Skip to content

The 21st century “ROAD to Affordable Housing Act” became law with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. Industry groups, unions, local governments and housing advocates rallied behind the effort.

The law modernizes federal housing programs. It improves regulatory streamlining, eliminates restrictions on build-to-rent housing developers (who have added 70,000 housing units per year), simplifies rules for manufactured housing and increases support for local lenders.

Despite this, the principal obstacles to increased housing — local land use regulation and overly restrictive entitlement regulations — remain unresolved.

The broad support for this legislation indicates the urgency of the housing crisis. The law brings improvements in existing policy and programs, but it is a mishmash of 50 tweaks to existing programs. It doesn’t solve the fundamental problems underlying the crisis. While policymakers can celebrate the victory, this measure should distract from tackling the larger issues and the need for a program of much greater scale to solve housing affordability.

The housing affordability crisis is the result of lagging housing production. Housing development, whether to rent or for sale, is extremely capital intensive and requires private-sector investment. Policymaking at the federal level could encourage additional investment capital. It could give local governments strong incentives to make it easier to build. And it could finance infrastructure projects to create the framework to support development, as well as targeted subsidies for deeply affordable housing that cannot be produced by the private sector.

It would create private-capital incentives by supporting supplemental private sources through credit enhancement, expanded loan guarantees, creation of a secondary market for construction lending and increased use of public-private partnerships.

Tax policy could provide accelerated depreciation for residential developments, reduce capital gains on long-term housing investments, modernize low-income tax credits, create new tax incentives for workforce housing, and possibly expand the “Opportunity Zone” program.

It would tie local federal funding programs to housing production. Transportation funding, community development grants, water and infrastructure funding could all be conditioned on local actions to stimulate housing, such as by-right housing approvals, reduced permitting times and higher densities in developed areas. Local jurisdictions that meet annual housing production targets would receive increased funding.

It would invest in infrastructure, including increased funding of water and wastewater systems, electric grid upgrades, roads and transit connectivity. It would encourage innovation in building systems by updating building codes to reflect technological advances, standardize building approvals and eliminate distinctions between site-built and factory-built construction, fund development of new building technologies (structural, electrical, plumbing, etc.) and support trade unions to create workforce development programs for the new technologies.

America needs an estimated 30 million new homes over the next 20 years, at a projected cost of $12 trillion to $14 trillion. For comparison, Goldman Sachs estimates global artificial-intelligence infrastructure spending could reach $7.6 trillion over the next five years, more than twice the investment needed to assure housing for all who need it.

While AI buildout is moving rapidly, housing production is primarily constrained by structural, rather than financial, issues. If developers could build economically viable projects in high-demand locations — and if infrastructure, labor and materials supply kept pace — private capital enhanced with limited federal programs could finance much of the required investment.

The local land-use regulations that create uncertainty discourage private investment, as well as the lack of infrastructure capacity, high labor, high materials costs and the “not in my backyard” sentiment all create bottlenecks to new construction. Remove these roadblocks and housing production will increase to match supply.

America is a nation of immigrants who, by our talents and hard work, have built the richest nation in the world. The vibrant, productive middle class is the backbone of this abundance. Its members have a legitimate right to quality housing, healthcare, education and a secure retirement.

Housing is the bedrock of America’s middle class as a foundation of place, a community in which to settle, make a career, raise a family if desired, make friends and retire comfortably. Without affordable housing there is no middle class; without a secure and thriving middle class, there is no America.

Housing is America’s future and our commitment to making it affordable is the measure of our commitment to the future. It’s time to turn the road to housing into a superhighway through a bold new program that goes beyond incremental improvements.

George Brewster, of Belvedere, is a former real estate developer and nonprofit executive. He is a director of Call Marin Home, a nonprofit organization focused on removing the barriers to affordable housing.