WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The administration of President Donald Trump plans to delay until 2020 enforcement of a federal rule that requires communities to assess racial segregation in housing and offer plans to correct it, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will publish the change in a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Friday, the newspaper reported.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The change does not end the rule, a condition of receiving billions of dollars in grants and housing aid, but is intended to allow time for more help for communities that have had trouble completing the analyses and solutions, HUD said in a statement to the Times.

Following a review of its rules and regulations and requests for public comment, HUD said: “What we heard convinced us that the Assessment of Fair Housing tool for local governments wasn’t working well,” the newspaper reported.

The notice tells cities working on plans called for under the 2015 rule that they will not have to submit them, and HUD said it will stop reviewing plans that have already been filed, according to the Times.

Critics of the move say it would effectively halt the first major effort in decades to address racial inequality in housing, the Times reported.

The move would be the latest in a series by the Republican Trump administration to roll back or delay initiatives undertaken during the administration of Trump’s Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama.