Why are brownfields important?
As properties are abandoned and environmental concerns inhibit their re-use, jobs are lost, economic growth slows, property values decrease, tax revenues decline, and neighborhoods deteriorate. As these typically urban industrial areas decay, developers look elsewhere in order to avoid potential liability imposed upon owners of contaminated property. This fear of liability and other significant barriers to redevelopment may drive developers and investors toward “greenfields” – undeveloped property typically located in suburban or rural areas. This results in decreasing amounts of pristine land, the possibility that these greenfields could eventually become contaminated by activities on the property, and a decline in the economy of industrial and urban areas. In the past five years, the public and private sectors have generated momentum toward investigating these sites as to their true environmental afflication, and identifying opportunities to remediate and redevelop these properties w
