HUD's Role

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The Department of Housing and Urban Development has played an integral role in the planning, development, implementation and ongoing success of the Renewal Communities and Empowerment Zones. When this Initiative was first announced in 1994, HUD and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were named as joint lead implementing agencies. HUD would administer the urban part of the Initiative, while USDA would administer the rural portion of the program. In December 2001, however, HUD became involved heavily in the rural portion also when the Department designed 12 of 40 Renewal Communities in rural areas.

As a lead implementing agency, HUD offers technical assistance on revitalization strategies with the RC and EZ designees. In September 2008, Director of the Office of Community Renewal, Pamela Glekas Spring, toured the New Balance sports laboratory with the City of Lawrence, Massachusetts Community Development Director, Jim Barnes, and RC Program Manager, Sharon Dubois to learn first hand how the RC incentives are fueling business expansion in the Lawrence RC. Also, in 2008, Director Glekas Spring traveled to Chicago to help provide technical assistance to representatives from the City of Chicago, as well as training on the Empowerment Zone and Renewal Community programs to the HUD CPD field office staff and City of Chicago staff, including the Chicago RC and EZ directors.

On April 24-26, 2007, Ms. Pamela Glekas Spring and other headquarters personnel from the Office of Community Planning and Development visited New Orleans to tour hurricane-destroyed neighborhoods and areas under reconstruction and to discuss redevelopment efforts with City officials and HUD field office personnel. Ms. Glekas Spring also helped to lead a discussion on HUD's expectations of the performance of the New Orleans Renewal Community in marketing special tax incentives to businesses in the New Orleans RC and the RC's obligations in fulfilling special state and local commitments and economic growth promotion requirements.

The Office of Community Renewal has provided technical assistance on a much bigger scale too. In May 2002 and in the spring and fall of 2003, HUD's Office of Community Renewal helped to host six national technical assistance workshops for representatives of the nation's Renewal Communities and Empowerment Zones. Thousands of representatives from more than 75 urban and rural communities attended these workshops, together with U.S. Congressional leaders, business owners, accountants, and local community development leaders. HUD and RC/EZ representatives held dozens of seminars at these workshops on the valuable tax incentives available to businesses in the RC/EZ communities.

HUD has also printed and distributed more than 100,000 copies of its valuable Tax Incentive Guide for Businesses in the Renewal Communities and Empowerment Zones to thousands of businesses and community leaders nationwide. Readers can obtain a free hard copy by calling 800-998-9999.

HUD's Office of Community Renewal also provides technical assistance to the RC/EZ directors through satellite broadcasts and monthly teleconference calls. Representatives of different federal agencies, including the Department of Treasury, IRS, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund have joined these monthly calls to provide valuable information on technical and financial assistance available to the distressed RC/EZ areas.

HUD also operates the Enterprise Geographic Information System Address Locator on its web site, which has become a remarkably popular tool among the 60,000 - 90,000 businesses and agencies who use it each month. This Locator allows businesses to determine if any street address is located in an RC or EZ. Since businesses are eligible for valuable tax incentives if they are located in these areas or hire employees who live in these areas, the Address Locator is critical to the 300,000 businesses located in the nation's Renewal Communities and Empowerment Zones. These tax incentives are worth approximately $11 billion and consist of employment credits, work opportunity tax credits, commercial revitalization deductions, tax-exempt bond financing, capital gains exclusions, and many other incentives. Be sure to visit this Address Locator at www.hud.gov/crlocator.

HUD's Office of Community Renewal also monitors and evaluates the performance of the RC/EZs using its Internet-based performance measurement system (PERMS). The RC/EZ designees use PERMS to document the projects and programs they are implementing to achieve their local strategic plans and courses of action and they use the system each year also to submit their annual reports to HUD. PERMS not only cuts down on the paperwork burden facing the designees, but it also provides HUD with a low-cost mechanism for continually monitoring the progress of each designee. To review these projects within the annual reports that each RC and EZ designee has submitted to HUD, please visit http://www5.hud.gov/urban/perms/perms.asp