For up-to-date information about the Brownfields Initiative in Los Angeles, visit: http://www.lacity.org/ead/labf

For up-to-date information about brownfields efforts in the Wilmington Industrial Park visit: http://www.lacity.org/ead/labf/wilmington.htm

Over the past five years, the City has established an interagency Brownfields Revitalization Program to develop City policies, strategies, and programs designed to help overcome the barriers associated with the redevelopment of "brownfields" in the City of Los Angeles. The City's Brownfields Program provides professional expertise and funding to assist in removing physical and economic blight that cannot be alleviated by government or private sector action alone, and reinforces overall Agency efforts to engender economic development and private sector investments in vacant and under-utilized areas of the City. The City is a National Brownfields Showcase Community in partnership with the federal government.

Latest Work Program

• Provide direct on-call technical assistance to Agency project managers, Mayor's Office, Council Offices and City departments to address both general and site specific environmental concerns.
• Fund environmental remedial investigations and in selected cases cleanup of sites.
• Provide staff and consultant services for environmental and predevelopment activities on 20-acre former Crown Coach site in the proposed Central Industrial Redevelopment Project Area.
• Provide staff and consultant services for environmental and predevelopment activities at 208-acre Goodyear Tract industrial site, including support for implementation of the City's Brownfields Economic Development Grant (BEDI) work program.
• Fund environmental due diligence activities at the Wilmington Industrial Park, the Brownfields Program's third demonstration site.
• Fund environmental due diligence activities on development sites using the Brownfields tools provided in the Polanco Redevelopment Act.

Background

"Brownfields" are abandoned, idled or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. Frequently these properties, once the source of jobs and economic benefits to the entire community, lie abandoned for fear of the contamination and the cleanup liability such conditions implies. Instead of reinvesting in the urban core, companies pass over these brownfields sites, where infrastructure and employment pools currently exist, and locate in the pristine "greenfields" outside the core cities. While business can relocate easily, communities cannot. Los Angeles, although perceived by some as a relatively "new" city, has seen tremendous losses of jobs and businesses from the inner city and a growing presence of brownfields typical of those found throughout the country.

Brownfields barriers to redevelopment include expensive remediation costs, liability issues, regulatory duplication and uncertainty, lack of remediation funding, financing uncertainty, and perceived risk of on-going post-remediation costs and liabilities. The result has been a continuing reluctance of the private sector throughout the country to commit to economic reinvestment in previously healthy industrial areas in inner-city neighborhoods. The brownfields problem is particularly complex in the City of Los Angeles because of the large geographic area of the City and the large number of vacant or under-utilized industrial sites, particularly in blighted or economically distressed areas of the City. If the City is to play an effective role in bringing about economic and physical revitalization in inner-city neighborhoods, it must develop effective methods of addressing the barriers to redeveloping brownfields sites, in concert with the private sector and neighborhood residents.

Key Accomplishments

• National Brownfields Showcase Community Designation. On March 17, 1998 the City of Los Angeles was selected as one of sixteen national Brownfields Showcase Communities. Under this designation the City has established active working relationships with federal agencies participating in the "Brownfields National Partnership Action Agenda", mutually seeking policy and programmatic initiatives to enhance the redevelopment of brownfields sites.
• Brownfields Revitalization Fund. Over the last four years the Mayor and City Council have appropriated $4.152 million in City CDBG funds to finance City brownfields policy and program activities. Additional funds have been committed to the program through a U.S. EPA $400,000 grant, Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) Grants and Section 108 Guaranteed Loans from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Brownfields Demonstration Site Program. The Brownfields Revitalization Program applies Brownfields strategies to specific demonstration sites within the City. To date, three Brownfields Demonstration Sites have been designated by the City Council and Mayor: the former Crown Coach Site in the Alameda industrial corridor, the Goodyear Industrial Tract in South Los Angeles, and the Wilmington Industrial Tract in the Los Angeles Harbor area. The Agency has taken a purchase option for the development of the former Crown Coach Site and has completed environmental studies and received regulatory closure for the upper thirty feet of the site, allowing development to proceed while additional clean up is undertaken. An RFP for development of the site was issued and an Exclusive Right to Negotiate has been awarded to Alameda Produce Market, Inc. The Goodyear Tract has been awarded $1.7 million in Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI)grant funds and $10.4 million in Section 108 Loan Guarantee funds. The Wilmington Industrial Park has been designated as the third Demonstration Site with funding of $350,000 from the Brownfields Revitalization fund and a technical assistance grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. Two projects in the Tract have received BEDI funds to assist in project remediation and development.
• Brownfields Executive Team. The Brownfields program is directed by an Executive Team consisting of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, the General Manager of the Environmental Affairs Department, the General Manager of the Community Development Department and the Administrator of the Community Redevelopment Agency. A Brownfields Resource Team consisting of senior policy staff members from each entity and a representative of the U.S. EPA assigned to the City under an Intergovernmental Personnel Act Agreement support and staff the Executive Team. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has also provided a full-time engineering staff member to support the program. The Agency has been directed by City Council and the Mayor to act as fiscal agent and program manager for the Brownfields program. The Environmental Affairs Department coordinates the activities of the Brownfields Resource Team.
• Brownfields Minority Worker Training Program. A grant for a Brownfields Minority Worker Training Program in Los Angeles is being implemented through a partnership between the Environmental Affairs Department, Mayor's Office of Economic Development, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Health and Safety Fund of North America (UBC), the Hollywood Beautification Team, the Carpenters Educational and Training Institute, the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, Rio Hondo College, and the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations. These groups are implementing a holistic approach to providing trainees with the skills and support they need to obtain and retain jobs at brownfields redevelopment sites in their communities. The partnership received a grant of $201,000 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for the first year of the program.

Five Year Goals

The City's brownfields program goals for the next five years will be to enhance the City's ability to reclaim under-utilized areas and reinforce other City efforts to return these areas to job-producing, productive uses. Through the selection of several demonstration sites, along with technical and program assistance for other brownfields sites, the City will strengthen partnerships with federal, State, and local agencies involved in environmental assessment and remediation activities and assist City economic development and community organizations to further understand the constraints and challenges presented by brownfields barriers. The ultimate goal is to develop a core of knowledge and expertise throughout City departments and agencies to address brownfields sites, and develop effective strategies to facilitate their return to productive economic use. The Brownfields Program will continue to play an active role in encouraging state and federal agencies to support brownfields programmatic and financial initiatives to revitalize inner-city properties.