© Kenny Holston/The New York Times
When the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act was still a work in progress, the Senate briefly inserted a ban on corporate ownership of single-family rental housing so sweeping that it might well have killed off the small but growing build-to-rent sector.
After furious activism by the housing supply boosters, who had been the main advocates for the law's many other provisions, that investor ban was significantly pared back.
The final version of ROAD, which became law in July, prohibits investors who own 350 single-family rental homes from buying new ones. But it also includes a long list of exemptions for large investor purchases of single-family rentals.
The primary exemptions include homes purchased as part of a build-to-rent project and dilapidated homes that the investor spends significant money renovating.
The new restrictions go into effect this coming January. On Thursday, the Treasury Department released a proposed rule that would create definitions for terms that go undefined in the law and clarify the scope of "excepted purchases" of single-family housing that large investors can still make.
Build-to-rent housing that large investors can still buy is defined as a new single-family home that's never been owned by an owner-occupier, is purchased within 18 months of the home receiving a certificate of occupancy, and is occupied by a renter.
Protected "renovate-to-rent" homes are defined as homes that had major building code violations that were fixed by the large institutional buyer and for which the investor spent at least 15 percent of the home's purchase price on improvements.
The rule also provides definitions for rental homes owned as part of a program to boost homeownership, which is another excepted purchase large institutional investors will be allowed to make. Those programs are generally defined as programs in which the renter has the right of first refusal to buy the home and where the rent receives financial support from the homeowner to purchase the home.
Taken together, the clarified exceptions in the Treasury rule still leave a lot of room for large institutional ownership of single-family homes in keeping with the final text of the ROAD to Housing Act. They won't have to sell the homes they already own. They can still add to the supply of investor-owned rental housing through substantial rehabs and build-to-rent projects.
Nevertheless, the Treasury rules will impose numerous paperwork burdens on investors who'll now have to track and report, for example, precisely how much money they've spent renovating a purchased rental house or else risk a huge fine.
Large investors who purchase a single-family home in violation of ROAD are liable for a maximum civil penalty of $1 million per home purchase.
The proposed Treasury rule highlights what a glaring exception the investor restrictions are to the overall spirit of ROAD. Through a variety of means, the law attempts to reduce the regulatory burden on new housing. Now, large investors will have to absorb significant compliance costs just to prove that they're adding new rental housing supply in precisely the right way.
The post Under Proposed Treasury Rule, Corporate Homebuyers Who Don't Track Their Receipts Face $1 Million Fines appeared first on Reason Magazine.
New Yorkers won't be voting on any citywide offices this year, but they do have five ballot initiatives that could shape the city's future more than any politician on this year's ballot. Mayor Zohran Mamdani created a version of the Trump administration's infamous Department of Government Efficiency in New York called the Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE). The plan is for COGE to modernize city operations and accelerate public infrastructure and permitting—in that vein, COGE placed five proposals before voters on the November ballot, largely targeting the bureaucratic processes governing new construction and business activity across the five boroughs.
Questions 1, 2, and 3 on the ballot would end or reduce the use of public hearings in different city review processes. Question 1 would, according to the ballot language, "simplify [the] process to use public space for uses such as ramps, planters and cafes, by removing mandatory hearings and Council disapproval of sidewalk cafes, while maintaining community and Council input." Question 2 would "reduce paperwork for City contractors by authorizing [the] Procurement Policy Board to simplify [the] contractor questionnaire….[And] remove mandatory hearing for required client services report." Question 3 would "simplify review of street safety projects to reduce construction timelines," among other changes. Question 4 is about simplifying permitting.
These policies were not directly introduced by Mamdani, but they reflect a governing philosophy that New York City and other big cities desperately need: a local government that won't allow a small group of organized opponents to obstruct progress for the city at large indefinitely.
Nowhere is the bottleneck against much-needed development clearer than at public review hearings. In theory, a public hearing is democracy at its purest: Every voice is heard. But in practice, it usually becomes a slow-motion filibuster. The most persistent and best-organized opponents get a megaphone, with little to no input from the millions of New Yorkers who would broadly benefit from more housing, better infrastructure, and businesses that can open without getting wrapped in red tape.
The 2026 ballot questions, if approved, would take small steps toward addressing these problems. If they all passed, it wouldn't be a seismic change—a planter here or a parcel of land there. But that's kind of the point: Should routine administrative decisions require another round of formal public review hearings to hold up any change, big or small?
The post Even Under Mamdani, New York City's Ballot Questions Might Cut Red Tape and Public Review Hearings appeared first on Reason Magazine.
© Erin Schaff/The New York Times
© Doug Mills/The New York Times
© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
© Venezuelan Presidency, via Agence France-Presse
© Nick Hagen for The New York Times
© Eric Lee for The New York Times
© Cindy Schultz for The New York Times
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown in January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims more than 1.1 million people have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) combined. But so far, the names of most arrestees have been kept secret. This lack of public disclosure threatens Americans' ability to hold the government accountable.
While ICE will disclose some details about detainees, the agency's refusal to provide the names, dates of birth, and locations of detainees violates the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to a federal lawsuit filed by The Marshall Project on Tuesday. In denying FOIA requests for this information, ICE claims the "privacy interests of the individuals in the records…requested outweigh any minimal public interest disclosure of the information," and revealing such information would "increase the risk of misuse, unwanted contact, harassment, stigma, or other privacy harms," according to the complaint.
A curious position given the DHS' own "worst of the worst" website discloses all kinds of information, including names and photos, while boasting about the detention of select immigration detainees with criminal records.
