Brownfields Inventory Design
Why do I need an inventory?
Whether you’re running a municipal brownfields program or working grassroots redevelopment, there are a variety of reasons to maintain a brownfields inventory:
Grant Applications. EPA Brownfields Grant guidelines require a description of the brownfields located in your proposed target area.
Program Planning. Understanding how many brownfields are in your target area, their reuse potential, and any known or suspected environmental conditions will help you prioritize and distribute your funding.
Stakeholder Engagement. Brownfields inventories can be used to focus community or stakeholder engagement. Conversations about expanding the inventory, sharing critical information, and discussing reuse vision are a great way to identify action steps for advancing the redevelopment of these properties. Showing off your research is also sure to give stakeholders confidence and a greater understanding in the value of your program.
How do I build an inventory?
There is no right or wrong way to build a brownfields inventory. At the most basic level, a brownfields inventory is simply a list of all your brownfield sites. You could use a crayon and blank piece of paper or circle properties on a map of your town!
Other simple and FREE methods include:
Spreadsheets with a list of addresses
Google Earth Pro to visually track your inventory
KSU’s Brownfields Inventory Tool (BIT), which integrates with EPA’s ACRES database for inventory tracking and EPA reporting
Inventories can become more complicated, especially when they start to capture hundreds of potential brownfields. This is where we can assist! We can upgrade your existing inventory so you can screen more properties, collect more information, and analyze the information and data for reuse planning, site selection, and prioritization.
What should I include in a brownfields inventory?
Brownfields inventories can get complicated with multiple sources of information, reuse scenarios, unknown histories, and fluctuating market conditions influenced by community need, political will, and our ever-changing economy. To simplify inventories, we recommend rooting their design in the definition of a brownfield:
A brownfield is a property…
Brownfields needs to be “real property” that can be sold, surveyed, and developed. This excludes waterways and property not fixed to the land. If your project doesn’t fit this criteria, think about getting creative (see Pulaski County, AR USS Hoga Project)!
Critical information includes: Address, GIS coordinates, parcel ID, ownership info, market value.
…the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which…
The properties to include in a brownfields inventory should be under consideration for expansion, redevelopment or reuse. An active and fully functional gas station is not what we’re looking for. We want the warehouse down the road that a local entrepreneur wants to convert into a microbrewery! The end use also doesn’t need to be defined yet. It can be the one property in town that everyone says “I wish someone would do something about this site!”
Critical information includes: Opportunity for redevelopment (e.g. tax delinquent or abandoned, owner willing to sell, political or public interest), community need (e.g. health disparities, food access, housing needs), feasibility factors (e.g. overall property condition including utilities, location and access, market conditions for retail, office, housing, etc., zoning and other restrictions).
…may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.
To qualify as a brownfield site, the property must have a known or perceived environmental condition. Common indicators of environmental issues include: historic use for industrial, dry cleaner, or service station/auto repair; environmental records showing storage of chemicals, waste permits, or known releases and cleanups; age and condition of the building can indicate hazardous building materials concerns.
Critical information includes: Observations (windshield survey, photos, historic aerials, etc.) of property condition, age of buildings, historic use and ownership, any environmental records.
Where do I find this critical information?
Good news! Most of the information needed for a brownfields inventory is FREE. However, finding all the places where this free information is can feel like a scavenger hunt. Here’s are a number of our go-to sources and strategies:
Talk to the community! Community engagement doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply call a community-based organization, local church, or interview residents and local business owners. A simple conversation over a donut and a coffee will go long way. We assure you that locals already know where all the problem sites are and have a lot of ideas of what to do with them!
Google Earth Pro – Downloading Google Earth Pro is free. Get property information, GIS coordinates, and toggle back in time with their historic aerial feature. This can tell you a lot about the historic use of properties and often identify things like above-ground storage tanks, gas station canopies, and land disturbances.
County Tax Assessor – This varies by county. In counties with large metropolitan areas, we’ve found parcel information is easy to access (e.g. Harris County’s Parcel Viewer).
EJ SCREEN – So much information to explore, including EPA facility records, demographic information, environmental justice indicators, and more!
UST Finder – National map viewer containing Information on location of petroleum storage tanks and status of releases.
State Databases – These will vary by state. Our go-to list in Texas includes the TCEQ’s Groundwater Contamination Web Viewer, the TX Railroad Commission Public GIS Viewer, and the Texas Water Development Board.
I still need help.
If chasing down this information does not sound like fun to you, you can contact us. We’ve assembled our own database pulling from various sources to find information critical for brownfields assessment and reuse planning. We can also customize databases to support your inventory needs and integration into city-wide or regional planning efforts.
