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Paint the house, trim the hedges, and plant some
flowers. If the entire block is in need of repairs,
then improvements to your home will not have a great
impact on property values in your community. But if
you create a community group to address the entire
neighborhood, develop a comprehensive plan to make
improvements, and find sources of funding, then you
will have discovered a method to create real change.
This is the idea behind the Brownfield Development
Area (BDA) Program established over 5 years ago by the
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).
The BDA program looks to concentrate efforts in a
community at large, directed by the needs and desires
of the community, in order to see greater
transformation than is possible through a site-by-site
approach. The BDA program is a community and
neighborhood approach to the redevelopment of blighted
brownfields.
Twenty-three communities in
New Jersey
have been designated as “BDA’s” under this program.
One criteria for obtaining
the BDA designation is that a community must
have 2 or more brownfields in need of revitalization.
Brownfields are defined as former industrial or
commercial properties that are abandoned or
underutilized and are perceived or known to be
contaminated. This includes former gas stations,
large industrial sites, manufacturing facilities and
other properties. Brownfields are in your town, and
the BDA program can help you revitalize these
properties, and turn them into ratables to benefit the
community.
The BDA program was instituted in four communities in
New Jersey –Trenton’s Magic Marker neighborhood, the
Cramer-Hill and
North Camden
communities in the City of
Camden, and the port neighborhood in Elizabeth.
Another criteria for obtaining BDA designation is a
steering committee that reflects the community
including residents, elected officials, property
owners, designated developers and community groups.
After five years of hard work, real progress is being
made for all of these towns.
In
the City of Trenton, the NJDEP has designated the
Magic Marker neighborhood, which is a densely
populated, low-income residential neighborhood. The
BDA revitalization consisted of five sites in total.
Of the 5 sites, the most notable was the 7.5-acre
Magic Marker site that had formerly been in use for
battery manufacturing and auto body repair. This site
has been slated for the development of 42 housing
units and a park. Both the State of NJ and the Federal
government have contributed over $3 million for the
investigation and remediation of this property.
Additional sites in the Trenton area, covered under
the BDA multi-site approach, are a former Conrail line
and the Power Magnetics site that will both be
incorporated into the park development. The success of
this project was solidified by Trenton’s ability to
acquire multiple sources of funding for environmental
studies. This was supported by the efforts of the
NJDEP to get two of the three responsible parties to
voluntarily remediate the sites and to dedicate its
EPA Targeted Brownfield Assessment grant for use on
this project.
Cramer Hill in the City of Camden has tremendous
potential due to its juxtaposition to the Delaware
River and spectacular views of Philadelphia. It also
has a tremendous liability, the 90-acre Harrison
Avenue Landfill, which has been closed for more than
twenty years. The proper closure of a landfill, and
finding the appropriate funding sources, can be a
daunting task. Since the landfill was operated by the
City of
Camden,
it was not eligible for the newly created EPA
Brownfield Assessment Grants created in 2002 with the
passage of the federal brownfield statute. The NJDEP,
therefore, applied on Camden’s behalf and subsequently
received a $200,000 brownfield grant from the EPA to
perform the initial site investigation.
In addition to the four towns where the BDA has been
implemented, there are other communities that are
benefiting from the BDA designation. The Borough of
Milltown has identified 5 sites located along Ford
Avenue, anchored by a 22-acre property that was
formerly the Michelin Tire Company.
Milltown’s interest in doing an accelerated
investigation using the Triad Approach combined with
the USEPA’s removal of 115 containers and
seventy-three drums of various hazardous liquids and
wastes, pushed this project forward. A team conducted
an investigation using real time measurement and
high-density sampling to complete the investigation in
four years, while simultaneously saving over $1
million when compared to conventional approaches.
Planned reuse for the site is mixed-use, including
residential, a pedestrian mall and public open space
along Mill Pond and Lawrence Brook.
The
NJDEP provided a grant to Milltown of
over $1.5 million for the investigation and nearly $9
million to implement the cleanup. The BDA designation
allows for up to $5 million in grants each year to the
municipality.
Another community designated under the BDA program was
the 170-acre I-Port 440 project in Perth Amboy.
The NJ Environmental Infrastructure Trust (EIT) funds
loans at a special rate for sites that have received
the BDA designation.
Perth Amboy has applied to the EIT for a low-interest
loan to fund the infrastructure and the remediation
for the I-Port 440 site, which covers 75% of the costs
at a 0% rate, and the remaining 25% of the costs at
market-rate. This will save significant costs in the
financing of this1 million square foot warehousing
project.
The BDA program brings a multi-site approach to
brownfield redevelopment that creates greater success
than traditional methods. But in addition to this new
approach, the BDA program provides funding and other
benefits that will help you get your brownfields
redeveloped, make them productive pieces of property
for your communities’ benefit and for tax creation. If
you have multiple brownfields in your town, look into
the BDA program. You can find out more information
online at
http://www.nj.gov/dep/srp/brownfields/bda/. |
