David—

Excellent question, if anybody has an actual list of all fed agency use of census data and the urban area boundaries, whether regulatory or financially, that would be great,

because it would be of real value to local officials.

Other than transportation, the biggest thing that we’ve found here so far is that EPA is using them to mandate Phase II storm water plans. In our area, we had 10 local governments voluntarily working together through our agency to meet the Phase II storm water requirements. Based on the new boundary, nine additional governmental units became subject to these requirements and are in the process of joining the original 10 working to meet these new requirements. This is an expensive proposition for local governments. In addition, in Michigan, state gas tax dollars are in part allocated based on whether a road link is inside the urban boundary or outside, and for County Primary roads, being within the urban boundary means about $10,500 per mile in additional state funding to counties.

Oh, and just in case anybody thinks this stuff is trivial, I spent most of last week explaining this stuff to a reporter for the local paper (the story was the lead story in today’s edition), so I can also report that (in at least one metro area) the boundary issue and the potential impacts on local governments is front page news…

Paul T. Hamilton, Chief Planner

Tri-County Regional Planning Commission

913 W. Holmes Road,  Ste. 201

Lansing, MI 48910

517.393.0342 (phone)

517.393.4424 (fax)

tritrans@acd.net  (email 1)

phamilton@mitcrpc.org  (email 2)

www.mitcrpc.org  (web)

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ctpp-news@chrispy.net [mailto:owner-ctpp-news@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of David Saladino
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 1:51 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] New Urbanized Area Boundaries -- Impacts

We have recently been asked by our State DOT to review and revise our region's Federal Functional Classifications based on the new Census 2000 urban areas.  I have a fairly good understanding of the impact that new and re-aligned urban bounds will have in our State's Federal allotment of funds from US DOT.  Does anyone know what other Federal agencies (other than DOT) use urbanized boundaries (either urban areas or clusters) for administrative and/or funding purposes?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

--------------------------------
David Saladino
Regional Planner
Southwest Region Planning Commission
20 Central Square, Second Floor
Keene, NH 03431
Ph: (603) 357-0557
Fx: (603) 357-7440
E-mail: dsaladino@swrpc.org
Internet: http://www.swrpc.org