15. Department of Housing and Urban Development · Minor
Oppose any efforts to weaken single-family zoning
Printed page 511 15. Department of Housing and Urban Development
“Localities rather than the federal government must have the final say in zoning laws and regulations, and a conservative Administration should oppose any efforts to weaken single-family zoning.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Executive Order 14394 put the same position in a directive. Section 2(b) tells Commerce, HUD, Transportation and FHFA to consider eliminating rules "that constrain residential development and impede housing affordability, especially the construction of affordable single-family homes as well as suburban and exurban neighborhoods", and names PRO Housing and the Economic Development Administration's density guidelines among them; § 4(a)(iv) has HUD write best practices against "arbitrary limitations on residential housing development beyond urban centers, such as urban growth boundaries". The FY2027 Budget of 2026-04-01 renewed both eliminations in the same words. This stays `partial`: "oppose any efforts" is open-ended and nothing in the record states the sweep is complete.
- Partially done
The FY2026 discretionary request asked Congress to eliminate the two HUD programs the administration identifies as funding the case against single-family zoning: the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (−$60 million), on the stated ground that it gives "competitive grants to public and private fair housing organizations to advocate against single family neighborhoods", and Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (−$100 million), the grant program that paid localities to rewrite land-use rules. Both are requests to Congress; neither program was eliminated.
- Partially done
HUD repealed the 2021 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, the instrument through which the federal government pressed grantees to identify and remove exclusionary zoning. Secretary Turner framed the repeal in exactly the Mandate's terms — "Washington bureaucrats should not tell localities how to run their neighborhoods" — but the repeal removes one federal lever rather than settling the question, and the underlying statutory duty stands.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Boundary: this could be read as done under the rule that a “preserve” or “continue” ask is done while the thing continues — the administration has opposed such efforts consistently and in its own words. It is held at partial because “any efforts” is an open-ended sweep and the two program eliminations are still only requests to Congress.
- Secretary Turner’s Fox Business remark (“Washington bureaucrats should not tell localities how to run their neighborhoods”) is on hud.gov at https://www.hud.gov/news/hud-no-25-036 and the AFFH termination release at https://www.hud.gov/news/hud-no-25-034; both pages carry no date, so they are leads and the events are dated from the Federal Register instead.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- federal efforts to weaken single-family zoning
- ID
- 1435