Webinar June 29,Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities Program 4:30 pm EDT

From: Sustainable Communities 

Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 4:58 PM
To: Sustainable Communities
Subject: Announcing the Second Webinar on the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities Program

As announced earlier this month, HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities and EPA’s Offices of Sustainable Communities, Water, and Brownfields and Land Revitalization have issued a joint Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities Program.

HUD and EPA will be hosting a second webcast to discuss this funding opportunity and answer questions related to the NOFA on Wednesday, June 29, at 4:30 pm Eastern Time.

In order to participate in the webinar on the Capacity-Building NOFA  you will need both to call in by phone and to log in online.  Instructions are as follows.

Telephone Access

In order to hear webinar audio, please call (800) 762-7308.  There is no passcode—an operator will ask for your name and other optional information, and then connect you to the call.

Internet Access

In order to view the webinar, please visit https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/hud/join?id=7GRGCR&role=attend.  You can log on up to 30 minutes before the meeting start time.  If that link doesn’t work for some reason, you can go to https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/hud/join and enter the meeting ID, 7GRGCR.

We urge you to check beforehand to ensure that LiveMeeting works on your computer.

We look forward to your participation.

We will send out an email with the access information shortly.

Applications for the NOFA are due July 8, 2011. Nonprofit organizations, local or state public agencies, for-profit organizations, nationally recognized and accredited Universities or Colleges, or any combination of eligible entities as a Capacity Building Team are eligible to apply for funding. For more information on how to apply, including recently posted FAQs, please review the NOFA by clicking here.

For more information on this funding opportunity, please visit hud.gov/sustainability, or contact Rachel Kirby in HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at rachel.t.kirby@hud.gov.

Regional Community Development News - Top Stories - June 27, 2011

1. New Report: Most Aging Baby Boomers Face Poor Mobility Options : Center for Neighborhood Technology


CNT provided the analysis for the new Transportation4America report, Aging in Place, Stuck Without Options, out today on the cities that have worst mobility options for seniors. Large cities with the poorest transit access for seniors included Atlanta, Riverside-San Bernardino (CA), Houston, Detroit, and Dallas-90% of seniors in Atlanta will lack transit access in 2015. Medium-sized cities (1million-3million) with the poorest transit access for seniors are Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth-Arlington, Nashville, and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. By 2015, 88% of seniors in Kansas City will have poor access to public transit.


CNT Research Director Peter Haas ... “As you see in the cities that top the worst mobility options for seniors, urban form is more spread out. Baby boomers by and large were raised in more dispersed communities where auto-dependency was the favored mode of transport. As the boomers age in these areas, they will be most affected by lack of public transportation.”
...


2. Nevada law shifts balance of power on Tahoe planning agency - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee


...


The law is a manifestation of Nevada's mounting frustration with Tahoe development restrictions. Though critics say TRPA has rarely balked at any major development project at the lake, cumbersome regulations often produce years of delay and extra compliance costs.


"It's an issue about the pace of work that gets done," said Maureen McCarthy, executive director of the Tahoe Science Consortium. "Nevada's position is driven heavily by the economic climate. The state is broke, and by comparison to California, Nevada is really broke."


McCarthy's group helps government officials understand the science that affects Tahoe. She said TRPA has been invaluable in that regard because it welcomes that science and incorporates it into decisions.


... "We don't want to see the baby thrown out with the bath water, and the baby is science."...


California state Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Roseville, supports the new Nevada law. His district includes the California portion of Lake Tahoe, ...


3. Senecas seek bigger role as area developers - Business - The Buffalo News


The Seneca Nation of Indians wants to be a bigger player in economic development across Western New York and into Pennsylvania.


The nation hosted a meeting of economic development officials from both states Thursday in its Seneca Allegany Casino to learn what each other has to offer and how they can work together in the future.


“For the longest time, I’ve wanted to get all the IDAs and development agencies in this region together in one room to discover and discuss what we have in common,” said Robert Odawi Porter, the Seneca Nation president.


“Let’s see how we can all work together to foster and build economic development options to benefit all our people, whether they live within Seneca, New York or Pennsylvania boundaries,” Porter said. “Good business knows no boundaries.”


... meeting was one of the first times that economic development officials from the Seneca Nation and five New York and two Pennsylvania counties had gotten together to talk about economic development.


4. EDITORIAL: Charting the course for economic growth - Northwest Indiana


The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's major study of the greater Chicago area -- from southeast Wisconsin to Northwest Indiana -- is one more effort to chart a course for the area's future.


