The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is now the law of the land. It is the most significant piece of housing legislation to pass Congress since 1990 — and it includes six bills I wrote.
If you live in the Hudson Valley, you don’t need me to tell you why it was necessary. You see it every single day.
In early 2019, the median single-family home in Westchester sold for $605,000. Last year, it topped $1.1 million. In Rockland, the median went from $445,000 to $780,000 over the same stretch. In six years, the price of a home in the two largest counties in my district rose by hundreds of thousands of dollars, far outpacing rising wages.
Then add in the cost of borrowing. Under the Biden administration, mortgage interest rates reached 30-year highs, topping 7.7%. They have come down, but not fast enough, which means families are paying far more every month for far less house.
The results are predictable and heartbreaking. The typical first-time homebuyer in America is now 40 years old, the oldest ever recorded. A generation ago, that buyer was in their late 20s. First-time buyers have fallen to just 21% of the market, the lowest share ever measured. Young families aren’t choosing to rent into their 40s; instead they’ve been priced out of homeownership.
Here in the Hudson Valley, the squeeze hits everyone. Young couples can’t buy a starter home in the towns where they grew up and want to set roots down. Seniors can’t afford to downsize. Volunteer firefighters, who staff nearly all of our fire departments, struggle to live in the very communities they protect.
Why did this happen? Housing is a basic supply-and-demand issue, and by some estimates America is as many as 8 million homes short of what our people need. For decades, this country has not built enough, and government at every level made the problem worse with red tape, duplicative reviews and outdated mandates that add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of construction.
What does the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act do?
Our new law attacks that problem head-on, with dozens of provisions written by Republicans and Democrats alike.
It streamlines the environmental reviews that can delay a housing project for years. It helps communities adopt “pattern books” of pre-approved home designs, so builders spend less time and money on permitting. It scraps the outdated federal mandate that every manufactured home sit on a permanent steel chassis, a rule that adds $5,000 to $10,000 to the cost of some of the most affordable homes in America. It stops the largest institutional investors, those holding 350 or more single-family homes, from buying up more of them and outbidding young families who can’t compete with all-cash offers. And it rewards communities that actually build by steering existing federal dollars their way, without adding a dime of new spending.
Six pieces of this law began as bills I authored:
I also cosponsored other measures included in the package, from allowing modern single-staircase apartment buildings to giving localities a real roadmap for zoning reform to helping veterans access the home loan benefits they earned.
Compromise should not be a dirty word in Washington
None of this happened overnight. In October 2024, during my first term in Congress, I stood with local officials and realtors in New City and rolled out the Revitalizing America’s Housing Act, a comprehensive plan to boost construction, cut red tape, and strengthen oversight of the agencies responsible for our housing stock. We had worked on that plan for most of my first term, and it was over 200 pages long.
Plenty of people in Washington will tell you a freshman member’s housing overhaul is going nowhere. But compare that 2024 plan to the law on the books today. The workforce housing study? In the plan. The Superfund review? In the plan. Repealing the chassis mandate? In the plan. Good ideas that I pushed relentlessly and that my colleagues in both parties improved become law.
And that is worth dwelling on. This bill passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5. In one of the most polarized moments in modern American politics, nearly every Republican and nearly every Democrat voted for the same major piece of legislation. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Compromise is not a dirty word. It’s how you govern.
Washington has now done its part, but the federal government doesn’t control local zoning, and no act of Congress can force Albany to confront the taxes and energy costs driving New Yorkers out of the state. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature should treat this law as a challenge. The tools are on the table to lower housing costs. Use them, and stop hiking our freaking taxes.
The American Dream should be well within reach of every family willing to work hard and play by the rules, including the young couple in their 20’s looking at their first starter home and our seniors trying to find a place to retire within the communities they love and have helped build. With this law on the books, we’ve taken a real step toward putting it back within reach.
Now let’s build.
Rep. Mike Lawler represents New York’s 17th Congressional District, which contains all or parts of Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Westchester Counties. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Congress promised action on the housing crisis. We delivered | Opinion
Reporting by Mike Lawler, Special to the USA TODAY Network / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mike Lawler, Special to the USA TODAY Network | USA TODAY Network
