Environmental Law

Crossing the Delaware in search of brownfields

By M. Joel Bolstein

In a few weeks, colonial re-enactors in Pennsylvania will paddle two Durham boats across the Delaware River, landing in New Jersey, just as General Washington did with his troops hundreds of years ago.  Yesterday, I drove my car from Doylestown across the I-95 bridge into Trenton to attend the "Building Strong Neighborhoods Workshop -- Brownfields Redevelopment in Undercapitalized Communities", hosted by the Northeast-Midwest Institute.  My goal was to find out how things are going with brownfield redevelopment efforts across the river and to see how well the regulatory environment in New Jersey compares with Pennsylvania's Land Recycling Program.

The Mayor of Trenton, Douglas Palmer, was rightfully proud of the fact that his City has won 4 Phoenix awards for brownfield redevelopment.  The Mayor noted that Trenton had reduced the number of its abandoned lots by seventy-five percent.  He also pointed out that the City had been successful in rebuilding housing and bringing in new shopping centers and supermarkets and providing an atmosphere for people to move back into the City.  J.R. Capasso, the City's brownfield coordinator, talked about Trenton's Green Initiative.  He noted that Trenton, like all cities looking to reclaim brownfield sites, needed to first create a vision.  He said that the average brownfield redevelopment project in Trenton took between 5 and 7 years.  Capasso also noted that the City had spent $3.2 million since 2000 on the Magic Marker Site and more work still needed to be done to allow for the intended site reuse.  In terms of setting expectations, Capasso noted that there are new environmental policies being rolled out in New Jersey that will impact urban redevelopment, including policies on vapor intrusion, new soil standards and oversight costs.  I sensed some frustration when he noted that brownfield projects in NJ start with the assumption that there will be four phases of NJDEP review, which "can easily become 10 phases."  Another speaker was Marty Johnson, the Founder and CEO of a community group called Isles, Inc.  Isles was doing community gardening before it moved into the area of brownfields.  Mr. Johnson said that one of the lessons he's learned from working on brownfield projects with local community groups is that environmental hazards are perceived by the local community as longer terms problems, while most people at the local level are more acutely focused on jobs, healthcare, and dealing with hunger.  He also noted that tight budgets have an adverse impact on money available for community planning. 

Listening to the speakers confirmed my view that New Jersey's brownfield program is considerably more complicated than Pennsylvania's.  There is far more control of the process placed in the hands of the NJDEP, then there is in the hands of PADEP.  Pennsylvania's brownfield program is designed to provide the remediator with flexibility and it is streamlined to allow projects to move through the system with set deadlines.  In contrast, one of the environmental consultants at the Trenton conference noted that remediators "have to be prepared for the environmental part of a brownfield project in New Jersey to take 3 years, and you need to be willing to hang in there."  Unfortunately, given the competition out there, many developers simply can't hang in there, and if the process looks too complicated, they'll find another site for their project. 

The community leaders at the Trenton conference were all highly energized and motivated to deal with the brownfield sites in their communities.  My thinking is that they'd have a much easier time of it if the New Jersey regulatory process looked more like Pennsylvania's.  As I noted, there is a lot of competition out there for companies that are looking to site new facilities.  A few years ago, I worked with Bob White at the Redevelopment Authority of Bucks County to help bring the Lennox Company across the river from New Jersey to open their new corporate headquarters in an old Dial Soap factory building in Bristol, Bucks County.   That site was redeveloped with financial assistance provided through the Pennsylvania Industrial Site Reuse Fund and it received a release of liability through Act 2.  Given the many tools made available by Pennsylvania through Act 2, my expectation is that Lennox won't be the last company crossing the Delaware to take advantage of a more favorable regulatory environment for brownfield redevelopers here on the other side of the river.      

Full post as published by PA Brownfields Environmental Law on December 11, 2007 (boomark / email).