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PRACTICE ALERT 12: BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT: AN INTRODUCTION
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Urban decay and sprawl are long-term national problems that have been seriously exacerbated by federal and state laws that have created significant risks for those who own or are otherwise associated with contaminated properties. Because so many of those properties are located in urban areas and because the cost of owning them could be so high, those seeking development opportunities have literally been forced to confine their ambitions to suburban and exurban sites that pose little or no threat of contamination. Left behind are an estimated 450,000, mostly urban brownfield sites; i.e., properties that are underutilized, idled. Or abandoned because they are or are presumed to be contaminated. They contribute little to an area’s tax burden of the owners and employers that remain, spurring even more to leave, thus creating even more sprawl and decay. The not-for-profit community development corporations established to interrupt this vicious cycle have been relatively ineffectual, often because they, too, must contend with unaffordable contamination risks.
Brownfields, Cleanup Cost Cap Insurance, Environmental Protection Agency, Marketing (Brownfields Redevelopment), No Further Action Letter, Risk-Based Corrective Action, Sustainable Development
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