Protected: SGA Coalition Call Notes 9/29/11
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Partnership for Sustainable Communities Web Briefing materials now available
Thank you to everyone who attended SGA’s Sustainable Communities Network “Partnership for Sustainable Communities Web Briefing” earlier this week.
Smart Growth America hosted senior leadership from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the White House Office of Public Affairs on the briefing and provided an opportunity to ask questions and receive updates on this year’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities grants, where the Partnership stands in the fiscal year 2012 budget, and upcoming announcements and opportunities. We also heard about the American Jobs Act and a joint report to Congress from DOT and HUD on barriers to coordinated transportation and housing investments.
Protected: Coalition Update – 9/26/11
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Senate votes to preserve funding for Partnership for Sustainable Communities programs
Washington, DC – The Senate Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development voted today to preserve funding for two key components of the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities in the FY2012 appropriations bill. Smart Growth America President and CEO Geoff Anderson released the following statement:
“The Partnership for Sustainable Communities is helping dozens of communities across the country grow in ways that support their local economies and are fiscally responsible. We applaud the Senate for protecting these innovative, effective programs.
“The Partnership’s programs are helping small towns rebuild their main street, and they’re helping mid-sized cities improve their business districts. These projects are rebuilding roads, renovating abandoned properties, creating pedestrian friendly downtowns and dozens of other worthwhile projects that will help American communities recover from the economic downturn and stay strong in the coming decades. We strongly encourage Congress to approve funding for these critical programs.”
Open Streets in Missoula, Montana
The following guest post was written by Alexandria Stokman at Sunday Streets Missoula.
After a summer of bands and beer, Missoula, Montana took a break from the traditional festival atmosphere to host an active, healthy, sustainable transportation event that celebrates Missoula as a bikeable and walkable community.
The City of Missoula Parks & Recreation, the Downtown Business Improvement District and Missoula In Motion worked together to create Sunday Streets Missoula. The most recent event took place on September 11, 2011, transforming Missoula’s main street into a car-free environment. Combined with riverfront trails, the space made a two mile pedestrian loop. It may seem to be a short distance compared to the 6.5 miles from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park during New York City’s Summer Streets, but quite an accomplishment for Big Sky Country, where pick-ups and SUVs fill our valley with countless vehicle miles traveled and road dust.
Support the Partnership for Sustainable Communities
When cities, towns and suburbs plan their future transportation, housing, water and sewer infrastructure and public services strategically, they save money and so does the federal government. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a collaboration between the EPA, DOT and HUD, is about making that type of planning possible. 45 regions containing 80 million Americans in rural, suburban and urban communities are already benefiting from the Partnership programs.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on funding for the Partnership tomorrow, and now is a crucial time to ask your Senators to support these programs. Calling your members of Congress is simple and only takes a few minutes: click here to find out how to call your Senators.
Cuts to the Partnership for Sustainable Communities will hurt communities across the country
Over 200 communities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia have received grants or assistance through the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The Partnership has helped communities plan for growth that will strengthen their regions and their economies, but funding for the program is under threat in 2012’s federal budget.
The Metropolitan Moment
Bruce Katz, Vice President of the Brookings Institution, discusses the power of metropolitan areas in an article on The Atlantic Cities, which launched today.
American Jobs Act's Project Rebuild Aims to Revitalize Vacant Homes
Originally posted on Huffington Post.
When the housing bubble popped in 2009, it left many American communities with foreclosed and vacant homes and businesses.
The American Jobs Act would help restore thousands of these abandoned properties and put construction workers back to work in the process with Project Rebuild. The $15 billion project would create thousands of jobs to tear down abandoned properties, renovate foreclosed homes and maintain abandoned properties until they can be sold once again. Intended to initially help communities with the largest number of foreclosed properties, Project Rebuild would create much-needed jobs and energize the country’s blighted communities at the same time. Key components of the project include:
- Stabilizing communities by focusing on distressed commercial properties and redevelopment;
- Federal funding to support for-profit development — when consistent with project aims and subject to strict oversight requirements;
- Increased support for “land banking”;
- Establishing property maintenance programs to create jobs and mitigate “visible scars” left by vacant/abandoned properties.
American Jobs Act would revitalize vacant properties with Project Rebuild
Smart Growth America supports President Obama’s call for federal investments that will create jobs, modernize America’s transportation infrastructure and support the country’s economy as part of the American Jobs Act. In particular, Smart Growth America supports Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities, which has been allocated $15 billion under the proposed bill. From the White House’s description of the program:
The bursting of the housing bubble and the Great Recession that followed has left communities across the country with large numbers of foreclosed homes and businesses, which is weighing down property values, increasing blight and crime, and standing in the way of economic recovery. In these same communities there are also large numbers of people looking for work, especially in the construction industry, where more than 1.9 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. The President is proposing Project Rebuild to help address both of these problems by connecting Americans looking for work in distressed communities with the work needed to repair and repurpose residential and commercial properties. Building on successful models piloted through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), Project Rebuild will invest $15 billion in proven strategies that leverage private capital and expertise to rehabilitate hundreds of thousands of properties in communities across the country.