President Catalde Addresses National Association of Counties Legislative Conference
The National Association of Home Builder’s (NAHB) President Brian Catalde (pictured below with National Association of Counties (NACo) President Colleen Landkamer) took center stage this March at the NaCo's Legislative Conference in Washington, DC. Addressing the Community & Economic Steering Committee, Catalde spoke about affordable housing, the unintended consequences of incluzionary zoning and green building regulation.
Catalde opened the conversation highlighting the long-standing, positive working relationship between NAHB and NACo before going on to address the housing affordability issue existing in America today. He explained that housing shortages are often the product of land-use policies established by local governments. Addressing commissioners directly, he emphasized that local restrictions and development regulations often directly impact housing affordability in communities.
Relating many of the issues to his own personal experiences in California, Catalde spoke about the unanticipated down-side to inclusionary zoning. “Inclusionary zoning has become an expedient means for communities to show they are addressing the affordability problem without taking a more comprehensive approach that examines the causes of the problem locally and then relies on a variety of targeted approaches to address those causes.” Catalde went on to encourage the commissioners to reach out to their local home builder associations to create better solutions -- not mandates to correct affordability issues in their counties.
Lastly, Catalde explained how NAHB is working diligently to address the concerns associated with climate change -- an issue that has quickly garnered national attention in recent months. Noting that NAHB members are the pioneers of green building, he went on to inform the commissioners that NAHB launched a green building subcommittee almost a decade ago and produced the Model Green Home Building Guidelines in 2005. In fact, due to their broad acceptance, he informed the commissioners that the NAHB has partnered with the International Code Council to take the Guidelines through the ANSI standard development process, so they will soon be recognized as a true industry standard.
NAHB enjoys a partnership agreement with the leadership of the National Association of Counties. As a result of this partnership, the leadership of the two groups agree to meet at least once annually to discuss issues of national importance to both organizations.
For more information on NaCo, as well as other outside organizations NAHB is working with, e-mail Brooke Ransom in NAHB's Industry Relations department, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8584.
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