Search results

The employment impacts of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brownfield grant sites are examined. Such sites are eligible for tax incentives which can provide additional funds for cleanup. Using establishment data, employment within close proximity to such sites is found to increase during cleanup periods following grants. The employment increase was from non-brownfield establishments, i.e., a “spillover” effect. These employment effects were concentrated in certain industries. This chapter adds to the literature on brownfield redevelopment which has focused on property values. Beyond being the first empirical chapter to systematically investigate such employment effects, the chapter’s results are important in light of the current US administration’s intent to cut EPA funding.

This study aims to provide a review of brownfield policy and the emerging sustainable development agenda in the UK, and to examine the development industry's (both commercial and residential) role and attitudes towards brownfield regeneration and contaminated land.

The paper analyses results from a two‐stage survey of commercial and residential developers carried out in mid‐2004, underpinned by structured interviews with 11 developers.

The results suggest that housebuilding on brownfield is no longer the preserve of specialists, and is now widespread throughout the industry in the UK. The redevelopment of contaminated sites for residential use could be threatened by the impact of the EU Landfill Directive. The findings also suggest that developers are not averse to developing on contaminated sites, although post‐remediation stigma remains an issue. The market for warranties and insurance continues to evolve.

The survey is based on a sample which represents nearly 30 per cent of UK volume housebuilding. Although the response in the smaller developer groups was relatively under‐represented, non‐response bias was not found to be a significant issue. More research is needed to assess the way in which developers approach brownfield regeneration at a local level.

The research suggests that clearer Government guidance in the UK is needed on how to integrate concepts of sustainability in brownfield development and that EU policy, which has been introduced for laudable aims, is creating tensions within the development industry. There may be an emphasis towards greenfield development in the future, as the implications of the Barker review are felt.

This is a national survey of developers' attitudes towards brownfield development in the UK, following the Barker Review, and highlights key issues in UK and EU policy layers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transformation of inner‐city sites previously developed for industry use in Chinese city, which is driven by the unique social, economic and political settings in China featured by the emergence of the market mechanism for urban land use. The existing body of knowledge about urban brownfields suggests a lack of understanding and information about the transition‐led inner‐city brownfield development in China.

This paper adopts a case study approach using the R&F high‐density apartment project in the inner‐city of Guangzhou built on a former chemically polluted site to provide factual evidence for the state of inner‐city brownfield development in China. The paper identifies institutions, processes and practices that are related to the reclamation of inner‐city brownfield sites for high‐density residential use and preliminarily assesses its impact.

The paper suggests that, although issues about environmental impact appear to be carefully treated during the project execution, much less care is given to pre‐construction and post‐occupancy phases. There is also a serious lack of specific standards and policies that are designed for governing the issues directly related to inner‐city brownfield development. This could have substantial impact on the land use in China's major cities, but it has not been paid sufficient attention.

This paper shows that there is an urgent need to design and develop policy and industry standards specifically address inner‐city brownfield development.

The paper confirms the need for more careful treatment to inner‐city brownfield projects that are being “fast tracked” due to the pressure for high‐speed economic growth and the demand for inner‐city housing. This paper also contributes to the initiation of basic criteria that help identify inner‐city brownfield projects for more comprehensive investigation to further evaluate impacts of China's economic transition on its urban built environment.

This paper aims to evaluate the suitability and feasibility of the four most likely urban spaces for mixed use development – brownfields (contaminated lands); greenfields (open, undeveloped areas); greyfields (closed or dying shopping centers and empty parking lots); and redfields (underperforming, foreclosed commercial real estate).

Literature about and studies of mixed use development projects in America and Britain were reviewed, and so too were specific examples of the four candidate urban spaces. The authors then analyzed which spaces succeeded as mixite and which failed.

Brownfields are often not successfully transformed into usable mixite; nor are greenfields. The cost and regulatory complication of removing pollution from brownfields is too often prohibitive, and greenfields are too far away from urban core areas. By contrast, greyfields and redfields appear to be far more suitable spaces for mixed use development projects.

Most government policies urging redevelopment projects in America and Great Britain prefer brownfields as the space deemed most suitable for mixite. Contrary to this view, it appears that unpolluted spaces, such as redfields and greyfields, that do not need extensive environmental remediation, are typically better candidates for mixite.

