A One-Stop Shop Helps Cities Reap Value From Brownfields the Market Spurns

Newark Planning Officer Christopher A. Watson needs an inventory of every brownfield in the city. It is a tall order, considering there are hundreds of these parcels, some contaminated, that were abandoned when sheet iron, patent leather and electrical instrument manufacturers departed this former industrial powerhouse.

With help from the NJ Brownfields Assistance Center @ NJIT, however, he is confident he will get there, while also identifying the best properties to market for redevelopment to advance Newark’s larger development goals. The center’s executive director, Colette Santasieri, starts with a series of questions about municipal priorities: Which wards lack affordable housing and where are their brownfields located? Is there a section that needs light industry to support Port Newark? The team’s next step is to examine nearby brownfields and rank their prospects for remediation and redevelopment.

As Watson eyes areas like the East Ward and the North Ward in particular, he is thinking about “how we can be more inclusive in our development, because a lot of these sites are not downtown. They’re in our neighborhoods, right? And if we want to rethink our neighborhoods in their next physical iteration, then we need to bring back the assets into the fold.”

Principally, the center helps municipalities develop brownfield strategies by establishing larger goals and then finding the best properties to realize them. That’s the big picture, strategic direction that its administrators and project managers deliver across the state for free. In addition, they help municipalities assess individual properties, explaining the nitty gritty of grant applications and how to navigate New Jersey’s regulatory process and interpret technical reports on contamination.

Sometimes, the advice comes through a phone call or meeting; other times, through a learning lab, webinar or workshop. In addition, the center’s website offers a primer on brownfields, starting with its definition (“properties that are abandoned or underutilized because of either real or perceived contamination”) and drilling down to sources of funding and the basics of planning, engaging communities, assessing properties and cleaning them up.

Funded by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), the center launched in early 2020 as a free resource for county and municipal governments that need expertise in recovering brownfields. Its staff of four brings private- and public-sector experience in environmental planning, civil engineering and environmental remediation, honed in part from guiding federally funded brownfield projects on the East Coast via a sister organization, Technical Assistance to Brownfield Communities.

NJEDA sees the center as a valuable ally to municipalities that provides customized, one-on-one support and complements state programs for remediating and redeveloping brownfields, and recently renewed its partnership with the center.

“This local capacity-building is crucial to achieving long-term successful brownfields remediation that not only cleans up contaminated properties, but also advances other important environmental justice goals and helps to strengthen the local community and economy,” says Elizabeth Limbrick, senior brownfields advisor for policy and communications at NJEDA. “This is particularly important as we move toward recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated communities across New Jersey with disproportionate impacts on historically marginalized communities.”

Indeed, cities like Newark and Trenton generally face more challenges than suburban communities in attracting developers to transform brownfields. That said, they typically offer easy access to public transportation and other infrastructure that is patchy in the suburbs. And if cities can at least identify the contaminants in well-situated brownfields — there are grants for this — they can reduce the cost and risk for developers.

“The one thing that every one of them has said is, ‘If you can reduce my risk, that makes the site more attractive,’” says Santasieri, who includes developers in the webinars and workshops she organizes for municipal leaders. In 2021, she plans to expand the center’s outreach to developers, and more broadly, the private sector. By creating a two-semester, experiential learning course on brownfields recovery, she will harness the talents of NJIT students. 

During the summer, her staff created a series of infographics for the center’s website that explain environmental assessment and cleanup in a digestible way. 

For Watson, the center represents a valuable partnership with the university where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in urban systems and urban environment. Santasieri is a graduate of the same program and now they are collaborating to spark investment in Newark. 

“I appreciate the level of involvement and the level of skill that is being offered to us,” he adds. “When you get these types of services and they’re free and they have the possibility of even added value through money — through grants and all those things — it’s always a win-win situation. And it helps us demonstrate that we are interested in moving away from just talking rhetorically about partnerships. This partnership is more concrete, real and you can see it.”