WASHINGTON – Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has introduced the Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act, a bill which denies all federal funding for implementing the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Final Rule” and any other race or equity-based schemes to altar socioeconomic outcomes at the federal level. The legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ).

“Every American should be free to choose where to live, and every community should be free to zone its neighborhoods and compete for new residents according to its distinct values,” said Sen. Lee. “I congratulate President Trump and HUD Secretary Scott Turner for ending this egregious Obama-era attempt at social engineering, and my legislation would ban such misguided policies in the future.” 

“Overreaching housing regulations first imposed by Barack Obama and re-upped by Joe Biden have extorted communities into giving up control of local zoning decisions while driving up the cost of affordable housing,” said Rep. Gosar.“By rejecting intrusive Washington, D.C. mandates, I am proud to support Senator Lee’s efforts to codify into law the recent decision by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to repeal the onerous Obama-Biden rules that have punished neighborhoods for refusing to fall in line with big government’s takeover of our communities.”

BACKGROUND 

During the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development implemented the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (AFFH) for the purposes of creating a framework to manufacture “equitable” socioeconomic outcomes from local zoning decisions that would not otherwise occur in a free market without federal government mandates. President Trump repealed the rule in 2020, but HUD under President Biden re-implemented the rule in 2021, forcing President Trump, via HUD Secretary Scott Turner, to terminate the AFFH rule again just a few weeks ago.

The Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act restricts the use of federal funds to implement AFFH rulemaking in the future and requires federal officials to find ways to restore principles of Federalism:

• No Federal funds may be used to design, build, maintain, utilize, or provide access to a federal database of geospatial information on community racial disparities or disparities in access to affordable housing.

• HUD is required to consult with state/local government and public housing agencies to develop recommendations to further the purposes and policies of the Fair Housing Act in ways other than through new federal regulations. This is meant to be a report on the federalism issues within the current public housing regime.

You can read the one-pager HERE. 

You can read the bill text HERE.