SEMCOG snags $2.8M Sustainable Communities grant

Regional sustainability will be the focus of $2.8 million awarded to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments to unify transportation with housing and redevelopment. Conan Smith, Michigan Suburbs Alliance executive director and member of SEMCOG's executive committee, says planning for regional sustainability is important even though the area is not growing in population, like other grant winners.

"We're in a totally different boat," he says. "How do you create sustainability as people leave? These are big planning questions for the future of a metro region that is significantly smaller than a decade ago."

"What [the grant] does is integrate those systems -- transportation, housing, economic development -- around those concepts of sustainability."

Smith agrees that while much planning has been done in the past with an unequal amount of action, this award isn't dependent on other funding. "It gives us the opportunity to look at metro Detroit in a way that's never been viewed before," he says. "It's about what can we do with the assets that we have here in place right now that will allow us to realize this vision from a variety of actors."

The grants, from a partnership between the U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Dept of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency, focus on actually implementing plans, rather than just funding yet another study. "We have the opportunity to do something really wonderful, and we ought to take that opportunity," Smith says.

Source: Conan Smith, executive committee member for SEMCOG and executive director of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance
Writer: Kristin Lukowski

SEMCOG snags $2.8M Sustainable Communities grant

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