On Friday, October 15, 2010, Congressman Heath Shuler (D-Waynesville), Land-of-Sky Regional Council officials, and representatives from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a $1.6 million grant award for Sustainable Housing and Community Planning in Western North Carolina. The “WNC Livable Communities Consortium,” coordinated by Land-of-Sky, will synchronize local community planning efforts to integrate housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments. The group will create an Actionable Implementation Strategy that integrates existing plans into a comprehensive guide focusing on sustainable development throughout the region over the next 20 years.

The funding, won by Land-of-Sky through a competitive grant process, is part of $150 million allocated to HUD by Congress to establish a Sustainable Communities Initiative to improve regional planning efforts that integrate housing and transportation decisions. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are partners with HUD in the initiative.

Joe McKinney, Executive Director of Land-of-Sky Regional Council, said, “We are honored to be included as one of the forty-five regions in the nation to receive funding under this important initiative. The WNC Livable Communities Initiative will be an unprecedented collaboration between local governments, area non-profits, the private sector and our region’s communities. The purpose of the initiative is to help design our region’s future to ensure quality jobs, affordable housing, better transportation, cleaner energy, while preserving our region’s environment and culture well into the 21st century.”

Members of the WNC Livable Communities Consortium members include the Land-of-Sky Regional Council, the French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Land-of-Sky Rural Planning Organization, the City of Asheville, Buncombe County, the State of North Carolina, The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, AdvantageWest, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville Housing Authority, Asheville-Buncombe Sustainable Communities Initiative of the Asheville Hub, and the Asheville Design Center.

For more information on the grant, please click here.

For more information on the WNC Livable Communities Consortium, please click here to download a PDF of an overview of the project.