Scott Turner, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced the Trump administration will return decision-making to local and state governments by ending the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.
President Trump terminated the rule, created under the Obama administration, in his first term, arguing it would “eliminate single-family zoning to destroy the value of houses," but President Biden brought it back in 2021.
“The…rule was, in effect a ‘zoning tax,’” HUD said, “which fueled an increase in the cost and a decrease in the supply of affordable housing due to restrictions on local land.”
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule had conditioned millions of dollars’ worth of community development block grants from HUD on the completion of lengthy demographic analyses.
To get the money, localities had to certify that there were no disparities — either by race, religion, sex, nationality or disability — in access to parks, transportation hubs, schools, and business districts, among other stipulations. [...]
A HUD official told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that a new rule put forward by the department will still prohibit discrimination under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, without the need for the analyses. [...]
Proponents of the AFFH rule, instituted in 2015 under President Barack Obama, have said it would increase opportunities for low-income minorities to live in suburban residential areas.
But critics have faulted it as a federal takeover of local zoning by mandating the building of high-density, affordable housing units and imposing de facto racial quotas.
Economic experts at the libertarian Cato Institute have claimed that the rule did little to reduce racial or income segregation in neighborhoods, while costing US taxpayers up to $55 million per year. (New York Post)
“Local and state governments understand the needs of their communities much better than bureaucrats in Washington D.C. Terminating this rule restores trust in local communities and property owners, while protecting America’s suburbs and neighborhood integrity," Turner said in a statement.
“By terminating the AFFH rule, localities will no longer be required to complete onerous paperwork and drain their budgets to comply with the extreme and restrictive demands made up by the federal government," he continued. "This action also returns decisions on zoning, home building, transportation, and more to local leaders. As HUD returns to the original understanding and enforcement of the law without onerous compliance requirements, we can better serve rural, urban and tribal communities that need access to fair and affordable housing.
“We are aware of communities that have been neglected or negatively impacted due to the demands of recent AFFH rules," Tuner added. "Returning to the law as written will advance market-driven development and allow American neighborhoods to flourish.”
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