Do you have contaminated properties in your community?
Does this sound familiar? A vacant or underutilized older industrial or commercial site - maybe a warehouse, former gas station or service garage - has been sitting ignored for years. The property is under-productive because of fears of contamination, fears of the cost to clean it up and fear of liabilities. Urban contaminated properties like these are often located in prime downtown areas. You may have passed by so often that you don’t even see it anymore – but time to time you think “Gee, that would be such a great location for something more interesting and dynamic.”
Also known as “brownfields” sites like these represent lost opportunities for the whole community, in the form of under-used infrastructure; unrealized business development; lost employment opportunities; reduced social, cultural, and economic productivity; lost tax revenues; and run-down neighbourhoods.
When returned to active use through remediation and well-planned redevelopment, brownfields have an excellent track record of contributing to the vitality and sustainability of their home communities.
One of the reasons brownfield opportunities are left unrealized is a lack of awareness of what these properties are, where they come from and myths and misperceptions about the challenges of redeveloping such sites.
Awareness and a knowledge base about remediation and redevelopment successes, along with balanced discussion of the challenges, can help people better appreciate the opportunity these sites represent for their community.
Many people in the community can make a difference, and make money and generate economic benefits, by better understanding the brownfield opportunities in their own town.
