Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Just days after the interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities was issued a death blow by having its funding axed in the FY2012 transportation budget, which President Obama signed into law Friday, HUD issued a reminder of just how sad that loss is: The agency released its list of 2011 award grantees — communities embarking on visionary projects that, with this assistance, will enable them to plan for the future holistically.

The City of Grand Rapids was awarded $459,224 for the Michigan Street Corridor Plan. Image: City of Grand Rapids

HUD granted nearly $96 million in 27 Community Challenge grants and 29 Regional Planning grants.

“The communities selected to receive these grants have a great opportunity to put their plans for smarter development and economic revitalization into action,” said Geoffrey Anderson of Smart Growth America in an email. “These grants are bittersweet, however, since they come just days after Congress passed legislation that did not include specific funding for another round of HUD grants next year.”

The Community Challenge grants are awarded to communities and organizations working to integrate transportation and housing, a key smart-growth goal and the focus of many livability advocates, like the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which seeks to include transportation in the calculation of housing costs. With a HUD grant, communities can update their local plans and zoning and building codes to support mixed-use development, affordable housing and the re-use of older buildings, according to HUD.

Regional Planning grants do much the same thing on a regional scale, with a priority on partnerships, including arts and culture and philanthropy. These grants aren’t just for planning, either; they’re also available for implementation of well-drawn plans for sustainable development.

As if it weren’t tragic enough to see Congress kill off the office’s funding, it’s especially sad that it had to happen during a banner year for interest in the program, in which applications outstripped available money more than 5 to 1. And, according to HUD, they’re encouraging just the kinds of partnerships they’re designed for:

This year, HUD’s investment of $95.8 million is garnering $115 million in matching and in-kind contributions – which is over 120 percent of the Federal investment – from the 56 selected grantees. This brings to total public and private investment for this round of grants to over $211 million.

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In 2004, Salt Lake City faced a challenging question: How do you fit 1.4 million additional residents into a region hemmed in by mountains on the east and water on the west? In the course of solving that problem, the city ended up answering several other head-scratchers, like: How do you get buy-in for smart-growth policies from conservatives wary of urbanism? And, how do you make new greenfield development both sustainable and wildly popular?

In the Daybreak development southwest of Salt Lake City, streets were laid out in a connected network, and rates of walking and biking to school are sky-high. Image: Daybreak, Utah

At the Rail~Volution conference last week, Andrew Gruber, executive director of the Wasatch Front Regional Council, showcased the transit-centered solution that’s now propelling development in Utah’s capital city.

If official projections are right, the high quality of life and thriving economy of the Wasatch Front could invite population growth of more than 65 percent by 2040.

If the region continued along current growth trends, Gruber explained, it would add more than 300 square miles of development to meet the housing and commercial demand by 2040. Vehicle miles traveled would nearly double, from 49 million to more than 90 million per day, by 2030. By 2020, the cost of new infrastructure could balloon to more than $26 billion.

In just a few decades, a region known for its open space and outdoor lifestyle would be a mighty congested and costly place to call home.

So, in 2004, the state’s two largest MPOs came up with a comprehensive plan for growth and development in the four-county region. “The Wasatch Choice for 2040″ prioritizes housing and transportation choices — and earned a $5 million Sustainable Communities Planning Grant from HUD in 2010.

Now, Salt Lake City is investing more, per capita, in new public transit than any other metro area in the country, and exporting ideas to the rest of the country.

Starting in 2005, citizens and planners in the Wasatch Front evaluated different scenarios for growth, looking at the long-term consequences of each development pattern. Perhaps surprising for such a conservative state, the consensus that emerged included a set of progressive growth principles focused on efficient infrastructure, transportation and housing choice, and coordinated planning.

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Last month Streetsblog asked whether President Obama would select transportation projects that reduce congestion, improve air quality, and create jobs when he picked several infrastructure investments, among those recommended by agency officials, to fast-track. The selection of these projects, intended to help spur short-term job creation, could avoid the mistakes of the 2009 stimulus program, which funneled billions to “shovel-ready” projects that will also promote sprawl. Leading up to the announcement, the president’s rhetoric seemed to indicate that the administration would opt for road maintenance and transit projects rather than newer, wider highways.

The Tappan Zee bridge overhaul is supposed to include transit facilities, but some fear that those may get dropped later on. Photo: SamuelWantman / Wikimedia

Today the administration announced its list of 14 projects, and at first glance, it seems like most of the transportation-related projects take transit, bicycling, and walking into consideration. Some of them will induce sprawl nonetheless, because they expand traffic capacity.

