A delegation of senior staff from the Urban Land Institute (ULI), led by ULI Worldwide President Richard Rosan, met recently with members of the U.S. Department of Treasury transition team for President-elect Barack Obama to discuss the contributions the Institute can make in helping the incoming Administration address the current economic recession.
The discussion included ULI’s main priority areas – infrastructure, sustainability, workforce housing and capital markets -- showing how each of these four areas relates to priorities for the incoming Obama Administration. Each ULI priority, explained the group, is related to Obama’s proposal to use an economic stimulus package to create jobs through infrastructure projects, and to fund projects to “green” America and mitigate climate change.
Points made by the ULI representatives include:
Infrastructure: Don’t just spend, invest. First, fund high-profile, ready to go projects as immediate economic boost, then act strategically with infrastructure grants that, among other goals, leverage private-sector infrastructure funding through public-private partnerships and reward plans that reduce car dependency and vehicle miles traveled.
Sustainability: Climate change and energy conservation can be addressed through 1) retrofitting existing buildings, and 2) the location as well as construction of new buildings. The group suggested a federal tax credit to encourage retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient.
Workforce housing: The group pointed out that a shortage of workforce housing exists in many high-cost urban areas, despite the overall housing market collapse and the declines in prices for homes and gas. ULI suggested a federal tax credit to encourage the conversion of existing market-rate units to workforce housing units.
Capital markets: ULI outlined three issues it believes are of immediate concern to the U.S. Treasury: Facilitating the origination of new loans; facilitating the refinancing of $180 billion in existing loans that cannot be refinanced under existing terms; and managing the acquisition of toxic assets, and getting those assets placed back into the market.
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