PC/Flowing Wells receive EPA Brownfield Grant (7/29)

The only EPA grant awarded in Arizona in 2008.

Pima County Community Development and Neighborhood Conservation Department (CDNC) has been successful in their Brownfields application for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Community-Wide Assessment grant funding for the community of Flowing Wells, Arizona. Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or underutilized property where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination. These sites typically include abandoned factories and other industrial facilities, gasoline stations, oil storage facilities, dry cleaning stores and other business that dealt with polluting substances. While these sites may have once have thrived, concerns with liability, the time and cost of potential cleanup, and reluctance to invest in older urban areas make these sites difficult to redevelop. Flowing Wells, however, has one of the last vestiges of industrially-zoned and economically-viable properties in Pima County, and the community actively supports the commercial and industrial reuse of the approximately 861 acres of vacant or underutilized land potentially available.

The ability of the Flowing Wells Neighborhood Association and Community Coalition (FWNACC) to attract and leverage existing community development resources, via creating and implementing their Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area (NRSA) plan, was instrumental being awarded this EPA funding. The $200,000 grant is designed to spur economic development opportunities by actively engaging public and private landowners to voluntarily have their “potentially contaminated” brownfield properties environmentally assessed as a catalyst toward eventual redevelopment and job creation.

CDNC Staff and the FWNACC have been proactive in informing the local business owners about the Brownfields opportunities via public meetings and presentations. Pima County Brownfields Program activities in Flowing Wells are one element of a three prong approach to redevelop the area. The County’s other revitalization strategies, also spearheaded by the Community Coalition, including amending the Comprehensive Plan to allow for more industrial, manufacturing and commercial land uses and establishing a Business Incentive District within the area.

Updated 7/29: Despite some minor administrative delays (which are to be expected) , Pima County is still on task to begin ESA work by August 2009 as originally proposed in the Work Plan. As staff works to finalize necessary programmatic grant activities to begin ESA work, the Flowing Wells leadership has been instrumental in soliciting the interest of four (4) private landowners to engage in Phase I activities. Staff and its respective consultants have already initiated informative meetings with these prospective land owners to explain the benefits of the ESA process and to detail elements of the Access Agreement which is in draft form.

The meeting outcomes have been overwhelmingly positive; moreover, these initial landowners not only want to participate but look forward to working with staff to solicit their immediate and adjacent neighbors for the Brownfields Program. In anticipation of a finalized, forthcoming, Access Agreement, the consultant has submitted proposals for the subject properties which total approximately 8 acres and have been reviewed to the satisfaction of staff. Hence, as soon as the Access Agreement is approved by the County's legal department, presented and signed by the interested parties, a Notice to Proceed will be immediately granted to the consultant to conduct Flowing Wells first EPA funded Phase I environmental site assessments.

For more information on this project, go to our home page under LINKS and hit on Pima County Flowing Wells EPA Brownfield Project.