News

4:00PM EST

Attendance
Kate Rube, Elisa Ortiz, Will Schroeer, Stephanie Potts, Mara D’Angelo, Geoff Anderson – Smart Growth America
Heidi Green – 1000 Friends of Connecticut
Jacky Grimshaw – Center for Neighborhood Technology
Rhonda – National Trust for Historic Preservation
Evan Paul – Northeast-Midwest Institute
Carey Knect – Greenbelt Alliance
Linda Gobberdiel – 1000 Friends of Iowa
Eric Stachon –     1000 Friends of Oregon
Gloria Katz – Smart Growth Partnership
Rob McCulloch –Environment America
Josh Karns – 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania
Scott Wolf – Grow Smart Rhode Island
Kevin Doyle – Livable Communities Coalition
April Putney – Futurewise
Danilo Pellitiere – National Low Income Housing Coalition

Federal policy updates

• THUD appropriations issues – Brownfields
  • The Transportation & HUD appropriations bills have now passed the Senate and the House. The Senate bill unfortunately eliminates funding for the HUD brownfields programs (Brownfields Economic Development Initiative and HUD 108 loan guarantee programs). We are working with the Brownfields Coalition to ensure that the final conferenced THUD bill includes the House level of funding for these programs ($25 million for BEDI and $6 million for HUD 108).
  • As a heads up, this bill also includes $150 million for the HUD sustainable communities partnership, which will mostly be used to fund regional planning grants.
  • ACTIONS:
    • 1.    Sign onto the letters to the House & Senate urging them to fund the HUD brownfields level at the House level
    • 2.    If you are from a state with a target member of Congress, call their brownfields staffer to encourage them to support the House level of funding for these programs.
• Climate bill updates and materials
  • The Senate climate bill is expected to be introduced by Senators Boxer (CA) and Kerry (MA) next week, although the funding allocations will not be released until the bill goes to a vote before the Environment & Public Works (EPW) committee in mid to late October. Smart Growth America has been working to make sure the bill includes a section on integrating greenhouse gas emissions into the state and MPO transportation planning process, as well as on ensuring that a significant amount of the funding in the bill goes to clean transportation (CLEAN TEA is our maker bill on these issues). We anticipate supporting the transportation policy section in this bill, but have concerns that the Senate may not fund clean transportation at a higher level than the House climate bill, which devoted only a maximum of 1% to transportation programs.
  • Over the next several weeks, SGA is focusing on contacting Senators to urge them to weigh in with Senators Boxer and Kerry with support for higher levels of funding for clean transportation in the climate bill.
  • ACTIONS:
    • 1.    Sign onto T4America’s letter of support
    • 2.    Call your Senators, especially if they are a target
    • 3.    Participate in SGA’s lobby day Oct 14 (or T4 climate-specific lobby day October 7)
• CRSI bill (Vacant Properties)
  • The Community Renovation, Sustainability, and Innovation Act bill now has 27 cosponsors—thanks to any of you who have encouraged your Representatives to sign on!  We are continuing to focus on building support for this legislation, particularly on the Financial Services committee. Materials and more information on this legislation are at the following link. This bill would start a new pilot program for vacant properties at HUD, providing grants to communities that are struggling with vacant and abandoned property problems.
  • ACTION: If any cities or areas in your state have vacant property problems, please consider contacting your Senators and Representatives to urge them to support this bill.
• Federal Agency work – Recommendations for HUD, EPA and DOT on the Sustainable Communities Partnership
  • As many of you know, Smart Growth America is working to prepare some recommendations for HUD, DOT, and EPA on some specific actions these agencies could take to act on their sustainable communities partnership. We are working to finalize memos for each of these agencies by the end of October. If you have suggestions on administrative actions or to get more plugged into this work, please contact Stephanie Potts: spots@smartgrowthamerica.org
  • For questions on any federal policy issues, contact Kate Rube: krube@smartgrowthamerica.org

Questions

• On the climate bill: who would lose money if we get a full 10%? Its not clear because they won’t release the funding allocations until right before it goes to markup; we don’t want to get into specifics on where the money should come from; funding decisions haven’t been finalized in the Senate, so we don’t need to have the discussion yet
• Is there $150 Mill for sustainability grants? About $100 will go into regional planning grants and about $50 will go to sustainable partnership with DOT/HUD/EPA
• Carey wants to know about the sustainable community partnerships grants and it compares to some SB 375 implementation work – Kate will follow up

National Partner News

• Environment America released a report documenting the energy savings that come through transit and the launch has been successful: 21 events, 150 media hits, 22 spots on television; the report can be found on their website here: http://www.environmentamerica.org/home/reports/report-archives/global-warming-solutions/global-warming-solutions/getting-on-track-record-transit-ridership-increases-energy-independence
• Did people get adequate notice? No – only about 24 hours notice, didn’t get a chance to read it and respond; in OR they participated in a news conference
• T4 reception on DC this evening
• Complete Streets Coalition – passed the 100 policy benchmark and are having a celebration in October; website has been updated with a new page with current complete streets campaign

State Updates

• Scott, RI – expanding statewide transit coalition; meeting with community leaders and stakeholders to get some buy-in; met with state legislators of restoring state historic tax credit – needs more info and talking points on why mixed-use urban projects are good development, info can be found here: http://www.uli.org/ResearchAndPublications/EmergingTrends.aspx
• April, WA – continuing to work with Transportation Choices Coalition to put together local government and transit interests for the next transportation revenue package in 2011 or 2012; working on TOD and touring some station areas with developers, realtors and legislators to show off the potential
• Linda, IA – met with Aaron Todd at IA planning office, he’s looking for input on the Rebuild Iowa plan; had a shakeup at the Dept of Economic Development
• Eric, OR – Bob Stacey is leaving at the end of the week; working on a task force to develop legislation on MPO blueprint planning and connecting land use and transportation to reduce GHG emissions, doing some public outreach, coalition work, holding trainings, etc.
• Carey, San Francisco – GHG and development calculator is being created to include impacts on building in different areas, transportation options (Carey will send it along when its closer to finished); creating climate change packet/toolkit for local areas; metro transportation commission originally called for double $ for TOD funding pool, but recent plan reduces to less than last year, so they’ve done some outreach to get the amt of $ increased; looking a regional platform to implement SB 375

Reminders: October’s call (10/29 @ 4pm EST) will be a webinar from NCB Capital Impact titled “Preserving Affordable Homeownership: a key to sustaining mixed income communities”

Please let Stephanie Potts know if you are available for the October 14 Lobby Day