The House passed  the amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with an overwhelmingly bipartisan, 358-32 vote following the Senate’s passage yesterday with a bipartisan, 85-5 vote. President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign the legislation in the Capitol. This final passage comes after several months of negotiations between Senate Banking and House Financial Services committee leadership.

A few items in this bill are relevant to special districts widely. The bill is designed to increase housing supply by cutting regulatory barriers and speeding development timelines which hopefully means faster growth and therefore increased demand on core special district services (water, wastewater, fire, transit, flood control, etc.). The NEPA streamlining will affect special district or special district-adjacent projects with faster permitting but could also mean less time for comment/review, which is the classic push and pull of NEPA reform.

Below is the latest press release, including the updated bill text. 

section-by-section_for_the_21st_century_road_to_housing_act.pdf