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Secretary Scott Turner announced today that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will eliminate the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, a controversial Obama-Biden era policy that critics argued would negatively impact suburban neighborhoods.

“Local and state governments understand the needs of their communities much better than bureaucrats in Washington, DC,” Turner said in a statement exclusively shared with The Post. “Terminating this rule restores trust in local communities and property owners, while protecting America’s suburbs and neighborhood integrity.”

“By terminating the AFFH [Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing] rule, localities will no longer be required to complete onerous paperwork and drain their budgets to comply with the extreme and restrictive demands made up by the federal government,” he added.

“As HUD returns to the original understanding and enforcement of the law without onerous compliance requirements, we can better serve rural, urban and tribal communities that need access to fair and affordable housing.”

The AFFH rule, implemented in 2015 during the Obama administration, required communities receiving federal funding to examine whether their policies contributed to segregated housing patterns. While supporters claimed the initiative would expand housing opportunities for low-income minorities in suburban areas, detractors criticized its aggressive approach to local zoning and implied racial quotas.

During a Rose Garden address in June 2020, former President Trump warned that the rule, which had been previously eliminated by then-HUD Secretary Ben Carson, gave “far-left Washington bureaucrats” the power to “eliminate single-family zoning to destroy the value of houses.”

Research from the Cato Institute suggests the policy was largely ineffective at reducing racial or income segregation while costing taxpayers approximately $55 million annually. The rule was later revived during the Biden administration, despite having roots in the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which critics note makes no explicit mention of segregation.

Turner emphasized that many communities have suffered under recent AFFH regulations, stating that “Returning to the law as written will advance market-driven development and allow American neighborhoods to flourish.”