ICYMI: Biden-Harris Administration Takes Action to Create More Affordable Housing by Converting Commercial Properties to Residential Use

Last week, the Biden-Harris Administration announced new actions to support the conversion of high-vacancy commercial buildings to residential use, including through new financing, technical assistance, and sale of federal properties. These announcements will create much-needed housing that is affordable, energy efficient, near transit and good jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nearly 30 percent of which comes from the building sector.

See Coverage Below:

AP: The Biden administration is encouraging the conversion of empty office space to affordable housing
The Biden administration is launching a multi-agency effort to encourage states and cities to convert more empty office buildings into housing units, with billions of federal dollars available to help spur such transitions. The new initiative, announced Friday morning, involves the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, along with the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget in a multi-pronged effort to address both the national shortage of affordable housing and the post-pandemic surplus of vacant office buildings.

CNN: Biden administration focuses on converting commercial properties to residential use in new affordable housing steps
The Biden administration announced new steps Friday to ensure access to affordable housing, launching a slew of resources to convert high-vacancy commercial buildings to residential use. The effort is an attempt to address what the administration says is a dearth of much-needed, affordably priced, conveniently located and energy-efficient homes…. As part of Friday's announcement, the Department of Transportation will release new guidance on more than $35 billion in lending available for transportation-oriented development projects. According to a fact sheet shared with CNN ahead of the announcement, the administration estimates the guidance "will increase housing supply, while encouraging state and local governments to improve their zoning, land use and transit-oriented development policies."

Bloomberg: A New White House Plan to Create Affordable Housing: Convert Empty Office Buildings
The Biden administration is freeing up resources to help turn offices into apartments. As cities across the US continue to struggle with climbing office vacancies and unaffordable rents, the White House on Friday released a new plan to help property owners convert empty offices into apartment units. By opening up significant financing resources to office-to-residential conversions, as well as by providing technical assistance, the Biden administration aims to make it easier for these challenging rehab projects to advance — with an eye toward both sustainability and affordability.

UPI: Biden administration announces plan to convert vacant office space into affordable housing
The Biden administration announced new federal funding incentives aimed at converting vacant commercial properties across the country into affordable housing. The government initiative comes in response to a surge in derelict office space throughout the United States, which reached its highest level in three decades while consumers faced rising living costs amid a deepening shortage of residential space, the White House said in a statement. The program will seek to revitalize downtown districts and stimulate economic activity on rural main streets across America as commercial realtors and local economies have struggled to repurpose business spaces that mostly went empty during the global pandemic.

Spectrum: More commercial buildings could be converted to housing under Biden plan
Former office buildings and other commercial properties can be more easily converted to residential use under new initiatives the White House announced Friday. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department and Department of Transportation are offering $45 billion in financing and will streamline the sale of unused, transit-owned properties to help increase the nation's housing supply. "We face a longstanding shortfall in affordable housing — one that has been growing for at least the last decade," National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said Thursday during a press briefing about the new White House commercial building conversion initiatives. Following the pandemic, the Council of Economic Advisers said office vacancies hit a 30-year high, hollowing out urban downtowns and rural business districts, while affordable housing has simultaneously languished. With costs for both owning and renting a place to live becoming harder to afford for more Americans, the White House announced revisions to two funding programs available through the Department of Transportation that will make over $35 billion available for transit-oriented development projects at below-market interest rates.

Axios: How Biden's team plans to unlock more office-to-apartment conversions
The Biden administration has a new plan to turn more empty office spaces into housing, officials announced Friday. Why it matters: State and city governments are working on how to best incentivize those flips, in a push to revive America's downtowns and ease the housing shortage. Driving the news: The White House released a toolkit highlighting more than 20 federal programs to make converting buildings easier. The move comes as U.S. office vacancies have hit a 30-year high, according to Biden's Council of Economic Advisers. What's happening: The Department of Transportation shared new guidance on how states, cities and developers can access financing for conversions near transit hubs.

ABC: Biden administration encouraging conversion of empty offices to affordable housing
The Biden administration is launching a multi-agency effort to encourage states and cities to convert more empty office buildings into housing units, with billions of federal dollars available to help spur such transitions. The new initiative, announced Friday morning, involves the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, along with the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget in a multi-pronged effort to address both the national shortage of affordable housing and the post-pandemic surplus of vacant office buildings.

MarketWatch: White House opens $45 billion in federal funds to convert offices into homes
Taking aim at the nation's housing crisis, the White House kicked off a multiagency push on Friday to help real-estate developers convert more office buildings emptied by the pandemic into affordable housing. The initiative aims to harness $35 billion in low-cost loans already available through the Transportation Department to fund housing developments near transit hubs, folding the initiative into the Biden administration's clean-energy push. It also opens up additional funding sources and tax incentives and offers a new guide to 20 federal programs that developers can tap and that offers technical assistance in what can be tricky and expensive conversions. A third part of the program will see the federal government draw up a public list of buildings it owns that could be made available for sale to help bolster development.

The Hill: White House announces push to convert empty commercial buildings to housing
The Biden administration on Friday announced federal financing and other incentives designed to convert high-vacancy commercial buildings in downtown spaces around the country into residential use in an attempt to increase housing supply. Administration officials said office space vacancies have hit a 30-year high, while housing costs remain high for millions of Americans and there is a shortage of affordable housing units. Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, said on a call with reporters that converting empty commercial buildings into residential use represents a "win-win" opportunity to simultaneously revitalize downtown areas with unused office space while increasing affordable housing units. "Housing affordability is a challenge for many American households, so the president has asked us to take a whole-of-government approach to making sure that we have affordable and accessible housing," Brainard said.

StreetsBlogUSA: 'Bidenomics': Feds Seek to Promote Commercial Conversions Into Affordable Transit-Friendly Housing
The federal government is going back to the future to help reduce housing costs, slow global warming and make better use of the one billion square feet of vacant office space left by the Covid-19 pandemic — by converting it to dense, transit-oriented urban housing. On Thursday, the Biden Administration announced several initiatives to spur commercial-to-residential conversions and transit-oriented building with new housing finance policies and assistance for local and state governments to get grants. Perhaps what's most unique about Thursday's housing announcement, though, is that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made it. Alongside with Housing and Urban Development and the General Services Administration, the Biden administration will give the Department of Transportation a leading role to better deploy $35 billion in lending capacity from both the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act and the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing to promote TOD at below-market rates.

Housing Wire: White House, federal agencies urge more commercial-to-residential property conversions
The White House and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today the launch of a new inter-agency initiative to encourage more property conversions of commercial buildings into residential units. The goal: creating more affordable housing. The effort will use $10 billion of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to boost the housing supply, including acquisition, rehabilitation and commercial-to-residential property conversions. States and other localities can access as much as five times their annual CDBG allocation in low-cost loan guarantees. The allowance is intended to fund projects such as conversions to housing or other mixed-use developments. The White House also released a guidebook developed in an inter-agency partnership, including HUD, designed to "help communities and housing providers identify federal resources" to finance similar projects, HUD said.

Washington Examiner: White House announces plan to boost commercial-to-residential property conversions
The White House announced on Friday new actions to support the conversion of commercial buildings to residential as part of a broader effort to help with housing affordability. Administration officials pointed out that office vacancies are very high and supply of affordable housing very low. Given the dynamic, the Biden administration is seeking to leverage the imbalance to help build more housing units.