[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 226 (Friday, November 22, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 64549-64553]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-25388]


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DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

[Docket No. FR-6187-N-01]


White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to 
Affordable Housing; Request for Information

AGENCY: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and 
Research (PD&R), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

ACTION: Request for Information.

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SUMMARY: Consistent with President Trump's Executive Order 13878, 
``Establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers 
to Affordable Housing,'' dated June 25, 2019, this document informs the 
public that HUD requests public comment on Federal, State, local, and 
Tribal laws, regulations, land use requirements, and administrative 
practices that artificially

[[Page 64550]]

raise the costs of affordable housing development and contribute to 
shortages in housing supply.

DATES: Comment Due Date: January 21, 2020.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments responsive 
to this request for information (RFI) to the Regulations Division, 
Office of General Counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 
451 7th Street SW, Room 10276, Washington, DC 20410-0500. 
Communications must refer to the above docket number and title. There 
are two methods for submitting public comments. All submissions must 
refer to the above docket number and title.
    1. Submission of Comments by Mail. Comments may be submitted by 
mail to the Regulations Division, Office of General Counsel, Department 
of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW, Room 10276, 
Washington, DC 20410-0500.
    2. Electronic Submission of Comments. Interested persons may submit 
comments electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 
http://www.regulations.gov. HUD strongly encourages commenters to 
submit their feedback and recommendations electronically. Electronic 
submission of comments allows the commenter maximum time to prepare and 
submit a response, ensures timely receipt by HUD, and enables HUD to 
make comments immediately available to the public. Comments submitted 
electronically through the http://www.regulations.gov website can be 
viewed by other commenters and interested members of the public. 
Commenters should follow the instructions provided on that site to 
submit comments electronically.

    Note: To receive consideration as public comments, responses 
must be submitted through one of the two methods specified above. It 
is not acceptable to submit comments by facsimile (fax) or 
electronic mail. Again, all submissions must refer to the docket 
number and title of the notice.

    Public Inspection of Public Comments. All properly submitted 
comments and communications submitted to HUD will be available for 
public inspection and downloading at http://www.regulations.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Contact Pamela Blumenthal, Office of 
Policy Development and Research, Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, 451 7th Street SW, Room 8138, Washington, DC 20410-0500; 
telephone number 202-402-7012 (this is not a toll-free number). Persons 
with hearing or speech impairments may access this number through TTY 
by calling the toll-free Federal Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Context: Why the White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory 
Barriers to Affordable Housing (Council) was Established

    President Donald J. Trump established a White House Council on 
Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing \1\ because for 
many American citizens, the supply of available housing has not kept 
pace with the demand for housing by prospective renters and homebuyers. 
Rising housing costs are forcing families to dedicate larger shares of 
their monthly incomes to housing. In 2017, approximately 37 million 
renter and owner households spent more than 30 percent of their incomes 
on housing, with more than 18 million spending more than half of their 
incomes on housing. Between 2001 and 2017, the number of renter 
households allocating more than half of their incomes toward rent 
increased by nearly 45 percent.\2\
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    \1\ Executive Order 13878 of June 25, 2019. ``Establishing a 
White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable 
Housing,'' 84 FR 30853. June 28, 2019. www.federalregister.gov/d/2019-14016.
    \2\ Joint Center for Housing Studies (2019). State of the 
Nation's Housing 2019. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing-2019.
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    Driving the rise in housing costs is a lack of housing supply to 
meet rising demand. Research has provided evidence that a major driver 
of high-cost housing is compliance with overly prescriptive 
construction and development requirements or regulations.\3\ 
Regulations are often necessary to protect the health and safety of 
American citizens, such as clean air, water or disaster mitigation 
practices. However, outdated and overly burdensome, time-consuming, and 
costly regulatory requirements and restrictions prolong the completion 
of new housing supply and those costs are shifted to the consumer, 
particularly in tight markets.
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    \3\ Joseph Gyourko and Raven Molloy, ``Regulation and Housing 
Supply,'' (working paper No. 20536, National Bureau of Economic 
Research, Cambridge, MA, October 2014), 1.
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    As the Executive Order states, ``Increasing the supply of housing 
by removing overly burdensome regulatory barriers will reduce housing 
costs, boost economic growth, and provide more Americans with 
opportunities for economic mobility. In addition, it will strengthen 
American communities and the quality of services offered in them by 
allowing hardworking Americans to live in or near the communities they 
serve.''
    As referenced in the Executive Order, common examples of regulatory 
barriers include: overly restrictive zoning and growth management 
controls; rent controls; cumbersome building and rehabilitation codes; 
excessive energy and water efficiency mandates; unreasonable maximum-
density allowances; historic preservation requirements; overly 
burdensome wetland or environmental regulations; outdated manufactured-
housing regulations and restrictions; undue parking requirements; 
cumbersome and time-consuming permitting and review procedures; tax 
policies that discourage investment or reinvestment; overly complex 
labor requirements; and inordinate impact or developer fees. These 
regulatory barriers increase the costs associated with development, 
and, as a result, restrict the supply of housing, particularly 
unsubsidized middle market housing affordable to working families.
    Many of the markets with the most severe shortages in affordable 
housing contend with the most restrictive regulatory barriers to 
housing development.

