RBD PRA Submission Rpt3

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

Rebuild By Design- Competition and Registration

1. Circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.
   
   

The Department, in conjunction with the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, is launching “Rebuild By Design,” a multi-stage regional design competition that seeks to promote resilience in the areas recovering from Hurricane Sandy. The storm was an unanticipated event that has forced the Department and the Task Force to work rapidly to restore homes, businesses and infrastructure and to prepare the region for future storms. Rebuild By Design, a signature initiative of the Department and the Task Force, will encourage innovation and harness the knowledge and expertise of the nation’s design community to help protect Federal investments made during the Sandy recovery process. Winning designs from the competition may be implemented by states and units of general local government in the region using disaster recovery funding allocated through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program. Congress has instructed HUD to allocate CDBG-DR funding as expeditiously as possible to ensure that the region’s recovery moves forward without delay, and it is essential that states have the opportunity to make use of the ideas that are generated by the competition when implementing their CDBG-DR rebuilding plans.

Rebuild By Design is being run under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, which requires the head of the agency running the competition to publish a notice in the Federal Register announcing the subject of the competition, the rules for eligibility, the registration process, the prize amount, and the basis on which a winner will be selected.

In accordance with the Request for Qualifications in the Notice, competition participants must submit a twelve page application that contains: a list of competition team members; the team’s area of focus in the competition; a summary of the team’s strengths and relevant experience; the team’s relevant projects and expertise; and the team’s conceptual approach. The application will be used to determine whether the team is qualified to progress to the second round of the competition and receive an initial award of $100,000.

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act is located at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title15/pdf/USCODE-2011-title15-chap63-sec3719.pdf

2. How the information is used.

RFQs will be used to assess applicants’ qualifications and to determine whether they have the requisite experience, collaborative skills and understanding of the problems facing the Sandy-affected region to develop successful designs that promote the goals of the competition.

Applicants must submit a short proposal, detailed in the Rebuild By Design Request for Qualifications, which summarizes their interdisciplinary expertise and presents an initial approach related to one of the four focus areas. Applicants will have to submit both an idea on how they want to work on this (process) and what their initial thinking is on the issues at stake and the possible concepts that might emerge. Applicants will be asked to illustrate these concepts in regard to what vulnerabilities their team would focus on. These concepts will serve as illustrations of the applicant’s approach and innovative thinking; however, it is expected that selected Design Teams may need to adjust their approach based on the analysis process in Stage Two.

Applicants must include professional expertise in at least three of the following fields: infrastructure engineering, landscape design, urban design, architecture, land-use planning, industrial design, community engagement, and communications s are preferred: community building, social science, economics, ecology, hydrology, water safety, transportation, resilience, sustainability, project- management, finance, arts, graphic design, and others. Applicants must have demonstrable experience in interdisciplinary research, analysis, and design – especially related to the spatial impacts of ecological, economic, and social development on the regional scale.

Applicants are instructed to limit their application submissions to12 one-sided pages (format US Letter), including text, images, and/or drawings. Font size cannot exceed 11 points; file size cannot exceed 20MB. Instructions on the design competition website provide the following guidance about how long each section of the application should be:

§ Summary of team’s strengths and relevant experience (2-3 pages): Provide a

narrative summary of the team’s collective strengths and experience relevant to the

goals of the competition and to the team's selected focus area. Clearly articulate each

team member's specific contribution to this effort and the interdisciplinary strength that

distinct the team. Discuss past collaborative efforts among team members, if applicable.

§ Selected relevant projects and expertise (3-6 pages): Submit highlights of previous

work relevant to the goals of the competition and to the team’s research focus and

design approach. Include both visual and non-visual examples. Do not include links to

external documents.

§ Conceptual approach (2-4 pages): Include a narrative description of the team’s

proposed research and design approach and initial ideas within one of the four focus

areas. Submit your ideas on how the team wants to work (process) and what your initial

thinking is on the issues at stake and the possible concepts that might emerge. Illustrate

these concepts in regard to what vulnerabilities your team would focus on. Elaborate on

your strategy for connecting research and analysis activities to the development of

implementable, place-based design solutions. Note that these ideas are illustrations for

the team's approach and innovative thinking. Selected Design Teams will finalize their

focus based off of their research during Stage Two.

3. Improved technology.

Applicants are able to submit their proposals in response to the Request for Qualifications to the competition’s web address, [email protected]. All proposals must be submitted in PDF format; hardcopy proposals will not be accepted.

4. Efforts to identify duplication.

Submitting proposals in accordance with the RFQ is the only acceptable means of applying to the competition.

5. Burden to small business or small entities.

The RFQ is no more burdensome for small business than other applicants, and the Department expects many, if not the majority of applicants, to be small businesses.

6. Consequences if information is collected less frequently.

This is a one-time information collection request.

7. Special circumstances.

There are no special circumstances.

8. Public Notice.

This expedited information request is granted on an emergency basis because it is an integral part of the response to Hurricane Sandy, an unanticipated event. There was no public comment period prior to submission.  However, HUD is soliciting comments on this information collection and will address any significant issues raised by the commenters prior to proceeding with the design competition.

9. Payment or gifts.

Respondents who are selected to advance to the second round of the competition will be awarded $100,000 each.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality.

Applicants are not asked to provide personally identifiable information or sensitive business information. However, the Department will ensure that applicants’ proposals will not be shared with the public or with other applicants until after winning submissions are selected.

11. Questions of a Sensitive Nature. None.

12. Explanation of hour and cost burden to Applicants.

• The calculation of cost burden for Rebuild By Design applicants takes into account the cost to apply for an average size design team. HUD estimates the average hourly cost for each team to be approximately $100 per hour and that each application will take approximately 15 hours to complete.

• HUD estimates that approximately 200 applicants will apply to participate in Rebuild By Design.



	Rebuild By Design
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS	# Respondents	# Responses	Total Responses	Hours Per Response	Total Hours	Cost Per Response	Total Cost
RFQ	200	200	200	15	3000	$1500	$300,000
TOTAL PAPERWORK BURDEN	200	200	200	15	3000	$1500	$300,000



13. Estimate of Additional Total Costs to Respondents
    
    

Rebuild By Design does not have any additional costs associated with this collection.

1. Estimate of Annualized Cost to Federal Government

The cost to the Federal Government is approximately $3500. This reflects approximately 100 hours of review (estimated 200 applications taking a half hour each to review performed by an employee making $35 per hour). There are no additional resource costs since applications are filed by email and will be received in an electronic format.

15. Explanation of Program Changes / Adjustments

This is a one-time information collection, so there are no changes to report.

16. Publication of Results

HUD will announce the winners approximately 21days after the submission deadline of July 19, 2013.

17. Display of the Expiration date for OMB Approval of the Information Collection

HUD is not seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval.

18. Explanation of Each Exception to the Certification Statement

No exceptions are requested.