The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is leading the Paris-based OEDC's tri-state study to analyze the region's economic impact. In the process, the chamber will gauge the area's economic competitiveness, attractiveness, sustainability and political climate compared to other major cities around the world.As a major study, the effort includes amassing an army of data. But it's also a call to arms for people and organizations to improve the situation here.


The Gary and Region Investment Project ...is a similar undertaking for Northwest Indiana.... 


"I think people are recognizing that we could be in trouble unless we take steps to act,"  Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Foundation President .... "There's a recognition on a global scale that regional approaches ... make sense."
...


5. Next American City » Magazine » The Enabling City


We face massive challenges … and we are inspired.” This is the opening line of what until a few years ago would have been considered an improbable urban manifesto. Crafted in 2006 by the Social Silicon Valley collective, Towards City 2.0 is a compelling call to arms that was submitted to an international ideas competition launched by officials in Helsinki, Finland. Confronted with the need to address issues of rapid population growth and environmental change, 14 towns and municipalities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Region turned to the public, looking for solutions that would address their residential, land use and transportation needs of the future. In six incredibly insightful pages, City 2.0 details the collective’s vision for a city that doubles as an innovation hub. Here, hyperlocal ideas are connected to the larger city fabric through a “social innovation mayor,” a political figure responsible for driving long-term structural changes by unlocking the capacity of others to ...


6. Human Transit: that influential texas "urban mobility report" 


.. Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Madison ... a small but sharp audience gathered to hear Tim Lomax of the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) debate Joe Cortwright of CEOs for Cities.  Tim was there to defend TTI's influential Urban Mobility Report (UMR), an annual compendium of statistics that are widely used to define how US cities think about mobility problems and to benchmark these cities against each other.  Joe was there to attack TTI's methodology as biased against compact, sustainable cities. 


The technical core of the argument is simple.  TTI's Travel Time Index, one of their more quoted products, is a ratio of peak congested travel times by car against uncongested travel times by car.  In other words, travel times are said to be "worse" only if they get much longer in peak commute hours than they are midday. 


This ratio inevitably gives "better" scores to cities where normal uncongested travel times are pretty long -- in other words, spread-out cities. ...


...




7. Regional committee to go the distance - Australia


A new Ministerial Advisory Council is to be established to advise the Minister for Regional Australia on issues affecting country communities.


   The Minister, Simon Crean said the new Council would give regional communities even stronger backing at the highest level of government.


   Mr Crean said $4.3 billion was budgeted for key investments in regional communities including health and hospitals, skills, higher education and infrastructure.


   He said the Government had strengthened the role of the nation’s 55 Regional Development Australia Committees and was driving a new place-based approach to help deliver local solutions to local issues.


“We are determined to make sure regional communities can meet the challenge of an economy in transition and reach their full potential,” Mr Crean said.
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8. Development Blueprint For County Clare Is Launched - Ireland


The Mayor of Clare launched the Clare County Development Plan 2011-2017 today describing it as a “window of opportunity for the County to foster innovation, creativity and new sustainable, inclusive development.”


Councillor Christy Curtin joined Council officials as well as Clare’s 31 other Elected Members at the official launch in Aras Contae an Chláir.


The Clare County Development Plan 2011-2017 sets out an overall strategy for the proper planning and sustainable development of the functional area of Clare County Council. The six-year blueprint replaces the existing County Development Plan 2005 and is the sixth such Plan since 1964.


... Mayor Curtin stated: “The primary goal of this Plan is to position County Clare as a driver for local and regional growth through harnessing the potential of its unique location, quality of life, natural resources and other competitive advantages.  Ultimately, the Plan seeks to make County Clare a better place to live in, work and visit.”


...


9. Cisco CEO Keynotes at 2011 Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Conference


John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems


Enhancing capabilities through regional collaboration.  The tech community has provided the opportunity to enhance our communications and coordination.


What is changing?  Market transitions don't wait for anyone.  Security and safety is another piece of this.  Think about what social media brings to the table, but in a secure fashion.  The public sector is going to get leaner and meaner. Today it is a network economy feeding on information.  Now you have so much data that you need to access the relevant data.  Dynamic is the way to think about it.  Interagency coordination is needed.


Constant change is going to be tough.  Collaboration is the answer, not command and control.  Need to outthink and outmaneuver the events that are going to impact us.  We used to function in the PC world.  Today it is all about mobile.  By 2013 there will be 1 trillion devices connecting people across the world.Getting these all to work with a seamless interface is the key...for future collaboration.


10. Carl Zimmer: A Planet of Viruses - The Long Now Foundation - FORA.tv


The Earth's atmosphere is determined in large part by ocean bacteria; every day viruses kill half of them. Every year in the oceans, viruses transfer a trillion trillion genes between host organisms. They evolve faster than anything else, and they are a major engine of the evolution of the rest of life. Our own bodies are made up of 10 trillion human cells, 100 trillion bacteria, and 4 trillion very busy viruses. Some of them kill us. Many of them help us. Some of them are us. Viral time is ancient and blindingly fast.


