Housing, Transportation & The Environment:
The Convergence of Transit, Green Building & Brownfield Remediation
March 10, 2010 8:30 a.m. to noon
Housing that is affordable, denser, well-designed, appropriately-sized and close to transit can solve a myriad of problems at once: energy and transportation costs are lower; homes become more affordable; people can walk or take public transit to work, shopping or other needs; people drive less and pollute less; Connecticut contributes less to climate change; development pressure upon natural lands and farms is reduced.
What locations, strategies, financing models and myth-busting are required to move developers and municipalities to create affordable homes - that will also lead to a cleaner environment, less sprawl and better public transit?
Future federal housing policy will put a premium on affordable, energy-efficient housing created near transit and existing infrastructure, the director of HUD's Hartford office told a full house of experts in housing, transit, environmental protection and government at The Lyceum March 10.
HUD's Julie Fagan told the gathering that the Sustainable Communities Initiative promoted by HUD, US DOT and EPA will seek to create such environmentally sound and strategically located housing through regional partnerships of government, philanthropies, the non-profit sector and the private sector.
In response, the experts in attendence widely agreed on the critical need for more coordination between these policy areas at a Lyceum forum on Housing, Transportation and the Environment: The Convergence of Transit, Green Building & Brownfield Remediation. The forum was the second installment in the series Housing: The Hub of Public Policy 2010, presented by the Partnership for Strong Communities, CT Dept. of Economic and Community Development and CT Housing Finance Authority.
Prior to the event, a 10-page briefing memo offering an overview of these issues was prepared by Partnership staff and given to participants to stimulate thinking. The briefing memo is available here.
Opening comments by Bill Cibes (HOMEConnecticut steering committee chair, 1000 Friends of Connecticut board, fmr. CT State University Chancellor, fmr. Office of Policy and Management Secretary and fmr. state legislator) urged greater consideration of the strong synergy and efficiency of land use approaches that acknowledge connections between policy areas, to make the most out of limited state funding, and set the stage for economic growth that can bring future revenue. With attention to where and how housing is built, Cibes said, Connecticut can simultaneously make housing more affordable, save energy, create walkable communities to leave cars off the road, increase transit ridership, foster downtown revitalization, preserve natural lands and farms, and decrease Connecticut’s damage to the climate.
Dara Kovel (CT Housing Finance Authority, and former affordable housing developer) amplified these ideas by noting that in addition to building housing that is energy efficient and uses renewable energies like solar or geothermal, Connecticut can better “go green” by encouraging denser, mixed-income, mixed-use development in sensible places like town centers or near transit. As an example, instead of surrounding train stations with a sea of surface parking, she said, that valuable land should instead be intensively developed to allow residents and workers to easily walk to and from the transit.
Pamela Elkow (Robinson & Cole attorney) described how a more streamlined and predictable regulatory environment can help developers tackle challenging brownfield remediation and redevelopment, and better encourage private investment in these developments. She also described how the paradigm of remediation is shifting from extensive removal of contaminants toward securing them in place and keeping them covered or encapsulated to keep housing residents safe. This approach saves significant time and money, can simplify some regulatory issues, and avoids accidental spreading of contamination during removal and transport.
Fagan said the pending Sustainable Communities Initiative pressed by CT’s U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, will provide regions with planning and implementation support to foster comprehensive integration of policies on housing development and affordability, transit, energy efficiency and environmental protection. She noted that in considering applications for this competitive funding, HUD will favor coordination between agencies, levels of government and policy areas.
These speakers’ comments set the stage for 7 fascinating and productive breakout conversations that gave the many talented people in attendance the opportunity to wrangle with these issues in more detail and develop concrete policy alternatives. Among the proposals offered were:
- State interagency councils at the commissioner and staff levels to better coordinate funding, permitting and other land use policies.
- More simplified and predictable permitting processes that don’t discourage development.
- Instead of dispersing state funds across all municipalities, prioritize locations best positioned for housing development, population growth and economic improvement, which can in turn generate economic growth and increased revenue for the state.
- Increased coordination in the Weatherization Assistance Program to energy retrofit housing for lower-income people, so that the CT Dept. of Social Services, regional Community Action Agencies, and other players are “on the same page” with regard to protocols.
- Creation of a new entity to coordinate the state’s various energy programs, to leverage those programs for better outcomes.
- “Front load” development processes for priority areas that are suitable for growth, like near transit or in town centers – including zoning, permitting and funding. This would shift governments’ stance from reactive to proactive; instead of waiting for developer applications to emerge and then considering its many ramifications, the state and municipalities would analyze priority areas to determine what communities and the state want and what will be expected of developers. Early funding of developments in these areas can spark private investment by reducing those lenders’ risk and showing public commitment.
Followup to this forum will collect, analyze and report in greater detail the policy alternatives generated by event participants. That followup reporting, along with all other material from the Hub series, will be available at www.housingpolicy2010.org.
Briefing Memo
Download the Housing, Transportation and the Environment briefing memo here.
Media Coverage
Housing: Transit Hub May Cut Energy Use
New Haven Register
2009 Forum
Read about last year's forum on Housing, Transportation and the Environment here.