Congress is advancing the ROAD to Housing Act of 2025, a sweeping 325-page bill hailed as the most comprehensive federal housing package in a decade. It spans 40 sections — from zoning reform to housing counseling. But beneath its bipartisan veneer, conservatives should look closer: the ROAD Act runs counter to Republican priorities — local control, market-based solutions, fiscal discipline and homeownership.
To be fair, Republicans secured a few narrow wins: targeted housing exemptions from environmental reviews, support for modular housing, and expanded use of private capital in public housing upkeep. But these gains are minor compared to what Democrats secured.
Start with the budget. The president’s fiscal 2026 proposal rightly called for eliminating the HOME program and Community Development Block Grants — two inefficient, poorly targeted programs. Yet the ROAD Act expands both.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) secured $1 billion for her long-sought Innovation Fund, first proposed in her 2020 presidential campaign. Democrats walked away with billions more for “affordable housing” programs, which are costly, complex and hostile to private development. The bill also launches pilot programs for home repairs and conversions that could easily become permanent.
Beyond the budget, The ROAD Act pushes the federal government deeper into local zoning and land use decisions. Two sections instruct HUD to provide technical assistance to local governments and publish a set of “best practices” and a model state zoning code, crafted by unelected policy experts. It’s a modern echo of zoning practices first promoted by Washington over a century ago — policies that entrenched single-family zoning and racial segregation.
Predictably, the bill promotes staples of progressive planning, including public land control, mandates for below-market units, and high-rise apartments near transit. HUD’s PRO Housing pilot shows where this leads. Seattle was rewarded for zoning mandates that cut owner-occupied, family-sized homes, replacing them with a handful of costly rentals subsidized by developers. Minneapolis got federal dollars for reforms that looked bold but delivered little. The ROAD Act seeks to scale these failed frameworks nationwide.
What the bill doesn’t do is just as telling. Nowhere does it address how to build more entry-level, owner-occupied homes in places where families want to live and grow. For a party that claims to support wealth-building and family formation, that’s a glaring contradiction.
The ROAD Act risks cementing a new generation of permanent renters. That can be drawn in rent control and “social housing.” This isn’t a roadmap to the American Dream — it’s a dead end of dependency.
Meanwhile, the bill directs taxpayer dollars into progressive advocacy networks. It expands housing counseling programs, mostly run by DEI-driven nonprofits. Its appraisal reform provisions mandate bias training and reporting requirements — opening the door to lawsuits, transaction delays and added costs for buyers, all without addressing the real drivers of unaffordability.
The ROAD Act isn’t a compromise — it’s a progressive housing agenda in bipartisan packaging. And it’s unnecessary. We don’t need to funnel taxpayer dollars into ideology and bureaucracy when the solution is simple: let the market build more homes. From 2000 to 2024, the U.S. added over 12 million single-family homes — but zoning laws kept lots unnecessarily large. If the median lot size had been 5,500 instead of 8,000 square feet — and just 20 percent of new homes were townhouses — we’d have 9 million more homes today, with prices about 15 percent lower. That’s not speculation — it’s math.
States are already leading. In 2025, Texas gave builders the flexibility to use smaller lots in new subdivisions and convert underutilized commercial areas into housing — not mandates, just the freedom to respond to demand. Even California has made progress by streamlining infill development and environmental reviews. When states act, real reform follows. A heavy-handed federal approach — especially one tilted leftward — risks undermining that momentum, particularly in red states.
Instead of backing the ROAD Act, Republicans should pursue a two-tiered strategy rooted in markets and local control. Federally, the president’s executive order should prioritize selling just 0.05 percent of public land — enough for 1 million homes — while implementing ROAD’s few useful elements administratively, lowering energy mandates, easing housing regulations, and exempting key building materials from tariffs.
At the state level, lawmakers should give builders in high-demand areas flexibility to use smaller lots. Texas has shown that pairing reform with grassroots support and rural exemptions can pass. The president should use the bully pulpit to promote this model and urge other states to follow.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer. The ROAD Act is a dead end for Republicans — and for the country. Past federal housing bills promised prosperity but delivered public housing failures, inflated prices and dependency. This would do the same, entrenching bureaucracy instead of expanding opportunity.
Tobias Peter is co-director of the AEI Housing Center.
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