Legislative task force recommends major brownfields initiative

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A legislative task force has recommended a $250 million, five-year program to redevelop brownfields in Connecticut. The investment would be used to help restore to economic usefulness abandoned or underutilized contaminated areas. Most brownfields in Connecticut are located in cities.

Legislators created the Task Force on Brownfields Strategies last year and charged it with recommending ways to create an effective brownfields program. In February, the task force released its report to the legislature’s Commerce and Environment committees. CBIA believes the recommendations begin to address the most critical brownfields-related needs. Those needs include:

Liability reform — to encourage existing site owners and private developers and municipalities to return contaminated sites to productive use

Innovative financing — to create more-flexible financing tools that would put investment in brownfields on a more equal playing field with investment in “greenfields” (undeveloped land, usually in rural areas)

Streamlined administration — to effectively and efficiently coordinate state resources dedicated to brownfields redevelopment and establish an office that will be accountable for achieving measurable goals

The $250 million called for by the task force would finance loans, grants and tax incentives to encourage local governments and the private sector to invest in brownfields redevelopment.

The task force’s recommendations include:

$75 million to help clean up and redevelop brownfields

$100 million to capitalize general program funding, including a municipal and regional economic and community grant program, a targeted brownfields development loan fund, and small-business grant assistance

$16 million for a brownfields pilot program approved last year for four municipalities

$3.5 million for additional staffing and marketing, education and outreach programs

The task force also recommended improving the state’s regulatory system for brownfields to facilitate the remediation process and to make the process clear to all stakeholders.

Currently, the state has a number of funds and administrative programs involving several governmental and quasi-governmental agencies that relate to brownfields redevelopment. But these funds and programs are not designed to foster the efficient return of brownfield sites to clean and productive use.

CBIA is evaluating the task force’s recommendations and believes the legislature should act quickly to make the creation of a new brownfields program a centerpiece of its economic redevelopment agenda.

For more information, send e-mail to Eric Brown or call him at 860-244-1926.