Final ROAD to Housing Agreement Delivers Affordable Housing Wins
Confirming what we reported earlier this week, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee has reached an agreement on a final version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. This is the culmination of over a year of work by the Housing Advisory Group, our industry colleagues, and various advocates far and wide, determined to expand housing and community development.
As with the LIHTC expansion in the One Big Beautiful Bill, affordable housing ended up getting more than we expected in this compromise version of “ROAD.” Key provisions of the bill include:
(Section 203) Our much sought-after increase in the Public Welfare Investment cap from 15% to 20%. This could significantly increase banks' investment in the LIHTC.
(Section 1001) Maintains language banning private equity investors from purchasing homes for sale, but excludes language from the previous bill that would have done the same for Build-to-Rent housing. It also excludes the language requiring divestiture of those rental properties after 7 years. This is a big win for our advocacy efforts to eliminate BTR from the bill and protects investment in potential rental homes under the LIHTC program.
(Section 501) Within the reauthorization and reforms to the HOME Investment Partnership Program, the bill requires HUD to evaluate the Build America, Buy America program and its effects on housing production using HOME funds. This is part of our wider effort to address the disruption in housing production caused by the BABA mandate on HUD housing programs.
(Section 206) One of the issues we have been focused on since President Trump won reelection was streamlining environmental reviews. This section reforms NEPA reviews of small and infill housing developments, which we hope will simplify the process.
(Section 212) While the final bill did not totally lift the cap on RAD conversions, it did increase the cap by 100,000 units.
(Section 504) This section reauthorizes the CDBG-DR program for three years. It is not as long an extension as was desired, but it is a step in the right direction.
These are just a few of the provisions in the “ROAD” legislation. You can view a section-by-section of the legislation here.
The Senate is poised to take a final vote on the bill as soon as today or tomorrow, and once passed, the House is expected to bring up the legislation when it returns to Washington next week. It is possible the President will sign the legislation on July 4th (as he did the One Big Beautiful Bill) if not earlier.
We cannot thank you, our HAG members, and our industry partners enough for all the work that went into this victory for affordable housing. As we stated at the HAG/AHTCC meeting last week in Washington, we continue to notch wins for the LIHTC and affordable housing because we, as an industry, advocate as one voice. We have done the work Senator Cantwell challenged us to do over 10 years ago: reaching her colleagues in the Senate and Members of Congress in the House and getting them to acknowledge the seriousness of the housing crisis. These victories are a culmination of those efforts, and now we need to keep the momentum going into the next Congress and the next version of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act.
We will let you know as the final votes take place on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, and when the President signs the legislation into law.
Thank you again.