Science journalist Carl Zimmer's wrote "A Planet of Viruses" and explains in this presentation what is known about the viruses. SARS, HIV and H1N1 are covered, as well as the need for an annual vaccination, since viruses mutate so rapidly. The other Long Now Foundation videos at this site are worth a look. Steward Brand, publisher of "The Whole Earth Catalog" is the founder and moderator for questions after the presentation.  


More links: http://www.delicious.com/I.see.regions.work

Regional Community Development News - Top Stories - June 26, 2011

1. Gaylord and stock show project has some in Denver and Aurora taking sides - The Denver Post


Denver and Aurora are gearing up for a modern-day border war over the biggest deal to be announced in the region in a decade.


At issue is a planned Aurora hotel and theme park that could get the largest public subsidy the state has ever awarded, and the possible relocation of one of Denver's most beloved institutions — the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo.


It's a tale rife with all the drama of the Wild West, ...


"The challenge with regionalism is you can't create a doughnut. If we keep shipping our tax base and our cultural institutions to cities in the ring around us, there won't be anything left to support Denver itself," ... president of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association.


Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown said the development proposal and resulting tension suggest a fracture in the mostly cooperative dealings among economic developers and business advocacy groups.


"It reveals that regionalism and intergovernmental cooperation look great on a bumper sticker or in a speech, but actually we're all territorial animals," he said.


Absent from the debate is Gov. John Hickenlooper, who during his eight years as Denver mayor touted regionalism as critical to the health of the city and surrounding communities. ...


2. East Side suburbs must consider police, fire, trash services; video: residents, businesses react | cleveland.com


Moreland Hills picks up trash once a week. Woodmere collects twice. Orange pays a garbage contractor. Pepper Pike ...


Trash -- perhaps the most regular, most visible chore municipal governments perform -- is something all residents worry about. And it's one of many issues the four East Side suburbs must study before asking voters to consider merging.


The communities' mayors announced Wednesday they are studying a merger in the most significant step toward regionalism Cuyahoga County has ever seen. Now comes the tough stuff: comparing police staffing, mapping fire coverage, negotiating tax rates and compromising on employee benefits.


The suburbs were once part of Orange Township. Now, they share schools and recreation programs. The villages of Moreland Hills, Orange and Woodmere collaborate for dispatch services, and all four communities contract for income tax collection.


But integrating the four into one city of 13,500 residents and 18 square miles? That's a daunting proposition.
...


3. After the quake: old new town solution for new overspill problem - Cities Matter


Our vision


The long-term shape of Auckland could be a 100 km-long 'city'.  It would retain one clear major centre – a green CBD – but there could be a dozen secondary city centres. They would lie from north to south – like pearls on the chain – along a natural central spine.  They would be urban in appearance.  They would be separated by the greens of farmland, town belts, and parks, but well connected by private and public transport.


This alternative vision builds on reality: Aucklanders live on an isthmus and that shapes our choices.  (Some live on an isthmus within an isthmus).  The completion of the western ring motorway and planned investment in the rail – if it happens -- will only reinforce the north-south development of the city, its region, and its hinterland. It is hard to imagine planning policies that could force change on this natural geography without compounding congestion and costs.We can have a future in which settlements of various sizes (towns, villages, ...


4. Bencini Balks At Board’s Rush To Summer - re: Piedmont Triad Council of Governments (PTCOG)


... Bencini, who's been a major backer of regionalism, and of the county's participation in the PTCOG, still had a number of questions.
Bencini said publicly in the days before the meeting that he'd heard from some sources there were other duties the county would have to either contract for or hire additional county staff to handle if the county were not a member of PTCOG.

Bencini asked if Guilford County would need to hire any additional staff to take over other duties formally performed by COG.

"We should not have to contract anything else," Fox said.

Commissioner Kay Cashion asked county staff if the county's membership was still a possibility at some point in the future.

"The door is still open," Fox said.

Gibson said he didn't support the motion to contract out the service for $52,000 instead of joining the organization the county had been a member of for 40 years.

"We talk big talk about regionalism and working with other governments in this area," Gibson said.

He said it seemed now like all of that was just lip service, since the county was no longer going to be a member the group.
"I think that's the wrong thing to do," Gibson said.

Bencini and Gibson couldn't find any support on the board, which voted to pay the COG $52,000 to administer the grants as a service for non-members.

...

More links: http://www.delicious.com/I.see.regions.work