HUD Rethinking Affordable Housing Location, Financing

Sweeping policy changes are in the works for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), moving the agency toward smarter, sustainable development. As HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan told attendees at the Congress for the New Urbanism in May 2010, “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.”

Among its initiatives for smarter growth, HUD will encourage transit-oriented development by using LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) when screening potential projects, and by updating financing rules to allow mixed-use development. Donovan has also announced a pilot program, Choice Neighborhoods, for encouraging responsible, mixed-use development.