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National
Live Chat Outlines Efforts of Sustainable Communities Partnership
As they systematically flesh out, fund and adapt their Sustainable Communities Partnership programs to the range of local conditions and needs, HUD, DOT and EPA aim for urgent affordability, mobility and resource-efficiency improvements. The Partnership also aims to institutionalize interagency cooperation and, above all, the federal sustainability initiative as indispensable for decades ahead.
With this broad outlook, HUD is incorporating sustainability principles into all its discretionary funding decisions; DOT is focusing on livability in its Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grants, the strategic plan and six-year outlays reauthorization proposal; and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is working to widen ''the way the agency sees environmentalism and sustainability,'' reports World Resources Institute (WRI) Center for Sustainable Transport EMBARQ blogger Victoria Broadus on highlights from the live White House chat about sustainability, held July 16.
Moderated by Special Assistant to the President on Urban Policy Derek Douglas, the Live Chat featured HUD Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities Director Shelley Poticha, DOT Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Beth Osborne, and EPA Office of Sustainable Communities Deputy Director Tim Torma. Answering questions from readers of the online Planetizen public-interest information exchange, the speakers outlined what their agencies have been doing in the partnership or on their own, and stressed the importance of community feedback.
Here are the key issues highlighted by the EMBARQ blogger, grouped for each agency:
HUD is moving to make transit-oriented development (TOD) housing – usually affordable only to high-income earners – also accessible to low-income and moderate-income families, more likely to use transit and reap its benefits. In a joint Community Challenge Grants program with DOT, HUD is looking for zoning codes that permit different incomes in neighborhoods near transit, expecting their TOD housing expansion efforts to bring prices down. HUD's new Neighborhood Stabilization Program and point-system-based Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants Program also strive for greater affordability and sustainability. Under the latter, communities reaching a certain number of points, but fewer than required for grants, will receive preferred sustainability status, which offers them access to the same training, education and networking the grantees get, ability to keep applications on file for future rounds, and recognition in applying for other competitive HUD funds.
DOT is modifying its transit project evaluation to incorporate environmental, economic, health and other impacts, with such enhanced cost-benefit analyses of TIGER grant applications showing how the right investments could save on infrastructure and other costs, and identifying gaps in data collection. With one of the initiative's clear health benefits in the form of reduced obesity, through opportunities to walk and bike more, DOT published a related Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register, accepting public comments until the end of August. Similarly, DOT's high-speed rail proposal, focused on local infrastructure production, opens great opportunities for depressed manufacturing or auto industry communities, while its TIGER II grants include funds to help communities with more detailed land-use planning and sustainability code preparation or adoption, to allow them to pursue sustainability and livability as a right, without additional permission for each project. As well planned, more walkable and bikeable communities reduce car dependency, the partnership's grant programs also benefit area air quality planning processes.
EPA has already worked with California's DOT to create the 2010 Smart Mobility Framework (SMF) for measuring the effects of transportation investments on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and with Virginia's DOT on changing the state’s street standards to make them more pedestrian-friendly and to reduce road traffic congestion. Now the agency is crafting new stormwater runoff rules to promote infill development instead of sprawl, while its Brownfields Program advances community revitalization, especially by assessing and cleaning up mild site contamination and encouraging reinvestment.
In addition, EPA's Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program helps communities create sustainability-focused zoning codes by bringing in multi-disciplinary teams of experts, with HUD and DOT now involved in the effort, too.
See and listen to the sustainability chat at www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/open-questions-sustainable-communities. 7/17/2010
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