This housing development “toolkit” was made public by the White House with a goal of helping local governments remove impediments to the construction of more affordable housing. According to the toolkit’s executive summary, a “growing severity of under supplied housing markets is jeopardizing housing affordability for working families, increasing income inequality by reducing less-skilled workers’ access to high-wage labor markets, and stifling GDP growth by driving labor migration away from the most productive regions.”

As a result, the toolkit outlines key actions that states and local governments can take to reduce barriers to affordable housing, including:

• Enacting both high density and multifamily zoning;

• Streamlining or shortening the permit process;

• Eliminating off-street parking requirements;

• Establishing density bonuses; and

• Employing inclusionary zoning.