NPCR to kick off Brownfields Summit

Nearly 200 community and municipal leaders are planning to gather in Albany, NY for the 6th annual New Partners for Community Revitalization (NPCR) Brownfields Summit.
Leaders from the state and federal government, including the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the state Environmental Facilities Corporation and Department of Environmental Consevation, will meet with on-the-ground community development leaders participating in New York’s landmark Brownfield Opportunity Area’s (BOA) program.
“As the BOA program matures, more and more New York communities are developing cooperative plans to guide future development,” said NPCR executive director Jody Kass.
“The strategic development and infrastructure projects emerging from BOAs across the state are jumpstarting the economic strategies created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Councils.”
Currently, 120 communities across New York are engaged in various stages of the BOA program, developing revitalization strategies, under the guidance of the New York Department of State.
Secretary of State Cesar A. Perales will open the two-day summit on Monday afternoon with an address at downtown Albany’s Holiday Inn Express.
Through the BOA program, economic revitalization strategies are created for neighborhoods plagued by multiple contaminated sites, and developers are encouraged to build consistent with a community’s own vision of its future.
Known as the “area-wide” approach to community revitalization, the BOA program, which was developed in New York State, has become a national model of economic revitalization in communities struggling with multiple brownfields, disinvestment and decay.
Ways to augment funding for locally developed revitalization projects will be a key aim of the Summit.
This year, speakers at the Summit will focus on infrastructure projects as part of smart growth strategies, as well as developing financing tools like land banks and tax increment financing.