Federal Grants to Fund Zoning Reform Efforts

An $85 million federal grant program included in the omnibus funding package passed late last year aims to counter NIMBY opposition to new housing development and help cities pass zoning reforms that encourage increased housing production, higher density, and transit-oriented development, writes Kery Murakami in Route Fifty. 

According to the omnibus, HUD will award grants to cities that demonstrate ‘a commitment to overcoming local barriers to facilitate the increase in affordable housing production and preservation.’ Cities with ‘an acute demand’ for housing affordable to households below the median income in their area will also get preference for the grants.

A prior proposal by President Biden called for federal grants for cities that eliminate ‘exclusionary’ zoning laws, but it was not included in the bipartisan infrastructure law. “However, Biden in his budget request last March called for the creation of a $10 billion state and local grant program to encourage and support zoning changes that would allow more kinds of housing to go up in what are often largely white and wealthier neighborhoods.”

The federal initiative is partly modeled on a Washington state program that awards grants to cities “to examine how their zoning policies were restricting the supply of housing, as a shortage of homes contributed to sharply rising real estate prices.” The program yielded changes to zoning codes in Tacoma, Walla Walla, and other cities.