Today, Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) held a press conference at 425 Grand Concourse in the South Bronx to announce the introduction of the ASAP Housing Act into the U.S. House of Representatives. See photos at the bottom of this email.

The ASAP Housing Act seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish an exception to the volume cap for certain bonds that finance the preservation, improvement, or development of affordable rental housing buildings. This act aims to increase the supply of affordable housing and address the pressing housing shortage by providing financial incentives to developers and communities focused on creating and preserving affordable housing options.

The bill aims to incentivize the development and preservation of affordable housing by allowing specific bonds to bypass the volume cap, thereby unlocking more funding for critical affordable housing projects. By coordinating with the LIHTC, this bill ensures a streamlined process for financing affordable rental housing that will remain accessible to low-income households for a sustained period.

Key Provisions of the legislation include:

1. Volume Cap Exception:
   1. Establishes an exception to the volume cap on private activity bonds under Section 146(g) of the Internal Revenue Code for bonds issued to finance 100% affordable rental housing for low-income households.
   2. Applies to bonds issued between 2025 and 2034.
2. Coordination with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC):
   1. Amends Section 42(h)(4)(A)(i) of the Internal Revenue Code to ensure that these bonds can be used in coordination with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.
3. Effective Date:
   1. The provisions of the bill apply to bonds issued after December 31, 2024.

On the legislation, Rep. Torres said:

“The best time to create the housing that we need on the scale that we need is as soon as possible. At the heart of the affordability crisis in New York and elsewhere in the country is an ever-widening gap between supply and demand. The demand for affordable housing far exceeds the supply. There are millions of New Yorkers and tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to cope with the crippling cost of housing. Despite the crisis of affordability in America, one of the cruelest ironies of America is that we have more laws that restrict affordable housing than we do laws that expand affordable housing. At the state and local level, we have zoning and building codes that have gone too far in radically restricting where and how we can build affordable housing. And at the federal level, we have a policy known as volume cap that arbitrarily and artificially caps the amount of affordable housing in America.

The average American who has never heard of the term volume cap may ask, why on Earth does the wealthiest country on Earth cap the amount of affordable housing? A housing cap in the midst of a housing shortage is an open invitation to housing inflation. Instead of capping the volume of affordable housing, we should be capping the cost of housing. And the best way to cap the cost of housing is to uncap the volume of housing. There is no policy that would have a greater impact in producing and preserving affordable housing than ending volume cap. The ASAP Housing Act is the key that will unlock massive housing supply here in New York City and elsewhere in America on the scale of hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions, of units.”