By Robert Romano One good thing that came out of the omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump is that it defunds a key aspect of the Obama era Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulation, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. This was the rule enacted in 2015 that allowed HUD to order more than 1,200 cities and counties that accepted any part of $3 billion of annual community development block grants to rezone neighborhoods along income and racial criteria. This was always a vast overreach, where the federal government could come in and tell communities what must be built and where. Now, it’s over. Under Division L, Title II of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, Section 234, it states, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as part of carrying out the final rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ … or the notice entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool’ …” This provision utterly guts the HUD regulation, which had already been delayed by HUD Secretary Ben Carson earlier this year until 2020. Now, with the backing…
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