HUD and DOT announce interagency partnership to promote sustainable communitiesMortgagePress.comHUD, DOT, Shaun Donovan, Ray LaHood, affordable housing
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary
Shaun Donovan and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary
Ray LaHood have announced a new partnership to help American
families gain better access to affordable housing, more
transportation options, and lower transportation costs. The average
working American family spends nearly 60 percent of its budget on
housing and transportation costs, making these two areas the
largest expenses for American families. Donovan and LaHood want to
seek ways to cut these costs by focusing their efforts on creating
affordable, sustainable communities.
The Secretaries discussed their plans for sustainable
communities today at a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations
Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing hearing titled, "Livable
Communities, Transit Oriented Development, and incorporating Green
Building Practices into Federal Housing and Transportation." To
read the full text of Secretary Donovan's testimony, visit HUD's
website.
"One of my highest priorities is to help promote more livable
communities through sustainable surface transportation programs,"
said Secretary LaHood.
"This partnership will help expand every American family's
choices for affordable housing and transportation," said Secretary
Donovan. "HUD's central mission - ensuring that every American has
access to decent, affordable housing - can be achieved only in
context of the housing, transportation, and energy costs and
choices that American families experience each day."
DOT and HUD have created a high-level interagency task force to
better coordinate federal transportation and housing investments
and identify strategies to give American families:
• More choices for affordable housing near employment
opportunities;
• More transportation options, to lower transportation
costs, shorten travel times, and improve the environment; and
• Safe, livable, healthy communities.
The HUD/DOT task force will:
Enhance integrated regional housing, transportation, and land
use planning and investment. The task force will set a goal to have
every major metropolitan area in the country conduct integrated
housing, transportation, and land use planning and investment in
the next four years. To facilitate integrated planning, HUD and DOT
seek, through HUD's proposed Sustainable Communities Initiative
which it will administer in consultation with DOT, to make planning
grants available to metropolitan areas, and create mechanisms to
ensure those plans are carried through to localities. DOT will
encourage Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to conduct
this integrated planning as a part of their next long-range
transportation plan update and will provide technical assistance on
scenario planning, a tool for assessing future growth alternatives
that better coordinate land use, and transportation planning.
This effort will help metropolitan areas set a vision for growth
and apply federal transportation, housing and other investments in
an integrated approach to support that vision. HUD currently
requires states, cities, and counties to prepare a five-year
Consolidated Plan estimating housing status and needs.
Concurrently, DOT requires States and metropolitan areas to develop
Long Range Transportation Plans and four-year Transportation
Improvement Programs. Coordinating these federally mandated
planning efforts, including planning cycles, processes and
geographic coverage, will make more effective use of Federal
housing and transportation dollars.
Redefine affordability and make it transparent. The task force
will develop Federal housing affordability measures that include
housing, and transportation costs and other costs that affect
location choices. Although transportation costs now approach or
exceed housing costs for many working families, Federal definitions
of housing affordability don't recognize the strain of soaring
transportation costs on homeowners and renters who live in areas
isolated from work opportunities and transportation choices. The
task force will redefine affordability to reflect those
interdependent costs. The task force will also continue to ensure
that the costs of living in certain geographic areas are
transparent- using an online tool that calculates the combined
housing and transportation costs families face when choosing a new
home.
Develop livability measures. The task force will research,
evaluate and recommend measures that indicate the livability of
communities, neighborhoods and metropolitan areas. These measures
could be adopted in subsequent integrated planning efforts to
benchmark existing conditions and identify progress toward
achieving community visions. The task force will develop incentives
to encourage communities to implement, use and publicize the
measures.
Harmonize HUD and DOT programs. HUD and DOT will work together
to identify opportunities to better coordinate their programs and
encourage location efficiency in housing and transportation
choices. HUD and DOT will also share information and review
processes to facilitate better-informed decisions and coordinate
investments.
Undertake joint research, data collection and outreach. HUD and
DOT will engage in joint research, data collection, and outreach
efforts with stakeholders, to develop information platforms and
analytic tools to track housing and transportation options and
expenditures, establish standardized and efficient performance
measures, and identify best practices. An interagency working
group, led by DOT, is currently developing performance metrics,
research and data needs to support an integrated regional planning
framework. The working group was established in June 2008 to
identify opportunities to better align federal programs and
resources to reduce traffic congestion, increase transportation
mobility, improve air quality and realize other related
environmental benefits.
For more information, visit www.hud.gov.
