Menendez introduces Livable Communities bill

Senator Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, has rounded up 17 co-sponsors, none of them Republican, for a bill that would formally authorize the HUD Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities and its Regional Planning and Community Challenge grant programs.

DC.Streetsblog reports that the bill would restore funding for those programs to 2010 levels and would create a loan program for transit-oriented development projects. 

"In comparison with the 2009 version, the total dollar amount of the five-year bill is smaller — $880 million compared to almost $2 billion," Tanya Snyder writes on Streetsblog. In deference to Congressional insistence on reducing the deficit, "Menendez kept this bill a little more modest, holding spending at 2010 levels (before the livability programs got hammered with cuts earlier this year)," Streetsblog says. How much Republican support the bill might get is unclear.

Streetsblog has posted the full text of the bill here.

For more in-depth coverage on this topic:

• Subscribe to New Urban News to read all of the articles (print+online) on implementation of greener, stronger, cities and towns.

• Get New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide, packed with more than 800 informative photos, plans, tables, and other illustrations, this book is the best single guide to implementing better cities and towns.

• See the July-August 2011 issue of New Urban News. Downtown makeover, agrarian urbanism, bike sharing, bike-ped issues, TIGER III livability grants, unlocking remnant land value, selling the neighborhood, Landscape Urbanism vs. New Urbanism, new urban resort, granny flats, The Great Reset.

• See the April-May 2011 issue of New Urban News. Transit-oriented development, “Cycle tracks,” gentrification versus revitalization, HUD grants, economic silver linings, light rail development, pocket neighborhoods, Close-in Maryland housing less expensive, transit outperforms green buildings, Charter Awards, shift to smaller stores