§ 941.202 - Site and neighborhood standards.

Proposed sites for public housing projects to be newly constructed or rehabilitated must be approved by the field office as meeting the following standards:

(a) The site must be adequate in size, exposure and contour to accommodate the number and type of units proposed, and adequate utilities (e.g., water, sewer, gas and electricity) and streets must be available to service the site.

(b) The site and neighborhood must be suitable from the standpoint of facilitating and furthering full compliance with the applicable provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, E.O. 11063, and HUD regulations issued pursuant thereto.

(c)(1)The site for new construction projects must not be located in:

(i) An area of minority concentration unless (A) sufficient, comparable opportunities exist for housing for minority families, in the income range to be served by the proposed project, outside areas of minority concentration, or (B) the project is necessary to meet overriding housing needs which cannot otherwise feasibly be met in that housing market area. An “overriding need” may not serve as the basis for determining that a site is acceptable if the only reason the need cannot otherwise feasibly be met is that discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, or national origin renders sites outside areas of minority concentration unavailable; or

(ii) A racially mixed area if the project will cause a significant increase in the proportion of minority to non-minority residents in the area.

(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of this paragraph (c), public housing units constructed after demolition of public housing units may be built on the original public housing site, or in the same neighborhood, if one of the following criteria is satisfied:

(i) The number of public housing units being constructed is no more than 50 percent of the number of units in the original project;

(ii) In the case of replacement of a currently occupied project, the number of public housing units being constructed is the minimum number needed to house current residents who want to remain at the site; or

(iii) The public housing units being constructed constitute no more than twenty-five units.

(d) The site must promote greater choice of housing opportunities and avoid undue concentration of assisted persons in areas containing a high proportion of low-income persons.

(e) The site must be free from adverse environmental conditions, natural or manmade, such as instability, flooding, septic tank back-ups, sewage hazards or mudslides; harmful air pollution, smoke or dust; excessive noise vibration, vehicular traffic, rodent or vermin infestation; or fire hazards. The neighborhood must not be one which is seriously detrimental to family life or in which substandard dwellings or other undesirable elements predominate, unless there is actively in progress a concerted program to remedy the undesirable conditions.

(f) The site must comply with any applicable conditions in the local plan approved by HUD.

(g) The housing must be accessible to social, recreational, educational, commercial, and health facilities and services, and other municipal facilities and services that are at least equivalent to those typically found in neighborhoods consisting largely of similar unassisted standard housing.

(h) Travel time and cost via public transportation or private automobile, from the neighborhood to places of employment providing a range of jobs for low-income workers, must not be excessive. (While it is important that elderly housing not be totally isolated from employment opportunities, this requirement need not be adhered to rigidly for such projects.)

(i) The project may not be built on a site that has occupants unless the relocation requirements referred to in §941.207 are met.

(j) The project may not be built in an area that has been identified by HUD as having special flood hazards and in which the sale of flood insurance has been made available under the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, unless the project is covered by flood insurance as required by the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973, and it meets any relevant HUD standards and local requirements.

[45 FR 60838, Sept. 12, 1980. Redesignated at 49 FR 6714, Feb. 23, 1984, as amended at 61 FR 38017, July 22, 1996]