HUD to Apply Neighborhood LEED Criteria to Grant Submissions
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan recently announced that LEED® for Neighborhood Development will be used to score the location efficiency of grant applications.
HUD will apply the criteria to grant submissions to the upcoming Sustainable Communities Planning Grants and others, totaling $3.25 billion in available grant funds.
“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,” said Donovan.
LEED ND, which launched in April as the benchmark for healthy green communities, integrates green building into community development.
Created in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Congress for the New Urbanism, the program acknowledges the link between transit-oriented development and proximity to services, amenities and jobs to human health benefits and economic capital, an important correlation confirmed in numerous studies and advocated for by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Connectivity to neighboring communities and their amenities and services through transit corridors and a well-connected street network, benefits citizens, businesses and the local economy of a new neighborhood development, the surrounding community, and ultimately the region.