Is Congress having its YIMBY moment?

The housing activists known as YIMBYs have spent most of the past decade fighting their battles at the state and local levels, pushing to loosen strict zoning rules they argue have led to a national home affordability crisis.

But now, the movement may be quietly inching closer to its biggest win yet on Capitol Hill, complete with a namesake bill. Last week, the House Financial Services Committee unanimously approved the bipartisan YIMBY Act — the acronym stands for Yes In My Backyard — which would require many localities that receive federal money to report what steps they’re taking to juice housing development.

It’s not the only piece of legislation that has advocates for denser housing excited. Lawmakers have also introduced bipartisan measures aimed at building more housing near transit projects and providing money to local governments to help them reform their zoning codes.

“What excites me is not that we have a one-off bill that’s supported on a bipartisan basis. It’s that we have an agenda of multiple bills moving forward,” said Mike Kingsella, the CEO of the pro-density group Up for Growth. “This is the greatest amount of federal legislative activity on housing supply that we’ve seen since the 1940s.”

YIMBY activists have managed to eke out a string of policy wins in both red and blue states by putting together a left-right coalition that’s relatively rare in polarized national politics. The cause has brought together progressive urbanists, who often see housing affordability as a racial and economic justice issue, with anti-regulation conservatives, who view restrictive land-use rules as an infringement on property rights.

A similar alliance appears to be shaping up in Congress. But it has required walking a fine line on policy that doesn’t intrude too much on the powers of your city council. Its backers are very aware that housing reform is an area where steady progress can suddenly be undone by a panic from any number of voter blocs, media corners, and interest groups.

The YIMBY Act was first introduced back in 2019 by Sen. Todd Young, a wonkish Indiana Republican, who found a Democratic partner in Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, a vocal progressive with his own technocratic streak.

It’s a relatively narrow piece of legislation that advocates acknowledge is unlikely to spur a great deal of new building on its own. By design, the measure would not actually force municipalities to make any reforms, a limitation that was essential to winning support from Republicans wary of meddling in local control.

Instead, the bill is designed to give housing advocates a boost by making it easier to track which cities still have restrictive development rules in place, and which are passing reforms — a basic question that remains difficult to sort out today, despite private efforts like the National Zoning Atlas.

Under the proposal, municipalities that receive Community Development Block Grant funding would be required to file a report at least once every five years detailing whether they’ve enacted any of 22 different land use reforms, or have plans to. The list includes steps like allowing duplexes or triplexes in areas zoned for single-family homes, reducing minimum lot sizes, and allowing more apartment buildings.

The result would be a “national map” of how zoning reforms are progressing, Alex Armlovich, a housing policy expert at the Niskanen Center, told Semafor. He and other supporters see the bill as a critical first step — one that would amount to Congress’s most significant attempt in decades to chip away at the regulations that block homes from being built. (The bill previously passed the House in March 2020, only to fall by the wayside when COVID hit). And perhaps most importantly, one that’s possibly capable of reaching President Biden’s desk.

“This is an important bill, but it’s not revolutionary,” Schatz told Semafor. “So I think it’s got a reasonable shot at becoming law.”

Could Republicans ever support something more aggressive, perhaps a bill that denied states federal funding if they refused to lighten their zoning rules? Young said it was unlikely.

“I think Republicans have, during my lifetime, emphasized the importance of respecting local authorities and local prerogatives,” he told Semafor.

Not surprisingly, some of the other YIMBY legislation now floating around the hill would take a similarly light touch.

The Build More Transit Near Housing Act, sponsored by Schatz and Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun, would give local governments a leg up when applying for federal funding on fixed transportation projects like light rail and street cars if they can show they’re trying to encourage affordable housing nearby. The Housing Supply and Affordability Act would create a grant program to help municipalities reform their zoning codes, funding the combination of staff time, consultants, and community engagement events that are usually necessary for the process. A somewhat similar $100 million program meant to reward jurisdictions that upzone made its way into the most recent budget, and is expected to start rolling out awards soon.

It might be a little premature to say Congress is having a YIMBY moment (some bills would need to pass first). But the idea that the U.S. needs to start dismantling barriers to housing development does appear to have bipartisan legs in Washington — at least up to a point.

In particular, there’s at least one big unanswered political question lingering over the recent spate of bipartisan efforts in Congress: Can they survive Donald Trump? In 2020, the then- president accused Democrats of attempting to “destroy our suburbs” with fair housing regulations, and it’s not hard to imagine him attacking pro-density efforts on similar grounds.

Young said that, so far at least, he hasn’t heard those sorts of concerns from his GOP colleagues — they mostly want assurances that the YIMBY Act won’t bind up local governments in too much bureaucratic red tape or force them to adopt policies against their will.

Schatz added that he and other pro-housing lawmakers are being cautious about overreach, given the emotional issues at stake.

“There’s an old saying in Hawaii politics that we’ve got to go slow to go fast,” Schatz told Semafor. “We want to move as aggressively as we can. But so far we’ve been able to prevent a backlash, and that’s where we want to live.”

The same gradualism has helped pass housing legislation before, but playing it safe can also lead to ineffective policy rather than building momentum for greater things.

In 1991, a commission convened by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp published “Not In My Back Yard: Removing Barriers to Affordable Housing.” The report found that suburbs had used zoning to freeze out apartments and other new development, and called for Congress to essentially cut off local governments unless they pared back their rules.

Congress opted for a less heavy-handed approach, passing legislation that offered states grants to rejigger their zoning codes and creating a national clearinghouse on local zoning rules and changes. The prescription didn’t cure the problem (it didn’t help that the clearinghouse, with its pre-Internet design, quickly became outdated).

One difference between then and now is that a national movement has coalesced around zoning issues that has already begun winning over state and local lawmakers. The combination of better reporting and grant money to accelerate reforms might make more of a difference than before.