The Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration published proposed revisions to the regulations governing implementation of the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition for Federal and Federally Assisted Programs. Although promulgated by the Department of Transportation, the rule applies to all federal agencies and their grantees, recipients and subrecipients – including HUD and HUD grantees such as public housing authorities and state and local governments.
PHADA submitted comments on a provision of the proposed rule, that prevents public housing units from being considered as formal “comparable unit” for any unit except another public housing unit. This prevents, for example, a high-quality public housing unit in a redeveloped mixed-income property from being a formal comparable unit to a project-based section 8 unit from which a household is being displaced. This aspect of the proposed rule is not new but has previously only been in the appendix. It is not necessary or supported. PHADA’s full comments and discussion can be found here.