Sustainable Communities grants eliminated, Choice Neighborhoods increases, TIGER survives

House and Senate negotiators in November eliminated any money with which the Partnership for Sustainable Communities would make grants in FY2012. The partnership was formed by US Department of Transportation (DOT), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2009. It marked the first such federal partnership to reform the built environment in US history.

Congressional negotiators eliminated grants for the Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI — the Department of Housing & Urban Development’s contribution to the interagency partnership). The Partnership itself will continue despite the loss of money for grants. The agreement averted a shutdown of the federal government.

Targeted at local and regional reform

The SCI grants fall into two categories: Community Challenge and Regional Planning grants.
The Community Challenge grants are targeted at helping cities and towns to achieve “affordable, economically vital, and sustainable communities,” through reforming zoning and building codes, and replacing local master plans “to promote mixed-use development, affordable housing, the reuse of older ... structures for new purposes.” Most local land-use regulations put in place since the mid-20th Century favor large-lot, single-use zoning.

The Regional Planning grants are targeted at linking land-use and transportation decisions to foster economic development, affordability and sustainability. The Sustainable Communities grants totaled $95 million in 2011 and $138 million in 2010.

The grants were popular, with applications far outnumbering available grants — despite a lengthy and difficult application process. These grants were aimed at broad reform of the built environment in cities, towns, and regions.

On the plus side, Congress agreed to provide $120 million in the 2012 fiscal year for HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods redevelopment program — a big increase over the $65 million appropriated in the 2011 fiscal year.

The figure agreed to by the negotiators “is lower than the $250 million originally requested by President Obama in February,” the United Neighborhood Centers of America pointed out in a report on its website. Negotiators agreed to the $120 million as part of a larger budget bill that funds several federal agencies for fiscal year 2012. Choice Neighborhoods is more targeted than Sustainable Communities — focusing on revitalization in poor inner-city neighborhoods.

Geoffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, said the Sustainable Communities Initiative “has helped reduce transportation costs for families and improve access to jobs by supporting communities with a variety of transportation options” and has removed “obstacles between the three agencies [HUD, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency], helping the federal government run better and more efficiently.”

Anderson noted that conferees from the House and Senate “expressed strong support for the Partnership’s work,” and he said he hopes the program will be provided with funds in the 2013 budget.
John Robert Smith, president and CEO of the transit and development advocacy group Reconnecting America, lamented elimination of funds for Sustainable Communities grants.

TIGER survives with a cut

Other elements of the “minibus” package put together by the conferees include the following provisions:

“The conference agreement between the two chambers preserves funding for transit and the innovative TIGER grants program, while zeroing out high-speed rail,” says Sean Barry of the advocacy campaign Transportation for America.

• The negotiators have agreed that the TIGER program will get $500 million. That represents a 5.1 percent cut from current levels, but it is a significant improvement over the House proposal, which would have eliminated the program.”

Streetsblog reported that the third round of TIGER applications outstrips the available grant amount by 27 to 1.” TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) is a competitive Obama administration program for transportation infrastructure, including rail transit, complete streets, and multimodal connections.

• The Federal Transit Administration will receive a total of $10.608 billion.

• The New Starts program, a key source of transit project funds, especially in metropolitan areas, will receive $1.95 billion.

• New spending on high-speed rail, which has run into strong Republican opposition, will be eliminated.

• Amtrak will receive $466 million for operating expenses and $952 for capital projects.

• Traditional highway funding under the Federal Highway Administration will be $39.143 billion. That’s slightly less than current levels.