in the Equal Access Rule. HUD has now monitored and reviewed its programs and, based on that review, is proposing this rule to require recipients and subrecipients of assistance from HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), as well as owners, operators, and managers of shelters, buildings, and other facilities and providers of services covered by CPD's programs, to provide transgender persons and other persons who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth with access to programs, benefits, services, and accommodations in accordance with their gender identity. This proposed rule would also amend the definition of ``gender identity'' included in HUD's Equal Access Rule so the definition more clearly reflects the difference between actual and perceived gender identity. Finally, HUD has completed its review of the inquiries provision, and the proposed rule would eliminate the Equal Access Rule's current prohibition on inquiries related to sexual orientation or gender identity, while maintaining the prohibition against discrimination on those bases.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is amending its regulations by relocating and consolidating certain regulations of its predecessor agenciesthe Federal Housing Finance Board (Finance Board) and Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)that pertain to the responsibilities of boards of directors, corporate practices, and corporate governance matters. The OFHEO regulations addressed corporate governance matters at the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) (collectively, the Enterprises), while the Finance Board regulations addressed the powers and responsibilities of the boards of directors and management of the Federal Home Loan Banks (Banks). The final rule consolidates most of those regulations into a new FHFA regulation, parts of which will apply to both the Banks and the Enterprises (together, regulated entities), and parts of which will apply only to the Banks or only to the Enterprises. Most of the content of the new regulations has been derived from the regulations of the predecessor agencies, with such modifications as are necessary to apply the regulations to all of the regulated entities, to respond to issues raised by the commenters, or to clarify the regulatory text. The final rule also amends the Prudential Management and Operations Standards (Prudential Standards) provisions by designating certain introductory languagewhich pertains to the general responsibilities of senior management and boards of directorsas a separate Prudential Standard. The final rule also repeals a provision of the OFHEO regulations that related to minimum safety and soundness requirements for the Enterprises.

This notice announces HUD's intention to competitively sell certain unsubsidized single family mortgage loans, in a sealed bid sale offering called SFLS 2016-1, without Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance. This notice also generally describes the bidding process for the sale and certain persons who are ineligible to bid. This is the first sale offering of Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 and the sale will be held on November 18, 2015.

This document corrects a technical error in HUD's interim final rule on CDBG accounting requirements, published November 12, 2015.

In accordance with Section 206A of the National Housing Act, HUD has adjusted the Basic Statutory Mortgage Limits for Multifamily Housing Programs for Calendar Year 2015.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gives notice that the City of New York (the City), through its Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as the ``Responsible Entity,'' as that term is defined by 24 CFR 58.2(a)(7)(i), and as the Lead Agency in accordance with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will evaluate the environmental and social impacts of alternatives that are being proposed to improve coastal and social resiliency by installing an integrated flood protection system on the East Side of Southern Manhattan between Montgomery Street on the south and East 23rd Street on the north (with an alternative that extends to East 25th Street). Such measures would be designed to address the impacts of coastal flooding on the quality of the human environment due to both storm hazards and sea level rise. The City, through OMB, is the Grantee of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds that have been appropriated under the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 (Pub. L. 113-2, approved January 29, 2013) related to disaster relief, long-term recovery, restoration of infrastructure and housing, and economic revitalization in the most impacted and distressed areas resulting from a major disaster that was declared pursuant to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1974 (Stafford Act) in calendar years 2011, 2012, and 2013. This project includes funds that were awarded as the ``BIG U'' as part of HUD's Rebuild by Design competition. The proposed EIS will address the environmental review requirements of NEPA, the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) (6 NYCRR Part 617), and the New York City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR). This Notice of Intent to prepare an EIS is therefore, being published in accordance with the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations found at 40 CFR parts 1500-1508 and HUD regulations found at 24 CFR part 58 and is announcing that a public scoping process on the EIS is commencing.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

This rule makes several changes to the existing Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program regulations in order to better track the use of grant funds and improve accounting procedures in the program. Through this rule, HUD requires grantees to commence tracking the obligations and expenditures of funds for each specific fiscal year grant, rather than track such information cumulatively. In order to effectively implement this accounting change, changes are needed to the regulations applicable to affected grants, such as the program-specific regulations, consolidated plan regulations, and methods to calculate the cap on administrative and planning expenses. While amending these regulations to conform to and support this accounting practice in applicable regulations, HUD is also making certain grammatical and other technical corrections in those regulations.

This notice invites interested parties to comment on HUD's Fair Housing Initiative Program (FHIP) Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 administration of the funding competition, including FHIP's FY 2015 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), which closed on August 26, 2015. A copy of the FY 2015 NOFA can be found at https://portal.hud.gov/ hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=2015fhipnofa.pdf. Comments are being requested as part of an on-going effort to evaluate and improve administration of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 funding competition.

This Notice identifies unutilized, underutilized, excess, and surplus Federal property reviewed by HUD for suitability for use to assist the homeless.

HUD has submitted the proposed information collection requirement described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act. The purpose of this notice is to allow for an additional 30 days of public comment.

This final rule amends HUD's Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program (Section 108 Program) regulations to permit HUD to collect fees from Section 108 borrowers to offset the credit subsidy costs of Section 108 loan guarantees. The Department of Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Acts of 2014 and 2015 authorize HUD, for each of those fiscal years, to collect fees from borrowers to offset the credit subsidy costs for the guaranteed loans. This final rule amends HUD's Section 108 Program regulations to ensure that HUD can begin to make Section 108 loan guarantee commitments without appropriated credit subsidy budget authority, in accordance with applicable law. This final rule follows publication of the February 5, 2015, proposed rule and adopts the proposed rule with minor, clarifying changes to how HUD will determine and announce the amount of the fee. Elsewhere in today's Federal Register, HUD is publishing a document that sets the fee that it will charge borrowers under the Section 108 Program for loan guarantee commitments awarded in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016.

This notice sets forth the schedule and proposed agenda for a teleconference meeting of the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC), Technical Systems Subcommittee. The teleconference meeting is open to the public. The agenda provides an opportunity for citizens to comment on the business before the MHCC.

HUD has submitted the proposed information collection requirement described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act. The purpose of this notice is to allow for an additional 30 days of public comment.