Led by San Diego, California has been roaring ahead when it comes to efforts aimed at facilitating more housing. Congress, not so much — perhaps until now. The House and Senate have overwhelmingly passed bipartisan bills ultimately aimed at making homes more affordable, or at least making it easie r to build them. The Senate will now consider a measure combining provisions of the bills. Approval of the final product seems likely in both houses, though there’s never a guarantee. But from President Donald Trump on down, elected officials in Washington have been talking about the need to do something about housing for some time, but don’t have a lot to show for it. Further, they’re hungry to tackle the issue of “affordability,” perhaps the buzziest word in this election season, as the cost of living and broader economic worries are at the forefront of voters’ minds. The cost of housing tops the list for many. If passed, what is now being called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream) may be the most sweeping housing legislation from Congress in decades. The big bill comes with big caveats, though. It would not affect prices soon (if much at all eventually) because its main goal is increasing the housing supply, which, as we know from local and state incentives, takes time. Also, it may have little noticeable impact in San Diego. That’s largely because the city of San Diego has been ahead of this curve for years, reducing regulations, creating incentives to build lower-cost housing and doing away with zoning restrictions. In particular, the city had been something of a trailblazer in encouraging more backyard apartments, officially known as accessory dwelling units, though the policy has become increasingly controversial. In short order, pro-housing legislation began flowing out of Sacramento. A key figure in advocating housing legislation in the state Capitol has been Democratic Assemblymember David Alvarez, a former San Diego City Council member. San Diego’s housing construction has been on the rise in recent years. Except for a slight slowdown in sale and rent prices, housing really hasn’t become much more affordable, as of yet. Major factors are things neither San Diego nor the state can do much about: the cost and restrictions of financing, and the high price of materials, labor and land. One thing the federal government can do is provide significant money to build more housing — or more aid to prospective homebuyers — but there isn’t much of that in the emerging bill. That’s not to say the pending legislation won’t help grease the wheels for housing construction and rehabilitation, though, as previously suggested, in some areas more than others. The combined bill unveiled last week focuses on incentives for building new homes. According to The Washington Post, the measure would approve new grants to revamp aging houses, allow for accelerated environmental reviews for housing developments and create a new program to turn abandoned buildings into housing and more. Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the panel, have been the leaders in shaping the legislation,  and the White House has said Trump will support it. There are some key aspects of the bill at odds with the House version. Among the most notable is the new Senate bill would ban institutional investors from owning more than 350 single-family homes — a Trump proposal that, at least initially, was not embraced by some Republicans. There’s been considerable debate over just how much institutional ownership there is in the housing market and what impact that has. Aside from that provision, the Post noted the bill “has widespread support among builders, legislators, trade groups and more. And it shows how noncontroversial efforts to make housing more affordable have become.” Kimber White, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, credited Congress for taking on housing. But in an interview shortly before the bills were merged, he said that while improving supply is necessary, more is needed. “We’re saying that we want to do affordable housing bills, but we’re really not putting a lot into affordable housing in any of these bills,” he told the Mortgage Professional America website. He said more direct help for consumers is needed, though he said the earlier Senate version did a better job on that than the House proposal. “The legislation addresses barriers facing homebuyers by strengthening small-dollar mortgage lending, tackling appraisal shortages and bias, modernizing FHA manufactured housing limits, expanding tax-advantaged down payment savings tools, and protecting veterans from predatory loan practices while increasing awareness of VA benefits,” White said. “These reforms support first-time buyers, rural borrowers, manufactured housing homeowners, and service members, helping more Americans access safe, affordable home financing.” San Diego has been pushing housing initiatives so much that a backlash has grown over too much development, at least in certain communities. Officials have begun pumping the brakes a bit. For example, the City Council has closed some of the loopholes in the ordinance that loosened restrictions on backyard apartments, which in some cases had allowed dozens rather than just a few to be built on a given property. Also, the city is moving toward ending a fee waiver for developers of small units amid concerns that revenue was lacking for necessary infrastructure the projects require. Given the dearth of federal housing action in recent times, and how long it would take for impacts from the proposed bill to be felt, a backlash against pro-housing legislation in Congress isn’t likely anytime soon. What they said Author Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) “Fortunately (the) US didn’t elect a woman president to prattle on cluelessly about interior decorating in a time of war; if so, calls for her impeachment would be immediate.” ...read more read less