To help you get the most out of our site, we’ve assembled this concise guide to the information and assistance available through the Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (RBC) website.

State and local development rules and regulations often create obstacles that make it harder to build or maintain affordable (also known as ‘workforce’) housing. RBC is a source for answers to regulatory reform questions; here you’ll find thousands of locally developed solutions for overcoming these obstacles and barriers in an easy-to-use, searchable database. RBC also maintains solutions to building sustainable housing in its Affordable and Sustainable Housing Strategies page.

The RBC site was established by an Act of Congress to collect, process, assemble and disseminate information on the barriers faced in the creation and maintenance of affordable housing. The Clearinghouse is hosted by HUD USER, which is supported and managed by the U.S. HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R).

The RBC Database holds solutions to regulatory and sustainable housing barriers.  Solutions are sourced from various document types, including: judicial decisions, ordinances, research publications, reports, and websites. You can search by document type, location, keywords, or by topic area.

There are eleven topic areas:
Administrative Processes & Streamlining
Building & Housing Codes
Fair Housing & Neighborhood Deconcentration
Fees and Dedications
Planning & Growth Restrictions
Redevelopment/Infill
Rent Controls
State & Local Environmental & Historic Preservation Regulations/
Enforcement Process
Sustainable Communities
Tax Policies
Zoning, Land Development, Construction & Subdivision Regulations

You can see the most recent additions to the database by clicking on the “What’s New” page.

If you’re looking for information about U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs, please visit the main HUD website by clicking here.
If you’d like to explore all of the resources that HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research has available online, please visit the HUD USER main page here.

If you have specific questions or need information that’s not available on our site, please contact us at 1-800-254-2691, option 4. Knowledgeable RBC staff is available from 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM Eastern Time Monday through Friday. If you would prefer to send us an e-mail, you can write to us at rbc@huduser.org.

The affordable and sustainable housing strategies page contains links to sustainable solutions in the RBC database, sustainable communities highlights from the RBC, recent news on sustainable affordable housing, and a list of resources and publications relevant to the topic.

All documents in the RBC database identify specific barriers and solutions to affordable housing and sustainable development. These categories are cataloged on the RBC Barrier and Solution Counts page.
The RBC Barriers and Solutions Map is an interactive tool that locates solutions for state and local regulatory barriers currently listed in the RBC database. You can search either by a particular address, state, or county to see interactive pins containing solution and barrier records.

RBC compiles a list of publications that address the issues surrounding regulatory barriers and sustainable housing. The list includes relevant publications from HUD, as well as outside publications from HUD USER’s Bibliographic Database. You can access RBC’s Relevant Publications page by clicking here.

The RBC eList is an email alert, sent out once monthly, to announce the release of RBC's bimonthly newsletter Breakthroughs or the Strategy of the Month.

• Breakthroughs, RBC’s bimonthly electronic newsletter, provides more in-depth coverage of reforms that state and local governments have undertaken to remove barriers to affordable housing and/or sustainable development.

• Strategy of the Month provides eList subscribers with updates on successful strategies that people have sent in to RBC or that we have uncovered through our ongoing research.

To sign up for the RBC eList, select RBC on the eList subscription page and provide your email address.  Privacy is important to us; therefore, we will not sell, rent, or give your name or address to anyone.

We encourage those of you who have experience in overcoming state and local regulatory barriers to send them to us so that we may assist other 'regulatory landscapers' in their efforts to fight the good fight. What works in one community may work just as well or even better elsewhere, and your experiences could inspire the work of others in the field. We make it as easy as possible to send us your successes... just go to Submit Experiences and let us know what we've been missing!

This page contains an electronic copy of our RBC brochure. We can also provide you with printed brochures for distribution at your meetings and conferences. Call 800-245-2691, option 4, to request copies.