[CPEO-BIF] Building houses on brownfields

["Hersh, Robert" <hersh@WPI.EDU>]

The following article presents to UK readers some of the complexities in the US  of building residential units on former brownfields.

What lurks beneath

Financial Times (UK)
By Ted Smalley Bowen

August 25 2007
Would you live in a house built on a landfill? How about a site where a petrol station once stood? What about in a converted chemicals factory? Or an apartment tower recently cleared of asbestos? When the matter is put so starkly, few people would say “yes”.

But, with urban property prices rising, developers running out of pristine land on which to build and more governments pushing sustainable growth, these are becoming increasingly likely options for homebuyers. Around the world, a broad range of residential projects now occupy formerly contaminated industrial sites and, for most people who live in them, the benefits of location, price and amenities easily trump any health concerns.

“I haven’t had any problems,” says Doras Briggs, who bought into a condominium complex on the site of an old transformer factory and oil storage tank facility in Emeryville, California, across the bay from San Francisco. The land had to be cleared of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), petroleum hydrocarbons and other toxic substances before residents moved in – “the developer told me he had to dig down about 20ft,” Briggs says – but otherwise she didn’t think much about the history of her new home. As a widow, “maintaining a house and garden wasn’t to my liking,” she explains. Plus, she’s a train buff and her building, Terraces at Emery Station, is right next to the Amtrak rail depot.

For the complete article, see:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a27c426e-5110-11dc-8e9d-0000779fd2ac.html

Bob Hersh
CPEO
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