Renew America Success Stories

Chicago Brownfields Initiative

Description

The Chicago Brownfields Initiative is a pilot project exploring the benefits of redeveloping existing urban brownfields as an alternative to converting suburban greenfields to urban use. Through the pilot program, a community forum and an ongoing economic analysis, the Initiative is demonstrating that brownfield redevelopment promotes natural resource conservation, alleviates the effects of urban sprawl, and promotes economic growth within Chicago's disadvantaged communities.

The Initiative was spawned out of a growing awareness of the potential value of abandoned industrial properties. Demand for industrial space in Chicago greatly exceeds the supply, but developers have been reluctant to make use of the more than 2,000 brownfields in the metropolitan area, primarily because of the costs and liabilities associated with brownfield development. A major disincentive, that Superfund regulations made any new owners of such sites liable for all previous contamination, has been resolved through cooperation between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local government.

To explore Superfund regulations and other disincentives, the Initiative launched the Brownfields Forum, a collection of more than 100 individuals representing business, government, nonprofit and community groups that worked to study and inform the policy debate on brownfields development. Among the more than sixty recommendations made by the Forum, were suggestions on overcoming other brownfield development disincentives such as the costs of cleanup, demolition and environmental audits as well as tax and transportation policies that prejudice the market toward suburban growth.

"Brownfields are more accurately viewed as complex real estate transactions than as prohibitively costly environmental quagmires," reports the Forum.

Among the benefits of brownfield development, the Forum found that industrial development in the urban core reduces environmental costs by reducing destruction of farmland and cutting transportation-related impacts such as air pollution. Equally important, brownfield redevelopment can produce a "halo" effect in otherwise disadvantaged neighborhoods, attracting additional investment in local businesses, public infrastructure, and employment training.

In addition to the Forum, the Initiative includes a pilot brownfield redevelopment project to convert five abandoned industrial properties to productive use, and an economic analysis comparing brownfield to greenfield development.

Program Highlights

Brownfields Forum

The Brownfields Forum is a broad-based, interdisciplinary task force comprising representatives from government, business, finance, environmental, community and civic organizations.  More than 100 participants met in plenary and working groups over a period of about six months to produce 63 recommendations for overcoming barriers to brownfields reuse. Their recommendations included:

• A database of brownfield redevelopment projects should be compiled and made available on the Internet to provide instant access to community planners across the country.
• "Brownfield Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)" should be established to enable businesses to invest money intended for brownfield cleanup.
• Regulations for brownfield cleanup should be streamlined. Due to efforts of the Forum, Chicago has negotiated with the U.S. EPA the ability to employ risk-based cleanup objectives, meaning that site-specific information is taken into account in devising environmental standards that are protective of both human health and the environment.
• Improve public financing for brownfield redevelopment by establishing local pools of resources for loans, repackaging federal funding sources to free up funds from the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for brownfield redevelopment.
• Encourage community groups to initiative brownfield redevelopment projects.
• Enable a nonprofit enterprise to develop a "one-stop" service center to provide small manufacturers, business developers and community development groups with technical expertise and financial assistance to clean up and redevelop sites.

• A city interdepartmental working group funded a pilot project with $2 million in general obligation bonds to identify likely brownfield redevelopment properties.
• Efforts were made to identify properties with the best combination of environmental factors and redevelopment potential.
• Through public and private partnership, the five pilot properties identified in disadvantaged communities will be returned to productive use for approximately $1 million, less than half the anticipated cost.

• Conducted by economists from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the project is analyzing the environmental impact, infrastructure costs and other society costs and benefits of developing urban brownfields versus suburban greenfields.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: The Chicago Brownfields Initiative is a partnership of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Conference of Mayors, City Departments of Environment, Planning and Development and Law and Buildings; state and federal agencies, nonprofit and for-profit enterprises.

Budget: Contact program directly for details.

Community Served: Chicago's economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Measures of Success:

Publication of the Final Report and Action Plan of the Brownfields Forum, containing more than 60 recommendations of ways that the public and private stakeholders can confront barriers to brownfield development.

The five Brownfield Pilot Sites already completed have created more than 400 construction, manufacturing and service jobs.

A dozen more sites have been identified for remediation and redevelopment.

Approximately $1.4 million in annual tax revenues have been generated from remediation and redevelopment of the first five sites.

Because of early involvement of community representatives, there has been no community opposition to the initiative.

Success stories designed by Mark W. Nowak

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