In geopolitical conflict zones, the phenomenon of abandonment often correlates with challenges of legal definitions and ownership status. The abandoned properties in conflict zones share similar characteristics with what is commonly known as a brownfield site. However, due to the nature of geopolitical conflict zones, which is mixed with people and sentiments other than technical challenges, the usual solutions to the brownfield question, cannot provide enough tools to deal with the land management of areas engulfed in conflicts. This paper, therefore, aims to discuss and propose a land-use typology that describes abandoned properties in a geopolitical context.

The proposed land-use typology serves as the main conceptual framework that integrates the sustainable brownfield regeneration approach with social theories of space and place. As an inductive research approach, this conceptual framework brought the fundamental and comparative literature on brownfield regeneration to support the main argument related to the similarities and challenges of the regeneration of abandoned properties in conflict zones. The approach used in this paper addresses the broader consideration of land management in geopolitical contexts and urban conflict zones that considers the relationship of exercise of extreme power over space.

The findings highlight an insufficient understanding of the origin of the property problems in geopolitical conflict zones, especially after a power struggle, producing significant land management issues. In a geopolitical context, urban planners and economists' perspective on definitions of space and place defined by maps, GIS data sets, Excel and other similar tools may not bring any practical or long-term solution to the land management challenges. The study suggests that dealing with abandoned properties and regeneration plans in conflict zones requires identifying and evaluating geo-political, geo-social, geo-economic characteristics of the area before any further action.

This paper's findings are of particular interest to decision-makers and conflict stakeholders in geopolitical conflict zones, such as local governments, policymakers and peacekeeping agencies. The findings of this research can clarify and help them have an alternative understanding of the space engulfed in the conflict, other than a technocratic, mapping, GIS, statistical way of understanding and approaches to the complex aspect of a space.

This paper's conceptual framework provides a value-added contribution to the literature on land management in conflict zones by taking the reader's attention to the origin of the problems and their associated real estate issues in geopolitical contexts. For the first time, this inductive research proposes a land-use typology that considers the complexity of the interrelationship between land policies, land-use theory, social theories of space and place and the exercise of extreme power over space. This paper produced a concept that is not easily measurable by quantitative nor qualitative approaches.

The increasing African population and economic growth leading to urbanisation continues to increase the need to redevelop brownfields as a strategy of encouraging sustainable development of cities, in particular in Ethiopia. However, the adoption of brownfield redevelopment in Ethiopia is at initial stage. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the framework based on grey-incidence decision-making approach to manage brownfields in African countries by taking Ethiopia as case example. The grey-incidence decision-making model integrates multiple factors such as economic, social, environmental, technical and associated risks and provides an effective decision-making and management tool for environmental practitioners and government agencies.

Questionnaires were used to collect data on terms and definitions of brownfield. The questions were prepared on the basis of currently used definitions developed by a number of developed countries. Moreover, this study utilises a grey-incidence decision-making approach to help in management and decision-making for the implementation of brownfield redevelopment projects (BRPs) in the remediated sites.

Standard definition of brownfield and essential guidelines for brownfield redevelopment is proposed for Ethiopian context. The research findings were tested and verified using literature data and survey from major stakeholders. In addition, the grey-incidence decision-making approach is applied for the evaluation of BRPs in the remediated sites. A framework is proposed to control future brownfields for African countries by taking Ethiopia as a case example.

This research stresses the significance of an urban structure to address sustainable development, and the need to consider redevelopment of brownfields and identify the potential for a specific government policy framework. This research provides the best opportunity for Ethiopia by devising an urban land policy and create a strategy to contribute social, economic, financial and environmental benefits. It also provides a foundation to solve environmental issues by involving all major stakeholders, including community citizens, environmentalists and government agencies, and it also serves as guidelines to transform brownfields into Greenfields; and finally, it contributes to achieve the 2030 UN global goals.

The purpose of this study is to solve five key brownfield valuation problems.

This aim is achieved by using doctoral research on integrating the scientific process into the appraisal process. The first objective is demonstrating why four of the problems require solutions prior to solving the first problem, a valuation procedure for formerly used sites. A second objective is to use empirical data from appraisals to reveal why existing methodology is not reliable – because it does not solve the four problems.

