Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act of 2011
Referred to the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity.
Congressional Research Service
Official summary
Version 00 · Introduced in House · Feb 17, 2011
Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act of 2011 - Directs the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to carry out a demonstration program, under multiyear cooperative agreements with local governments meeting certain criteria (or consortia of them), to encourage and test innovative vacant property reclamation and urban infrastructure renewal strategies in older industrial cities, their suburbs, and metropolitan areas with a history of severe population and employment loss, blight, and decay caused by vacant properties.
Limits such agreements to local governments experiencing: (1) at least 15% population loss since 1970, or (2) prolonged population, income, and employment loss resulting in substantial levels of housing vacancies and abandonments concentrated in more than one neighborhood or geographic area within a jurisdiction or jurisdictions.
Specifies as vacant property and program capacity activities establishment of: (1) local or regional land banks; (2) recovered building materials reuse and recycling infrastructure, facilities, and technical support; (3) local government purchasing requirements for deconstruction to make use of existing building materials stock in new and rehabilitation construction; and (4) the ability of state and local courts and administrative agencies to address problems caused by vacant and abandoned properties, and to facilitate their transfer to public control under a local or regional land bank.
Showing the opening paragraphs of the official summary.
Read full official summaryShow less
Enumerates other related activities, including: (1) expansion and improvement of code enforcement capabilities; (2) development of data and information systems such as comprehensive real property systems, early warning systems, and vacant property inventory and tracking systems; and (3) amendment or reform of state and local property tax foreclosure procedures.
Specifies stabilization, design, development, reuse, and planning and policy innovation activities. Prohibits the use of grant funds for specified other activities, including: (1) demolition of public housing or historic properties, or (2) clean-up or redevelopment of brownfield sites.
Requires an applicant local government or consortium to establish a regeneration plan for the community or region.
Authorizes the Secretary to make grants to local governments (and consortia of them) for development of regeneration plans and for sustainability demonstration projects.
Directs the Secretary to convene a Federal Interagency Regeneration Communities Coordinating Council to develop federal agency support plans for communities receiving such grants.
No related bills are listed in this snapshot. This does not establish whether the proposal has appeared in earlier Congresses.
Source last updated: Aug 14, 2025. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
AI Conversation Starters
Explore the bill from different angles
Choose a perspective, copy a prompt, and paste it into your preferred AI. Each prompt includes the bill version and available official source links, and asks for counterarguments as well as supporting evidence.
Neutral evidence review
Objective
Analyze H.R.790 as objectively as possible. Explain its main provisions, who would be affected, possible benefits and harms, implementation, exceptions, and uncertainties. Present the strongest arguments for and against it, and identify evidence needed to assess its public impact.
View full prompt & sources
Fairness and public impact
Progressive lens
Examine H.R.790 through a progressive lens, focusing on fairness, access, economic inequality, and effects on vulnerable communities. Explain potential benefits, costs, and unintended consequences. Consider the strongest counterarguments and distinguish stated goals from demonstrated outcomes.
View full prompt & sources
Institutions and government scope
Conservative lens
Examine H.R.790 through a conservative lens, focusing on fiscal responsibility, institutional stability, federalism, and the scope of government. Explain potential benefits, costs, and unintended consequences. Consider the strongest counterarguments and any provisions that challenge this perspective.
View full prompt & sources
Individual rights and government power
Liberty lens
Examine H.R.790 through a civil-liberties and limited-government lens. Consider individual rights, privacy, voluntary choice, accountability, and government power. Explain tradeoffs, possible safeguards, and the strongest counterarguments without assuming the proposal is beneficial or harmful.