Brownfields

A brownfield is property where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by actual or perceived environmental contamination. Oregon’s Brownfields programs range in activities from site assessment to cleanup for properties where known or suspected environmental contamination is a barrier to redevelopment.

The benefits of redeveloping brownfields include:

• promoting economic development;
• enabling efficient land use;
• minimizing the construction of new service infrastructure;
• facilitating the resolution of environmental justice issues; and
• protecting environmental and human health.

The purpose of the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund is to assist individuals and local governments to evaluate, cleanup and therefore redevelop brownfields. This program is funded by proceeds from the sale of state revenue bonds.

Eligible Applicants

Any individual, business, nonprofit organization, prospective purchaser, municipality, special district, port or tribe may make application to the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund. For program purposes there are two types of applicants: municipal and non-municipal. Cities, counties, tribes, ports and special districts are municipal applicants. All other applicants are non-municipal.

Environmental actions funded through this program must be linked to site redevelopment that facilitates economic development or community revitalization. Examples of eligible redevelopment projects the program will support include business development projects, industrial lands capacity projects, community facility projects and downtown or mixed-use center revitalization projects. Examples of ineligible projects include market-rate housing projects and cleanup projects not associated with redevelopment.

Funding

The Brownfields Redevelopment Fund provides both grant and loan funding, but is primarily a loan program. Grants can be awarded, up to program limits, on a case-by-case basis depending on a financial analysis of the applicant’s debt capacity and the public benefits of the redevelopment project. Financial analysis of an applicant’s ability to repay a loan is the primary method the department uses to manage and allocate limited grant resources. Examples of public benefits that factor into the funding decision include family- wage job creation, assistance to rural or economically distressed communities or addressing an urgent need of a local population.