ROAD to Housing Bill clears Senate

The Senate has passed legislation designed to increase the housing supply by a variety of measures including increasing the cap on banks’ public welfare investments, which includes mortgage credit certificates and mortgage revenue bonds. 

The ROAD to Housing Act rode to passage on the $924.7 billion Defense Reauthorization Act the Senate passed last week.

“The act received strong bipartisan support as a historic step forward in making housing more available and more attainable in our cities, towns, and villages,” said Steve Patterson, Mayor of Athens, Ohio, and president of the National League of Cities. 

“NLC is proud to support this bipartisan landmark legislation that gives communities, builders and lenders more tools and supports necessary to build more homes, decrease costs and open the door to housing opportunity nationwide.” 

Mortgage revenue bonds are tax-exempt instruments that help fund below market rate mortgages and are the primary tool used by state housing finance agencies to offer low-interest mortgages for low- and moderate-income home buyers. 

The bipartisan legislation was passed by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in July by a unanimous vote that put Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on the same side of the issue. 

“This landmark legislation – the first of its kind in more than a decade – takes important steps to boost the nation’s housing supply, improve housing affordability, and increase oversight and efficiency of federal regulators and housing programs,” said Warren.

“I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House to get the bill to the President’s desk.”

Before that can happen it must clear the House of Representatives, which remains mostly missing in action amid the government shutdown. 

The legislation cobbles together several highly popular provisions favored by housing advocates including the National Council of State Housing Agencies. 

“The Senate and the House of Representatives will now attempt to reconcile the differences between their defense authorization bills,” wrote Greg Zagorski, senior homeownership policy specialist for NCSHA. 

“It is expected that House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill, R-Ark., and Ranking Member Maxine Waters, D-Calif., will want to have input on any housing provisions included.”   

The bill includes a provision tasking the Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop a best practices framework for local zoning and land use policies. 

HUD is a favorite target of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce with an estimated 442 employees being cut via court-challenged reductions in force moves.