(RECAP: The Loudoun Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved changes to the county’s Affordable Dwelling Unit program that will open the program up to VHDA and HUD grants. Developers who rezone land for large subdivisions—more than 50 units, with exceptions— are required by county zoning rules to dedicate 12.5 percent of those units to the county’s ADU program. That program sets price restrictions on those units, but the rules don’t line up with what is required for grants VHDA or HUD. The rules change is yielding immediate benefits. Windy Hill expects to bring in $15 million in tax credits for its Heronview Apartments, with construction plotted to start at the Kincora development later this year.)

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(RECAP: A nonbank mortgage trade association renewed calls this week for the government to cut insurance premiums on FHA loans, but the president of the nation’s largest trade group, the Mortgage Bankers Association, says that would be a terrible thought. MBA President David Stevens said FHA’s insurance fund still has not achieved a level of stability to warrant another reduction at this time. He’s also against removing a post-recession rule that requires borrowers to hold insurance for the life of the loan. Earlier this week, the Community Home Lenders Association (CHLA) sent FHA a letter, urging the agency to cut the annual insurance premiums to 55 basis points, the level it was before the agency increased premiums after the financial crisis. CHLA also wants the agency to rescind the requirement on borrowers to hold insurance until the loan is fully amortized.)

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(RECAP: The Federal Reserve may need to run a “high-pressure economy” to reverse hurt from the 2008-2009 crisis that depressed output, sidelined workers, and risks becoming a permanent scar, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday in a broad review of where the recovery may still fall small. Though not addressing interest rates or immediate policy concerns directly, Yellen laid out the deepening concern at the Fed that U.S. economic potential is slipping and aggressive steps may be needed to rebuild it. Yellen’s comments, while posed as questions that need more research, still add an vital voice to an intensifying debate within the Fed over whether economic growth is close enough to normal to need steady interest rate increases, or whether it remains subpar and scarred, a theory pressed by Harvard economist and former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, among others.)

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