President Trump signed an executive order on June 25 establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing Development to identify and remove obstacles that impede the development of new affordable housing. While it is critical for state and local governments to address restrictive zoning and land-use regulations that limit the supply of housing and drive up housing costs, the executive order was met with skepticism.
“An effort by this administration to address restrictive local zoning would be welcomed if it weren’t belied by other actions to gut affordable and fair housing in America,” stated NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel in a press statement. “It’s an attempt to achieve large-scale deregulation while distracting from other efforts to exacerbate the housing crisis through proposals to slash HUD’s budget, eliminate key housing production and preservation programs, increase rents, evict some of our country’s lowest-income and most vulnerable renters, and gut HUD’s existing rules that incentivize local governments to eliminate restrictive zoning.”
“One of HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s first acts in office,” Diane continued, “was to dismantle the agency’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule that gave local communities tools and guidance for overcoming restrictive local zoning. Before coming to HUD, Carson decried efforts to “fundamentally change the nature of some communities from primarily single-family to largely apartment-based areas,” a classic NIMBY sentiment.
Read NLIHC’s press statement at: https://tinyurl.com/y5betqme