While work on the traffic circulation and financial elements of redevelopment are underway, the Planning Board began looking at brownfield redevelopment and the options it for cleanup of the compost site and other tracts within the redevelopment area.##M:[more]##
And the board contemplated its options for cleanup and surface parking on those sites if the 350-acre redevelopment does not happen.
Under the context of remediating contamination of brownfield sites within the redevelopment area, including the compost site, Donna Rendeiro, of the state Office of Smart Growth Brownfields Program, and Yang Cao, of the Office of Brownfield HDSRF program, explained to the board the various options available to the township for funding remediation of those sites.
The process for site remediation comes in four phases — preliminary assessment, site investigation, remediation investigation, and remediation action — the last of which involves the actual cleanup of the contamination and is usually the most costly.
One option the township has is the Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund (HDSRF), which covers 100 percent of the funding of the first three phases of the process, and some portion of the cleanup depending on the end use of the site. For the actual remediation phase, municipalities could the state provide up to 75 percent of the funding only if the site to be remediated would be preserved, conserved, or used for recreation. If the municipality wishes to use the site for affordable housing, the municipality could see the state pay for about 50 percent of the cleanup costs, Cao said. And if the township uses “innovative technology” on site, it may be able to recoup 25 percent of the costs of remediation. The state usually does not fund the actual remediation of the site, however, if it will be used for any other purpose. Each municipality is capped at receiving up to $3 million per year under the HDSRF, she said.
In order to apply for 100 percent of the costs for the investigation and assessment phases under the HDSRF program, the township would need to first have its environmental consultants determine a cost estimate of the cleanup of the site and what would be involved in that cleanup, and prove that it either has ownership of the brown field site or show prove it falls within a redevelopment area (in the form of redevelopment resolution or plan).
“The goal here is to make sure the money goes to an area that’s going to be redeveloped,” Rendeiro said.
One of the other options is for the township to apply for a Brownfields Development Area initiative, in which the DEP works with municipalities that have multiple brownfield sites to design and implement remediation and reuse plans for these properties simultaneously. The BDA approach involves getting all of the various stakeholders, including owners of contaminated properties, potentially responsible parties, developers, community groups, technical experts for the local government and residents, and residents, to participate in this cleanup and revitalization approach.
The BDA, which is more competitive, requires the township to have a steering committee including township officials and members of the public to work together to come to an agreement with the DEP, and usually requires a memorandum of understanding. The BDA also requires that there is more than one contaminated site, located within a redevelopment area, to be remediated. However, the cap is higher, allowing municipalities to receive up to $5 million per year if they are selected for the program.
Rendeiro said that of the 11 municipalities that applied for BDA funding, five of the received it, but she said most of those that were denied were denied because of incomplete applications.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh pointed out that in West Windsor’s redevelopment area contains at least four sites together, combining for more than about 5 acres of land, and that it only makes creating a redevelopment plan more important so that the township can highlight uses for the area and receive state funding. Township consultant John Madden estimated that between 450 and 500 parking spaces could be provided if the land was turned into surface parking.
However, the board asked questions regarding whether the state funding would be available in the future for such initiatives, given that a lot of the other state agencies are running out of grant money, and Rendeiro explained that the HDSRF initiative is not competitive, and that $3 million is available each year for each municipality, while the BDA is more competitive.
The board also asked questions regarding the possibilities of receiving funding if it were to use the site for parking, and if that parking was limited solely to West Windsor residents.
Rendeiro explained that while redevelopment and brownfield cleanup are closely linked and related processes, “they are separate processes. There is still going to be a need to cleanup contaminated sites – that’s not going to go away,” she said.
Rendeiro and Cao told the board that regardless of whether the contaminated sites are considered part of a redevelopment plan or not, as long as officials prove that the township intends to remediate the site within three years of receiving the funding for the investigation work, it can still be eligible for 100 percent of those costs.
But the bottom line surface parking or parking garages would not be uses the township would be able to receive grants for in terms of the actual remediation action, although it may be able to get 25 percent if it does use innovative technology that fits within Smart Growth principles.
But there could be opportunities for West Windsor to obtain additional funding from other state agencies based on the fact that the surface parking would fit in with transit-oriented goals. The township also might have about $700,”000 in the coffers for remediation in that area for constructing surface parking for its residents.
And remediation requirements are not as stringent for surface parking as they would be if the site were to be used for housing or commercial development, because the surface parking lot would act as a cap or barrier, after hazardous substances are first removed from the contaminated soil.
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner said he specifically asked about surface parking because “from a pragmatic standpoint, the township may have difficulty in building a parking garage from a financial perspective.”
“We have to at least be prepared that in the event this contingency arises, that the Planning Board has a plan to deal with specific issues that are foremost in the minds of all our residents, and that would be commuter parking, improved traffic circulation, and some kind of vision for a town center along Route 571,” Gardner said. “We may have to redirect our energies and resources to alternative solutions. I saw an opportunity for achieving both brownfield remediation and resolving some issues in West Windsor with respect to commuter parking for West Windsor residents exclusively.”
