The Strategic Growth Council (SGC) hosted two workshops (Los Angeles and Fresno) and an online webinar to facilitate feedback on the third revision of the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) guidelines. The TCC program, funded with $140 million in cap and trade revenue from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund, will build capacity to large scale community planning and implementation projects in disadvantaged communities.
We are pleased about some notable changes to guidelines, including strengthening community engagement requirements and modifying the language around high speed rail connectivity requirements. Another major change to the guidelines calls for project areas to overlap with census tracts within the top 5% of the disadvantaged communities as defined by the CalEnviroScreen 3.0. A full list of cities meeting that requirement were added for reference as an appendix in the guidelines.
The online webinar came with many program questions from participants as the third location has yet to be designated as anticipated and instead will be a competitive process. Many had questions about the scoring criteria, which has not been determined at this stage. We are also joining with partners to submit comments expressing concern about the reimbursement nature of the program, which is a barrier for low-income communities. Finalized guidelines will be announced later this summer.
