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Partnership for Sustainable Communities marks two years of work across the country
On June 16, 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined together to help communities nationwide improve access to affordable housing, increase transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment to better support local economies.
Two years later, the interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities is working to coordinate federal investments in housing, transportation, water and other infrastructure to make neighborhoods more prosperous, allow people to live closer to jobs, save households time and money, and reduce pollution. The Partnership has visited with residents and business leaders in hundreds of communities, coordinated to provide new funding opportunities and worked to reduce barriers at the federal level.
In a post on the White House blog, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson explain the strengths of coordinating between agencies.
2011 Commonwealth Awards: paying tribute to Pennsylvania’s smart growth visionaries
Exceptional things are taking place all over the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. To honor excellent projects as well as outstanding individuals, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania is currently accepting entries for its 2011 Commonwealth Awards. The awards recognize policies, initiatives and projects in Pennsylvania that have revitalized existing communities, invested in smart growth, preserved historic and natural resources, implemented land use planning, and/or conserved financial resources.
Individual awards (PDF) are given to citizens or public officials who provide leadership or contributions to their community, take initiative in promoting smart growth principles, advance the objectives of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, and dedicate service to the public or their community. In 2010, awards were given to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler for his leadership at the agency; Jonathon Schmidt of the Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project; and John Milius, who recently rotated off the Cranberry Township Board of Supervisors.
The Commonwealth’s Design Awards (PDF) are given to mixed-use developments, adaptive reuse commercial buildings, affordable housing, town center development, historic preservation projects, regional land use, site/master plans and more.
Smart Growth to Blame For the Housing Crash? Not By a Long Shot.
Cross posted from Streetsblog.
The Wall Street Journal yesterday posed the question of whether smart growth policies
and land use restrictions were to blame for the housing boom and bust. The hypothesis comes from Wendell Cox, a long-time critic of smart growth, who, in a recent paper, recycled a specious argument that land use regulations caused housing prices to increase unsustainably, creating the real estate bubble and, eventually, the collapse of the housing market. Cox claims to show that differences in how metro areas regulated development explain the recent housing crisis.
Cox’s argument is full of holes. He examines a few cherry-picked cities while ignoring what happened nationally.
The irrationally exuberant housing market affected real estate prices in most of the country in the decade before 2006, with a pronounced increase after 2003. The only national variable that correlates clearly with this overwhelmingly national trend was the loosening of mortgage lending rules and Wall Street’s invention of new ways to profit from bad loans — not land use restrictions.
In contrast to Cox’s hypothesis, rates of foreclosure correlate most strongly with the year a home was built. All other things being equal, newer neighborhoods – built during the boom and financed with non-traditional loans – have more bank-owned homes now. In other words, areas that pulled out all the stops on new development suffered more than those that took a more measured approach. Rather than impacting neighborhoods that built according to smart growth strategies, the foreclosure crisis is now a much bigger problem for peripheral suburbs that sacrificed quality and access to jobs in exchange for more taxable properties.
As Chris Leinberger, fellow at Brookings and president of Smart Growth America’s LOCUS project, told the WSJ, the price decline on the “drivable fringe” was generally twice as bad during the crash, “and it was that part of the market that is the least regulated.” Walkable, compact neighborhoods essentially “held their value, thank you very much,” he said.
Communities that developed more along the lines of sprawl than smart growth are struggling to recover from the housing crisis. Recent census data show suburban growth is slowing for the first time in decades, and it’s not just the housing crisis that’s to blame. Neighborhoods without transportation choices and located far from employment centers are less attractive to home buyers and are suffering more in the downturn. Desperate developers in the far-flung exurbs are including free cars with home purchases in empty neighborhoods, but it’s getting harder to persuade potential homeowners to commute 60 miles each way to work. Consumers increasingly understand that buying a home with a long, car-dependent commute — especially when gas prices are hitting record highs — can lock a household into an ongoing expense that can blow up their budget.
