Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner released first steps Tuesday to eliminate a green housing loan incentives.
In conjunction with the Federal Housing Administration, the department plans to level its annual mortgage insurance premiums to 0.25 percent across all all multifamily program categories, effectively eliminating incentives for “green building” requirements that Turner called “ideologically motivated.”
“For too long, access to housing has been tied to obsolete, ideological mandates,” Turner said in a statement Wednesday. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Americans are no longer forced to subsidize misguided and inefficient green energy crusades at the expense of real housing solutions.”
By leveling mortgage insurance premiums across categories, the “Multifamily Green and Energy Efficient Mortgage” category “becomes economically obsolete,” and for all loans under that category, “the requirements to evidence the initial green building achievement and the annual reporting of energy performance would be fully eliminated,” HUD said in the announcement.
