Brownfields May be Seeing Green

NYS Legislature eases way for building on tainted parcels
By Alan J. Wax, Staff Writer (Reprinted from NY Newsday)

Developers may start seeing green in the region's brownfields, those financially toxic parcels tainted by real or perceived pollution that on one has wanted to touch. That's because the State Senate approved legislation on September 16, 2003, by a vote of 51-9 that will lay out the ground rules for building on abandoned or underused properties, most of them industrial, where chemicals and other contaminants have kept developers at bay. The sites include landfills, old factories, hundreds of acres once used by Northrop Grumman Corp. and the military, and former gasoline stations and dry cleaning shops.

The measure, passed by the Assembly in June, includes $135 million in tax credits for brownfields developers. It protects developers of these sites from future liability if they meet cleanup standards, and requires the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to establish what those standards should be. The agency also must decide whether a site will be used for residences or commercial buildings.

Governor George Pataki is expected to sign the bill within weeks. The rule-making process is expected to take six months to a year, but the DEC plans to adopt interim guidelines so developers can begin cleaning up brownfields even before the regulations are completed.

"It means a cleanup of untouchable sites that have been allowed to act like cancers inside their communities," said Senator Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset), who sponsored the bill with Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli (D-Great Neck). "They will be cleaned up now at a faster and greater rate, will provide employment for the people who do the cleanup, and a place for the developers to place businesses in already utilized sites rather than have to go out and look for green sites that have not been touched."

The bill drew cheers from a range of experts in this region. "We now it will create interest in brownfields, because now there's a buzz," said Patrick Duggan, executive director of Sustainable Long Island, a Huntington-based nonprofit group. "On Long Island, it is the new frontier of real estate development. We're running out of green space."

Experts said the requirement for the DEC to set cleanup standards is what sets the measure apart from rule now in place. Currently, the DEC decides cleanups on a project-by-project basis. {Begin quote here}

"It will eliminate a key question mark hanging over a lot of these sites," said James Rigano, environmental law partner in the Hauppauge office of Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, noting that the process has been time-consuming and subjective.

"There haven't been any sort of black and white set of rules to follow," said Charles Rich, president of Plainview-based environmental consultants, C.A. Rich Consultants, Inc. "It should be a good thing for the Island." And while it's possible cleanup costs will be higher under the new law, developers or buyers or sellers of polluted properties, will actually know the cost of cleaning up before they begin, rather than guess at it.

Also, real estate experts said, with liability issues resolved, banks may be willing to finance brownfield redevelopments thus making such properties more valuable. The law affects 6,800 sites on the Island that range from gas stations with fuel spills to radiation-contaminated former factories and another 6,000 in New York City.

"Now everybody will jump all over the deals," said Alan Rosenberg, president of Sutton & Edwards, commercial property brokers in Lake Success. "There's got to be tons of them under the radar screen...Not everyone is a Sperry or a Grumman."

Duggan said the tax credits and the large number of brownfield sites on the Island could attract national redevelopers. "They've been watching Long Island and New York State," he noted. But he cautioned that there won't necessarily be a land rush. "I don't know if there will be a run on toxic sites," he said.

Among the most prominent sites on the Island are the Cerro Wire site in Syosset, owned by Tribune Co., Newday's owner; the 102 acres of Navy-owned property in Bethpage slated to be turned over to Nassau County; and the waterfront in Glen Cove, where some new development is already planned. In Queens, brownfield sites include the park-like waterfront grounds of Fort Totten, a closed military base in Bayside. Mercury was found in the soil at the base, and federal and state authorities have been discussing a cleanup for some time. Also in Queens is the 35-acre Phelps Dodge superfund site in a heavily industrialized area of Maspeth. Cleanup activities are scheduled to start there later this month.

For additional brownfields coverage, visit http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-bzbrown173458157sep17,0,798018.story?coll=ny-li-vertical-headlines