EPA Invades Atlanta

Atlanta among Recipients of Smart Growth Assistance Provided by EPA

ATLANTA – Today, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that the City of Atlanta, GA will receive technical assistance through the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program.

EPA consulted with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation to select this year’s 43 recipients from 121 applicants through a competitive process. EPA staff and national experts will conduct workshops that focus on the specific sustainability goal each community chose in their initial application to EPA. The agency offered nine tools this year, including using smart growth to build economic and fiscal health, exploring neighborhood planning for healthy aging, creating a Green Streets Strategy, and creating sustainable strategies for small cities and rural areas.

Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities is a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities among EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The interagency collaboration coordinates federal investments in infrastructure, facilities, and services to get better results for communities and use taxpayer money more efficiently. The partnership is helping communities across the country create more housing choices, make transportation more efficient and reliable, reinforce existing investments, and support vibrant and healthy neighborhoods that attract businesses.

Atlanta is receiving assistance with supporting Equitable Development. This tool will help communities evaluate their needs around equitable development and identify the most effective tools and strategies to address these priorities. Equitable development principles provide communities with a path to improve their quality of life and economic opportunities while ensuring that existing residents are not displaced and have full access to the benefits of these improvements. Equitable development is not just about affordable housing; it includes the full range of factors that contribute to residents’ quality of life, including access to high-quality employment; safe, walkable neighborhoods; regional transportation connections; and access to the amenities, services, and community institutions residents need to thrive.

“Creating resilient communities is vital to protecting public health and the environment, “said Regional Administrator Gwen Keys Fleming. “EPA’s Building Blocks Program will give city leaders and other community partners the necessary tools to stimulate local economies and promote thriving, sustainable communities”.

Nationally 43 communities - rural, urban, and suburban - will receive technical assistance to pursue sustainable growth that encourages local economic development while safeguarding people’s health and the environment.

To date, 141 communities have received EPA’s assistance through the Building Blocks program. Together, EPA, HUD and DOT form the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which coordinates investments in housing, transportation, and environmental protection to get better results for communities and use taxpayer money more efficiently.

Source: U.S. EPA [mailto:usaepa@govdelivery.com]  Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 5:17 PM Subject: New Release : Atlanta among Recipients of Smart Growth Assistance Provided by EPA,  More information on the Building Blocks program: http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/buildingblocks.htm

More information on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities:http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/partnership/index.html

Comments: 

HUD, DOT and EPA are implementing UN Agenda 21, created as an excuse to fight the man-made climate change hoax. The projects they propose will feel like “night of the living T-SPLOST” with expensive, unnecessary infrastructure for “economic development”.

The projects are meant to increase density and congestion and fill Atlanta with apartments on public transit bus and train routes to provide corporate cronies with land sale profits and work in the design, development and construction of apartments and retail development.  It will all look like Atlantic Station and will struggle for lack of renters and patrons. Jobs, unfortunately, will not be available within walking or biking distance and the economic fundamentals suggest that there will be fewer jobs.

Atlanta is the least dense metro area on the planet because of decades of poor transportation planning and our desire to flee from crime plagued areas. We will be taxed more for property and utilities to pay for this boondoggle including fees for water, natural gas, electricity, phone, etc.  In California, this crowd left cities in bankruptcy.

Most of this push will be cheerleading propaganda for regionalism and more local government-backed tax authorizing districts.  GDOT claims it will not have the funding to do much.  Money will be printed to give federal grants, laundered through state agencies like ARC, GDOT, MARTA and HUD. The EPA is here to implement its overreaching regulation of air and water, so hide your carbon and hang on to your property rights and wallets.

The real nasty regional plans have already been approved by Georgia’s rural county commissions in their Comprehensive Land Use Plans aimed at driving farmers out of business with EPA and USDA regulations and land grabs by government to turn farm land into “wildlife preserves”, because of our insatiable need for “green space” (for wild animals).

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader