Integrating “Livability Principles” in Brownfields Redevelopment

Reprinted with permission from Kara A. Allison, APR, of Hull & Associates, Inc.

Have you applied for federal brownfields funding lately? Perhaps you’ve noticed an increasing emphasis on incorporating sustainable concepts, equitable development, and other livability-focused activities into these funding proposals. It’s a shift in approach designed to support growing stronger, more sustainable communities nationwide, and if you want to secure federal funding for your future brownfields projects it’s time to start paying attention to the details now.

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities – an interagency partnership formed in 2009 between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – works to coordinate federal housing, transportation, water, and other infrastructure investments to make neighborhoods more prosperous, allow people to live closer to jobs, save households time and money, and reduce pollution. The partnership agencies incorporate six principles of livability into federal funding programs, policies, and future legislative proposals – which we’re now seeing with increased frequency in federal brownfield funding applications.

So just the very nature of even implementing a brownfields project puts a community on the right path to incorporating the “livability principles” identified by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, right? Not quite. But here are a few ways to start thinking about how to encompass every aspect of the Livability Principles in planning your next brownfield redevelopment project:

• Provide More Transportation Choices – Set your local brownfields task force loose on researching information for an infrastructure assessment study to help make recommendations for improved and additional community transportation alternatives, including ways to increase walkability in target corridors and neighborhoods.
• Promote Equitable, Affordable Housing – Include recommendations in remedial action plans about whether assessed sites could be used to improve and grow the community’s stock of affordable, energy-efficient housing, particularly for sites assessed within any neighborhood improvement areas.
• Enhance Economic Competitiveness – Focus on and conduct assessments at key sites, which will increase opportunities for economic competitiveness by identifying brownfields for future cleanup. Market restored properties to new and expanding businesses which will in turn create both construction and permanent jobs in the community. 
• Support Existing Communities – Use outreach activities and public meetings in the targeted community to leverage information and gather input into the brownfield redevelopment process. Include local organizations, residents, and businesses from the impacted neighborhoods to support your grassroots, early brownfields planning initiatives.
• Coordinate and Leverage Federal Policies and Investments – Apply for and leverage multiple sources of federal, state, and local grant funding for brownfields. Use logical steps in layering the available sources of public funding (planning, assessment, cleanup, and reinvestment) to help secure and attract private funding to keep growing investments in your local brownfields initiative.
• Value Communities and Neighborhoods – Begin assessing brownfield sites in the most impacted core of your community. It not only provides the ability to restore a sense of community pride in the targeted corridor, but within the community as a whole. An added bonus: you’ll see a ripple impact on the greater regional area and the opportunity to leverage broader support for your local community brownfield initiative.

HULL & Associates, Inc. is a project development and consulting firm specializing in the Alternative Energy, Brownfields, Environmental, Shale Oil & Gas, and Waste Management markets, with seven offices strategically located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Re: Brownfields, Hull’s more than 25 years of experience includes successfully securing and leveraging funding, assessment, remediation and redevelopment projects. Kara A. Allison, APR, is HULL’s Brownfields Market Leader.

Want to know more? Contact Kara at 614.793.8777 or kallison@hullinc.com.

Ohio’s Vacant (Dinosaur) Buildings are not Extinct-Incentives Available to Create Jurassic Building Parks

When I think of old, vacant industrial buildings, I see opportunities vs. eyesores. Brick and block is a far better insulator than thin-skinned metal siding, and certainly adds character to the exterior appearance as well. Often, floors are 6’’ level concrete, spans (between columns) are 40’ to 60’, clear ceiling height is at a premium and  amenities like cranes, high pressure gas lines and an abundance of power are common. While there are often challenges to retro-fit a vacant industrial or commercial facility, there are many incentives in Ohio, as well. Three programs, particularly worth mentioning are:

1.  Ohio Vacant Facilities Fund: The Ohio Vacant Facilities Fund was enacted as part of HB

18 (signed by Governor Kasich on May 4, 2012) to provide grant funds for businesses that create jobs in underutilized commercial and industrial sites.  The $2 million Fund basically offers a $500 grant for each new job created in a building that has been at least 75% vacant for a year or more.  The funds can be used for acquisition, renovation, or equipment for the building. Employers must hire at least 50 employees or bring at least half of their current Ohio work force to the facility. The Jobs must be full-time and meet or exceed minimum wage. 

With 10 projects underway and more than 300 new jobs created, this incentive is already making a big impact across Ohio. The funding process is on an open cycle and the money is authorized through August of 2015.

To learn more about the Ohio Vacant Facilities Fund click here.

