Streetsblog Capitol Hill

The Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference wrapped up in Cleveland on Friday. It brought hundreds of people together to strategize a way out of the state of abandonment so many urban areas are in.

Vacant properties are a symptom of greater social ills: abandonment of cities, poverty, and sprawl. In many places, the foreclosure crisis has poured fuel on the fire, exacerbating the twin problems of homelessness and vacancy. As these homes stand empty, the grass grows unattended, trash accumulates, rodents appear, looters take advantage and squatters roost.

“I remember from psychology classes in college the story of the broken window syndrome,” said Cynthia Owen Jarrold of the Transportation Equity Network. “It’s this idea that if you see this broken window in a home, and if it’s not repaired, then so goes the rest of the neighborhood. And those who watch that not being repaired, they tend to not repair their own properties.”

Jarrold attended the conference because, she said, “transportation equity is about access.” And it means not only that you can get from place to place, but that the place you’re coming from is habitable. “In a lot of cases,” she said, “the people we are most concerned about – low income people, people of color, women – are the same people that are typically impacted by the foreclosure markets, are those that are left in urban areas and forced to live with the results of the blight that occurs in their communities.”

In a vicious cycle, vacant properties create more vacancies, as those who are able to move out, move out. “Vacant properties represent disinvestment,” she said, and vacancy eats away at a person’s “sense of place” in his or her own community.

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Last week, the Livable Communities Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee, a milestone for legislation that would fund local efforts to plan for growth while curbing sprawl. But the 12-10 party line vote raised the prospect that the bill might also encounter unified Republican opposition in the full Senate, where the threat of a filibuster has become the norm.

One GOP senator's "no" vote seemed especially incongruous -- Utah's Bob Bennett. The vast majority of the people whom Bennett represents live in the region centered around Salt Lake City, which has made significant strides in recent years to coordinate housing development and transit investments -- exactly the sort of initiatives that the Livable Communities Act would reward.

“There are many, many things in this legislation that I strongly support," Bennett said during the subcommittee vote, before explaining why he would not support the bill. “There are things in this legislation that... would get in the way of what we are already doing in our state. So I will reluctantly vote against it.”

The remarks provoked some head scratching from advocates familiar with the regional planning efforts underway in Bennett's home state.

“I can’t imagine why he would say that,” said Kate Rube, policy director at Smart Growth America. "You would think a state like Utah would really stand to benefit from that bill."

“I’m not sure what he was referring to,” said Alan Matheson, executive director of Envision Utah, a non-profit that advises municipalities on smart growth strategies. The group’s planning work focuses on coordinating transportation and housing policies while preserving open space. In the past, Matheson said, Bennett “has been a great supporter of the collaborative approaches we have taken in Utah.”

The Livable Communities Act, which would disburse competitive grants to communities of all sizes to both plan and build projects that reduce car-dependence and provide better access to transit, would stand to benefit the planning work that Envision Utah has facilitated. "If there was a way to supplement local funding, it would enable us to go beyond regular planning efforts to go to important implementation work," Matheson said.

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The Senate Banking Committee voted 12-10 yesterday in favor of the Livable Communities Act, legislation that would bolster the Obama administration's initiatives to link together transportation, housing, economic development, and environmental policy.

The administration has been taking steps since last March to coordinate between the Department of Transportation, HUD, and the EPA. This bill, carried in the Senate by Connecticut's Chris Dodd, would formalize those partnerships and authorize substantially more funding to work with. 

Most of the action would flow through HUD. This year the agency is funding $150 million in grants supporting regional efforts to improve access to transit and promote walkable development. The Livable Communities Act promises to scale up that program significantly, creating a new office within HUD, called the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, that will distribute about $4 billion through competitive grants.

The initial round of grants would fund comprehensive plans -- local initiatives to shape growth by coordinating housing, transportation, and economic development policies. Most of the funding -- $3.75 billion -- would be distributed over three years to implement projects identified in such plans.

While some Senators from rural states had expressed skepticism about the benefits of the bill for their constituents, yesterday's vote split strictly along party lines, with Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Tim Johnson of South Dakota both voting in favor.

