Brownfield Redevelopment: Overview
Brownfield redevelopment is a broad term used to describe the reuse and revitalization of abandoned, underutilized or stigmatized properties through the use of one or more local, state or federal programs.
RATIONALE
From a sustainability rationale, Brownfield redevelopment is at its core the recycling of property. Industrial and commercial property tends to have a finite life span, with the end result often being an environmentally impaired property. Brownfield Redevelopment provides a means to convert (recycle) these properties back into productive use, while simultaneously reducing sprawl and destruction of valuable greenspace. Brownfield redevelopments return environmentally-impacted and underused properties to productive use, mitigate environmental impacts, provide jobs and tax revenue and revitalize the social foundation of communities. Brownfield redevelopment projects encompass many sustainable principles including energy efficiency, waste minimization, ecosystem preservation, natural resource conservation and local environmental quality protection.
EFFORT REQUIRED
Depending upon property size, location and extent of environmental impacts, brownfield redevelopment is rarely simple and typically involves a lengthy, legal and technical level of effort.
BENEFIT
General benefits of Brownfield Redevelopment center around the avoidance of non-tax generating blighted properties and the stewardship of new productive tax generating properties with the preservation of greenspace.
RISKS
Normally, where a brownfield redevelopment program is involved, there is also a real estate transaction. Sometimes this transaction is a necessary element of the program, other times it is not. A stakeholder must keep in mind that, in addition to the brownfield redevelopment program requirements, the real estate transaction has the same pitfalls as any other, such as financing, etc. However, where a real estate transaction incorporating a brownfield redevelopment program falls through, it is almost always due to the real estate considerations common to any real estate transaction, not due to the special requirements of the brownfield redevelopment program.
ACTION AGENTS
The successful application and implementation of a brownfield redevelopment program takes the knowledge, skill and teamwork of several stakeholders. All parties involved, however, have a vested interest in seeing that these sites once again become valuable and useful properties. The following stakeholders (or action agents) are typically involved: property owners, government, regulatory agencies, environmental consultants, the general public, attorneys, financiers and real estate developers.
COST
Due to the substantial number of cost variables, it is impossible to provide generic cost estimates for brownfield redevelopments.
A basic unit of nature that includes a community of biological organisms and their nonliving environment linked by biological, chemical, and physical processes.Any party with an interest in an initiative.Abandoned and idle industrial and commercial sites in cities and other urban areas sometimes characterized by environmental degradation and contamination. Energy efficiency is the process of using less energy to produce the same or increased functions. Often used mistakenly as a synonym for ENERGY CONSERVATION. The collection, reprocessing, marketing, and use of materials that were diverted or recovered from the solid waste stream.The ability or potential of a physical body to do work. The most common forms of energy are heat, light, mechanical (moving parts), and electrical.
