§1701z–2 Advanced technologies, methods, and materials for housing construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance

Summary

The Secretary must require, as much as possible, using new and better technologies, methods, and materials when building, repairing, or keeping up housing in programs he runs. The goal is to cut costs and improve quality. He must push the housing industry, communities, developers, and the public to accept and use these advances. When helping build or fix housing, he should make sure contracts, building codes, zoning rules, or common practices do not block the use of new methods or preassembled products, unless those rules are needed to keep people safe and healthy. To test ideas on a larger scale and move toward mass production, the Secretary should run programs where qualified groups can propose plans to develop and produce housing using these advances on federal land set aside for that purpose or on other land where local rules allow experiments or variances. He may use program funds to help carry out approved plans. The Secretary can buy, use, and sell land and property needed for projects and may take excess federal property if it fits the experimental goals, even if other laws would normally limit that. He may give advice, technical help, and pay for writing and publishing reports about these activities and share reports and data with governments, industry, and the public in the form he thinks is most useful. He can do the work himself or use contracts and grants, including advance and progress payments, and contracts or grants may last up to four years. He must work with other federal agencies and may make agreements, contracts, or grants with them, with state or local governments, industry, labor, and schools, and he can accept or provide funds. He may ask for information from private people or agencies, must use it only for the stated purpose, and must not publish anything that identifies the provider without their consent.