To make the case for the bill to his rural and Republican counterparts, Dodd singled out Envision Utah, a campaign that has built public support for smart growth policies in one of the country's reddest states. Not a single GOP Senator voted for the bill, however, even Utah's Bob Bennett, who told UPI, "I think the overall philosophy is wise, but I will be voting against it."

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Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan said late Friday that his agency will soon start gauging the "location efficiency" of its grant applicants, determining each project's potential for connecting residents to surrounding neighborhoods -- and mirroring the recommendations of a recent report that found a correlation between homeowners' foreclosure risk and their dependence on car ownership.

Donovan's announcement came during an address to the Congress for the New Urbanism's (CNU) annual meeting in Atlanta. During his visit, the former New York City housing commissioner also toured the BeltLine project, an ambitious local effort to convert former rail track into new light rail and trails.

In his remarks to the CNU, Donovan depicted the integration of "location efficiency" measures as a way to encourage housing developers to pursue more mixed-use, denser construction.

"[I]t’s time that federal dollars stopped encouraging sprawl and started lowering the barriers to the kind of sustainable development our country needs and our communities want," Donovan said. "And with $3.25 billion at stake in these competitions, that’s exactly what they will start to do."

Evaluating the range of transport options available for prospective residents of urban and suburban areas was among the central recommendations of a foreclosures report released in January by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). That study was aimed at mortgage lenders rather than the government, but Democratic lawmakers last year began pushing for HUD to insure more mortgages based on the properties' "location efficiency."

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The Ford Foundation, created seven decades ago by a U.S. car industry scion, notably diverged from its past today by announcing a new, $200 million grant program aimed at promoting the local integration of transportation and land use planning and a movement beyond auto-based development.

The foundation's president, Luis Ubiñas, revealed the move in a speech to local community leaders gathered at the invitation of the White House to discuss the future of the nation's once auto-dominant cities.

Ubiñas cited several examples of existing transit and urban development projects that would be good candidates for the foundation's five-year grant program. The Bay Area's residential-commercial "transit villages," Detroit's public-private M1 light rail plan, and New Orleans' push to rebuild its Claiborne Avenue corridor topped the list.

“When we look at metro regions and see pockets of serious unemployment but also pockets of employment opportunity, and disjointed transit systems that fail to connect people to the services they need and the jobs they seek, it’s clear that a different approach is needed,” Pablo J. Farías, a vice president at the foundation, said in a statement on the grants.

The foundation was established in 1936 with an initial gift from Edsel Ford, son of the automaker Henry Ford, and managed by members of the Ford family for several decades after its founding.

(ed. note. This post was corrected from an earlier version that referred to the meeting as taking place at the White House.)

The federal government has long taken heat for giving short shrift to cities, and the Obama administration -- which recently lost its urban affairs chief after months of lackluster progress -- is no exception.

But two projects getting underway in the U.S. capital provide evidence that, slowly but surely, federal funding is making its way to the type of dense urban developments that are becoming more in-demand as the suburbs languish.

The Washington City Paper's Lydia DePillis first flagged the two housing efforts on Friday afternoon:

Last October, the Obama administration announced that it would be helping out state housing finance agencies with their liquidity problems ... Last month, D.C. became the first housing finance agency in the country to close a multi-deal transaction using the federal dollars, patching together $55.8 million in construction costs for three rental buildings in the district.

The 52-unit Webster Gardens, which was built in 1921 as the first garden-style apartment building in the city, will now be the first building in the city — and therefore the country! — to move forward using money that started with legislation all the way back in 2008.

DePillis also highlighted the Sheridan Station housing development, where D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was slated to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony this morning.

The Sheridan project received $5.8 million in stimulus money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last year, which will go towards constructing an energy-efficient replacement for torn-down public housing units in the city's economically struggling Ward 8. More than one-third of residents in the ward are living below the poverty line, according to the most recent available Census data.

New construction projects that are within a half-mile of transit stations and exceeding national energy-efficiency standards would be eligible for a tax credit under legislation introduced today by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the senior member of the Banking Committee's transit panel.

Menendez's "green buildings" tax credit is aimed at spurring denser development in both rural and urban areas, particularly mixed-use properties that allow residents to walk between home, work, and other daily errands.

