While President Donald Trump sits on a federal housing bill that passed with significant bipartisan support, Columbus city officials hope it could aid in the city's attempts to address an ongoing housing crisis.
The bill, called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, passed this month in the House and Senate, including with support from Ohio's two U.S. Senators, Republicans Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted. The legislation aims to reduce red tape, cap investor-owned homes and generally encourage more housing.
Some of the aims of this bill are problems city officials like Deputy Director of Housing Strategies Erin Prosser are well aware of and have tried to address in recent years. The city has tried to tackle restrictive zoning laws with its Zone-In initiative and also asked voters to pass $500 million in affordable housing bonds to support more projects.
Prosser told WOSU parts of the bill will be complimentary to Columbus' ongoing efforts to build more homes and a renewed interest in addressing housing affordability will have an overall positive impact.
"It's going to take every level of government for us to truly deliver affordability for the community. The opportunity to have a housing bill at the federal level of this magnitude is unique and something that's been a long time coming," Prosser said.
Trump was set to sign the bill into law in late June, but cancelled a signing ceremony at the last minute. The president said he wouldn't sign the bill unless Congress passed the SAVE Act, an election security bill that could make it harder to vote.
Regardless of whether or not Trump signs the bill, it is likely to become law. The bill passed the House and Senate with veto-proof supermajorities. If the bill sits on his desk for 10 days while Congress is still in session without his signature, it automatically becomes law.
Moreno commended his colleagues for passing the bill in a statement to WOSU, without commenting on its uncertain fate at his ally's desk at the White House.
“Homeownership is the cornerstone of the American Dream, but decades of failed leadership in Washington have given that dream away to Wall Street landlords over the American people,” Moreno said. “I commend (South Carolina Senator) Tim Scott for getting this critical bipartisan bill across the finish line to put housing back in the hands of American families, not corporate slumlords.”
Husted's office didn't respond to WOSU's request for comment.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, told NPR housing affordability has become a priority for Congress.
"Every time every member of Congress goes back home, they hear how urgent it is to bring down home prices. And that's what the bill does," she said.
When it comes to specific provisions of this bill, Prosser said it was nice to see the federal government aligned with the city on removing red tape. One provision of the bill would allows builders to skip the environmental review when a housing project is going up between two buildings that have already gone through the process.
"It's become difficult and expensive to build new housing, and every way that we can show up to make it easier to build, there's more housing available for families," Prosser said.
Prosser said both affordable and market-rate homes should be part of the solution. She echoed a common sentiment expressed by elected leaders in the city like Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther who want to keep building more housing.
"We keep adding families, people keep coming into Columbus because it's opportunity rich and it's high quality of life, but we have to build the housing to meet that need," Prosser said.
Prosser said the bulk of the federal government's impact on housing development in Columbus is largely around the federal low-income housing tax credit. She said in this space, the biggest impact the bill would have is in the private sector, by increasing banks' capacity limits to make private investments in affordable housing.
"There's a cap right now at 15% from the Federal Reserve. This bill will move it to 20%, which is reflecting again, that greater need on the private sector side," Prosser said. "So the moving of that cap will be meaningful to getting more of those dollars into our community and developing the affordable housing."
One of the more debated parts of the bill would put a cap on investor-owned housing. While NPR reports nationally it would only impact roughly 3% of homes in the country, in Columbus that's different.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published a report last year that looked at seven "hotspot" counties in its region, including Franklin County, for investor-owned homes. That study said the 2024 share of investor-owned single family homes was at 30% in Franklin County.
Much of that is concentrated in the city of Columbus, with a particularly concentrated hotspot south of Westerville in the Huber Ridge area of Franklin County.
Prosser also applauded other pieces of the bill that could make it more affordable to build manufactured homes. Another piece encourages the use of "pattern books" of pre-approved housing designs, so builders won't need as many approvals to get up to code.
"I think everything we can do to make the process more predictable and to say out loud, 'This is what we think we should have in our communities. This is the type of design that we are expecting built in our neighborhoods,' the more clear and predictable we can be with our development community, small developers, medium developers, large developers," Prosser said.
Prosser said the bill will also help Columbus' suburban and exurban neighborhoods build more housing, especially in communities that may not have the staffing and resources that Columbus does.
When it comes to Trump's reluctance to sign the bill, Prosser didn't offer thoughts, but she did praise the support it received from both Republicans and Democrats.
"(Housing) is something affecting all of our communities, regardless of how urban or how rural, how western or eastern or any of the other conditions we have in the U.S. Everyone is feeling this challenge," Prosser said.
