Flexibility Isn't a Plan: Congress just passed a major housing bill. Here's the catch.

A few years ago, I sat in a room in Sacramento and helped make a decision I still think about.

We were designing California Jobs First. $600M program focused on community and economic resilience. At the regional level in California.

The question in front of us was how prescriptive to be. Should the state write detailed guidance about how regions should use the money? Or should we step back and let local coalitions form and decide for themselves?

We chose the second thing. Trust local judgment. Let the people closest to the problem find the answer.

I still believe that was the right instinct.

I also watched what happened next, and I still think about the decision.

What we got right, and what we didn't

Some regions took off. They had capacity. They had relationships. They had a clear read on what was blocking progress in their corner of the state. Flexibility gave them room to move, and they moved.

Other regions didn't take off.

I watched them spend months in meetings. Meetings about what the meetings were for. Working groups that reorganized into other working groups. Conversations that reset every few weeks because the right people weren't there, or because the framing had shifted, or because somebody new wanted to start over.

Then deadlines got close.

And when deadlines get close and a group hasn't built shared agreement, you can predict what happens. The loudest voices win. Because somebody has to decide. And under pressure, the team who decides is usually the one with the most confidence, the most time, or the most political weight in the room.

We gave those regions flexibility. But, we didn't give them a way to use it to their advantage.

Why I'm telling you this

Because Congress just made the same bet at the federal level.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act passed over the last few weeks with bipartisan support. Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored it. The House voted 390 to 9. The Senate cleared it 89 to 9. Pretty strong!

The first major federal push on housing supply in a long time.

The bill doesn't appropriate new money. What it does is loosen the rules on money cities already get from sources like Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME). Dollars that have been locked into narrow uses for decades are suddenly available for new construction. For infrastructure that actually unlocks housing. For whatever the city decides is its real bottleneck.

It also ties about 10% of CDBG to outcomes. If your housing growth is above the median, you keep your full grant. Below, you lose a slice of it.

So: more flexibility tied to performance.

That's a good instinct. And if you've been reading carefully, you can already see the question.

Who benefits the most from the flexibility?

Cities that already know their answer are going to do well with this.

They'll redirect CDBG to their actual binding constraint. They'll hit their numbers, more or less.

Cities that don't know their answer are going to look a lot like the California regions that struggled. They'll run meetings. They'll try to build coalitions on a deadline. They'll end up spreading money across the same fifteen priorities they've always funded. And when the 10% adjustment kicks in, "flexibility" will start to feel like a cut.

The gap between those two groups is going to widen.

I am not arguing against the bill. It's a good bill. I am advocating for being honest about what flexibility does on its own.

Which is pretty much nothing.

What would actually help

If I were inside HUD right now, drafting the implementing guidance, I'd put real resources behind three things.

-> Technical assistance. Many cities don't actually know what's blocking housing production inside their boundaries. They have a vague sense. Helping them answer that question sharply is worth more than any amount of back-end flexibility.

-> Process design. Coalitions don't build themselves. The regions that succeeded with California Jobs First usually had trust and relationships in place. Or, they benefited from receiving technical support to build those coalitions. For regions that didn't have the resources, "go build a coalition" was a struggle.

-> Runway. Deadlines force decisions. They force bad decisions when the groundwork hasn't been laid. A year of planning support before the money starts flowing would change outcomes more than any tweak to the formula.

None of this is in the bill. It probably can't be. But it's what would make the bill actually deliver for the cities that need it most.

The bottom line

The intent of the ROAD Act is right. The design is hopeful. And the outcomes are going to be uneven.

I'm hopeful and nervous at the same time.

Hopeful because this is the best federal posture on local decision-making we've had in a long time. Nervous because flexibility without scaffolding tends to widen the gap between high-capacity and low-capacity jurisdictions, not close it.

I'd like to be wrong about this. I've been wrong before.

Here's what I'll leave you with. If you're inside a city, a region, or an agency right now:

What's the process you'd build around this flexibility?

One big idea.

Flexibility without scaffolding or support doesn't help lowered resourced communities. It widens the gap.

One thing to reflect on.

Think about a time you, or your team, or your community got real freedom to decide how to use resources. Did you use it well? If yes, what was already in place that let you? If no, what was missing?

One thing to try.

This week, sit down and write a one-page answer to: "What is actually blocking housing production in our jurisdiction?" Not the five things. The one thing. Write it so someone outside your office would understand it. If you can't, that's the work.

Because the money is coming. And flexibility will only be worth what clarity lets it be.

Nader Afzalan, Ph.D.

Founder and CEO, The Triangle

Program Director, Sustainable Environmental Design, UC Berkeley