June 16, 1997
Kalamazoo has a set of problems common to many older urban core areas: an imposing inventory of abandoned industrial sites and the loss of tax base needed to provide its citizens with basic services. Open land for new development in this southwest Michigan city is scarce and highly valued as green space. A college town, 40 percent of Kalamazoo's land is non-taxable. Annexation is not an option for growth.
Mayor Barbara Larson and the City Commission have responded to this situation by mobilizing the City staff and the community to address the need for "brownfield" redevelopment head on.
In 1995, the City launched its Brownfield Redevelopment Initiative (BRI), a program aimed at systematically identifying contaminated sites, prioritizing those with the most redevelopment potential, and then finding the resources to prepare each site for productive and desirable reuse. Citizen participation has been a key component at every stage of this process.
From a practical standpoint, Kalamazoo chose to start with publicly-owned sites -- properties which the City had acquired or could purchase from the State of Michigan at nominal expense through tax foreclosure. Ownership control over its brownfield sites has been critical to the City's progress in resolving environmental issues and ensuring future uses of sites that are consistent with community goals.
The City uses legally-binding development agreements in the sale of land to private developers. These agreements specify City expectations for development quality, scope and timeframes, while providing developers with an outline of what they can expect from the City in incentives and support.
Early, tangible success stories and a broad campaign of community awareness have earned the BRI program strong citizen support. Ground was broken this spring on Kalamazoo's first BRI project, a new office and light manufacturing facility for Alumilite Corporation.
The company, which makes quick-setting liquid plastic products, is investing some $400,000 in new construction on a brownfield site which had been occupied for more than 100 years by a steel products factory. In recent years, the abandoned structure had become a dangerous blight on the surrounding neighborhood. The City acquired the property from the State through tax foreclosure and demolished the existing structure, an action which caught the attention of Alumilite, a business that had outgrown its leased space nearby.
Working with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the City took advantage of new State standards for cleanup, which are now site-specific and depend on how a property will be reused. Also, State law can now protect new owners from liability for environmental problems that they did not create. Alumilite can thus remain and grow in the City, while bringing jobs and tax ase to land which before had been useful to no one.
The City has just announced a deal on another high-priority BRI site with MacKenzie's Bakery, a local business interested in building a new production and commercial facility at a downtown gateway location. This brownfield site was assembled by the City from multiple owners, including the State and Conrail. It had been the location of an unsightly and highly-visible junkyard for a number of years. Here again, the City took action to remove the blight, test for environmental contamination, and prepare the land for redevelopment using a combination of State and local resources.
Kalamazoo's inventory of brownfields includes three federal Superfund sites and abandoned heavy industrial sites galore, sites which stand as stark monuments to the City's history as a major paper products and automotive components manufacturer. The City is also dotted with many smaller brownfield parcels in older neighborhoods, such as abandoned gas stations and scrap yards. The City's largest BRI site is a 225-acre parcel of primarily open and visually-pristine land which offers its own unique set of challenges as a former wastewater sludge pit.
"Kalamazoo obviously has many more challenges ahead in its strategy to clean its environment and rebuild its tax base through brownfield redevelopment," says Mayor Larson. "But the City is making steady progress on a site-by-site basis and, in the process, is developing a successful model which it intends to apply to larger and more complex sites which hold the opportunity for even greater community rewards."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated Kalamazoo as a national Brownfields Pilot Program. The State of Michigan has recognized the City's efforts with significant grant support for environmental site testing, cleanup and technical assistance. Kalamazoo's City Commission has made brownfield redevelopment a key point of its overall economic development strategy for the City and has targeted substantial local resources to the effort as well.
More information on Kalamazoo's Brownfield Redevelopment Initiative is available from the City's Economic Development and Planning Division, (616) 337-8044.
Volume IV of Best Practices Available at 65th Annual Conference of Mayors. The most recent compilation of the Best Practices of City Governments will be distributed to mayors attending the 65th Annual Conference of Mayors in San Francisco. Copies of the new document, containing dozens of reports of successful initiatives received from 47 cities across the nation, will be sent to other Conference members following the San Francisco event. Information is available from Mike Brown on the Conference staff, (202) 861-6708.
The United States Conference of Mayors
J. Thomas Cochran, Executive Director
1620 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006
Telephone (202) 293-7330, FAX (202) 293-2352