With $100 million in funding, the Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) could transform regional planning across the
country
with a new focus on sustainable development, but the devil is in the
details.
HUD is developing a Notice
of Funding Availability (NOFA)
after seeking comments on an advance
notice for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program. The newly
established Office
of Sustainable Housing and Communities at HUD will oversee the program
in
partnership with the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the
Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
“We’re encouraging folks to think visionary and at the same
time we’re trying to tear down some of the barriers,” says Dwayne S.
Marsh,
senior adviser for the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities.
“The
truth is, when you’re doing regional planning it always gets unwieldy.
It’s
going to be on us to be very clear of what the fundamental outcomes
are.”
HUD expects to publish the NOFA in mid-April with grant applications
due in early June and awardees announced in August. The goal of the
program is
to support “multi-jurisdictional regional planning efforts that
integrate
housing, economic development, and transportation decision-making in a
manner
that empowers jurisdictions to consider the interdependent challenges of
economic growth, social equity, and environmental impact
simultaneously,” the
advance notice states.
Common Concerns
HUD has held listening sessions in several cities and hosted
web conferences to seek comments on the program. “We’ve heard the whole
landscape of interests and issues, but we have heard some consistent
concerns,”
Marsh says.
Potential applicants have said they want grants awarded to
regional coalitions that:
Mandate resident engagement, including participation by
low-income communities that may be impacted by new development and
gentrification.
Strengthen rather than scrap existing regional plans.
Include workforce development strategies to help improve
the local economy.
Emphasize fair and affordable housing, including housing
plans located near public transit with mixed-use zoning.
Include a broad range of stakeholders such as metropolitan
planning organizations (MPO), councils of governments (COG), nonprofits,
universities, and neighborhood groups.
Honor distinctive characteristics of small metropolitan
areas and provide capacity building for areas with little regional
planning
experience.
Grants are limited to $5 million for metropolitan areas with
a population of 500,000 or more and $2 million for smaller metropolitan
or
rural areas. At least 25% of the funding is reserved for small
metropolitan areas. HUD expects to award about 30 grants based on the
available
funds.
Shelley Poticha, director of HUD’s
Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, discusses sustainable
development in Builder
magazine
Funding
Levels
Three levels of funding are being considered with the first
level focused on the preparation of integrated regional plans in areas
that
don’t have adequate plans. Funding could be used for visioning and
scenario
planning exercises along with data analysis, urban design, and public
outreach
efforts.
“If you’re in the first category, we expect things to get a
little messy,” Marsh says about the lack of regional planning experience
in
some communities.
Applicants also would need to identify locally appropriate
performance metrics that are consistent with six livability
principles adopted last year by HUD, DOT, and EPA.
The second level of funding would cover a broader range of
activities for executing an adopted regional plan that already meets the
grant
program’s criteria. Funds could support inter-jurisdictional affordable
housing
strategies, regional transportation investment programs, land banking
and
acquisition strategies, revenue sharing strategies, and economic
development
strategies.
The third level of funding would support communities with
the most advanced regional planning by providing pre-development or
capital funds
for regionally significant developments, land acquisition, or
infrastructure
investment that advance the sustainable vision. Grantees in this
category also
may be able to be precertified for other federal grant programs which
could
streamline paperwork and avoid bureaucratic entanglements.
Some organizations, including the American Planning
Association (APA), oppose using the grant funds for capital projects rather
than the
development and execution of regional plans. “We simply don’t think that
is a
wise use of limited resources here,” says APA policy director Jason
Jordan.
“We’ve asked them to take a hard look at that.”
APA recommends that grants support high-quality replicable
models of innovative regional planning which include broad coalitions of
local
players and linkage to existing comprehensive plans.