Housing

Don’t Call Trump’s Housing Order a YIMBY Plan

The president just signed an executive order calling for states and cities to pursue zoning reform. But affordable housing advocates aren’t celebrating.
President Donald Trump, with HUD Secretary Ben Carson, signed an executive order focused on affordable housing regulations on June 25.Evan Vucci/AP

On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order to establish the White House Council on Eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. The new council, chaired by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, will “address, reduce, and remove the multitude of overly burdensome regulatory barriers that artificially raise the cost of housing development and help to cause the lack of housing supply.”

In other words: The administration wants to loosen restrictive zoning and building regulations, increase the supply of housing, and bring housing costs down.