by Gary Taylor and Allison Arends
The Livable Communities Act of 2009 (S.1619) was introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) on August 6, and referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. The stated purposes of the Act are to coordinate housing, development, transportation, energy, and environmental policy in the United States.
The Act creates the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities within HUD. The objectives of this office will be to coordinate federal policies that will encourage sustainable development, encourage the development of comprehensive regional plans, foster energy efficient housing on the state, regional and local levels, and provide affordable location-efficient housing choices.
The bill outlines a number of steps to accomplish these objectives. A primary function of this office important to planners and planning would be the administration of two significant planning grant programs. The first, the comprehensive regional planning grant program, would make available $100 million a year for four years for which consortia of local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, rural planning organizations, and/or regional councils would be eligible through a competitive process. The grants would fund regional housing and transportation plans. Large metropolitan areas with 500,000 or more people could receive grants up to $5 million, communities with between 200,000 and 499,999 people could receive up to $1.5 million, and smaller metropolitan and micropolitan areas would be eligible for up to $750,000.
The second grant program, the Sustainability Challenge Grant Program, would be available to communities that were recipients of the planning grants to help implement their plans by investing in public transportation, transit oriented development, redeveloping polluted sites, and creating affordable housing. These communities would be eligible for $3.75 billion of authorized funds in increasing amounts over three years to assist implementation of the comprehensive regional plans. Large metropolitan areas with 500,000 or more people could receive grants up to $100 million, communities with between 200,000 and 499,999 people could receive up to $35 million, and smaller metropolitan and micropolitan areas would be eligible for up to $15 million.
The bill would also create the Intraagency Council on Sustainable Communities. The Council would be an independent entity in the executive branch assigned to ensure interagency coordination of federal policy on sustainable development, and coordination of federal policies with state and local governments, and nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
The BLUZ will monitor this bill and post updates if/when it progresses.
