Reconnecting America President And CEO Appointed To HUD Post

Reconnecting America President and CEO Shelley Poticha has been appointed Senior Advisor for Sustainable Housing and Communities at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan made the announcement on Friday.

“Shelley will help lead HUD’s effort to change the way we think about how our communities fit with how Americans live their lives,” Secretary Donovan said of her appointment. “Her wealth of experience will help move us forward in creating sustainable, greener and smarter communities.”

HUD is working with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) on legislation to create an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at HUD. Poticha will direct the office if the bill becomes law.

Shelley has been President and CEO of the national nonprofit Reconnecting America since 2004, where she has become a national leader for the reform of land use and transportation planning and policy. In that role she has helped stimulate a national conversation about the role of transit in shaping communities and making them more sustainable and affordable, and she has been a tireless advocate for diverse and inclusive neighborhoods.

Shelley also co-chairs the Transportation for America campaign, a broad coalition of 350 organizations ranging from AARP to the National Association of Realtors that is working with Congress on the reauthorization of the six-year transportation bill. The campaign goal is to ensure that transportation policy and investments support sustainability, affordability and livability. Her co-chair is Smart Growth America President and CEO Geoff Anderson.

"Shelley has worked with all levels of government on these issues. Secretary Donovan couldn't have made a better choice," said New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, President of Reconnecting America’s Board of Directors. "Shelley is one of this country's foremost experts on sustainable communities, and was an early promoter of an interagency partnership between HUD and the Federal Transit Administration.”

Poticha will advise HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims on sustainability issues. Sims was previously Executive for King County, Washington, and was also on Reconnecting America’s board. “Shelley is a visionary and well-respected expert in growth management and urban policy and will help all of us focus on how to create better living environments for all Americans,” Sims said.

HUD’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities will advance housing and communities that promote affordable, livable and sustainable living environments. The office will provide technical and policy support for energy, green building and integrated housing and transportation programs at HUD, and will manage the department’s key relationships with other federal agencies.

While at Reconnecting America Shelley had helped forge an interagency partnership between HUD and the Federal Transit Administration to link transit and land use policy and funding, and study the interplay between housing and transportation costs. One of the products of this partnership was a report entitled “Realizing the Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit,” which examined the strategies being used to create and preserve mixed-income housing near transit in five case study regions. The report was authored by the Center for Transit-Oriented Development, a partnership of Reconnecting America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Strategic Economics.

Prior to joining Reconnecting America, Shelley was Executive Director of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and guided its growth into a national coalition with a prominent voice in national debates on urban revitalization, growth policy and sprawl. Shelley has co-authored several books, including The New Transit Town: Best Practices in Transit-Oriented Development, Street Smart: Streetcars and Cities in the 21st Century, and The Next American Metropolis, as well as the Charter of the New Urbanism, and many reports and white papers.

Reconnecting America provides an impartial, fact-based perspective on development-oriented transit and transit-oriented development, and seeks to reinvent the planning and delivery system for building regions and communities around transit and walking rather than solely around the automobile. Reconnecting America manages the Center for Transit-Oriented Development, the only national nonprofit effort funded by Congress to promote best practices in transit-oriented development.