Group wants $7 million released for brownfields cleanup
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- April
- 28
Advocates for redevelopment of contaminated land known as brownfields in New York today called on the state to release $6.7 million that has been set aside for 14 projects. Gov. David Paterson and the leaders of the Assembly and Senate must sign a memorandum of understanding to release the money, according to New Partners for Community Revitalization and municipal and community leaders from around the state.
More state money is needed for pre-development activities to make brownfield sites more attractive for cleanup, Jody Kass, co-director of New Partners for Community Revitalization, said in a statement. More than 100 communities are participating in the program.
There are communities throughout New York State that are waiting for these funds to revitalize neighborhoods and stimulate economic development as quickly as possible so that the nearly 5,000 acres affected by 534 known or potential brownfield sites can advance toward cleanup and productive reuse,” said Kass, whose group is holding a two-day brownfields summit in Albany this week.
The group wants the tax-credit Brownfield Opportunity Program revamped because it believes too much money is going to projects that don’t need subsidies. Lawmakers capped the credits at $35 million per project last year. Sen Antoine Thompson, D-Buffalo, is sponsoring a bill that would make reforms.
“While last year’s amendments stopped the worst of the hemorrhaging, too much money is still going to projects that don’t need subsidies, while affordable housing projects in Harlem, the South Bronx, Buffalo and Long Island continue to be excluded,” Kass said.
Timely and flexible progression from the planning and assessment phases and actual cleanup and redevelopment is crucial to the success of the Brownfield Opportunity Program, said Mark Gregor, manager of Rochester’s Division of Environmental Quality.
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on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pm by Cara Matthews.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
