From left: Land-Of-Sky Regional Council Executive Director Joe McKinney, Congressman Heath Shuler and HUD Regional Field Director Christian Stearns. Photo via City of Asheville
The City of Asheville, the Land-of-Sky Regional Council and federal partners gathered in North Carolina last week to celebrate the 4th anniversary of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities – a collaboration between the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency that helps communities across the country develop in more economically sustainable ways through the exchange of ideas, planning tools and public engagement.
Land-of-Sky Regional Council is a local government planning and development organization in North Carolina that runs GroWNC, a year-long project to help communities in North Carolina create regional plans that support economic competitiveness and job creation.
“GroWNC and the associated federal investment has given our region an unprecedented opportunity to develop a regional vision and tools to support growth and economic development in Western North Carolina,” said Danna Stansbury, Interim Executive Director of Land-of-Sky.
GroWNC has been made possible in part by a $1.6 million Regional Planning Grant from HUD. To date, HUD has awarded over $165 million to 74 regional grantees in 44 states, helping to improve the lives of approximately 112 million people. HUD’s Regional Planning Grants are part of a network of competitive grants under the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, including HUD’s Community Challenge and Choice Neighborhoods grants, DOT’s TIGER program,and EPA’s Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program, among others.
The Partnership for Sustainable Communities provides competitive grants to urban, suburban, and rural cities and towns that want to make their communities more sustainable and economically resilient. In total, the Partnership has supported 744 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Together, these projects are creating more housing and transportation choices and supporting neighborhoods’ sustained vibrancy by attracting new business.
If you want to see more projects like this, ask Congress to fund these programs today.