Programs

New Partners for Community Revitalization is implementing an integrated approach to brownfields redevelopment that is designed to provide the tools and capacity necessary to promote community-based productive re-use of brownfields. This multi-pronged initiative was developed through on-the-ground work with environmental justice organizations, community based groups, nonprofit and for profit developers, community lenders, and nationwide research on innovative programs and approaches:

NY Metro Brownfields Redevelopment Fund Program
On April 14, 2005, the first public-private, public purpose regional brownfields financing mechanism in the country was launched. The NY Metro Brownfields Redevelopment Fund Program uses public grant dollars to leverage private remediation loans. It was conceived as a tool to help implement community-driven plans, including plans that emerge from the Brownfield Opportunity Areas (BOA) program in the NYS Brownfields Law. The Fund Program links a ready source of capital to finance the riskiest part of a brownfields redevelopment deal with a sophisticated environmental underwriting infrastructure that will allow borrowers to achieve environmental closure in a way that is predictable, quantifiable, transparent, and protective of public health and the environment. The nonprofit Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) is NPCR’s financial partner for the first round of loans. s

START-UP Pool
Research has revealed that the single, most important factor in advancing a community-supported brownfields reclamation agenda is the availability of good technical assistance and flexible funding (that may or may not get re-paid) that can be invested upfront in a project to reduce the uncertainty of a project to the point where a site is “developable.” The Brownfields Strategic Technical Assistance Resources Targeted to Underutilized Properties Pool (or “START-UP Pool”) has been created to fill this need. Nonprofit developers and nonprofit groups working with for-profit developers are invited to seek assistance being made available through the START-UP Pool for site-specific, community-supported brownfield redevelopment projects.