Embrace brownfield redevelopment
When it comes to green business, it is hard to find a hotter commodity than solar. Industry officials and politicians can tick off megawatts installed, the growing number of green jobs, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the equivalent number of trees that renewable energy saves every year. While massive solar field installations can be an eyesore, sleek rooftop installations have a clean and futuristic look.Perhaps the least sexy in the lineup of “green” is the construction worker in a hazmat suit digging through polluted soil, with trucks hauling away chemical-filled dirt and other long-forgotten contaminated products. It's just not the same image or photo op. Nonetheless, cleaning up polluted properties is as beneficial to the environment – and stands to be a longer-lasting investment than a solar installation. It's dirty, often expensive work, and funding for brownfields continues to lag.
Massachusetts has put a lot of focus and allocated a generous level of funding to solar installations, and it has the record to show it. With 286 megawatts of installed power, the state has the fourth highest solar capacity in the nation. The Massachusetts solar rush has fed local companies as well as attracted out-of-state solar installers into the Bay State. Banks are in on the action as well, launching new loan products in conjunction with a $30-million state solar program aimed to help homeowners realize solar savings faster than through leasing with third-party installers.
In comparison, the state's Brownfields Redevelopment Fund has allocated a paltry $10 million in the past 18 years to cleaning up contaminated properties in Central Massachusetts, 11 percent of the total statewide funding. Despite a 1998 law designed to hasten brownfield redevelopment by providing state funding and limiting liability concerns, private developers remain hesitant about taking on these projects. The Worcester Regional Transit Authority's new building project on Quinsigamond Avenue in Worcester has unearthed unexpected levels of contamination, cost overruns and disputes with the previous owner. It's a cautionary tale of developing on dirty property. The maintenance facility is now dependent on the state finding another $4 million in additional cleanup funds to get the facility open and operating. Clearly private developers cannot take undue risk when taking on the cleanup of brownfield sites – it takes a true partnership with the state and municipal government to make the program really deliver.
Especially in urban areas where development parcels are limited and prior use is almost always a factor, brownfield revitalization can yield long-lasting impact for communities and the environment. Unused, abandoned, polluted sites scare off developers from investing in neighboring properties and become a blight on a community and neighborhood. By cleaning these properties and returning them to active use, we can breathe needed life and vitality back to those parcels and bring momentum to our urban centers. The city of Gardner, sick of waiting for a developer to join its efforts to revitalize Mill Street, went ahead and cleaned up its brownfield properties on its own; and the city now has clean parcels ready for a developer to step in, without exposure to the environmental liability that comes from uncleaned land.
By recycling polluted properties back into development-ready parcels, these projects are preventing sprawl by offering alternatives to developers who might otherwise build on new, untouched greenfields. That conservation effort alone is environmentally beneficial, regardless of the type of development that goes in there.
Massachusetts has been a manufacturing-based state for 300+ years, yet environmental protection laws only started to take hold in the 1970s. Central Massachusetts is home to thousands of sites primed for brownfield redevelopment. Worcester alone is home to 1,440 contaminated sites, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Throughout the Central Mass region, there is plenty of opportunity to remove blight and spur economic activity.
To this end, we encourage state leaders to take fresh action on this long underfunded program. First, there needs to be a clearly defined criteria for what qualifies as a brownfield, with developers knowing what kind of funding they will be eligible to receive. Secondly, they need to make it a priority to get more money than the $649,462 remaining in Brownfields Redevelopment Fund, especially in Central Massachusetts.
For municipal and regional government leaders, press your opportunities to get these properties identified, prioritized and acted upon. Work with property owners and guide them to the necessary funding sources. If the property owners are unknown – such is the case with many abandoned factories – use your tax lien power to acquire the properties and bring in developers willing to revitalize the site. Hatch development plans around these sites that can lead to better neighborhoods and communities. The more positive momentum there is around smart, brownfield reuse, the more state and federal officials will take notice, and more likely future funding streams are created.
Being a green community, and a green state, takes many forms, It includes providing renewable energy subsidies, but it also means getting down and dirty, cleaning up the contamination that is already stalling development in sites that really ought to be reused. Cleaning up and redeveloping the outcast properties in the region may not deliver the same photo opp of a newly installed solar arrays, but the long lasting environmental benefits will be worth the effort.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund currently has $75 million. It started with that amount but ended 2015 with $649,462.
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