Protected: Coalition Updates – 2/6/2013
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Mayor Randy Rhoads and Lee’s Summit, MO: Regional leaders in smart growth
Yesterday we announced the winners of our 2013 Leadership Awards. Mayor Randy Rhoads and Lee’s Summit, MO were one of the winners.
In one Missouri city, a mayor’s leadership has helped foster a culture that values sustainability and public participation, with significant smart growth accomplishments on the ground to show for it.
Lee’s Summit, Missouri is a city of just over 91,000 people located 20 miles from downtown Kansas City. During the last decade, Lee’s Summit experienced rapid growth, with the city’s population swelling by nearly 20 percent from 2005 to 2010. This created an emerging sense in the community that property developers – rather than citizens themselves – were charting the course for the future of Lee’s Summit. Development questions were thrust to the forefront of civic conversation as the community grappled with how to grow in a fiscally and environmentally sustainable manner.
Announcing the winners of Smart Growth America's 2013 Leadership Awards
Two mayors and one company are being honored this week with national awards for their leadership on better development strategies.
Mayor Randy Rhoads of Lee’s Summit, MO and Mayor Laura McConwell of Mission, KS have been selected to receive Smart Growth America’s 2013 Leadership Awards. They are joined by Progressive Insurance, for its Snapshot pay-as-you-drive auto insurance.
“This year’s award winners are doing remarkable work,” said Geoff Anderson, President and CEO of Smart Growth America. “Lee’s Summit and Mission are creating vibrant neighborhoods through strategic policy and investment decisions. Progressive Insurance is an industry leader in recognizing new trends among American drivers. Smart Growth America is proud to honor them with this year’s Leadership Awards.”
Public-private partnerships lead the way in a Cincinnati neighborhood’s revival
At first glance, the history of Cincinnati’s ‘Over-the-Rhine’ neighborhood resembles a storyline familiar to many of America’s urban neighborhoods – a once thriving immigrant community and booming industrial hub turned impoverished and destitute, only to experience a renaissance after decades of disinvestment.
However, there is more than meets-the-eye in regards to the dynamic history of Over-The-Rhine and it’s recent (and unlikely) revival. A unique partnership between city leaders, local corporations and private developers helped to pave the way for what is becoming one of America’s greatest smart growth success stories.
A call for examination of federal real estate programs
The following post originally appeared on the National Low Income Housing Coalition blog.
The home mortgage interest deduction turns 100 years old this year. Is it still doing the most it can for American families and taxpayers?
Smart Growth America recently examined the federal government’s involvement in the real estate market and its impact on homeowners, renters and communities across the country. The new report, Federal Involvement in Real Estate: A call for examination, surveys 50 federal real estate programs to better understand where this money goes and how it influences development in the United States. The spending examined in the report’s analysis includes tax expenditures, loan guarantees, and low-interest loans and grants – totaling $2.23 billion in federal spending over the five year study period.
This involvement has an enormous impact on the U.S. real estate market, and even a cursory analysis reveals this impact is uneven. Outdated programs and lack of coordination across agencies contribute to this imbalance, the report explains. As a result, many federal programs are not targeted to those most in need, are not targeted to strengthen existing communities and are not targeted to create more places with economic opportunities.
Rethink Real Estate: All about the New Markets Tax Credit
The Ely Walker building in St. Louis, MO was redeveloped with the help of the New Markets Tax Credit. Photo by Nick Findley via Flickr.
Earlier this month, Smart Growth America released Federal Involvement in Real Estate, a survey of over 50 federal programs that influence real estate in some way. This post is the first in a series taking a closer look at some of the programs included in that survey. Today’s post looks at the New Markets Tax Credit.
New Markets Tax Credit allows individual and corporate investors to receive a credit against their federal income tax return in exchange for making an investment in a specialized financial institution called a Community Development Entities (CDE). Congress created the credit in 2000 as a way to attract private capital to businesses in economically challenged communities. Authorized under the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000, the program has appropriated billions of taxpayer dollars to promote investment in these areas that are often overlooked by traditional financing sources.
What’s your favorite street in America? Our staff weighs in for new Facebook campaign
If you had to choose your favorite street in the United States, what would it be? Could you explain why you love it? Those are the questions we posed to our entire Smart Growth America staff for a new Facebook campaign called ‘What’s Your Street?’, intended to showcase great places that embody smart growth principles across the country.
Whether it’s a bustling, skyscraper-lined downtown block, a charming historic main street or even a sleepy rural outpost, two new streets are uploaded to Facebook every week, each one personally chosen by a member of our staff. An accompanying quote sheds some light as to why the street was chosen and what makes it such a great place to be.
Congress passes Sandy recovery bill, includes funding for critical HUD program
Aerial photos of New Jersey coastline in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Photo by DVIDSHUB via Flickr.
Three months after Superstorm Sandy crippled coastal communities along the East Coast, Congress passed a $50.5 billion package on Monday to aid victims of the storm and accelerate re-building efforts.
The largest portion of the spending bill includes $16 billion for the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Community Development Block Grants program (CDBG). Of that, about $12.1 billion will be shared among communities directly affected by Sandy as well as those from other federally declared disasters in 2011-2013.
Applications for EPA Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program Open
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now accepting proposals for its Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program (SGIA).
Roundtable series in six cities this spring will discuss federal real estate issues and their solutions
LOCUS members at 2012’s Leadership Summit.
LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors is proud to announce a new series of industry roundtable discussions about improving the federal government’s role in today’s real estate market.
The discussion series will gather leading real estate developers and investors from across the country to address the federal government’s role in real estate, and create solutions to align federal involvement in real estate to better support walkable development across America.