Input Stories

In a welcome development for manufacturers and all others who seek more affordable, plentiful housing, President Trump signed an executive order last Friday aimed at reducing permitting delays for new housing.

What’s in it: The EO intends to “reduce regulatory barriers to building homes and to steward taxpayer dollars in a manner that promotes housing affordability” by taking the following steps:

• Directing several agencies to streamline many permitting requirements relating to bodies of water
• Ordering the Council on Environmental Quality to help agencies that implement the National Environmental Policy Act to make use of categorial exclusions “in a manner that maximally exempts or reduces burdens on housing construction,” preservation and related efforts
• Similarly directing the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to reduce burdens under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act 
• Ordering the Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop regulatory best practices that will aid state and local governments in “promot[ing] housing construction and affordability”
• Instructing the Treasury Department and HUD to “better align programs and incentives with the Opportunity Zone tax incentives to expand investment in single-family home construction,” while also evaluating whether those incentives can be “coordinated” with the New Markets Tax Credit in certain cases

Permitting reform win: As the NAM remains focused on the passage of comprehensive permitting reform in Congress (as the release of its report today demonstrates), the administration’s embrace of such reforms is a heartening sign.