The Biden administration has announced several new measures intended to lower housing costs and bolster supply. Central to these steps is an effort to incentivize municipalities to loosen restrictive land use and zoning policies. This will be achieved by adopting these considerations into the grant criteria for key government programs.
As part of the strategy, “land use and zoning” will be integral factors in the grant criteria for both the historic Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods program and the Economic Development Administration’s grant programs. This was confirmed by Daniel Hornung, a prominent economic advisor to President Biden.
The plan that the administration has proposed seeks to tackle the mounting housing costs and supply issues by motivating local authorities to rethink their current land use and zoning laws. The concept is to promote more sustainable and inclusive growth and development. By leveraging the grant criteria of influential programs, the hope is to provide a strong incentive for municipalities to make these changes in a proactive manner.
By incorporating these factors into grant criteria, the administration aims to stimulate a more proportionate distribution of resources and encourage the establishment of more comprehensive and sustainable housing policies. This could, in turn, lead to the creation of more integrated and equitable neighborhoods that are better designed to meet the diverse needs of their inhabitants. The effectiveness of this initiative remains to be seen,
Further details about these proposed changes can be found on the JDSupra website here.