By Alexis Baker ( May 13, 2019, 5:55 PM EDT) -- On April 3, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service published Revenue Procedure 2019-17,[1] which provides that multifamily housing projects — or, for those of you who prefer Grey Poupon, "qualified residential rental projects" — won't violate the general public use requirement even if the landlord offers units of the project to certain specific groups. Congress had made this point clear for low-income housing tax credits, or LIHTC, which are often used in connection with tax-exempt multifamily housing bonds. Multifamily housing bonds have their own, separate general public use requirement, and there wasn't a similar provision allowing group preferences in those rules. This disconnect had stopped many of these deals cold. Revenue Procedure 2019-17 puts the two sets of rules in sync....