The resulting findings are that a developmental model that incorporates the Triad approach to quantifying environmental uncertainty, initially used in the USA, simulates a process used by buyers to establish the price paid for brownfields with contaminated land.

The practical implication that results from this research is that valuers need to emulate the buyer's process when valuing this property type. Prescriptive procedures for valuation requiring the use of scientific methods, as used in the Triad process, need to be set forth to quantify the atypical uncertainties in valuing this property type. The results of this research should be of significant interest to all stakeholders that are involved in brownfield redevelopment, so that they can insure that their needs will be met by improved feasibility analysis.

This research is unique in that it is the first empirical test of the reliability of the valuation of brownfields that need to undergo a time‐consuming and often expensive soil remediation process.

“Location” is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in deciding whether or not to undertake a property development; however, when considering the redevelopment of a “brownfield” site it may be only one of a number of issues which need to be considered as part of the decision‐making process. Issues such as the environmental and economic cost of reclaiming or remediating land will assume an importance which does not exist with greenfield sites. The potential for harm, both to human beings and to the wider environment, will have to be considered, especially if any contamination is to be left on the site. Many brownfield sites are small in size, requiring the assembly of a number of sites, in different ownerships, in order to have a viable development project and they may also be plagued with problems such as inadequate access and obsolete services. The availability of tax incentives, or indeed penalties, to encourage brownfield redevelopment, together the possibility of obtaining insurance cover, will need to be factored into a valuation or development appraisal. This paper considers the issues to be considered as part of the decision making process. Some issues relate specifically to the assessment of risk, such as the potential for harms to humans, buildings or the environment, but taken altogether they should form part of a risk assessment strategy to determine the viability of development projects and the value, positive or negative, of brownfield development land. The paper reports on a survey of surveyors, developers and other professionals undertaken in the second half of 1998. It concludes that, while property professionals do not undertake a formal “risk assessment” procedure, they do take account of environmental as well as financial issues when deciding whether or not to proceed with the redevelopment of brownfield land.

The purpose of the project was to investigate environmental law issues surrounding the regeneration of brownfield land.

Following a literature review, an inductive approach and an interpretivist epistemology with a phenomenological focus were chosen. A constructionist ontological stance was adopted. A qualitative paradigm was selected to explore the issues in a focus group comprising industry, legal expert and academic contributors.

A critique of the literature on relevant environmental law issues including contaminated land, waste management, water pollution, environmental impact assessment (EIA) issues and finally the political agenda is presented. Contaminated land, waste management, regulators and legislation were discussed in the focus group. The participants contributed their experiences and proposed several changes to environmental law. However, water pollution and EIAs were not considered by the contributors.

Developers face many environmental law challenges when endeavouring to progress housing on brownfield sites including contaminated land, funding, waste treatment permits, water pollution and EIAs. The benefits of the remediation of brownfield sites for housing seem to be a political priority, but reform of challenging environmental law issues less so. Understandably, the legal complexities of Brexit will take precedence.

The literature review identified the need to research the experience of brownfield environmental law challenges and recommended changes to environmental law from industry, legal experts and academia.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the barriers to housing development on brownfield land in the UK, making clear the distinction between market and institutional factors and identify appropriate public and private sector solutions to encourage more residential development.

In this research, the city of Nottingham in the East Midlands of England was chosen as the case study city. The research was based on secondary literature review of relevant local authority reports, Internet searches, consultancy documents and policy literature. Detailed case studies were undertaken of 30 sites in Nottingham which included a questionnaire survey of developers. Officials from Nottingham City Council assisted with the gathering of planning histories of the sites. The investigation took place in 2014.

Based on the evidence from Nottingham, the most frequently occurring significant constraint was poor market conditions. At the local level, it is clear that there are options that can be promoted to help reduce the level of friction in the market, to reduce delay and cost and, thus, to encourage developers to bring forward schemes when the market allows. Securing planning permission and agreeing the terms of a S106 agreement is recognised as a major development hurdle which requires time to achieve.

Market forces were clearly the dominant factor in hindering development on brownfield sites in Nottingham. The local authority should be more circumspect in the use of S106 agreements in market conditions where brownfield development is highly marginal. Imposing additional taxation on specific developments in weak markets discourages development and is counterproductive.

This detailed study of 30 development sites is significant in that it provides a better understanding of the barriers to residential development on brownfield land in the UK.