Unlocking Federal Housing Grants: How "Blank Slating" Wins the New Era of Federal Funding

By framing zoning reform as a systematic behavioral reset rather than incremental tweaks, municipalities position themselves at the top of federal grant scoring stacks.

With millions in federal housing funds flowing to local governments through programs like HUD’s PRO Housing grants and the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, competition for grant dollars is fierce. In past PRO Housing rounds, requests exceeded available funds by 13 to 1. In such competitive scoring environments, minor, piecemeal code tweaks rarely earn enough points to secure funding.

Federal reviewers reward transformational, repeatable plans that eliminate structural housing barriers.

By applying Blank Slating—a zero-based approach to land-use regulation—municipalities offer grant evaluators a clear, actionable methodology. This framework satisfies federal scoring criteria directly while insulating local leaders from political friction.

The Core Concept: Zero-Based Land-Use (ZBLU)

Historically, municipal zoning codes suffer from regulation creep and status quo bias. Over decades, layer upon layer of discretionary review, parking minimums, lot-size restrictions, and design guidelines accumulate, freezing legacy interests into place.

Blank Slating flips the burden of proof. Borrowing from Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB):

The Blank Slate Principle: Every zoning restriction, density cap, or procedural delay remains non-essential until proven otherwise. Regulations must re-justify their existence based strictly on core public safety, structural integrity, and objective community health.

Instead of asking, "Which bad rules should we eliminate?" Blank Slating asks, "If we built a clear, safe, and vibrant code today from scratch, what minimal set of rules would the municipality actually require?"

The Behavioral Science: Flipping the Default Architecture

At its core, Blank Slating harnesses fundamental principles of behavioral economics established by Nobel Laureates Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and Cass Sunstein. Traditional land-use governance relies on a passive "opt-out" framework—a default architecture where legacy regulations automatically persist forever unless local officials expend immense political capital to explicitly repeal them. Because human decision-making heavily reflects status-quo bias and loss aversion, removing an existing restriction feels like losing protection, causing decision-makers to default to inertia.

This administrative reality highlights the value of updating our decision-making architecture. Under a traditional approach, an uncalibrated municipality relies on political willpower to fight through endless ordinance amendments one by one. A calibrated approach swaps political friction for structural awareness. The savvy leader recognizes the status quo trap, establishes a clean safety baseline, and flips the default choice architecture entirely.

Blank Slating establishes an "opt-in" model. Similar to zero-based budgeting, the baseline code focuses purely on public safety and structural integrity. Every additional restriction, whether a setback requirement, parking minimum, or design constraint, demands active justification and conscious choice. To be explicitly adopted, each rule must demonstrate a clear and measurable benefit to the community. By shifting the psychological burden of proof, Blank Slating overcomes cognitive inertia, eliminates regulation creep, and transforms zoning updates from a politically fraught negotiation into a structured, rational choice framework.

Addressing the "Unintended Consequences" Fear: Audit the Code, Don't Blindly Demolish

A common fear among city attorneys and community members when hearing about "Blank Slating" is simple: "Those rules were put there for a reason. If we tear them down, aren't we asking for trouble?"

Nobody wants a chemical plant built next to an elementary school or a multi-story building that blocks fire trucks. Blank Slating is not the chaotic demolition of local rules; it is a structured, common-sense audit.

Over decades, essential safety protections (like fire safety, flood control, and environmental buffers) get lumped together with non-essential preference rules (like minimum lot sizes, mandatory brick facades, or rigid parking minimums).

Phase 2 of the Blank Slate Framework (Core Safety Re-Baseline) acts as a mandatory safety check. Before any rule is retired, the city asks a single, practical question: Does this rule directly protect public health, safety, or essential infrastructure?

• If YES: The rule stays and is reinforced.

• If NO: If the rule exists purely to enforce legacy preferences or block new housing, it is sunsetted.

By auditing why a rule was created before removing it, municipalities protect what actually matters while clearing away the bureaucratic clutter driving up housing costs.