These projects won’t get more federal funds, but they will get federal help in expediting the process. The president promised that this fast-tracking won’t shortchange environmental reviews. The projects were highlighted by officials in several agencies and final selection was done by the White House.

Here’s the list of surface transportation-related projects, most of them recommended by the Department of Transportation:

Tappan Zee Bridge, New York: The bridge is rated structurally deficient as well as functionally obsolete, meaning that in addition to carrying more traffic than it was designed for, the structure is unsafe to carry vehicles. Constant repairs have made the bridge into a money pit, and a significant overhaul could produce long-term savings on maintenance. Notably, this project is not close to “shovel-ready” status, so its selection seems to indicate that the administration had long-term goals in mind, in addition to short-term job creation. There are plans to include a Bus Rapid Transit lane and a commuter rail line on the bridge, as well, but some advocates worry that all that widening could happen without the transit components coming through in the end.

Crenshaw/LAX, California: LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has become a champion for federal loan programs because of his zeal to expand transit in his city. The Crenshaw/LAX project is a cornerstone of his efforts and will provide a critical transit connection to the airport. The city has done a good job attracting federal interest and assistance, and the FTA is already helping them shorten the approval time for the project.

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New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has taken up where former Senator Chris Dodd left off. Last week, Menendez offered a fresh version of Dodd’s Livable Communities Act. The bill would formally authorize the HUD Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities and its Regional Planning and Community Challenge grant programs, restoring funding for those programs to 2010 levels.

Sen. Bob Menendez is hoping to bring funding for livable communities back to 2010 levels. Photo courtesy of Sen. Menendez's office.

The office works to “coordinate federal housing and transportation investments with local land use decisions in order to reduce transportation costs for families, improve housing affordability, save energy, and increase access to housing and employment opportunities.”

The bill would also create a loan program for transit oriented development projects.

In comparison with the 2009 version, the total dollar amount of the five-year bill is smaller — $880 million compared to almost $2 billion. Last time around, the country was already in the throes of economic crisis, but Congress hadn’t changed hands yet and ushered in a new generation of deficit hawks. So Menendez kept this bill a little more modest, holding spending at 2010 levels (before the livability programs got hammered with cuts earlier this year.)

In hopes of winning over some of those deficit hawks, the bill starts off with the assertion that strategic community planning could save nearly $122 billion in infrastructure costs over the net 25 years.

The $880 million is mostly for Regional Planning Grants ($600 million) with $180 million for Challenge Grants and $100 million for TOD loans, which haven’t existed up until now. Fifteen percent of funds are destined for rural areas.

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Tomorrow, a Senate panel will vote on two budget bills for FY2012, one of which is for transportation and housing programs. The draft of the bill isn’t available until after the subcommittee markup tomorrow, but Smart Growth America is calling attention to the fact that it’s important to make sure the bill includes funding for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, the partnership between USDOT, the EPA, and HUD.

Normal, Illinois' multimodal transportation center, funded with a TIGER grant from the Partnership. Image: Normal, Illinois

Through the partnership, the three agencies have coordinated transportation and land use policy to a greater extent than they did before, helping to curb sprawl and promote smart growth. This partnership has taken the federal agencies out of their “stovepipe” mentality and encouraged efficiency and collaboration at an unprecedented level. Why would lawmakers who want to reduce inefficiencies and waste in the federal government want to cut a program that has been so effective at doing just that?

Last fall, Mariia Zimmerman from HUD told Streetsblog that the Partnership has standardized guidelines to make it easier to apply for grants and eliminated some areas of inefficiency, overlap, and even direct contradiction among the agencies. But perhaps more importantly, she said the Partnership has transformed all of HUD, incorporating a focus on sustainability in all of the agency’s work.

A vote of support from the Senate would mean a lot to the Partnership, which saw its funding stripped in the House proposal for next year’s budget. But the Partnership isn’t the only potential casualty of the House plan: Highway and transit funding each get slashed by 34 percent, TIGER and TIGGER grants are cut entirely, high-speed rail gets nothing, the New Starts transit program gets slashed, and Amtrak is left gasping for air. If the Senate subcommittee doesn’t vote to save funding for these programs tomorrow, they have no chance.

See the Smart Growth America action alert for more information.