2. JobsOhio Revitalization Program Loan and Grant Fund: Created to replace the popular Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund and Clean Ohio Assistance Fund, The JobsOhio Revitalization Program is designed to support the acceleration of redeveloping brownfields, vacant and underutilized sites in Ohio. Priority is to be placed on projects that support near term job creation

opportunities for Ohioans.

An eligible site is “an abandoned or under-utilized contiguous property where redevelopment for the immediate and primary purpose of job creation and retention are challenged by significant redevelopment constraints”.

An eligible applicant is “a business, non-profit or local government where an end user has signed an agreement such as a letter of intent, option, lease or holds title for the project site and has a

specific business plan, financing plan and schedule for redevelopment and job creation to occur.”

Possible loans and grants under the JobsOhio Revitalization Program include:

a) Grant of up to $200,000 for Phase II environmental assessments;

b) Grant of up to $500,000 re: asbestos and lead paint. The funds can be used for asbestos abatement, demolition, site preparation, and disposal of waste; and

c) Loan for up to 75% of environmental clean-up/remediation costs (max. $5 Million) with the possibility of up to $1 million cleanup grant coupled with the loan.

If you have a project and would like to discuss funding opportunities through the program, you can contact the JobsOhio Network Partner for your area.

3. Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program: The Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program provides a twenty-five percent (25%) tax credit for the rehabilitation expenses of owners and lessees of historically significant buildings. A building is eligible if it is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places; contributes to a National Register Historic District, National Park Service Certified Historic District, or Certified Local Government historic district; or is listed as a local landmark by a Certified Local Government. The program is competitive and receives applications bi-annually in March and September.

Over the first ten funding rounds, tax credits have been approved for 174 projects to rehabilitate 246 historic buildings in 40 different communities. The program is projected to leverage more $2.2 billion in private redevelopment funding and federal tax credits directly through the rehabilitation projects. For more information log on to: https://development.ohio.gov/cs/cs_ohptc.htm

While you still may not be able to get a silk purse from a sow’s ear, it may certainly be worth your while to revitalize your business and one of Ohio’s “Jurassic” buildings at the same time.

Revitalizing the Rust Belt--Cleaning Up Contaminated Land is a Risky and Expensive Proposition

A great deal of formerly industrial land in the US now sits vacant and unused, adding to the ugliness and depressed feel of many cities, large and small.  The problem has been how to redevelop the land, and clean up any potential contamination in the process.  Developers and other potential buyers of the property as understandably reluctant to acquire and redevelop the land because the exposure to liability and the enormous amount of governmental red tape involved in cleaning up a property makes redevelopment too expensive of a proposition. As a result, the property just sits, further decaying.

Government at all levels has tried to combat this problem to encourage redevelopment of the land but it often results in more red tape and too little progress.  Typically, the safe harbors provided in the law are designed to work in specific situations and with ownership structures. When situations arise that don't exactly fit the parameters of the safe harbors, there often is no leeway in the law that enable the government agency to effectively deal with it. 

There are also grant programs in place to help cover the costs of clean up.  However, in today's economy, tax dollars are scarce and there are not sufficient funds available to clean up all the contaminated properties that are out there. Further, there exists an alphabet soup of departments, bureaus and agencies at all levels of governments with overlapping authority and competing rules and regulations, and a developer must somehow accommodate them all at great cost and potential risk.

At the US EPA, cleanup of contaminated land might involve Brownfield regulation, removal of above-the-ground or underground storage tanks, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action, and Superfund issues.  Click here to access the EPA web page for regulatory information on Land and Clean Up. In Ohio, you may also need to deal with the Ohio EPA's Division of Environmental Response and Revitalization.

In regulatory guidance issued by the US EPA late last year, the use of institutional controls such as deed restrictions, easements, zoning restrictions and other such mechanisms that would help ensure that the uses of reclaimed contaminated land is limited to those purposes that are safe. For example, certain real property may be cleaned up sufficiently to be safe for commercial use, but would remain unsuitable for single family homes. Deed or zoning restrictions can be useful in this situation to ensure that the land is not converted to more ill-advised uses in the future.

There is a trend in environmental regulations and policy guidelines at the federal or state level to encourage a higher level of public and governmental involvement in this process. Obtaining input and buy-in from the local populace and assistance from governmental regulators with knowledge and expertise in the issue seems like a decent idea in theory. But let's never forget the old but true axiom of the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.  The result, in practice, is often just another layer of complications and obstacles that result in greater risk, expense and delay ending with a failed project that never gets completed.

How about providing instead, a streamlined permitting and regulatory process with fewer agencies to navigate, and which encourages developers to take on the clean up with more manageable expenses and exposure to risk? Our grant programs for clean up are not bottomless pits of funds and with a streamlined bureaucratic process along with liability protections within a clearly defined safe harbor, developers might be more inclined to revitalize the real property on their own dime.

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