The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 Brownfields team would like to invite you to participate in its upcoming Brownfields Proposal Guidelines Workshops (Helping Applicants Understand Grant Requirements). The workshops are designed to assist local government and nonprofit organizations to better understand the proposal criteria and selection process for EPA’s Brownfields assessment, cleanup, and RLF grants. Download the PDF for more information.

EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities is seeking letters of interest from state capital cities interested in receiving design assistance to create a clear and implementable vision of distinctive, environmentally friendly neighborhoods that incorporate smart growth strategies and green infrastructure systems. Letters of interest are due no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on September 23, 2013.  

Design assistance is provided through the Greening America’s Capitals program, administered by EPA. EPA conducts the program in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) through the  Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Fourteen state capitals plus the District of Columbia have received assistance from the Greening America’s Capitals program to date; up to 5 capital cities will be selected in 2013.

EPA is providing this design assistance to help state capitals create stronger neighborhoods that protect the environment. EPA will fund a team of designers to visit the successful applicants’ capital cities for up to three days to produce schematic designs and illustrations intended to catalyze or complement a larger planning process for a neighborhood. In the past, the EPA team has provided sustainable design techniques for streets, parks, waterfronts, and town squares. This assistance will help the selected state capitals envision ways to clean up and reuse vacant lands, provide more housing and transportation choices, reduce infrastructure and energy costs, and build civic pride in neighborhoods and the city as a whole. The design team and EPA, HUD, and DOT staff will also assist the city staff in developing specific implementation strategies.

See the Request for Letters of Interest (PDF) for more information.

The New York Times Real Estate page on 12/11/12 featured an article on community health centers and noted a national  trend to build them on brownfield sites, due in part to the availability of tax credits and grants that serve as seed money to attract other funding.  The article by Ronda Kaysen features the Spectrum Health Services Center in Philadelphia on Haverford Avenue.

Smart Growth and Economic Success  (download the PDF here) is a new report from EPA’s Smart Growth Program designed to inform developers, businesses, local government, and other groups about the economic advantages of smart growth development. As this report shows, smart growth development undefined compact, walkable, and diverse undefined is attractive to developers, investors, local governments, and communities because it offers new opportunities for economic growth that is also environmentally sustainable:

• Compact: Using land and resources more efficiently and redeveloping old or neglected areas while retaining existing infrastructure can create economic advantages for real estate developers and investors, businesses, and local governments. Compact development can generate more revenue per acre because it uses land more efficiently. It can reduce the costs of land and infrastructure for individual projects and the costs of providing fire and police protection, utilities, schools, and other public amenities. By locating companies closer together, compact development can create a density of employment that increases economic productivity and attracts additional investment.
• Walkable: Walkable neighborhoods have well-connected streets and a mix of land uses near each other, making walking and bicycling more convenient and appealing. Projects in walkable neighborhoods command a price premium, earning real estate developers and investors a higher return on investment. Improvements to streets and sidewalks can help local businesses by attracting more customers. Local governments benefit from additional property and sales tax revenue.
• Diverse: People and businesses value places that bring together a variety of activities to create vibrant environments. The demand for such places exceeds the supply. Many baby boomers and their children are particularly interested in lively neighborhoods with services to meet their daily needs close by. Communities with access to transit also help people reduce their transportation costs.

Smart Growth and Economic Success is the first in a series. Additional reports will explore how real estate developers and investors can overcome real and perceived barriers to infill, how decisions about where to locate will impact the bottom lines of businesses, and why smart growth strategies are good fiscal policy for local governments.