By María Soledad Dávila Calero
A new sweeping federal housing law is aimed at incentivizing the construction of affordable housing and expanding access to financing. Called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act (ROAD Act), the law provides a number of incentives for states and territories, as well as homebuilders, buyers and renters.
But experts warned that the determining factor on the new law’s effectiveness will come from the regulatory framework that the pertinent federal agencies—specifically the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development—will establish.
Furthermore, both Pinsy Rivera Ortiz, the president of the Puerto Rico Builders Association (PRBA), and David Carrasquillo Medrano, lead planner for the Cataño municipality, explained in separate interviews that the process of building the regulatory framework at the agency level will take months, so the actual impact for the Island would take even longer.
“However, its impact will not be automatic; it will depend on congressional appropriations, federal regulations and our ability to turn authorizations into projects that are safe, resilient and truly affordable. The streamlining must come with eliminating duplication and improving coordination, not weakening risk assessment or community participation,” Carrasquillo Medrano said.
“While the law certainly opens up paths and possibilities, it does not, in and of itself, build the housing,” he noted.
The ROAD Act was presented last year and ultimately achieved bipartisan support, but close to the finish line, the bill got caught in the crossfire of the partisan fight about electoral reform.
On June 23, 2026, both chambers of Congress approved a final version and on the same day, the White House had scheduled a signing ceremony.
However, two hours before the signing ceremony was set to take place, President Donald Trump announced via his social media platform, Truth Social, that he would not be signing the bill until Congress passed the SAVE Act, a bill that aims at creating a voter registry at the federal level, as well as restructuring the process of early voting, among other measures. Congress did not do so.
Nevertheless, since Trump did not sign or veto the bill within the constitutional 10-day window, the ROAD Act became law.
The Incentives
To incentivize the development of more affordable housing, the ROAD Act establishes incentives for
projects aimed at selling homes and housing units as rentals.
The new law also provides incentives for jurisdictions to establish zoning reforms aimed at allowing more areas to permit housing construction, as well as changing a commercial building into a residential one.
With regard to zoning, the ROAD Act would also incentivize up-zoning, which means increasing the density allowed in a particular area. In the case of
housing, up-zoning means, for example, allowing the construction of a high-rise apartment or condominium building in an area where previously only houses were allowed.
The regulatory goal of the ROAD Act is to promote more streamlined regulations for states and local governments.
Rivera Ortiz said that the issues the new law addresses, such as reducing permitting costs, are fully in line with the grievances that many builders’ associations across the U.S. and Puerto Rico have been complaining about for years.
She also argued that Puerto Rico’s own protracted efforts to enact important permitting reforms, despite years of calls from both conservative and liberal sectors to do so, have not been successful.
For his part, Carrasquillo Medrano believes the bill has potential, but finds it flawed. While he recognizes that there is a problem with the housing supply in Puerto Rico, he argued that a problem with the new law is that it paints with broad strokes. For example, he said the diagnosis of why there is not enough affordable housing points the finger at the high costs of permitting. In his opinion, the real problem is tied to the definition of “affordable” housing, which remains high and out of reach for many potential homebuyers.
Could Puerto Rico be Better Positioned?
Both experts argued that there is a “disconnect” in Puerto Rico between what the residential real-estate market is offering and the actual needs—and financial resources— of local residents looking for homes.
“It’s very challenging to get a project off the ground with figures that allow a bank to lend you the money, while also keeping the price point within the market’s reach. The thing is, I realize that construction costs have risen so much—and people’s wages haven’t kept pace with them,”
Rivera Ortiz argued.
She also noted that high real-estate prices are forcing many people to buy homes farther and farther away from the San Juan metropolitan area. “We are not addressing people’s needs,” she said.
While Rivera Ortiz recognized that the PRBA lost the opportunity to advocate for Puerto Rico while the ROAD Act was going through the legislative process in Congress, the Association is preparing to get more involved at the agency level.
Among the main issues they want to address is increasing the income limit for housing assistance, with the aim of providing some relief to people in the middle of the market who are getting squeezed out of buying homes.
Carrasquillo Medrano also argued that part of the problem is the format of homes on the market, which very often are aimed at families, while the number of single adults has increased. The urban planner argued that for regulations to benefit Puerto Rico, they need to incentivize revitalizing urban centers, rather than continue to build houses in the exurbs of towns—farther away than suburbs—where there is less infrastructure and farther away from offices, commercial and social venues.
