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New York City, Miami, Connecticut Get Federal Assistance for Smart Growth

Release Date: 10/29/2008
Contact Information: Dave Ryan, (202) 564-4355 / [email protected]

(10/29/08) Communities in three states will receive technical assistance from EPA to help put the principles of efficient, affordable, and environmentally sensitive growth into action. Many communities want to foster economic growth, protect environmental resources, enhance public health, and plan for development, but lack the tools, resources, and information to achieve their goals. EPA’s smart growth technical assistance program helps with this need.

Under a federal contract, each community will receive direct technical assistance valued at approximately $45,000 from a team of national experts organized by EPA and other partners to work with local leaders. Team members will have expertise in disciplines relevant to each community’s unique needs. The projects, which were selected under a national competition that drew 47 applicants from 22 states and Puerto Rico, are as follows:

• The Capitol Regional Council of Government of Connecticut, representing 29 Hartford metropolitan area municipalities, has requested assistance in developing model zoning approaches that would use smart growth strategies to support development of affordable housing options.
• Concerned about the expansion of metropolitan Miami into areas adjacent to the Everglades National Park, Miami-Dade County, Florida has requested assistance to explore how management and oversight of a major planning tool – the Urban Development Boundary, which separates urban from non-urban development – might be changed to better support county growth goals.
• The City of New York’s Office of Comprehensive Neighborhood Economic Development has requested assistance to identify innovative strategies to support the green design, construction and management of affordable residential and mixed-use housing in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.