![]() ![]() She pointed out that the land office previously has reviewed and approved the city’s plans, funding notices and guidelines, “and took no exceptions.” Mary Benton, the mayor’s communications director, said housing staff are reviewing the report. It also referred to the potential conflict of interest between Barnes and Turner. Out of 12 proposals, Huntington scored eighth. It said circumstances in the packet “correspond with the findings in this report,” namely that the city was using personal discretion to select a project that did not score highly, and it did not document its reasoning for the decision why. The GLO’s report did say, however, that its staff reviewed the packet of information McCasland provided to council members to back up his claims. His former longtime law partner, Barry Barnes, was a co-developer on the deal, a fact Turner and McCasland both said they did not know until the Chronicle reported it. Turner later withdrew the recommendation to fund the Huntington project, saying the scrutiny of it had become a “distraction” for his administration and the city. ![]() However, the GLO’s report did not include that controversy because the development in question never was submitted to the state for approval. The review was spurred by former Housing Director Tom McCasland’s allegations that Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration ordered the third funding round to benefit the developers of a proposal called Huntington at Bay Area, a charge the mayor has denied. It also must re-score earlier funding notices to account for statistical errors and justify its selections. The city must strengthen its funding structure and new rounds, strengthen its scoring method, ensure project awards are adequately documented and strengthen its conflict of interest function, the GLO said. The findings include: inconsistencies in the criteria and methodology of the city’s three funding rounds used to award the money, incorrect scoring of applicants, lack of documentation to support the qualitative and discretionary processes used to help choose winners, deficient internal controls to enforce the conflict of interest policy, and the use of subjective factors that undermine a competitive process. The GLO named five deals in particular it no longer would approve, and it said the most recent funding round would not be approved, directly affecting the two projects chosen so. The report has broad implications for the city’s multifamily housing program, and it halts - at least for now - seven developments in the city’s pipeline, representing nearly $83 million in proposed city investments and more than 900 affordable homes. ![]()
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