| New Opportunities for Sustainable
Communities By Kimberly Peterson  Mayor Susan Savage led eleven mayors in a lively discussion at the Sustainable Communities Task Force meeting on Sunday morning where the group met with new allies in the pursuit of making their cities more livable. HUD Assistant Secretary for Policy, Development and Research Susan Wachter outlined several new initiatives to help cities become more sustainable and told the mayors that her agency is looking forward to more interaction with local officials. Specifically, President Clinton’s FY2000 budget includes a request for HUD’s Regional Connections Initiative to be funded at $150 million. The Department of Transportation’s Community Choices program and HUD’s $150 million Redevelopment of Abandoned Buildings program round out the tools available to cities. HUD has also convened a group of federal agencies - HUD, EPA and DOT - to remove barriers for cities accessing federal programs. Wachter also announced that HUD and the Joint Center will hold a regionalism summit with Secretary Cuomo and Vice President Gore sometime this year. Ralph Grossi, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT), addressed urban/rural cooperation in land use and in preserving America’s farmland. AFT has entered into a new partnership with the Conference of Mayors to promote cooperation between cities and farmers in land use planning and revitalizing center cities to take development pressure off of America’s valuable farmland. The best way for mayors to learn about creating sustainable communities is to share lessons learned with each other. Two mayors on the cutting edge of working within their regions offered the mayors insights into what has worked at home. Mayor Pam Miller of Lexington, Kentucky shared a unique plan her city/county combined government has adopted to compensate farmers for the loss of their development rights due to minimum lot size requirements for land sold to developers. Lexington has enacted a plan to provide $75 million in funding over 25 years that will enable Kentucky to maintain its horse farming character in the face of increasing development pressures. Mayor Clavelle of Burlington, Vermont has two efforts in place to combat sprawl. Burlington’s partnership with Chittenden County has helped the region define what sprawl is and how to address the equity and education components of sustainability. The newly announced Burlington Legacy Program is helping the city define steps toward creating a more livable community.
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