II. Overview of the White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory 
Barriers to Affordable Housing

    The Executive Order directs the Secretary of HUD, or his designee, 
to chair the Council, in tandem with the Assistant to the President for 
Domestic Policy and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, 
or their designees, as Vice Chairs. In addition to the Chair and Vice 
Chairs, the Council consists of the following officials, or their 
designees: The Secretaries of the Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, 
Labor, Transportation, Energy; the Administrator of the Environmental 
Protection Agency; the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; 
the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors; the Deputy Assistant 
to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs; and the 
heads of such other executive departments and agencies (agencies) and 
offices as the President, Chair, or Vice Chairs may, from time to time, 
designate or invite, as appropriate.
    The Executive Order directs the Council to:
    (a) Solicit feedback from State, local, and Tribal government 
officials, as well as relevant private-sector stakeholders, developers, 
homebuilders, creditors, real estate professionals, manufacturers, 
academic researchers, renters, advocates, and homeowners, to:

[[Page 64551]]

    i. Identify Federal, State, local, and Tribal laws, regulations, 
and administrative practices that artificially raise the costs of 
housing development and contribute to shortages in housing supply, and
    ii. Identify practices and strategies that most successfully reduce 
and remove burdensome Federal, State, local, and Tribal laws, 
regulations, and administrative practices that artificially raise the 
costs of housing development, while highlighting actors that 
successfully implement such practices and strategies;
    (b) Evaluate and quantify the effect that various Federal, State, 
local, and Tribal regulatory barriers have on affordable-housing 
development, and the economy in general, and identify ways to improve 
the data available to the public and private researchers who evaluate 
such effects, without violating privacy laws or creating unnecessary 
burdens;
    (c) Identify and assess the actions each agency can take under 
existing authorities to minimize Federal regulatory barriers that 
unnecessarily raise the costs of housing development;
    (d) Assess the actions each agency can take under existing 
authorities to align, support, and encourage State, local, and Tribal 
efforts to reduce regulatory barriers that unnecessarily raise the 
costs of housing development; and
    (e) Recommend Federal, State, local, and Tribal actions and 
policies that would:
    i. Reduce and streamline statutory, regulatory, and administrative 
burdens at all levels of government that inhibit the development of 
affordable housing; and
    ii. Encourage state and local governments to reduce regulatory 
barriers to the development of affordable housing.

III. Purpose of This Request for Information

    The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to solicit 
feedback that will assist the Council in identifying Federal, State, 
local, and Tribal laws, regulations, and administrative practices that 
artificially raise the costs of affordable-housing development and 
contribute to shortages in housing supply. It also seeks data, other 
information, analyses, and recommendations on methods for reducing 
these regulatory barriers.
    The Council encourages participation from Federal, State, local, 
and Tribal government officials, as well as relevant stakeholders, 
including developers, homebuilders, real estate professionals, 
affordable housing advocates, manufacturers, architects, engineers, 
fair housing professionals, urban planners, economists, academic 
researchers, renters, homeowners, creditors, multifamily-housing 
owners, and public-housing agencies.

