Burdensome state and local regulations hurt efforts to build housing that is affordable for low- and middle-income people, and the problem has only worsened over the past decade, a U.S. government report said on Monday.
The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department said regulatory barriers — from fees levied on developers to environmental regulations used to oppose development — can boost building costs by as much as 35 percent.
Such obstacles to development have become more widespread in suburban and some rural areas since HUD’s first report in 1991 on barriers to affordable housing, the department said.
“Generally, regulatory tools that were barriers then remain barriers today,” HUD wrote in its new report. “These controls have become more sophisticated and prevalent.”
The federal housing department says housing is affordable when a low- or moderate-income family can afford to rent or buy a decent-quality dwelling without spending more than 30 percent of its income on shelter.
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