Despite growing demand, developers of mixed-used development face an additional hurdle thanks to outdated federal regulations. Photo: CNU

The real estate market is undergoing the most rapid period of change in a generation — and the shift is decidedly urban. A succession of recent studies have found there is an under-supply of urban-style housing — attached and small-lot, single-family homes — on the scale of about 13 million units. On the other hand, there is an estimated oversupply of detached housing in the car-based suburbs of about 28 million units.

Public policy hasn’t quite caught up with the market, say the experts at the Congress for the New Urbanism. The Federal Housing Administration and its subsidiaries, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are discouraging urban-style housing developments.

HUD lending standards dictate that the total value of mixed-use development projects can’t be more than 15 to 20 percent retail. Fannie caps retail share at 20; Freddie at 25 percent. And these standards set the tone for the private market — a tone that is consequently skewed toward single-family housing, and away from the pent-up demand for urban development with walkable amenities.

“It’s really disrupting the market,” said John Norquist, president of Congress for the New Urbanism. “It’s making it hard to developers to finance good projects.”

CNU is seeking reform. The organization has built a broad coalition including the National Association of Homebuilders, the National Association of Realtors, the National Town Builders Association, and the Center for Neighborhood Technology. Together, this reform group is planning to initiate discussions with Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), of the House Committee on Financial Services; and the U.S. Treasury.

“Our sweetest dream is that the Obama administration — the Treasury Department and HUD — would say, ‘Let’s change this before the end of the year,’” Norquist said.  “The secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, has said very favorable things about this. He recognizes it.”

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With multiple versions of two years’ worth of federal budgets flying around, some details are still emerging about what’s in and what’s out. At the end of last week we heard that the FY2011 budget, which has been sent to the president for his signature, includes $100 million for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. According to HUD Sustainable Communities Director Shelley Poticha, the partnership was allocated $70 million for regional planning grants ($17.5 million is slated for regions with populations of less than 500,000) and $30 million for Community Challenge planning grants.

Chicago's GO TO 2040 plan to link transportation, land use, and economic development was awarded a $4.25 million Regional Planning grant from HUD last October. Image: CMAP

That’s still a significant reduction from the $150 million the partnership had last year, but in this time of shrinking budgets, it’s a lot more than some livability advocates feared. If the Sustainable Communities program had been killed in this budget, it would have been all the more difficult to revive it for inclusion in the upcoming reauthorization of the transportation bill.

The president wants to keep the partnership going, and indeed, within the administration and among reformers, the funding for the partnership is seen as a money-saver, consolidating duplicative agency programs, cutting through red tape, and using outcome-based metrics to identify and fund effective projects. Still, it’s an administration program labeled “livability” and was, therefore, extremely vulnerable to the GOP ax.

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities is the name for the coordination among DOT, EPA, and HUD to promote planning and infrastructure investment according to their six tenets of livability: transportation choices, affordable housing, economic competitiveness, support for existing communities, coordination of federal policies and investing in healthy communities. The two planning grant programs, which are funded and managed out of HUD, are a centerpiece of the entire partnership. The other main part of it, TIGER, is run through the DOT and also saw the bulk of its funding — the lion’s share of TIGER, if you will – preserved (perhaps somewhat surprisingly, in the current budget bill), suffering only a 12 percent cut.

Meanwhile, transit capital funding (the FTA’s New Starts program) was reduced by about a quarter, high-speed rail was zeroed out completely, Amtrak took about a 10 percent hit, and TIGGER (a greenhouse gas reduction program for transit) got cut from $75 million to $50 million.

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Urbanists have won an important victory in their campaign to reverse Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s bias against mixed-use development, enlisting the National Association of Home Builders to help push for a critical reform to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s lending standards. The mortgage giants currently require that projects they finance be no more than 25 percent commercial (20 percent for Fannie and for multifamily HUD projects.)

This San Diego condo development has ground floor retail, making the neighborhood more walkable. Photo by LA Wad

The Congress for the New Urbanism has waged a battle against these mandates. “Every Main Street in America violates Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s rigid standards,” CNU President John Norquist has said.

According to CNU, Fannie and Freddie’s commercial-space maximums have had “a distorting effect on building types and development patterns,” especially disadvantaging low- to mid-rise buildings with retail on the first floor and apartments or condominiums above. “Before these regulations, low-mid rise mixed use buildings were common.”

But CNU has won over an important ally in its fight against Fannie and Freddie’s anti-urban lending practices. The board of the National Association of Home Builders has joined with CNU and the National Town Builders Association in asking the lenders to raise the commercial space cap to 45 percent. That would allow significantly more retail space to be built into residential developments, providing those residents and nearby neighbors with convenient services that they don’t have to drive to.