Smart growth neighborhoods, by contrast, offer insurance against foreclosure and can reduce the combined cost of housing and transportation. Due to consistent demand for walkable neighborhoods with a mix of uses and good access to jobs and public transportation, homes in these neighborhoods are much easier to sell and tend to hold their value. Places that invest in smart growth principles not only survived the housing crisis better, they protect their residents against spiking fuel prices as well. That is good for the homeowners in these communities as well as their local economies, and that’s news we think the Wall Street Journal should be pretty excited about.
Smart growth strategies for a public health problem in Louisville, KY
Over half of the residents of metropolitan Louisville, Kentucky, are considered seriously overweight, and obesity rates in the state have risen in recent years while reported outdoor physical activity has declined – despite public relations campaigns to promote biking and walking.
Now the city is trying a new approach to encourage its residents to get outside and get active. With help from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, Louisville is changing its streets and its infrastructure to make walking and biking more viable, attractive transportation options. Among the initiatives, Louisville recently built “the city’s first bicycle lane and ensured that the redevelopment of a low-income housing project included small ‘pocket’ parks, improved traffic patterns and wider and safer sidewalks.”
As an article in the New York Times explains, obesity is a serious health concern for the city but also poses a threat to Louisville’s economic viability:
[T]he foundation made its first grant when Jerry Abramson, then the mayor, had begun to worry that obesity was lowering Louisville’s attractiveness.
“For businesses, a healthy work force is more productive and less costly, so it became a competitiveness issue,” Mr. Abramson said. “Every city was offering tax incentives, every city was offering real estate deals but not every city had the weight problem we do.”
Smart Growth America applauds Senator Cardin for introducing bill to improve highway maintenance and repair
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) yesterday introduced legislation to prioritize spending on highway repair and preservation for the benefit of America’s drivers, state budgets and the federal funds that support the country’s major roads. The “Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act” will ensure adequate and consistent investments in the country’s existing transportation infrastructure, a strategy in line with Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense’s recent report Repair Priorities: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads.
Geoff Anderson, President and CEO of Smart Growth America and co-chair of the Transportation for America campaign, issued the following statement:
“With this legislation Senator Cardin has proposed an approach to highway spending that is fiscally responsible for both states and the federal government, and Smart Growth America applauds him for taking action in the face of the significant financial threat posed by decades of neglected road repair.
“Roads in many states are falling in to disrepair and these declining conditions cost taxpayers billions of dollars in preventable expenses. Even worse, many states continue to expand their road networks at the cost of regular repair, and with each dollar spent on expansion states add to a road system they are already failing to maintain.
“Senator Cardin’s proposal incorporates many of Smart Growth America’s recent recommendations, including establishing national standards for state-of-good-repair, encouraging states to invest proportionately more of their transportation dollars in repair, rather than expansion, and taking proactive steps to addressing the country’s backlog of road repair needs. As the Senator said in his statement about the proposed bill, investing in repair makes good fiscal sense, good safety sense, and good business sense for our country and we look forward to supporting this bill as it moves through Congress.”
See current state condition standards along with spending priorities and road conditions at www.smartgrowthamerica.org/repair-priorities.
Aging in Place, Stuck without Options: a new report from Transportation for America
By 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65 and older will live in communities where public transportation service is poor or non-existent. That number is expected to continue to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation “ages in place” in suburbs and exurbs with few mobility options for those who do not drive.
Aging in Place, Stuck without Options ranks metro areas by the percentage of seniors with poor access to public transportation, now and in the coming years, and presents other data on aging and transportation.
The analysis by the Center for Neighborhood Technology evaluates metro areas within each of five size categories. It shows that in just four years, 90 percent of seniors in metro Atlanta will live in neighborhoods with poor access to options other than driving, the worst ranking among metro areas with populations over 3 million. In that size category, metro Atlanta is followed by the Riverside-San Bernardino, CA metro area, along with Houston, Detroit and Dallas. Kansas City tops the list for metros of 1-3 million, followed by Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham.
