Innovative Policy and Tools

CTOD creates innovative TOD implementation mechanisms with on-the-ground partners that can be easily replicated, and potentially supported through policy reform at the local, regional, state and federal levels.

TOAH Fund and Structured Funds

TOAH Fund Tenderloin Housing
CTOD supported the Great Communities Collaborative and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area in the development of the Transit Oriented Affordable Housing (TOAH) Fund. CTOD worked with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation to develop a business plan for the fund that quantified the need for affordable housing preservation and development near transit, evaluated opportunities for such investment in a spatial frame, and described case studies of similar structured funds around the country, such as the Denver TOD Acquisition Fund.

Since then, CTOD has worked with a number of Community Development Financial Institutions and the San Francisco Federal Reserve to describe the greater need for structured funds in support of equitable transit-oriented development, and to aid other regions in considering how to launch a fund of their own.

Typologies and Place Types

Typology Example
CTOD partners introduced the concept of TOD Place Types in The New Transit Town, in order to demonstrate that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to TOD. Since then, CTOD has developed new approaches to using the typology concept to help regions understand how TOD implementation varies from station to station across a transit system or single transit corridor. While tailored to the individual needs and circumstances of a given region, the typology tool provides an approachable, easy-to-understand way of sorting and prioritizing the investment of limited resources in different station areas to maximize TOD potential across a system or corridor.

Policies to Support Mixed-Income TOD

MITOD Action Guide
In 2007, CTOD published two papers making the case for mixed-income transit oriented development: Realzing the Potential, published for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation; and Preserving and Promoting Diverse Transit-Oriented Neighborhoods, published with support from the Ford Foundation. CTOD has worked since then at the local, regional, and national scales to develop a greater understanding of the policies and tools needed to support mixed-income TOD. CTOD has created a web-based tool, mitod.org, that local planners and stakeholders can use to understand how to plan for and implement mixed-income TOD in their own communities.