CNU has tailored its urbanist message to a more conservative audience, arguing that free enterprise demands these changes:

This change would allow market forces to better determine characteristics of development rather than federal mandates. It would allow the market to respond to recent consumer preferences for mixed use neighborhoods, as most recently reported in the Urban Land Institute/Pricewaterhouse Coopers Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2011. Government generated regulations that suppress development that responds to consumer demand can negatively effect growth and recovery. CNU and NTBA’s proposal is to remove or substantially ease these restrictions.

How do three massive governmental bureaucracies (HUD, DOT, and EPA) nimbly change their approaches and procedures to work together on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities? How can communities ensure that transit-oriented development doesn’t end up pricing out existing residents? How can recipients of federal planning grants move from planning to implementation of livability strategies?

Streetsblog met with Mariia Zimmerman, Deputy Director for Sustainable Communities at HUD, to talk about these questions. Brian Sullivan from the Office of Public Affairs also joined us for this conversation. Below is the second part of the interview — see the first part here.

Streetsblog: How hard has it been to refocus big bureaucracies like HUD, DOT, EPA on sustainability? Is just this little piece over here focused on sustainability or is it permeating the entire agency culture?

We didn’t even have [DOT's] phone number a year ago.

Zimmerman: I do feel like we are permeating the culture, and I would agree they’re all three big battleships so it’s a heavy lift. But we’ve certainly gotten the directive from our secretary that he wants to see our whole $44 billion program be about sustainability. It’s not just the $150 million that our office has.

For instance, the EPA’s largest single funding pot is the state water revolving funds. This year for the first time, as a result of the partnership, they did issue guidance to their states saying, hey, we’d strongly encourage you, when you’re allocating these funds, to prioritize investments to existing communities.

Hollywood Transit Village, a model of affordable housing near transit. HUD is working with communities to ensure that transit doesn't force out existing residents. Photo: Uncanny.net

It’s not always necessarily always easy, doing these first ever joint grants with DOT. It’s been a huge learning process.

SB: What are some of the challenges? Beth Osbourne at DOT has said it’s not about bureaucrats that don’t want to change; it’s about budgeting systems that don’t match up and computer programs that don’t talk to each other.

MZ: To set up the process to review the grants, we all had these amazing firewalls of our internet systems to prevent hacking, and literally just getting between the firewalls was an unbelievable headache. That involved countless calls, and countless IT people. And yeah, we have different budgeting codes from OMB and from Congress, so coordinating can be quite a bit of effort.

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Perhaps the Obama administration’s greatest contribution to building more livable, less traffic-choked communities has been the new partnership between three agencies — DOT, EPA, and HUD — which are helping towns and cities grow more sustainably, using strategies from brownfield redevelopment to the provision of affordable housing along transit corridors. The agencies have collaborated to issue a series of grants to communities doing this work, but as the lower chamber of Congress shifts to Republican control, the funding for some of those programs is in question.

Mariia Zimmerman, Deputy Director for HUD's Office on Sustainable Communities.

Streetsblog met with Mariia Zimmerman, Deputy Director for Sustainable Communities at HUD, to talk about these questions. Brian Sullivan from the Office of Public Affairs also joined us for the conversation.

Streetsblog: When you look at the new Congress coming in – how is that going to affect your work, and how does it affect your message?

Zimmerman: We are hopeful that a lot of the success stories in communities across the country – it’s being locally driven and it’s not a partisan issue. We have Republican and Democratic mayors and governors – it’s nonpartisan, or bipartisan. The partisanship does tend to come in from Congress. If you look at the map of where we made grant selections, they’re Democratic and Republican, small towns and big towns. So we’re hopeful that the demand, interest, and excitement around these programs will be conveyed to Congress no matter where they sit – what party, what state, what zip code they’re in.

People just think this is the right thing to do, and it’s long past time for the federal government to be supporting them instead of being in the way.

It’s long past time for the federal government to be supporting [livable communities] instead of being in the way.

In terms of messaging, we have always felt there is a strong economic need for investing more smartly, leveraging our resources. Federal coordination is just cost effectiveness.

That message is one we can be stronger on. We’ve talked about some of the environmental and quality-of-life reasons for sustainability – we can do a better job of explaining what are the costs of not investing this way and what are the savings if we do. It’s really about trying to invest more wisely. As Rob Puentes at Brookings likes to say, ‘We’re out of money, now’s the time to think!’

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