Storm Water Rules Contribute to High Housing Costs

The nation’s home builders told Congress last week that the current federal storm water permitting program is in urgent need of reform, adding as much as $4,500 to the cost of every home while contributing little to water quality improvement.

Testifying before a House Small Business subcommittee about inefficient regulations that unnecessarily harm housing affordability, NAHB First Vice President David Pressly described the federal storm water program as a “particularly egregious example of government regulation run amok.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for establishing a storm water permitting program under the Clean Water Act that is supposed to address water runoff from residential construction projects. The EPA’s instructions for writing a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan are more than 40 pages long and take roughly 40 hours to complete. But following those instructions to the letter doesn’t guarantee compliance.

“Home builders are committed to protecting the environment and enhancing the communities in which they build and live,” said Pressly. “However, the EPA’s aggressive storm water enforcement activities focus too much on paperwork requirements and too little on environmental impacts, while compliance costs can spin out of control. In addition, builders must often comply with state and local storm water regulations that duplicate EPA’s mission.”

Many NAHB members report that storm water regulation is adding $1,500-$4,500 to the cost of a lot, eroding the affordability of housing for the nation’s working households.

“Congress should re-evaluate the federal storm water program to determine its efficiency and effectiveness and analyze the costs imposed on housing affordability,” he said.

Stating that the removal of regulatory barriers is a top priority of the nation’s home builders as they work to increase the supply of affordable housing for America’s working families, Pressly also urged lawmakers to address the following areas that have had a negative impact on the housing market:

• A wetlands permitting program administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act that is rife with uncertainty, cumbersome paperwork requirements and lengthy permitting delays
• A system under the Endangered Species Act where "critical" habitat designations can be assigned to land that is already included in a habitat conservation plan or other federal, state or local species management program. This provides little or no conservation benefits for listed species and forces landowners to comply with regulations that often ban or delay projects or impose severe mitigation restraints.
• A cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy at the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service that makes it increasingly difficult to provide affordable multifamily rental housing for low-income residents in rural areas across the country
• An FHA mortgage insurance program at HUD that is designed for large, multifamily projects and is ill-suited to fund small apartment properties of five to 50 units
• Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers that are extremely difficult to use in Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs) because the program rules do not recognize the higher costs associated with building and operating these facilities. As a result, operators of ALFs are unable to accommodate low- to moderate-income individuals.

For more information, e-mail Michael Strauss at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8252.

Photo by Herman Farrer

‘Storm Water Permitting: A Guide for Builders and Developers’ Available at BuilderBooks.com

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