What's a brownfield?

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Cleaning up and reinvesting in brownfields combines environmental benefits with economic development and social improvement. Planners, developers and local stakeholders come together to improve their communities by turning these blighted properties into sustainable reuses. Brownfields are located in urban, suburban or rural areas; they help clean up cities, grow suburbs and alleviate pressure to develop green spaces.

Developing untouched, pristine land usually requires building new infrastructure, which can be expensive. But brownfield developers often save money because of existing infrastructure like water and sewer lines, electricity, roads and accessibility to public transportation.

Besides environmental benefits, redeveloping these derelict locations can have social and economic perks. Dilapidated industrial sites can transform into thriving office buildings, apartments, luxury mixed-use facilities, shopping centers, public parks and more. Brownfield redevelopment can breathe new life into neighborhoods and spur the transformation of entire cities by attracting people into a community core for work or play. Such efforts increase local tax bases and facilitate job growth, according to the EPA.

However, brownfields can be complicated and costly to resuscitate after years of inactivity and neg­lect.

­A brownfield is real property, which means it can include much more than just land, such as buildings, crops or mineral rights. Redeveloping, expanding or reusing a brownfield includes the land and everything attached to it. Consequently, environmental remediation is often costly, and financing can be difficult to acquire, says Robert Duncan, associate deputy assistant secretary for economic development with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Plus, the permit process is notoriously slow.

Additionally, it's common for brownfields to be located in places where there are no other developable and/or attractive areas, according to HUD. The idea is that if the site is an eyesore or has no desirable locations nearby for people to frequent, people won't come. And if people don't come, the revitalized property may not be able to sustain itself.

­Want to find out about real-world success stories? Flip the page to read about some stand-out brownfield projects that went from wasteland to wow.

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Laws pertaining to brownfield development vary by state. But all state governments and the EPA work together to see that brownefields are cleaned up to standard. Many states have voluntary cleanup programs that encourage site owners to collaborate with the state to execute the cleanup.

­­Many local and state laws offer tax incentives for brownfield development, including Tax Increment Financing (TIF). When a brownfield is redeveloped, the value of surrounding real estate often increases, and new support businesses follow. The result is increased tax revenues for the area, the "tax increment." TIF is meant to fund improvements in distressed or underdeveloped areas where development would not otherwise occur.

But brownfield legislation doesn't stop at the state level. Through the Federal Brownfields Tax Incentive, taxpayers can fully deduct the cost of environmental cleanup at eligible properties in the year the costs were incurred.

Also, congress passed brownfields law, which is known as the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. The law addresses owners' and investors' concerns about incurring liability if contamination is found. It outlines how to protect oneself from possible liability. Because of the Act, innocent people are better protected from liability and many sites are being cleaned up and put to good use.

The EPA and HUD both have governmental programs for bolstering brownfield revitalization.

The EPA Brownfields Program started in 1995. It provides funding to encourage the assessment and cleanup of brownfields, supports states and tribes with programs to address contaminated sites and provides technical support for cleaning up sites. It also provides cleanup jobs and brownfields research.

A redevelopment upswing in Dallas, Texas, exemplifies what the EPA Brownfield Program can do. This expansion was triggered by an EPA brownfields grant , and since then, public and private funding exceeding $550 million has been used to cleanup and repurpose desolate areas around the city. Now, residents get a new recreation center, housing, shopping and an environmental training and technology center, which will usher in more than 1,000 new jobs.

­Another major governmental program that bolsters brownfield development is the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI), a grant program administered by HUD to stimulate and promote economic and community development.