"Congress Must Pass Legislation That Would Loosen Financing."

The major issue facing America’s architectural profession continues to be the lack of access to financing even as the rest of the economy signals a recovery, one Baltimore architect testified today before the House Financial Services Committee.

Jim Determan, AIA, an architect with Hord Coplan Macht of Baltimore, Maryland, and a former board member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), told lawmakers how the credit crunch in late 2008 contributed to the demise of his prior firm, CSD Architects. As lenders broadly refused credit to the design and construction industry, many CSD projects came to a halt.

In Determan’s case, he and his partners were left with no choice but to close their 60 year-old firm that had successfully weathered previous recessions. As a result, more than 100 people – many of whom had been with the firm more than 30 years - lost their jobs.

"The challenge to making livable communities a reality lies in convincing policy makers to revamp a complex tax code that encourages sprawl and traffic congestion at the expense of “walkable,” mixed-use development and mass transit."

That is the primary conclusion of a report issued Monday by the American Institute of Architects and partnering organizations at the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Financing Forum, which will bring together national housing, development, public and private finance, transportation practitioners and policy leaders to discuss the complexities of financing TOD. The forum is being held at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and will also highlight the opportunity for federal transportation reform and encourage connections and linkages for accelerating the development of TOD.

“Unfortunately, the tax credits and federal financing tools that affect the built environment do so in ways that frequently conflict with livability principles,” the report states. “On balance, federal policy is much more consistent with single-use development that is characteristic of sprawl at the edges of our communities.”