IV. Specific Information Requested

    While HUD welcomes comments on all aspects of developing a plan for 
reducing barriers to affordable housing development, HUD is 
particularly interested in receiving information, data, analyses, and 
recommendations on the following:
    (1) Federal Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. HUD 
requests comments that identify specific HUD regulations, statutes, 
programs and practices that directly or indirectly restrict the supply 
of housing or increase the cost of housing. In thinking about the 
impact that the laws, regulations, statutes, programs and policies of 
HUD programs may have on the housing construction and development 
industry, please consider:
    a. Federal laws, regulations, and administrative practices of HUD 
programs that directly or indirectly artificially raise the costs of 
housing development and contribute to shortages in housing supply, in 
HUD's program implementation itself, or because of their impact on 
State, local, and Tribal government policymaking. Do these laws, 
regulations, or administrative practices produce any benefits to the 
resident, homeowner, state, or locality that would be eliminated if the 
requirement were reduced or eliminated?
    b. Recommendations, strategies, solutions or best practice models 
that have been established to streamline, reduce or eliminate overly 
restrictive construction and development regulations, requirements or 
administrative practices identified above.
    c. What are the policy interventions, solutions or strategies 
available to federal decision makers for incentivizing state and local 
governments to review their regulatory environment? To aid them in 
streamlining, reducing or eliminating the negative impact of state and 
local laws, regulations, and administrative practices identified in the 
questions below?
    d. What is the potential impact, positive or negative, of 
streamlining, reducing, or eliminating the identified regulations, 
requirements or administrative practices?
    (2) State Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. Since the 
1920s States have given ultimate zoning authority to their local 
government units. Additionally, States have left it to the local 
jurisdictions to create their own governing structure and to delegate 
further authority across local government silos, often leading to 
fragmented, overlapping or duplicative review processes of construction 
projects. Finally, States almost always impose a bifurcated review 
process for larger scale infrastructure projects that require 
environmental review. However, States, by their regional nature, are 
more attuned with how local policies have larger economic consequences 
to regional economies. In thinking about the role of the state in the 
building construction industry, consider the following questions:
    a. In what ways do State-level laws, practices, and programs 
contribute to delays in the construction industry? Are there particular 
laws, practices and programs that could be reviewed for potential 
barriers?
    b. What are the policy interventions, solutions or strategies 
available to State decision makers for incentivizing local governments 
to review their regulatory environment? To aid them in streamlining, 
reducing or eliminating the negative impact of local and State laws, 
regulations, and administrative practices identified in the question 
above?
    (3) Local Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. While a 
traditional characterization for the adoption and maintenance of some 
barriers to affordable housing development is that they reflect a ``Not 
in My Back Yard'' (``NIMBY'') disposition, their widespread and long-
term prevalence suggests some substantive bases for their existence. 
For the purposes of this RFI, we define ``local'' to include all local 
government units that have constitutional authority given by the State 
to make decisions on land use planning and growth management, including 
cities, towns, parishes, designated places, counties, and rural 
communities, as well as regional entities that have decision-making 
authority on these land-use issues under State statutes. When 
identifying regulatory barriers and understanding the impacts on 
housing costs, there are several issues to consider:
    a. What are the common motivations or factors that underlie the 
adoption of laws, regulations, and practices that demonstrably raise 
the cost of housing development? Do these considerations vary 
geographically?
    b. How do local decision makers determine whether laws, 
regulations, or practices artificially or unnecessarily

