HUD is integrating
green criteria into its evaluation of which projects to fund. Secretary Shaun
Donovan announced in May that HUD will
apply LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED
ND) standards when reviewing applications for Sustainable Communities Planning Grants.
LEED ND will be used to score the location efficiency of grant applications. “It’s
time that federal dollars stopped encouraging sprawl and started lowering the
barriers to the kind of sustainable development our country needs and our
communities want,” said Donovan.
LEED ND was launched in April
as the “benchmark for healthy green communities, integrates green building into
community development, helping to reduce sprawl, increase transportation
choices, decrease automobile dependence, encourage healthy living and protect
threatened species.”