Connecting housing policy and sustainability

Obama HUD Secretary speaks

Wendy Natt, Feb 18, 09.

New Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan spoke recently at the NYU Furman Center Housing Policy Conference, where he talked about his hopes for using housing policy and the work of his agency to make housing and sustainability goals a unified, cooperative effort between agencies at the federal, state, and local levels.

Carol Coletta from CEO’s for Cities summarized Donovan’s talk. The following excerpts are a summary transcript of Secretary Donovan’s comments about creating a housing policy that works toward broader sustainability within the economy:

“This is an area more than any other where we can begin to advance simultaneous goals of housing and sustainability. There is a growing recognition that the ways we build housing and our cities are in no way sustainable. That must change. HUD touches 1 in 10 homes in this country, so HUD can set examples for private sector in retrofitting buildings and adding renewable energy technologies for energy efficiency. HUD can catalyze the way housing is built and renovated across the residential market overall that will have a dramatic effect on emissions.

But focusing on housing is not enough. We must focus on location efficiency, and HUD must be the leader within the administration on this issue. This budget will create an Office of Sustainability within HUD and partner with DOE and DOT to create a team within the administration to focus on how we make our nation more sustainable.”

These excerpts were also reported in a Smart Growth America news commentary on the significance of Donovan’s vision of intersecting government agencies working toward larger, complementary goals under the Obama Administration’s plans for sustainability.

See the Congress for the New Urbanism’s report on “The Location Efficiency of Urban Neighborhoods,” which uses the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, a series of interactive maps co-developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Reconnecting America’s Center for Transit-Oriented Development, to compare household travel costs (driving vs. transit) in urban centers and outskirts of several US metro regions.

Also, read about the Institute for Location Efficiency’s Location Efficient Mortgage (LEM) program that provides more affordable mortgages for homes located in transit-accessible, walkable neighborhoods. The program is currently available in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

(Photo credit: presta)