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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Overview
(from hud.gov)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
mission of the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities is to create
strong, sustainable communities by connecting housing to jobs, fostering local
innovation, and helping to build a clean energy economy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><br>
In order to better connect housing to jobs, the office will work to coordinate
federal housing and transportation investments with local land use decisions in
order to reduce transportation costs for families, improve housing
affordability, save energy, and increase access to housing and employment
opportunities. By ensuring that housing is located near job centers and
affordable, accessible transportation, we will nurture healthier, more
inclusive communities – which provide opportunities for people of all ages,
incomes, races, and ethnicities to live, work, and learn together. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><br>
In order to foster and encourage local innovation, we will create an
unprecedented partnership across federal agencies and provide resources and
tools to help communities realize their own visions for building more livable,
walkable, environmentally sustainable regions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
display:none'>In addition, the office will help contribute to building a new
clean energy economy by working with other federal agencies, states and local
communities, and industry partners to catalyze innovation and develop
strategies to reduce energy consumption in the residential sector. These
innovations will help create new green jobs, spur economic growth, and assist
regions to become more competitive on a national and global scale. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
display:none'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
display:none'>There are two main areas of operation that work together to
comprise the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities: the Sustainable
Communities Initiative and the Energy Innovation Fund.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
display:none'><br>
The objective of the Sustainable Communities Initiative is to stimulate more
integrated and sophisticated regional planning to guide state, metropolitan,
and local investments in land use, transportation and housing, as well as to
challenge localities to undertake zoning and land use reforms. This
Initiative has four main tasks. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
display:none'><br>
First, the office partners with our counterparts in the Department of
Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to offer
Sustainable Communities Planning Grants. <br>
Through this partnership we seek to catalyze a new generation of integrated
metropolitan transportation, housing, land use and energy planning, using state
of the art data, analytic tools and Geographic Information Systems. Second, the
Initiative funds Sustainable Communities Challenge Grants to provide a local
complement to the regional planning initiative, enabling multi-jurisdictional
partnerships to establish policies, codes, tools and critical capital
investments needed to achieve sustainable and inclusive development.
Third, the Initiative supports capacity-building and a clearinghouse designed
to support both grant recipients, as well as other communities interested in
implementing sustainable community strategies. Finally, the Initiative
provides funding for a joint HUD-DOT-EPA research effort designed to advance
transportation and housing linkages on a number of levels.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
display:none'><br>
The objective of the Energy Innovation Fund is to catalyze innovations in the
residential energy efficiency sector that have promise of replicability and
help create a standardized home energy efficient retrofit market. The
office partners with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to test, and
where feasible bring to scale, new and innovative products such as energy
efficient and location efficient mortgages. A Multifamily Energy Pilot
will increase energy efficiency in the multifamily housing market. An
Energy Efficient Mortgage Innovation pilot program is intended to make it
easier and less expensive for homebuyers and existing homeowners to finance
energy improvements, as well as to utilize improved home energy rating tools
that will provide better information on home energy costs for consumers when
buying or renting a home, or refinancing an existing mortgage. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";display:none'><br>
In addition, the office collaborates with HUD program offices, DOE and EPA to
develop strategies to reduce energy consumption in public and assisted housing
– some 5 million units of affordable housing nation-wide whose energy
costs approach $6 billion annually. Significant opportunities exist for
lowering these costs; the Office will play a key role in working with HUD
partners and programs to develop strategies, identify incentives, increase
capacity, and lower barriers to implementing energy efficiency programs and
installing clean energy systems in these properties. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Read
more...</span> <a
href="http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/program_offices/sustainable_housing_communities">http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/program_offices/sustainable_housing_communities</a>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Dan
Yates</span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>SOKC
President</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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