Title 42The Public Health and WelfareRelease 119-73

§12705d Regulatory barriers clearinghouse

Title 42 › Chapter CHAPTER 130— - NATIONAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING › Subchapter SUBCHAPTER I— - GENERAL PROVISIONS AND POLICIES › § 12705d

Last updated Apr 6, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development must create a national clearinghouse to gather and share information about how state and local laws, rules, and policies affect affordable housing. It will cover things like tax rules, land use controls, zoning, building codes, fees, growth limits, and any policies that change housing costs or investment returns. It will also collect plans and actions that try to fix those problems and plans that promote affordable housing and desegregation, especially examples that are new or successful. The clearinghouse must answer questions from governments and the public, help people study and understand the laws and plans, and keep an index of submitted strategies. That index must be available by HUD’s website or email and sent to each local housing agency that serves a population greater than 100,000. The index must say what barriers each plan addresses and be updated within 30 days after a new plan is sent in. The clearinghouse will sit in HUD’s Office of Policy Development and be run by the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research. It had to begin work not later than 1 year after December 27, 2000.

Full Legal Text

Title 42, §12705d

The Public Health and Welfare — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall establish a clearinghouse to serve as a national repository to receive, collect, process, assemble, and disseminate information regarding—
(1)State and local laws, regulations, and policies affecting the development, maintenance, improvement, availability, or cost of affordable housing (including tax policies affecting land and other property, land use controls, zoning ordinances, building codes, fees and charges, growth limits, and policies that affect the return on investment in residential property), and the prevalence and effects on affordable housing of such laws, regulations, and policies;
(2)State and local activities, strategies, and plans to remove or ameliorate the negative effects, if any, of such laws, regulations, and policies, including particularly innovative or successful activities, strategies, and plans; and
(3)State and local strategies, activities and plans that promote affordable housing and housing desegregation, including particularly innovative or successful strategies, activities, and plans.
(b)The clearinghouse established under subsection (a) shall—
(1)respond to inquiries from State and local governments, other organizations, and individuals requesting information regarding State and local laws, regulations, policies, activities, strategies, and plans described in subsection (a);
(2)provide assistance in identifying, examining, and understanding such laws, regulations, policies, activities, strategies, and plans; and
(3)by making available through a World Wide Web site of the Department, by electronic mail, or otherwise, provide to each housing agency of a unit of general local government that serves an area having a population greater than 100,000, an index of all State and local strategies and plans submitted under subsection (a) to the clearinghouse, which—
(A)shall describe the types of barriers to affordable housing that the strategy or plan was designed to ameliorate or remove; and
(B)shall, not later than 30 days after submission to the clearinghouse of any new strategy or plan, be updated to include the new strategy or plan submitted.
(c)The clearinghouse under this section shall be established within the Office of Policy Development of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and shall be under the direction of the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research.
(d)The clearinghouse under this section (as amended by section 103 of the Housing Affordability Barrier Removal Act of 2000) shall be established and commence carrying out the functions of the clearinghouse under this section not later than 1 year after December 27, 2000. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development may comply with the requirements under this section by reestablishing the clearinghouse that was originally established to comply with this section and updating and improving such clearinghouse to the extent necessary to comply with the requirements of this section as in effect pursuant to the enactment of such Act.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

The Housing Affordability Barrier Removal Act of 2000, referred to in subsec. (d), is title I of Pub. L. 106–569, Dec. 27, 2000, 114 Stat. 2946. section 103 of the Act amended this section. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see

Short Title

of 2000 Amendment note set out under section 12701 of this title and Tables. Codification Section was enacted as part of the Removal of Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing Act of 1992, and also as part of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, and not as part of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act which comprises this chapter.

Amendments

2000—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 106–569, § 103(1)(A), substituted “serve as a national repository to receive, collect, process, assemble, and disseminate” for “receive, collect, process, and assemble” in introductory provisions. Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 106–569, § 103(1)(B), substituted “(including” for “, including” and inserted “), and the prevalence and effects on affordable housing of such laws,

Regulations

, and policies” before semicolon at end. Subsec. (a)(2). Pub. L. 106–569, § 103(1)(C), inserted before semicolon “, including particularly innovative or successful activities, strategies, and plans”. Subsec. (a)(3). Pub. L. 106–569, § 103(1)(D), inserted before period at end “, including particularly innovative or successful strategies, activities, and plans”. Subsec. (b)(3). Pub. L. 106–569, § 103(2), added par. (3). Subsecs. (c), (d). Pub. L. 106–569, § 103(3), added subsecs. (c) and (d).

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

42 U.S.C. § 12705d

Title 42The Public Health and Welfare

Last Updated

Apr 6, 2026

Release point: 119-73