SEATTLE — November 8, 2010 — The Puget Sound Regional Council was recently awarded nearly $5 million from the federal government in the form of a planning grant under the new Sustainable Communities Program.
The Seattle Housing Authority is one of 18 organizations comprising the Central Puget Sound Sustainable Communities Consortium. The consortium includes nonprofit, environmental, social justice, development, and governmental organizations concerned with planning over the next several years to shape the region’s urban form and ensure that transportation improvements support sustainable development and foster vibrant, healthy neighborhoods for all.
The housing authority will participate in the Affordable Housing Group, which is seeking to encourage and facilitate a wide variety of housing choices along Puget Sound’s light rail corridors. Seattle Housing Authority’s Deputy Director Al Levine has worked closely with the planning group in preparing the grant application and advising on ways to integrate affordable housing.
Seattle Housing will also assist with the master planning for further development of affordable housing and amenities around Northgate.
The 3-year, $5 million federal grant will support efforts to capitalize on the more than $15 billion investment in new high capacity transit systems serving places where job and housing growth will be focused in the future. The new program — Growing Transit Communities: A Corridor Action Strategy for the Central Puget Sound Region — will support neighborhood planning for more sustainable communities around as many as 100 new transit centers that are expected in the region in the next 20 years. The new program will take a big picture approach, ultimately putting jobs and opportunity closer to where people live, while sustaining a healthy environment and a healthy economy in the decades to come.
For more information on the grant and the work of the Puget Sound Regional Council, click here.