Co-authored by Kiley Yuthas, NLC Graduate Intern
On Aug. 5, 2026, the National League of Cities, the American Planning Association, National Association of Home Builders, and the National Association of REALTORS® convened the America’s Housing Comeback Advisory Group in Washington, D.C. to explore how housing production and preservation strategies can promote climate resilience, long-term sustainability and the infrastructure needed to support communities.
America’s Housing Comeback, a partnership between National League of Cities, American Planning Association, the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of REALTORS®, accelerates and builds on successful housing supply initiatives at the local level by enhancing federal-local and public-private partnerships.
Key Takeaways from the Convening
1. Climate-Smart Housing is Good Housing Strategy
To ensure long-term community resilience in the context of a changing climate, environmental goals must be considered in strategies for increasing housing supply. There are inherent affordability tradeoffs to consider when incorporating climate resilience modifications in housing production; however, interventions to increase resilience to climate change have long-term cost and livability payoffs for residents. Local leaders should carefully consider cost tradeoffs and explore strategies to offset climate-conscious retrofitting costs to promote future resilience and savings for communities, such as through energy efficiency and weatherization.
- Preservation is key to creating climate-resilient communities. Regardless of the volume of new housing production, most households will remain in existing, aging housing stock. Prioritizing the preservation and retrofit of existing units is the most cost-effective and resource-efficient strategy to ensure that housing stock remains resilient to the impacts of climate change, such as stronger and more frequent storms, extreme heat and wildfires. Additionally, preservation supports the ability for older adults and to age in place.
- Consider the return on investment. To ensure that housing supply remains affordable to middle- and lower-income households, policymakers should balance costs and benefits of energy and efficiency mandates. Because climate resilient additions can drive up the cost of homes, new requirements should be phased in pragmatically, with a focus on measures that generate long term savings and provide a realistic payback period.
- Use local land use codes to advance sustainable development. Municipalities should review and remove regulatory barriers that may restrict their ability to meet housing production and climate resilience goals. This may include consideration for development standards that support infill development and streamlining the permitting process for solar energy installations. Adopting more flexible local regulations to allow for denser, more walkable infill development can advance sustainability goals by reducing miles traveled, lowering household emissions and increasing the use of public transit.
2. Housing Production Must Be Integrated with Transit and Utility Infrastructure
Housing production must be planned and funded in tandem with transit and utility infrastructure to support integrated sustainability policy throughout cities, towns and villages. Proactive planning and smart infrastructure development make communities more climate-resilient and energy-efficient and can result in meaningful financial savings for municipalities as they grow.
- Placing housing near existing resources like transit, jobs and services is key to ongoing fiscal and environmental sustainability. Many new developments on the outskirts of urban areas often require new infrastructure connections, resulting in large upfront costs for municipalities and long-term upkeep costs of a sprawling utility grid. Prioritizing infill in areas that have already been built up can cut long-term maintenance costs to municipalities by half and significantly reduce infrastructure payback periods. In addition to reducing miles traveled by car, building near existing public transit also expands the local property tax base, generating critical public revenue.
- Local leaders should treat homes as neighborhood energy infrastructure. Electrification is an important strategy to promote energy efficiency and reduce long-term energy costs for homeowners but must be considered carefully in the context of existing energy infrastructure. Large-scale home electrification can necessitate costly upgrades to local electrical grids and can cause bottlenecks for large-scale new construction of housing. To support electrification efforts, building departments can allow “behind-the-meter” technologies including meter collar adapters and smart panels to increase household capacity without increasing pressure on the electrical grid. When planning large-scale grid upgrades, municipalities should consider how housing preservation strategies can be incorporated and combined to unlock additional funding streams.
3. Leaders Must Transition from Post-Disaster Recovery to Proactive Zoning and Land-Use Planning
Climate resilience policy has often focused on recovery from extreme weather events and natural disasters. Leaders at the convening emphasized the need to transition to proactive, climate-informed zoning and planning to maximize public investment and reduce the impact of climate change on housing stock.
- The realities of climate risk for America’s housing stock are stark. Oriya Cohen and Andy Rumbach (Urban Institute) shared statistics highlighting the cost of climate disasters:
- Since 2022, Americans have experienced 108 disaster events resulting in $639 billion in damages.
- Quasi-experimental analyses of homelessness finds that climate disasters are a primary cause of increase in rates of homelessness in the United States between 2019 and 2024.
Using forward-looking data and risk analysis will help protect communities as climate-related disasters become more ubiquitous.
- Siting and land-use considerations are critical to creating more climate-resilient communities. More than 72 million homes (PDF) and 17 million rental units are sited in areas vulnerable to environmental hazards such as flooding and wildfires, with federally subsidized housing at unique risk due to its disproportionate placement in highly vulnerable areas. Many municipalities continue to permit and build new homes in high-risk zones, increasing insurance costs, and putting households at risk of disaster-related displacement. Climate-informed zoning and land use strategies must be implemented to direct new development to less risky areas. For example, the City of Norfolk, Va., implemented risk-based resilience zones to incentivize development in lower-risk inland areas.
- Expanding data access helps communities plan more effectively. Local planning departments often do not have access to high-quality, future-facing hazard maps beyond flooding, forcing local leaders to rely on “black box” insurance risk models that may not appropriately legitimize restrictive zoning and siting decisions. Changes in federal funding priorities for climate and weather data may further affect the availability of information needed to assess future risks and plan for long term resilience. Local governments need access to transparent, standardized risk mapping that incorporates chronic risk factors like heat, smoke and shade, rather than just major disaster indicators to make legally sound housing planning decisions.
Climate resilience is an important and often under-emphasized consideration in the production of new housing. While accelerating the development of new housing is key to addressing the nation’s housing shortage, it is also critical to consider the long-term sustainability of new and existing housing stock.
Local leaders can spearhead efforts to make their municipalities more resilient to climate change by incorporating sustainability measures in local housing strategy and carefully managing the tradeoffs associated with retrofitting and constructing housing with long-term climate resilience in mind. Implementing proactive approaches to resilience and sustainability can provide enduring benefits for homeowners and renters alike.
Special thanks to Amazon, Urban Institute, International Code Council, National Housing Trust, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Smart Growth America, Brookings Metro and the Natural Resources Defense Council for joining the convening and providing valuable context to the conversation.
About the Author
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