What started as a conversation in a Washington, DC, steakhouse is now the law of the land.
But the architects of the largest housing bill in 30 years worry about its implementation and the housing affordability subjects it didn’t address.
It’s now up to cities across the country to determine the success of the bipartisan, bicameral 21st Century Road to Housing Act, lawmakers said during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s housing conference in DC on Monday. And that will play out as the 33,295 government bodies with local zoning authority process the dozens of provisions in the bill aimed at making it easier to build and buy a home.
“A lot of the communities are excited about it, but now we’re in that stage where we need to write the regulations,” said Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE), who chairs the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee. “So it’s really important that everybody engage with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s the stage we’re in right now.”
A few changes in the bill have immediate impact. But a vast majority of the 125 implementation items in the bill fall upon HUD. Several rules must be formulated and programs developed. And the bill carries no funding, an issue likely to come up in the government’s 2028 fiscal budget.
“For right now, this is a good start at getting people to use their imagination,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), ranking member of the subcommittee.
House Financial Services Committee Chair Rep. French Hill (R-AR), the bill’s sponsor, told the Chamber the removal of the chassis mandate for manufactured housing, combined with HUD regulations that make it easier to build manufactured housing, offers “tremendous cost savings” for building more housing in rural areas of Arkansas.
“They did a magnificent job in working through this issue about supply-side barriers to greater construction, building better supply for that just simple basic Econ 100–type issue,” Hill said.
Trying to fix the problem on the demand side, such as through rent control, “only drives up prices more,” Hill argued.
Flood said the bill forced compromises from both parties. He said that started from the beginning of the discussion on the bill, at a now-shuttered DC restaurant called The Prime Rib, where they began to organize which of the dozens of housing provisions from across Congress to begin to incorporate into the bill.
“We just committed to each other, let’s do this for all the right reasons. I won’t get everything I want, you won’t get everything you want. But let’s get something done and see if we can sell it in Congress,” Flood recalled. “That partnership resulted in the best outcome you can have.”
Local impact
Hill said Congress has been looking at housing reforms since he was a staffer in the 1980s. But the system of incentives that encourages local governments to roll back regulations will be key to the bill. They’re paired with other changes, such removing required National Environmental Policy Act reviews that save up to $3,000 per unit. Lawmakers have also eyed other reforms.
“If you don’t have good density, lower development fees, and open a non-NIMBY type of environment, you can have your CDBG money clipped,” Hill said, referring to federal funding known as Community Development Block Grants. “That’s a good incentive for states and cities to get their act together on local development rules.”
“The vast majority of costs per unit are mostly local,” Hill said. “They’re decisions taken by city councils, county courts, and states. Both multifamily and single-family. So what we want to do was model good behavior by cutting regulatory red tape.”
Meanwhile, Accelerator for America held an implementation hearing on the bill Tuesday, where Colin Higgins, executive director of its National Housing Crisis Task Force, encouraged local governments not to wait for the implementation of the bill.
The bill was “scaffolding” for programs that will come online in coming years, he said.
Governments should create housing task forces and set the stage to address public land, manufactured housing, lending challenges, and permitting and environmental reviews. It’s best to start now even before funding comes.
“The feds have acted, but it’s going to take some time,” Higgins said.
When is the next housing bill?
Congress has expressed some enthusiasm for more housing reform in the coming years. What exactly it does, though, depends on whom you ask.
“The one thing I think we didn’t get—that we needed here—was the outright elimination of applying ‘Build America Buy America’ to housing,” Flood told the conference. That provision adds scrutiny to building materials, aiming to encourage builders to source more materials in the United States.
But, Flood said, while he supports the law, it shouldn’t apply to homebuilding.
“It has added costs on a level that would shock you,” he said. Flood also called for housing insurance reform, but admitted it’s likely to require “complex solutions.”
“There is a lot more to do,” Hill said. “We need to continue this supply-side deregulatory push, we need to hold HUD accountable. One of the least accountable agencies in the government.”
Hill listed some ongoing Republican priorities that Congress could address if they retain the majority after the 2026 midterms. That includes reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He also echoed HUD’s continued criticism of “Housing First” homelessness programs.
And he wanted to see action on the Fed’s proposed BASEL III reforms aimed to encourage more banks to finance mortgages and construction loans.
“That should take steps to encourage the large banks to participate in the secondary market for housing,” Hill said. “I think Dodd-Frank went too far on this point. Essentially, by the capital standards for a construction loan, pushed a lot of the biggest banks out of that business. It also limited mortgage servicing rights by the large financial institutions. Both of those things, at the margin, raise the cost of liquidity for housing.”
Cleaver took the opposite tack, arguing more bipartisanship will craft the next housing bill.
“You can’t sting and make honey at the same time,” Cleaver said. “You’ve got to make a choice. Are you going to be a stinger or are you going to make honey? The honey is legislation. The sting is all the bickering and fighting we have too much of right now.”
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