Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council recently interviewed Madeline Rogero, mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, to ask her how local governments can catalyze brownfields redevelopment and jumpstart revitalization. In the video above, Rogero discusses how strategic investments by local government have made brownfield sites in Knoxville more attractive to potential developers.
When factories close and their buildings are shuttered, they often leave behind a sinister secret.
Toxic chemicals and pollutants left behind from their industrial past can haunt these places. Until the contaminants can be safely cleaned up or disposed of, no one can use these buildings or the land they sit on.
Help land that’s haunted by its past: Send a letter to your Senators today.
When the Langdale and Riverdale textile mills closed in the 1990’s, the residents of Valley, Alabama, not only lost a major employer. They lost part of their heritage.
For years the mills have stood as a reminder of what the town lost. Residents, however, saw potential for transforming the historic buildings into a vibrant, walkable neighborhood. The City agreed—but industrial contamination stood in their way.
Now, a federal brownfields grant is helping Valley clean up the land and achieve their vision, and a bill in Congress could help towns like Valley achieve similar goals.
Want to learn about new, innovative strategies for creating great places? Several upcoming webinars provide ideas and inspiration for local leaders.
Brownfields Policy Update from Capitol Hill
Thu, Oct 3, 2013 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Join NALGEP and its Brownfield Communities Network for a webinar where the nation’s leading brownfields policy experts will bring you up to speed on the latest Congressional activities related to brownfields. Speakers will include Evans Paull of the National Brownfields Coalition, Judy Sheahan from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and NALGEP Executive Director Ken Brown. The webinar will cover the key matters before Congress affecting brownfields revitalization, including brownfields reauthorization legislation, the outlook for FY 2014 appropriations for brownfields at EPA and other agencies, and efforts to reinstate the brownfields tax incentive. There will be ample time for questions and discussion.
Click here to register.
Montana Rural Health Initiative: Building Active Communities Upcoming Webinars
Transportation Engineering and Public Involvement
Monday, October 7th, 12-1:30 PM
*Registration information coming soon!
Making the Case for Active Communities
Wednesday, October 23rd, 12-1:30 PM
*Registration information coming soon!
For more information on the Building Active Communities Webinars visit http://healthinfo.montana.edu/RHI%20Webinars.html
Community members plan the Village at Market Creek development. Image courtesy of the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation.
After extensive planning and dozens of community meetings, the Village at Market Creek in San Diego, CA, is ready to break ground on the next phase of a visionary smart growth project.
For two decades, San Diego has been working to remediate and redevelop the former home of aerospace manufacturer Langley Corp. The company left San Diego in the 1990s, but leaking underground storage tanks and other potentially hazardous materials on the numerous factory sites remained. That meant the 60 acres were not only blighted, but potentially dangerous to redevelop.
Liberty, TX is one of the many communities where the federal Brownfields Tax Incentive has brought new jobs to formerly abandoned industrial plants.
The National Tube and Pipe (later Allied Pipe and Tube) opened in Liberty in 1973 and eventually became the largest employer in the town. When the company closed in 1993, it left behind a 492,000 square-foot manufacturing facility contaminated with PCBs, asbestos, a polluted retention pond and petroleum.
In 2009 Boomerang Tube, a manufacturer of pipe and tubes for oil and gas customers, announced its intent renovate and expand the old National Tube and Pipe factory into a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. The project would bring 350 manufacturing jobs back to Liberty in the process. Boomerang Tube had one significant hurdle, though: an estimated $1.2 million in cleanup costs.
The federal Brownfields Tax Incentive program helped make cleanup feasible for Boomerang. The Tax Incentive effectively limited the impact of cleanup costs on the development budget. Tax abatement and other local incentives also factored in, and Access Industries provided financing for the project. All of this helped clear the way for a $200 million investment in the plant and equipment.
The Langdale Mill in Valley, AL. Photo via The City of Valley, AL.
After operating for more than a hundred years, the Langdale and Riverdale textile mills were a central part of Valley, AL’s heritage and economy. With the help of a Brownfields grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Valley is working to make the former mills part of life in Valley once again.
The Langdale and Riverdale Mills were built in 1866 along the Chattahoochee River on the eastern edge of Alabama. The city that is now Valley, AL was built up around the mills, and they served as the economic heart of the area for over a century.
Major Tool and Machine expanded its Indianapolis factory onto the former site of Ertel Manufacturing, once a brownfield. The site was remediated through a combination of grants, tax increment financing and federal programs. Photo via Facebook.
When Ertel Manufacturing closed down in 2002, it left behind land contaminated with half a dozen different toxic substances. After spending millions of dollars to clean up and remediate the site, the City of Indianapolis has won legal victory over the company that insured Ertel Manufacturing—and the City is putting that money back into remediation efforts.
The City of Indianapolis recently won a $6 million insurance settlement over the Ertel Manufacturing site, which was abandoned after the company filed for bankruptcy in 2002. The victory is one of “insurance recovery” (or “insurance archeology”), where insurers are held liable for the cleanup costs of polluting businesses that held comprehensive general liability (CGL) policies. It is most often used in instances where the business is now bankrupt or is not financially viable and the CGL policies were written between 1945 and 1985.
In an unusual situation on Capitol Hill this week, both the House and Senate had an opportunity to pass their versions of the FY 2014 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bills – a bill that funds critical transportation and community development programs around the country. On Thursday the Senate moved to cut off debate … Continued
Smart Growth America President and CEO Geoff Anderson testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week at a hearing titled “Cleaning Up and Restoring Communities for Economic Revitalization.” Joining him were Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant Administrator at the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Honorable Debbie O’Malley, Bernalillo County Commissioner from New Mexico, and Dr. Kendra Kenyon, President of the Idaho Council of Governments.