The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been long-time brownfields partners. EDA was an early supporter of EPA’s brownfield ‘pilot’ projects from 1993 through 2000 and provided technical assistance and critical funding for planning, market analysis, redevelopment, and revitalization support for projects.  Typically, EPA addresses the front-end assessment and clean up of a site while EDA focuses on reuse, encouraging market-driven approaches to return non-productive, blighted, and formerly contaminated real estate to local tax rolls and foster capital reinvestment that creates jobs at higher skill and wage levels.

In 2019 the Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG), the Economic Development District (EDD) serving north central Indiana, formed the Regional Brownfields Coalition for Elkhart, Kosciusko, Marshall, and St. Joseph counties. The Coalition applied for and was awarded a $600,000 grant from EPA to assess and plan for the reuse and cleanup of brownfields sites in the region. It works to engage stakeholders, hold regular meetings to facilitate community buy-in, and have a formal decision-making process for site selection.

To aid in this work, MACOG established a working group comprised of the cities within the region to prioritize the inventory of sites of interest and partnered with an environmental team to carry out the technical aspects of the project, such as sampling and clean up planning. The working group invites all cities, as well as any interested participants in the assessment process, to join monthly meetings. Other participants include community residents, local elected officials, community organizations, and other stakeholders looking to get involved. The working group makes decisions by a consensus-based structure to ensure that everyone has a voice. Some sites have required very little or no cleanup for the intended reuse. In other cases, MACOG has worked in partnership with site owners and local governments to secure funding for cleanup or demolition as needed to facilitate redevelopment. In 2022, MACOG was awarded a Brownfields Community-Wide Assessment Grant from EPA of $500,000 to continue regional brownfields efforts through the assessment of sites.

Engaging with local governments and having community buy in has been crucial in the decision-making process of which sites are assessed.  Transparency with the community has been critical to the coalition when deciding on and carrying out the assessment of sites and as part of the Coalition Assessment Grant, MACOG was required to deliver a final technical report.  The report provides comprehensive and easy to understand insights to help others who may be interested in this type of work see what has been done and gain a better understanding of the assessment and redevelopment process.

MACOG also developed the Regional Brownfields Coalition Data Portal, which allows users to access state data on sites that have been identified and assessed. The portal, which was expanded from the South Bend Coalition Brownfields Data Portal, contains data on Elkhart, Kosciusko, Marshall, and St. Joseph counties. The portal includes sites assessed under current and previous grants, current brownfield sites of interest, historic brownfields inventories, reports from grant-funded Phase 1, Phase 2 investigation, Indiana Department of Environmental Management brownfields program sites, fire insurance maps, and potential sites from South Bend city. Both the portal and the report allow communities to access information about sites that have been identified and provide a breakdown on how money has been spent.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Invest in Your Community – Reinvesting in the cleanup and development of brownfields sites can help spur economic development by increasing local tax bases and facilitating job creation while utilizing existing infrastructure.

Encourage Community Engagement – Ensure that communities are involved throughout the process of identifying and redeveloping sites to help promote collaboration, increase awareness of brownfields and why redevelopment is necessary, and demonstrate the benefits to the public.

Be Transparent with Your Community – By developing a final report that members of the community can easily understand, MACOG helped reduce stigma surrounding brownfield sites and demonstrate the benefits of redevelopment.

Combine Resources – In addition to the EPA grants, MACOG utilized EDA Planning Grants and other EDA funding to support brownfield activities that fall outside of the EPA grant scope or to aid work in between EPA grants.