New Construction Program

The following is a message from Gail Krmenec, Assistant Regional Census Manager:

The New Construction program provides local governments the opportunity to provide us new housing units with city-style mailing addresses that may have been constructed after the time we conducted our Address Canvassing field verification operation in the Spring of 2009. Our goal is to ensure that our address list is as complete and accurate as possible by Census Day, April 1, 2010. (Note: the Address Canvassing operation included valid LUCA-provided address updates. If your government participated, you will be provided LUCA Feedback products in the very near future.)

Important Points about the Program

The New Construction program is offered only to local jurisdictions that contain census blocks where the Census Bureau plans to mail questionnaires to the housing units. In other areas, the Census Bureau will have enumerators hand deliver questionnaires to all housing units in each block and record addresses for any new housing units.
Addresses must have basic construction (closing the structure to the elements) completed by Census Day.
Each invited government designates a New Construction liaison to submit the New Construction addresses for their jurisdiction. The Census Bureau will send the New Construction materials to the designated liaison.
The New Construction liaison must submit a list of city-style addresses, assigned to the census blocks within its jurisdiction in the Census Bureau’s predefined electronic format. The maps or spatial data provided with the products are for reference use only: to assign Census tract and block codes (geocoding) for each submitted address. No street or boundary updates will be accepted. Address lists submitted without geocoding information will not be accepted.

The deadline for registration is October 8, 2009. The New Construction invitation was recently mailed to the Highest Elected Official of all eligible governments. Additionally, all governments with a designated LUCA liaison received a copy of the invitation letter and a second registration form as a courtesy copy (only one registration form need be returned).

If you are unsure of whether your government was invited to participate, you may want to first contact your Highest Elected Official. Otherwise, please do not hesitate to contact the Regional Census Center Geography staff at chicago.geography@census.gov or at (312) 454-5600 to determine your government’s eligibility.