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A pair of bills spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo that aim to speed up the approval process for new residential projects advanced through the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week as part of a bipartisan housing package.
The bipartisan act aims to alleviate the housing shortage by streamlining housing regulations, updating certain programs in the Department of Housing and Urban Development and modernizing banking regulations to expand lending opportunities. The legislation passed the House by a vote of 390-9. It will move to the Senate for consideration.
Around a quarter of homeowners and half of renters in the United States are considered housing cost-burdened, meaning they spend over 30 percent of their income on rent or mortgage payments, according to a recent analysis of 2023 rent payments.
Liccardo said in an interview that housing is a rare issue where both Democrats and Republicans can collaborate in a divisive political moment.
“I believe that housing is one of those areas where we should be able to find some common ground,” he said. “I’ve introduced five bills with Republican co-sponsors. Two of them have now passed the House. I’m going to keep pushing on the others.”
The package that the House passed on Feb. 9 includes two bills that Liccardo introduced in July. Both were co-sponsored with Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE), who chairs the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee. The first, the BUILD Housing Act, aims to cut red tape in housing by allowing HUD to share environmental review authority with state and local governments when possible.
It also authorizes HUD to classify some projects as “special projects,” which would provide more flexibility in the environmental review process.
“This is a way of streamlining so that we have just one environmental review process rather than duplicative processes,” said Liccardo, whose district includes Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Mountain View.
The second bill, the Unlocking Housing Supply Through Streamlined and Modernized Reviews Act, also aims to speed up the approval process for new residential projects.. The Act exempts certain housing developments from environmental reviews that are required under the National Environmental Protection Act. Developments that would be exempted are small-scale construction, rehabilitation, and infill projects, which are new houses constructed on vacant lots in urban areas.
In October, the U.S. Senate passed its own bipartisan housing affordability package called the ROAD to Housing Act. Although the House and Senate packages share similarities, Congress will have to work to resolve the differences in the coming weeks. The exact timing of this process is uncertain, but Liccardo said he believes it will be weeks rather than months.
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