How Blank Slating Aligns with Federal Grant Scoring

Federal Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs), including competitive dollars authorized under Section 208 of the ROAD to Housing Act, evaluate applications across five core criteria. The Blank Slate framework directly supports federal reviewer expectations:

Federal Evaluation Criteria	The Standard Approach (Low Score)	The Blank Slate Approach (High Score)
1. Barrier Identification	Identifies 2–3 isolated issues (for example: "The city will reduce parking for senior housing").	Comprehensive Audit: Uses Blank Slating to conduct a root-cause audit of the entire municipal code, exposing accumulated regulatory bottlenecks.
2. Systemic Impact	Proposes one-off ordinance amendments subject to discretionary public hearings.	Regulatory Sunset & Modernization: Replaces bloated codes with a streamlined "Minimal Viable Code" prioritizing by-right approvals for missing-middle housing.
3. Alignment with Federal Models	Re-invents the wheel with custom legal frameworks.	Pre-Approved Integration: Adopts HUD-aligned pattern books, standardized ADU templates, and single-stair (point-access block) building allowances automatically.
4. Capacity & Execution	Requests funding without a defined methodology or timeline.	Turn-Key Methodology: Applies a structured four-phase Blank Slate process with clear deliverables, metrics, and sunset timelines.
5. Political & Community Feasibility	Risks getting stalled in contentious city council debates.	Behavioral Neutrality: Uses an objective, procedural reset, reframing debate away from neighborhood politics toward safety baselines.

The Four-Phase Blank Slate Implementation Framework for Municipalities

To convince federal reviewers about successful grant capital deployment, your application outlines this four-phase execution strategy:

Phase 1: The Regulatory Audit ➔ Phase 2: Core Safety Re-Baseline ➔ Phase 3: Pattern Book Adoption ➔ Phase 4: By-Right Enactment

Phase 1: The Regulatory Audit (Wiping the Slate)

• Action: Catalog every land-use restriction, floor-area ratio (FAR), parking ratio, minimum lot size, and discretionary review gate.

• Grant Objective: Quantify total regulatory friction (for example: "Our current code imposes an average 14-month delay and $35,000 in indirect regulatory costs per unit").

Phase 2: Core Safety Re-Baseline

• Action: Establish a streamlined, objective "Minimal Viable Corpus" of rules focused strictly on life-safety, environmental protection, and basic infrastructure capacity.

• Grant Objective: Sunset legacy regulations failing to meet this baseline (for example: removing arbitrary aesthetic requirements, setback limits, and single-family-only mandates).

Phase 3: Pre-Approved Pattern Book Integration

• Action: Adopt pre-reviewed building plans for ADUs, duplexes, triplexes, and small-lot infill housing (aligning with Section 209 of the ROAD to Housing Act).

• Grant Objective: Fast-track permitting to "over-the-counter" approval when a project uses pre-approved designs.

Phase 4: Commercial Adaptive Reuse (RESIDE Framework)

• Action: Rezone underutilized commercial corridors, strip malls, and vacant office spaces for residential mixed-use by-right.

• Grant Objective: Capture specialized federal funding under the RESIDE (Revitalizing Empty Structures Into Desirable Environments) Act provisions.

Pitching Blank Slating to City Councils & Stakeholders

When presenting this framework to local elected officials, emphasize three main selling points:

• It Brings Outside Capital: It transforms zoning reform from a local budget expense into a federally funded modernization project.

• It Protects What Matters: It retains essential safety and environmental protections while stripping away non-essential procedural delays driving up housing costs for local families and workers.

• It Streamlines Government: It reduces administrative burdens on overworked municipal staff by replacing complex discretionary reviews with clear, predictable, by-right standards.

About the Author

Jeff Hulett is a behavioral economist, data scientist, career banker, and choice architect with leadership experience at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM. He leads Personal Finance Reimagined and curates The Curiosity Vine, an idea incubator focused on decision science, public policy, and economic choice architecture. Jeff teaches personal finance at James Madison University, delivers executive seminars, and is the author of Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.

Jeff's work on municipal governance and land-use reform explores how status-quo bias and "congealed preferences" drive the nation's housing affordability crisis. For deeper context on the behavioral science behind "Blank Slating" and zero-based governance, explore his foundational series on The Curiosity Vine:

• The Problem with Zoning Is Good Intentions: How well-meaning protections slowly spiral into bureaucratic gridlock—and how periodic resets restore housing supply.

• Behind The Concrete Curtain: How Zoning Benefits the Few at the Cost of the Many: An examination of how status quo bias and incumbent preferences harden local rules, creating the necessity for a "Blank Slate" choice architecture.

• The simple answer to the affordable housing crisis: Stop Making Home Building Illegal: An overview of the public-choice mechanics driving housing scarcity and the behavioral frameworks needed to align municipal incentives with long-term affordability.