The first year of implementing the landmark 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will be less about shovels and more about paperwork, most of it on the shoulders of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a July analysis by the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders and the Center for Affordable Housing Lending found.
Housing advocates cheered when the legislation became law last month, albeit without a presidential signature. The bipartisan legislation promises sweeping regulatory reforms and funding incentives designed to increase housing development that experts say the nation sorely needs.
Of the 124 implementation actions detailed in the bill, HUD is responsible for 88, or 71%, according to the study. Congress will need to appropriate funding for the programs the law establishes.
That means reports are required — lots of them. Within the first year of the law’s enactment, Congress directed agencies to achieve 58 of the 124 actions, or 47%, according to the analysis. Of those actions, 60% are reports.
“While reports may seem like a lighter administrative undertaking relative to rulemakings, many of the reports in the bill involve more intensive data collection and analysis and disproportionately land in HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, which has 27% fewer staff than it did in FY25,” the analysis states.
HUD has shed a significant number of staff compared with last year, according to the analysis, and its ability to take on the heavier workload will be “strained,” the analysis states.
ROAD adds nine rules for HUD to implement. During the previous administration, HUD completed four major rules per year, per the analysis. It currently has a backlog of 54.
“At HUD's recent pace, finalizing all nine of these rules would be several years’ worth of work, assuming HUD paused all other rulemaking and prioritized the rules in 21st Century ROAD – and that still understates the lift,” states the analysis.
A HUD spokesperson told Smart Cities Dive in an email that the agency “has the organizational capability to satisfy and meet all of its obligations under the law.”
In the meantime, local governments can begin assessing what regulatory changes — such as updating zoning, building codes and permitting policies — they will need to enact to take advantage of federal funding once it becomes attainable, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.
“Since many of the legislation's intended reforms ultimately depend on actions taken outside of Washington, early planning and engagement will be critical to translating those reforms into additional housing supply and improved affordability,” the NAAHL and CAHL state in their report.