Construction projects claiming the 30 percent credit would have to meet several criteria, including the half-mile proximity to transit, the energy-efficiency minimums, and a requirement that at least 5 percent of any apartment properties be more affordable housing.

The credit could not be claimed until the year the development in question is completed, leaving the bill without an immediate cost to the Treasury.

The bill was immediately endorsed by the non-profit transit advocacy group Reconnecting America. The group's president, John Robert Smith, said in a statement that Menendez's plan "will help to meet this growing demand" for more transit-oriented, walkable development.

Her approval rating on the rise amid a difficult election battle, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) joined the president's campaign against childhood obesity this week by proposing $1 billion in loans and grants to build healthier neighborhood grocery stores and farmers' markets.

Gillibrand's legislation, co-sponsored in the House by Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), aligns with the $400 million healthy food plan included in the 2011 White House budget. Both programs would follow the template of Pennsylvania's Healthy Food Financing Initiative by offering loans and grants to help construct new grocery stores, farmers' markets, and other food outlets in historically under-served neighborhoods.

The bill aims to eradicate the growing phenomenon of "food deserts," the moniker advocates have bestowed on lower-income areas -- in New York and Chicago as well as in more rural areas -- where the lack of access to fresh food leaves residents dependent on sugary, fattening fast-food alternatives.

Traveling outside a food desert is often impossible without a car, an option out of reach for many of the neighborhoods' most needy residents.

Research on travel behavior conducted by the University of California-Davis' Susan Handy found that in areas where markets and other stores were one-fifth of a mile or less from most homes, 87 percent of residents regularly walked to run errands. When that average distance between home and market increased to three-fifths of a mile, the share of even periodic foot travelers dropped to one-third.

Gillibrand's office also highlighted the job-creation potential of healthier food access, estimating in a release that the $1 billion grant program would create 200,000 new jobs nationwide and 26,000 in New York City.

Boston mayor Thomas Menino joined Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) today for the release of a new Urban Land Institute (ULI) report that maps the combined housing and transportation burden of living in the metro area's various neighborhoods.

Using a method similar to the "H+T" cost index unveiled last month with the support of Obama administration officials, the ULI report calculated how Bostonians' area of residence affected their commuting and housing costs. Overall, the ULI found that the average Boston household spends 54 percent of its annual income, or $34,300, on housing and transportation.

Not surprisingly, the center city was found to be a hotbed of lower transport spending, thanks to denser development and a thriving transit system -- and when housing and transport bills were combined (see above chart), the city remained a more affordable option than any of the suburbs in its immediate vicinity.

The ULI was careful to note that lower "H+T" costs in the center of Boston were made possible by more than just walkable urban design. From the report (emphasis mine):

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As federal and local officials plot out the future of U.S. high-speed rail, a prominent speaker at this week's American Planning Association conference is urging fellow urban planners to "fight" the prospect of high-speed rail sharing roadbed with freight lines -- a significant dilemma for Amtrak, which must split an estimated 70 percent of its track with freight.

Leslie Pollock, a principal at the Chicago-based firm Camiros, today outlined his high-speed rail presentation from the conference for reporters, focusing on two issues that he depicted as major obstacles to a successful domestic high-speed rail network.

Pollock noted that two of the three bullet train plans receiving the bulk of early federal funding -- California's and Florida's -- would build dedicated new track for high-speed service, while the midwest initiative would attempt to share track with freight companies.

"As soon as you begin to" rely on track where freight and passenger rail coexist, Pollock said, "you begin to slow down travel and start to create inefficiencies. Indeed, one of the problems underlying Amtrak for many years has been it that it has to operate at the pleasure of freight lines on its road bed." 

The limiting effect of shared track on new high-speed service was felt most acutely in the northeast corridor between Washington and Boston, where Amtrak has acknowledged that trains are forced to share an "overcrowded, and often overwhelmed, track."

The northeastern area got just 1.4 percent of the first round of Obama administration high-speed grants, a move that prompted blowback from some Republicans but ultimately was acknowledged to be a consequence of local planning deficiencies and aging track.

The shared-tracking approach, according to Pollock, is a "challenge" that "you have to fight" -- and he outlined another problem facing high-speed rail planners: "Frankly, you have to fight political demand for stops, because everybody wants a station."

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