The Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act by a vote of 85-5 on Monday. It now heads to the House, which could send it to President Donald Trump’s desk as soon as this week.
“This is a very rare occurrence to have successive bipartisan votes across both chambers on versions of this bill, and it finally seems to be reaching the finish line,” Francis Torres, housing and infrastructure director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, tells TIME. “This bill is the most serious that Congress has gotten about housing reforms in a generation.”
“This bill reflects years of work and priorities from the White House, Senate, and House to build a housing affordability package that puts families first, increases supply, expands access to affordable housing, and addresses the housing crisis,” Scott and Warren said in a joint statement after the Senate passed the legislation. “Today’s bipartisan vote is an important step toward addressing America’s housing affordability crisis and giving families across this country a fair shot at the American Dream.”
Here’s what to know about the bill and how it could impact the U.S. housing market.
For one, the bill would streamline environmental reviews in an effort to speed the process of constructing homes. It would also mandate that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offer guidance on how communities could best reform zoning and land-use policies to reduce barriers to housing development.
Another provision of the bill would expand the definition of “manufactured housing”—a change that Torres says would “unlock” a segment of the housing market by making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce such homes, which are built entirely in factories before being transported to their sites.
Additionally, it increases certain banks’ Public Welfare Investment cap, allowing them to invest more in low-income and affordable housing communities.
For instance, It would create a program aimed at making small-dollar mortgages, which help buyers obtain lower-cost homes, more accessible. It would additionally seek to help veterans access potential housing opportunities.
How will it impact the housing market?
Experts tell TIME that they expect the bill to have a positive impact on both the supply and cost of housing—but that it will take time for its effects to be felt.
But he stresses that “the vast majority of the provisions of this bill” will be felt more in the longer term, with the exception of a few provisions, such as those related to manufactured housing and loan limits.
Similarly to Torres, however, he says that the improvements the bill will lead to in the rate of construction will be “incremental.”
He also cautions that the legislation will not altogether fix the significant issues that plague the American housing market.
Sharon Wilson Géno, the president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, says that the bill’s impacts on affordability will first be felt by lower-income Americans.
When it comes to the restrictions the bill places on large investors, meanwhile, both Torres and Géno say that they will do little to improve housing affordability.
“Ultimately, if we're talking about a nationwide housing affordability crisis, we got to think about the things that are driving housing costs all over the place, all over the country, and at the root of that is just a under supply of homes, especially in places that people want to live in,” he says.
“I hope that moving forward we can get out of this rhetoric around, ‘oh, it's institutional investment that's the problem.’ We need everybody at the table,” she says. “Housing costs money. We need housing in the United States. We need investors to invest in housing.”
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