It's true that publicly disclosing someone's arrest, particularly a criminal arrest, may damage their reputation. But it's a necessary tradeoff to ensure a functioning democracy. Disapproval of anonymized arrests dates back to the Magna Carta. This pro-liberty stance was adopted early in America's Founding. In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton denounced the "practice of arbitrary imprisonments" as "the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." He went on to cite Sir William Blackstone, an English jurist who greatly influenced America's Founders, quoting: "The confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government."
Throughout much of American history, law enforcement agencies have disclosed the identities of those arrested through police blotters and other means in the name of transparency and government accountability. Today, 27 states have codified this practice, according to an amicus brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a similar but separate case involving ICE's refusal to release the names of those arrested during a 10-day immigration enforcement operation in Chicago. And even when statutes don't plainly state arrest logs qualify as public records, courts have consistently held they do, the ACLU argues. Indeed, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the constitutional right to privacy does not extend to the publication of official acts, such as arrests.
"We are seeking transparency and access to information that have existed within the criminal justice system for centuries," said The Marshall Project's editor in chief, Jennifer Peter. Concealing the names of detainees "makes it far more difficult for their loved ones and attorneys to help them—and for organizations like The Marshall Project to shine a light on what's truly happening within immigration camps," Peter continued.
Trump immigration crackdown has been a source of ongoing debate since its inception. Leading up to the 2026 midterm elections, a recent New York Times poll found that 50 percent of Americans trust the Democratic Party to do a better job of handling immigration, compared to 46 percent trusting Republicans more.
Opponents of Trump's approach to immigration have routinely cited concerns over the use of force, wrongful arrests, detentions, and deportations, including those of U.S. citizens, and the mistreatment of detainees. Proponents of limited government and financial accountability have also raised concerns over the opaque yet explosive expansion of federal agencies, including over $200 billion in funding for FY 2027 and the 100 percent increase in both CBP and ICE funding, reaching nearly 44,000 agents combined, all in the name of immigration enforcement.
Since the Founding, Americans have been rightly skeptical of government overreach and the potential to abuse arrest powers. In the era of Trump's immigration crackdown, this skepticism is even more warranted, and accountability is even more needed.
The post The Founders Warned Against Secret Arrests. ICE Is Testing That Principle. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
To many people, but especially libertarians, voting can feel dispiriting: By definition, every person on the ballot wants in some way to exert control over your life.
Perhaps that's why it's refreshing to see a candidate for office who truly seems not to want the job.
Brady Rogers worked as a robotics engineer for four years, but he quit in 2019 after deciding the corporate world wasn't for him.
"It was just a bit unfulfilling," Rogers tells Reason. "I wanted to do something a little more impactful with my skills….So I left to find something else that felt worthwhile."
He started The Rogerie, a retail store in his hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, a city of about 170,000 people. Rogers and his wife collect shredded plastic waste and extrude it into filament for 3D printers, which they use to create new housewares to sell in the shop.
Then earlier this year, Rogers again got the feeling that he could be doing something beneficial with his talents. This time, it meant running for the Kelowna City Council.
But he had to stand out in a crowded field—he would be one of 37 candidates running, and only the top eight would win a seat.
So, he settled on a strategy: openly admit his lack of qualifications and how little he even wanted the job.
"I guess I'm running for Kelowna city council," read his campaign website. "I don't like meetings, I don't like having to be certain places at certain times, and I'm allergic to stuffy offices. But unfortunately, I happen to like Kelowna, and think I can help do some good."
"Do I enjoy politics? No," he adds. "Do I know what I'm doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no."
That lackadaisical attitude carried over into his campaign signage: Yard signs featured pictures of Rogers with sullen, shrugging expressions, alongside slogans like "I barely want to do this" and "Let's see what happens?" In a winking reference to political gerontocracy, one sign even bragged that he was "Under 60!"
The ploy worked, and the campaign went viral.
"I certainly thought it was clever. I thought it would work, but it was really just how I honestly felt when I started," Rogers admits. "I was pretty conflicted about committing to a four-year thing that I didn't even really fully understand the ins and outs of, but at the same time I saw the opportunity to have a bigger impact. So, I was conflicted, and I figured that's a good, honest place to start a campaign."
Ultimately, he won a seat: He placed fourth out of 37 total candidates and even beat three incumbents, one of whom lost her seat.
The irony of Rogers' outwardly indifferent attitude is that he actually does have a policy platform: On his website, he advocates finding solutions to homelessness not necessarily by spending more money but by making better use of the resources that the city and province already provide. He also notes that Kelowna taxes land and improvements at the same rate, which "means we tax someone for improving their property while relatively rewarding someone who sits on valuable, underused land." Writing this week at Reason, J.D. Tuccille made a similar point.
Of course, Rogers' underqualified and disinterested campaign persona is only partially true—he did, after all, want the job, or at least he saw it as a viable means of improving his city.
Still, it's refreshing for a candidate to treat public office as something less than a higher calling.
Ultimately, Rogers thinks that authenticity is why his campaign caught on and was ultimately successful with voters, when many campaigns struggle to create viral moments or capitalize on social media trends. Perhaps other people could even learn from him.
"I think why mine worked so profoundly is that it is a little bit of humor, but immediately behind it was a legitimate platform and me as a real person with the skills and a real desire to do something," Rogers says. "And I think that resonated. I think people [have] an appetite for a new kind of politics."
The post He Won a City Council Seat by Openly Admitting How Little He Wants the Job appeared first on Reason Magazine.
© Dave Sanders for The New York Times
© Abdul Saboor/Reuters
© Lucia Vazquez for The New York Times
© Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Login