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contribute to this problem? Do decision makers undertake cost-benefit 
analyses, and if so, how do they use them?
    c. What are the policy interventions, solutions or strategies 
available to local decision makers for streamlining, reducing or 
eliminating the negative impact of these laws, regulations, and 
administrative practices identified in the question above?
    (4) Basis for Reducing Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. 
In thinking about streamlining, reducing or eliminating barriers to 
affordable housing development, please consider the following:
    a. What are the economic and social benefits to American families 
and individuals, the local community, the State or Tribe, and the 
nation that would be realized by reducing regulatory barriers to 
affordable housing development?
    i. To what extent is there agreement that specific regulations and 
administrative practices result in higher cost or reduced availability 
of affordable market rate housing for potential homeowners and renters?
    ii. Assuming agreement that specific regulations and administrative 
practices create impediments to affordable housing development by 
increasing the costs of either construction of housing or preservation 
of housing supply, are these costs of such regulation and practices 
quantifiable? What evidence is there to support this finding?
    b. Are there regulations that may delay the process of building 
affordable housing but are necessary to ensure a certain level of 
quality is achieved in the construction?
    c. How should one evaluate the cost of burdensome regulations on 
the local housing market? How should one determine the benefits of 
reducing those costs?
    i. If you have knowledge of jurisdictions that have successfully 
implemented creative solutions to reduce regulatory barriers, please 
describe specific land use requirements that were demonstrated to have 
raised the cost of housing.
    ii. In responding to item (i) above, please discuss how these 
jurisdictions offered incentives, sanctions or implemented policies 
that effectively reduced or eliminated overly restrictive, outdated, or 
otherwise burdensome land use regulations.
    iii. For jurisdictions that considered reducing the barriers but 
ultimately did not take action to do so, what was the basis for that 
inaction?
    (5) Plan Development and Implementation. In general, HUD is 
interested in what actions it should recommend or implement to assist 
States, Tribes, and local governments in reducing or eliminating 
barriers to affordable housing development.
    a. Regarding HUD's rules, regulations, and statutes, what actions 
can the Department take to significantly reduce (or eliminate) barriers 
to affordable housing development while remaining committed to its 
mission to expand affordable housing options and support decent, safe 
and sanitary housing for all Americans? Please provide detailed 
examples, if possible.
    b. Regarding the recommendations provided to HUD above, what 
actions could the Department implement to create incentives for States, 
Tribes, or local jurisdictions to encourage regulatory review and 
reform? For communities that have achieved regulatory reform, how might 
the Department learn from successful policies that were adopted at the 
State, Tribal, or local level? How might the Department create guidance 
for other jurisdictions looking to achieve reform?
    (6) Research Questions.
    a. What peer-reviewed research and/or representative surveys 
provide quantitative analyses on the impact of regulations on cost of 
affordable housing development? Do these analyses demonstrate evidence 
on the degree or severity of impact? How strongly supported are the 
conclusions of the research? Provide citations for research referenced.
    b. What performance measures, quantitative and/or qualitative, 
should the Council consider in assessing the reduction of barriers 
nationally or regionally? What are the advantages and disadvantages of 
each measure? Among the measures recommended above, how should they be 
prioritized? Such measures could include, but would not be limited to, 
the following:
    i. The rate of housing production, considering a range of 
cofactors, including domestic and international migration patterns and 
rates of family formation;
    ii. The number of housing construction permits, construction 
starts, and completions;
    iii. The number of burden-reducing legislative or regulatory 
actions, considering suitable baselines;
    iv. A list of best practice models based on recommendations from 
stakeholders and the public and reviewed by subject matter experts;
    v. Housing development processing times and costs, considering a 
range of cofactors;
    vi. Whether jurisdictions' barrier reduction was temporary (e.g., a 
project- or grant/program-specific waiver) or permanent;
    vii. Whether there are fair housing barriers to the development of 
affordable housing; and
    viii. Whether the permitting process poses a greater, comparable, 
or smaller barrier to building housing than do the regulations, such as 
regarding timeliness and consistency of permitting decisions.
    c. HUD's Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (RBC) \4\ was created to 
document the prevalence of regulatory barriers that influence the cost 
of affordable housing and offer best practice solutions for their 
removal. The clearinghouse is an easily searchable electronic database 
that contains more than 4,800 barriers and solutions and catalogs 
information that spans all 50 states and more than 460 cities and 
counties. Best practices have been previously highlighted in a HUD 
publication called Breakthroughs, which was a bi-monthly e-newsletter 
accessible where community actors could share their stories about 
reform strategies that work. Representatives from the housing industry, 
the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, 
the National Association of Mayors and many other private, public and 
advocacy groups have contributed to these efforts. HUD's Office of 
Policy Development & Research continues to manage the RBC database and 
staff are developing ideas for how the research community could use the 
information to conduct regulatory barriers research. For the purpose of 
this RFI, we ask for recommendations on how best to utilize this 
important source of information for States, local governments, 
researchers and policy analysts who are tracking reform activity across 
the country.
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    \4\ https://www.huduser.gov/portal/rbc/home.html.
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IV. Request for Information Response Guidelines

    If you submit comments by mail, your response should be no longer 
than 50 pages. Please provide the following information at the start of 
your response to this RFI: Company/institution name (if applicable); 
contact information, including address, phone number, and email 
address. Do not submit Confidential Business Information (CBI) in your 
response to this RFI. Responses identified as containing CBI will not 
be reviewed and will be discarded.
    Please identify each answer by responding to a specific question or 
topic if applicable. You may answer as many or as few questions as you 
wish. HUD will not respond to individual

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submissions or publish publicly a compendium of responses.
    To help you prepare your comments, please see the How Do I Prepare 
Effective Comments segment of the Commenting on HUD Rules web page, 
https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/general_counsel/Commenting-On-HUD-Rules#1. While that web page is written for commenting on regulatory 
proposals, these tips are generally applicable to this RFI.

    Dated: November 14, 2019.
Seth Appleton,
 Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research.
[FR Doc. 2019-25388 Filed 11-21-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4210-67-P