The City of Washington will be applying for a Thriving Communities Designation with the Iowa Finance Authority and Iowa Economic Development Authority. 

At their Tuesday meeting, City Administrator Joe Gaa presented the application to the council, “This is a designation that the State of Iowa started, this will be the third year. Through IFA and the Economic Development Authority, and what the intention to do is to try and spread out some of the state incentive programs to some of the communities that need it a little bit more. In particular the Federal Housing Tax Credit and the Iowa Workforce Housing Tax Credit. So developers propose projects each year and compete for these, and it’s a heavy competition, and what this thriving community does is it gives cities an opportunity to apply, and demonstrate that we have a housing (need) but we don’t have developers because we are small town Iowa, and we need help getting folks here. And we get qualified for that, and then that would give bonus points to folks applying. So, instead of building in Iowa City I might build in Washington because my project is more likely to get funded.” 

In its second year, six communities were awarded the designation and incentive points for the Federal Housing Tax Credit and Workforce Housing Tax Credit programs. The city council voted unanimously to approve the application. The Thriving Communities Designation recipients will be announced the week of July 14th.