Whats in the TOD grant and Sustainable Communities Catalyst Projects

Whats in the TOD grant

The $5 million Sustainable Communities grant to the Puget Sound Regional Council will fund a multipronged strategy to accelerate transit-oriented development in the region. Heres whats in the package:

Equitable opportunity. Working through nonprofit groups in neighborhoods affected by rail corridors and stations, money will go toward public health, housing needs, and other concerns and desires of moderate-to low-income groups. The money will also be used for public information campaigns about transit corridors, planning and transit-oriented development.

Corridor-based compacts. Leaders from the public and private sectors will convene to set development guidelines for each of the three light rail corridors in the region: the north corridor from Seattle to Lynnwood, the east corridor to Bellevue and Redmond, and the operating line from Seattle to the airport. The decisions, compacts, will commit transportation agencies, local governments, neighborhoods, businesses, stakeholders, residents and public health agencies to working toward common goals around transit-oriented development.

Demonstration projects. Seattles Northgate and the Tacoma Dome area will each receive substantial amounts of grant money to boost planning efforts that help transform them into regional transit hubs that are also models of dense, sustainable development, and which will establish predictable approval processes for future projects to encourage more participation from private developers.

Interactive tools. Decision Commons is an automated, interactive program now under development that will allow neighborhoods and other stakeholder groups to see, in simulated models, how zoning and design decisions affect their immediate environment. They will also see how those decisions affect greenhouse gas emissions and other factors in the larger environment.

Sustainable Communities Catalyst Projects

Northgate: A $1 million portion of the grant will fund a multiphase master plan and environmental review at Northgate around the Metro bus hub and future light rail station. This will take place even as Sound Transits Northgate Station design is completed in the next two to three years, with right-of-way acquisition and construction beginning in 2016. The plan will combine workforce housing, light rail and bus rapid transit, and pedestrian and bicycle improvements to create a full-fledged urban neighborhood. Future development is likely to include more than 500 units of housing. Northgate already has one of the regions most significant transit-oriented developments, Thornton Place, with more than 300 apartments and condominium units in a mixed-use community. About 20 percent of the residents of Thornton Place do not own a car.

Tacoma Dome: This $650,000 project will allow at least 30 million square feet of new floor space in a 500-acre section of downtown Tacoma adjacent to existing light and commuter rail lines. This is a unique demonstration planning project along the light rail corridor, made possible by a 2010 Washington state law that authorizes areawide environmental review, with expanded public participation, and eliminates project-by-project environmental appeals. The city of Tacoma is applying for a HUD grant that would boost the total investment to $1 million and cover 60 million square feet.