Brownfields and Affordable Housing
by
Abigail Lundy
November 17, 2009
One of the topics at this conference that I have been most intrigued by is environmental justice. It seems to be woven through various programs and panels this week, and it certainly was discussed in today’s session entitled, “The Role of Risk-based Cleanup in Residential Development.”
During the session, we debated whether a full cleanup has to be sacrificed in order for affordable housing to be developed on brownfield sites. Due to the high costs, brownfield redevelopment is typically done for higher-income use, or incomplete cleanup is done when targeting a lower-income population. What this means is that we aren’t providing housing where people need it the most—in urban centers close to employment opportunities, transit, etc. Given this benefit—and the technological improvements we’ve seen in recent years—several of the panelists argued that we should be doing complete cleanups.
Two other key points were made:
- True environmental justice means properly remediating and redeveloping sites to improve communities with full stakeholder participation. It’s essential that residents and stakeholders speak for themselves in identifying what’s important, especially when creating affordable housing opportunities.
- If a complete cleanup isn’t done, information about what’s in the ground needs to be available to residents whether they are renters or owners, particularly around engineering controls.
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