The Senate is finally reviewing The Livable Communities Act that was proposed last August by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT). The act promotes livability grants for cities and the creation of an interagency office on sustainable communities. The House has been debating such a bill since February. In both, there would be moneys provided to municipalities for planning and implementation that would combine housing development, public transit and land-use planning for more sustainable cities that encourage density, public transportation and more walking and biking.
This new promotion of the concepts of livability follows the administrations move for Sustainable Communities that coordinates the efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Transportation. The act would provide $4 billion in funding, with $400 million slated for planning, and would create a new executive office within the HUD to administer the program.
This Act is strongly supported by local government organizations that praised the federal government’s role in helping shape planning policy. The key benefits that the Act aims to address are high foreclosure rates, climate change and oil dependency, deteriorating infrastructure, traffic congestion, and the loss of farmland. The Act has a degree of resistance, for in this first hearing it’s telling that no Republican senators were in attendance.
