Nonprofit Insight Weekly Journal Of Federal Grant Opportunities - Week Of July 25
| Posted in Resource Roundup on Jul 29, 2011 by |
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This week, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development announced the availability of $95 million to support sustainable local initiatives through the FY 2011 Regional Planning and Community Challenge Planning Grant Programs from HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities.
This year’s Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program will encourage grantees to support regional planning efforts that integrate housing, land-use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure developments in a manner that empowers regions to consider how all of these factors work together to bring economic competitiveness and revitalization to a community. The program places priority on partnerships, including the collaboration of arts and culture, philanthropy, and innovative ideas to the regional planning process.
HUD has announced two funding categories for the program. The Group 1 category encourages the creation of Regional Plans for Sustainable Development that address housing, economic development, transportation, education, workforce development, energy, water, and environmental quality in an integrated fashion where such plans do not currently exist or where they exist but need to be significantly revised or enhanced. This category will support stakeholder-driven visioning and scenario planning exercises that are intended to address and harmonize critical land use and investment decisions, such as those for the location and the distribution of affordable housing, schools, and employment centers throughout the region; support cost-effective and sustainable transportation and water infrastructure investments; designate lands for conservation and ongoing agricultural use; proactively consider risks from disasters and climate change; and develop sophisticated mapping resources which communities can access to address these and other regional planning issues.
The second category of funding, Group 2, will support efforts to fine-tune existing regional plans so that they address the full complement of Livability Principles in an integrated fashion, the preparation of more detailed execution plans and maps for an adopted Regional Plan for Sustainable Development, and limited predevelopment planning activities for a catalytic project that is a significant aspect of the regional plan, and that would demonstrate the strength of the efforts of the coalition to achieve sustainability through the regional planning process. Applicants for the Group 2 category must already have an adopted long-range regional plan that is the accepted basis for future action.
Now in their second year, these programs build on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an innovative interagency collaboration between HUD, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide more sustainable housing and transportation choices for families and to develop the foundation for a 21st century economy. The Partnership is designed to remove the traditional silos that exist between federal departments and strategically target the agencies' transportation, land use, environmental, housing and community development resources to provide communities the resources they need to build more livable, sustainable communities.
The application process is a two-step funding process. The first step is a pre-application process. Pre-applications must be submitted by August 25, 2011 at 11:59:59 p.m. EDT to Grants.gov.
If an applicant successfully fulfills the pre-application phase, they will be invited to submit a full application requesting funding.
Information on many other federal, state and foundation grant opportunities is posted daily at nonprofitinsight.com.
Mary Peterson is President at Non-Profit Insight and Executive Director at the Springfield, MO based Peterson and Associates Consulting Group, LLC.
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Nonprofit Insight Nonprofit Organizations Grants Federal Grants U.S. Housing and Urban Development HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant
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