There are thousands of vacant lots in Cincinnati zoned for residential construction. Most of them sit in neighborhoods that lost a quarter of their housing stock in the last fifty years. Almost none of them have a new building on them.
On March 12, the U.S. Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act by an 89-10 vote. The bill combines the House-passed Housing for the 21st Century Act with the Senate’s ROAD to Housing Act into a single package. It is the most significant federal housing legislation since 2008.
It has not been signed into law. The bill returns to the House for reconciliation, and the obstacles are real: disputes over community bank deregulation, a digital currency ban, and the President’s insistence on sequencing with a separate voting bill. The margin suggests it will pass eventually. Eventually is not now.
Three provisions in this bill matter for cities trying to build their way out of a housing shortage. I am going to explain what each one actually says, because the summaries circulating online get important details wrong.
1. Pattern Book Grants
Section 211, the Accelerating Home Building Act, authorizes HUD to award competitive grants to local governments and tribes for developing pre-reviewed housing designs. The bill calls them “pattern books.” The designs cover buildings up to 25 dwelling units: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, ADUs. Ten percent of grant funding is reserved for rural areas. Grantees must report how many permits and units the designs actually produce.
Cincinnati is already pursuing this through the BuildReady initiative, funded by a $2 million HUD PRO Housing grant. The federal bill creates a permanent funding pathway for the same concept.
I submitted a detailed response to the BuildReady RFI last week. More on what that program should become in Part 2.
2. Point-Access Block Guidelines
Section 103 directs HUD to issue model code language for “point-access block residential buildings.” The bill defines these as multifamily buildings with a single internal stairway, up to six stories. Not five. Six. (Most of the coverage gets this wrong.)
Current U.S. codes require two exit stairwells connected by a corridor for residential buildings above three stories. That requirement produces the double-loaded corridor. Long, windowless hallway. Apartment doors on both sides. Fifteen to twenty percent of the building’s floor area generating zero revenue and costing real money to heat.
Point-access blocks replace the corridor with a central stair opening directly into two to four units per floor. Every unit gets windows on multiple sides. This is standard construction across Europe and much of Asia. Seattle adopted it locally in 2023. The federal bill pushes it toward national adoption by directing HUD to encourage the International Code Council to incorporate the provisions into the IBC.
HUD can also award competitive grants for pilot projects. Those grants sunset seven years after enactment.
This provision did not originate in the Senate’s ROAD to Housing Act. It came from the House bill and was incorporated into the combined package. The distinction matters if you are tracking legislative history. It does not matter if you are trying to build a six-unit building on a 25-foot lot in Northside.
That is Part 3.
3. Homes Are for People, Not Corporations
Section 901 restricts large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes. The threshold: any entity with investment control of 350 or more single-family homes. “Single-family home” in this bill includes duplexes.
The ban is not absolute. Exceptions exist for new build-to-rent construction, significant renovation of distressed properties, foreclosure loss-mitigation, and homeownership programs. The constraint on these exceptions is a seven-year clock. Build-to-rent homes purchased under an exception must be sold to an individual homeowner within seven years of the original purchase date. The renter gets a right of first refusal and a 30-day first-look period.
The bill does not require existing portfolios to be sold. It restricts future purchases only.
Violations carry civil penalties of one million dollars per transaction or three times the purchase price. Whichever is greater.
One detail that most coverage misses entirely. The purchase restriction and the seven-year disposal requirement apply only to buildings with two or fewer units. Three-unit buildings and above are exempt. If you are building triplexes and fourplexes, Section 901 does not touch you.
The federal government just created an incentive gradient that tilts toward exactly the building types Cincinnati needs most.
That is Part 4.
What This Means for Cincinnati
The bill does not preempt local zoning. It does not override the Ohio Building Code. It does not make it cheaper to build a fourplex in Price Hill.
What it does is create funding streams, model code language, and regulatory frameworks that local governments can adopt. Cincinnati is positioned to move on all three. The BuildReady program aligns with the pattern book grants. The Connected Communities ordinance laid groundwork for the density that point-access blocks need. And every lot in this city that is 25 feet wide and sitting empty just became a slightly more plausible building site.
The cities that move first on this will benefit most. Cincinnati has a head start if it wants one.