The transportation issues of an aging America are national in scope, and cash-strapped state and local governments will be looking for federal support in meeting their needs. As Congress prepares this summer to adopt a new, long-term transportation authorization, this report outlines policies to help ensure that older Americans can remain mobile, active and independent.
Click here to download the full report and read more from Transportation for America >>
Thursday: Celebrating Two Years of Partnership
Join the senior leadership of the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities on Thursday, June 16, 2011 to celebrate the Partnership’s two-year anniversary and to talk about what initiatives are coming next.
| What: | Celebrating Two Years of Partnership |
| Who: | Beth Osborne, Deputy Assistant Secretary, DOT; Shelley Poticha, Director, Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, HUD; John Frece, Director, Office of Sustainable Communities, EPA; and Derek Douglas, Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs (Invited) |
| When: | Thursday, June 16, 2011 – 1:00 PM EDT |
| Where: | Click here to register for this webinar. Call-in information will be sent to registrants. |
On June 16, 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined together to help communities nationwide improve access to affordable housing, increase transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment to better support local economies.
The Partnership for Sustainable Communities works to coordinate federal housing, transportation, water and other infrastructure investments to make neighborhoods more prosperous, allow people to live closer to jobs, save households time and money, and reduce pollution. Over the past two years, the Partnership has visited with residents and business leaders in hundreds of communities, coordinated to provide new funding opportunities, and worked to reduce barriers at the federal level. For more on the Partnership, visit www.sustainablecommunities.gov.
Spotlight on Sustainability: Boston and Littleton, Massachusetts
The following is a guest post from Mark Racicot, Land Use Division Manager for Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC)
Last year, a coalition led by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Boston was awarded a $4 million grant through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program (part of the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities). The MetroFuture Regional Plan, a groundbreaking initiative, is designed to strengthen the economy, create jobs, increase transportation options, and improve quality of life for area residents.
Residents of the Town of Littleton, Mass., have already seen the major impact this funding can have on a community. A few weeks ago, Littleton residents voted to amend the uses allowed on active farms in residential districts and protect the future of their farming economy. As one component of the larger MetroFuture plan, Littleton used Sustainable Communities funding to protect agricultural land and will use additional funds to look at wastewater treatment programs and development in the village.
Keith Bergman, Littleton Town Administrator, said, “Littleton is committed to economic development consistent with community character. We’re host to IBM’s largest software development lab in North America, but we’re also a rural community with a rich agricultural tradition, active farms, and even a town-owned orchard. We want to help our farmers keep their land in agricultural uses by expanding ancillary uses, so we’re big on green, as well as Big Blue.”
EPA announces $76 million in grants to assess and clean up brownfields
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced a new series of investments to assess and clean up abandoned industrial and commercial properties across the country. Brownfield grants can serve as vital tools for struggling communities looking to revitalize by providing some of the resources necessary to redevelop contaminated properties, create jobs, and spur local economic growth. This round of EPA grants will include more than $76 million in funds distributed to a number of innovative efforts in communities in 40 states.
The Tamiami Trail Initiative in western Florida is one of these efforts. The Tamiami Trail Scenic Highway (US Highway 41) runs through Sarasota and Manatee counties and is plagued by more than 500 petroleum brownfields and a number of other contaminated properties. The revitalization initiative, which started in 2009, has brought together a diverse group of stakeholders – including government, nonprofits, business groups, environmental consultants, property owners, and community members – to inventory and cleanup petroleum sites along the corridor and help spur economic development opportunities in the process.
EPA has awarded the Sarasota/Manatee County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) $1,000,000 to help continue the cleanup and revitalization work already underway along the route.
The Tamiami Trail Initiative is part of a growing trend among communities across the country using a corridor-wide approach to redevelop abandoned and vacant properties contaminated by petroleum and other hazardous chemicals. By planning to remediate a cluster of sites along a given transportation corridor – rather than one at a time – communities like those along the Tamiami Trail are able to create an economy of scale that helps leverage resources and overcome many of the barriers associated with smaller scale revitalization efforts.
For more information about the Tamiami Trail or brownfield grants and revitalization projects, visit EPA.gov.