The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget for fiscal 2011 includes some excellent news for sustainable development:

• HUD’s $150 million Sustainable Communities Initiative will provide $100 million in grants for regional planning efforts, jointly administered by HUD and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The grants are intended to help officials overcome the current fragmentation of transportation and housing planning. Another $40 million will be used as community challenge grants for metropolitan, local, and state leaders to make community changes in zoning, land use rules, and building codes. The remaining $10 million will be used to research the effectiveness of the entire initiative. The program’s funding is through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program.

• HUD’s new $50 million Energy Innovation Fund is designed to catalyze a residential energy retrofit and new construction market in the United States. The fund will help streamline the energy audit and retrofit process and create new products to position the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) as a leader in energy efficiency and green lending, test the impact of reducing or offsetting mortgage insurance premiums as an incentive for property owners to invest in energy and other key strategies, and support promising local energy funds.

• The HOPE VI program got a new name, Choice Neighborhoods, and an expanded mandate to revitalize the areas around public housing, including links to the entire community, from schools to transportation to jobs. Congress funded both the old HOPE VI program and the new Choice Neighborhoods with $200 million, up from $120 million for HOPE VI alone in 2009.

• HUD’s program to encourage the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfield sites tainted by environmental contamination received a boost to $17 million, up from $10 million in 2009.

In addition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 committed massive amounts of funding for energy efficiency and green building improvements: $4 billion in capital funds for public housing and $250 million for assisted multifamily housing retrofits.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 appropriated $100 million for brownfields cleanup and $200 million for the removal of leaking underground storage tanks to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which provides $100 million to clean up brownfields sites.

Although the DOT budget does not have immediatele implications for sustainable developers, new light rail stops, for example, may provide new sources for transit-oriented development.

• The proposed DOT budget for fiscal 2010 includes $10.3 billion for the Federal Transit Administration.
• The budget provides $2.7 billion for the Federal Railroad Administration.