The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has the potential to change the math on how affordable housing is developed and financed in cities across the country.
"ROAD is not a spending bill," said Colin Higgins, the executive director of the National Housing Crisis Task Force, a bipartisan coalition of government, businesses, and civic leaders.
"It is an authorizing bill, which means it changes a bunch of the rules and laws around programs, and that's a big deal because those bills are painful to get off the ground."
The comments came during a panel discussion hosted by the Accelerator for America on Tuesday that featured housing policy leaders from five cites discussing what they are doing to leverage provisions in the ROAD bill.
The AFA is think tank focused on economic development, infrastructure, workforce development, and housing.
The ROAD bill is the first major bipartisan housing bill passed by Congress in 30 years. It changes the rules on Community Development Block Grants, raises the cap on public welfare investments for banks, and removes the chassis requirement for manufactured homes.
Lifting the PWI cap is designed to free up capital and increase access to low-income housing tax credits that are a vital chip in the capital stack needed to finance affordable housing.
"It was increased so banks can put more of their equity and capital into things like LIHTC and Community Development Financial Institutions," said Higgins.
"You should be convening a table of your lenders, your CDFIs, your banking community to understand how they're thinking through this impact because these rules, though they don't go directly through the city, they have a tremendous financial impact on the city."
Raising the cap is expected to attract more private funding into the affordable sector.
"We do think it's going to unlock about $2 to $4 billion a year in financing for new markets, LIHTC, and program related investments that some of the more established banks would make," said Frank Fernandez, president and CEO of Reinvestment Fund, a nationally focused CDFI.
"That's another opportunity to engage with your local CPFI partners and think about that braiding of public and private financing which we know is foundational to making affordable housing work."
Philadelphia is already ahead of the game.
"When Mayor Cherelle Parker was elected, she identified a goal of producing or preserving 30,000 housing units," said Angela Brooks, the chief housing and urban development officer for the city of Philadelphia.
"We stood up a home bond, which is $800 million over the next four years. We've got money, so that certainly helps."
The bond fund is part of Philadelphia's $2 billion H.O.M.E. initiative that supports a variety of programs for renters and homeowners.
Land use policies are emerging as the building blocks that cities are using to prepare for the effects of the ROAD act.
"Our Land Bank Authority was established in 2014, and we manage an inventory of over 1,400 properties within the city limits," said Caroline Douglas, executive director for the Birmingham Land Bank Authority.
"Our inventory was growing at first coincidentally because our land acquisition was driven by demand, but today it is driven by our proactive pursuit of every tax delinquent parcel within our city limits."
Lucas Reeve, a senior advisor to Mayor Justin Bibb in Cleveland is focusing on the ROAD act's loosening of restrictions on manufactured housing.
"We took a look at how we could assemble sites that would be not only conducive to manufactured housing, but also how they could help to bring back some of the neighborhoods in Cleveland," he said.
"We targeted the northeast side of the city, where we have a number of vacant sites that are under city land bank control."
Boise, Idaho has released eight pre-approved plans for auxiliary dwelling units this year and now allow building by right for ADUs and duplexes.
