Cleaner, Greener Communities Program
Empowering Regions to Create More Sustainable Development and Encourage Smart Growth Practices
Join the Conversation in Your Region
You can help your region by learning more about the Cleaner, Greener Communities Program, and by sharing your ideas to make your community more sustainable.
Planning teams are looking for input from experts across a wide range of fields, as well as ideas from community residents. Find contact information for your region’s planning team.
We share a common interest in wanting our community and state to be healthier, safer, more efficient, and more affordable. Meeting these goals depends upon balancing our economic and natural assets to meet the needs of our residents—both today and in the future. This is what sustainability is all about. It’s about living, operating and growing more efficiently, while using fewer resources.
The New York Cleaner, Greener Communities Program empowers regions to create more sustainable communities by funding smart growth practices. Planning teams are partnering with public and private experts across a wide range of fields, along with community residents, to lead the development of regional sustainability plans, and to implement the projects that will significantly improve the economic and environmental health of their areas. This effort will guide integrated, sustainable solutions—from statewide investments to regional decision-making on land use, housing, transportation, infrastructure, energy, and environmental practices—to improve our quality of life.
Announced by Governor Cuomo in his 2011 State of the State Address, the Cleaner, Greener Communities Program is administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
How the Program Works
To provide resources for the development and implementation of smart development practices, Governor Cuomo has established $100 million in competitive grants as part of the Cleaner, Greener Communities Program. These grants will be awarded by NYSERDA to New York’s 10 regions through a two-phase competitive grant process:
Download the Cleaner, Greener Communities Fact Sheet [PDF]