USDOT and HUD Launch Groundbreaking, Collaborative Effort to Create Sustainable, Livable Communities

The U.S. Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) or the first time ever, will join forces to award up to $75 million in funding – $35 million in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) II Planning Grants and $40 million in Sustainable Community Challenge Grants for localized planning activities that ultimately lead to projects that integrate transportation, housing and economic development. These funds are intended to help foster planning for more livable, sustainable communities – places where transportation, housing and commercial development investments are coordinated to better serve the people living in those communities.

HUD's $40 million Community Challenge Planning Grant Program will foster reform and reduce barriers to achieving affordable, economically vital, and sustainable communities. Such efforts may include amending or replacing local master plans, zoning codes, and building codes on a jurisdiction wide basis or in a specific neighborhood, district, corridor, or sector to promote mixed-use development, affordable housing, the reuse of older buildings and structures for new purposes, and similar activities with the goal of promoting sustainability at the local or neighborhood level. HUD's Community Challenge Planning Grant Program also supports the development of affordable housing through the development and adoption of inclusionary zoning ordinances and other activities such as acquisition of land for affordable housing projects.

The new program builds on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an innovative new interagency collaboration, launched by President Obama in June 2009, between the DOT, HUD, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Guided by six Livability Principles, the Partnership is designed to remove the traditional federal government silos that exist between departments and strategically target the agencies’ transportation, land use, environmental, housing and community development resources to provide communities the resources they need to build more livable, sustainable communities.

DOT & HUD have decided to issue this NOFA jointly in order to better align transportation, housing, economic development, land use planning, and to improve linkages between DOT & HUD's programs. Pre-applications are due by July 26, 2010 at 5 p.m. EDT, and applications must be submitted by August 23, 2010 at 5 p.m. EDT. Only pre-applications received through Grants.gov will be deemed properly filed. For more information on how to apply, please review the notice of funding availability (NOFA) on the HUD Web site.