Builders calling for brownfield reforms.

Developers are calling for new reforms to the Brownfield Cleanup Program to help them meet the city's need for affordable housing.

Developers vying for land have been more apt to consider the thousands of contaminated plots still left in the city viable by entering them into the Brownfield Cleanup Program, a state program started in 2003 to offer tax incentives and an eventual clean bill of health for properties deemed good candidates for remediation.

While the Brownfield Cleanup Program has been revolutionary in helping to restore large scale projects such as the Fulton Fish Market in Hunts Point, Bronx which required $12 million in remediation, smaller, private developers--particularly those seeking to build sorely needed affordable housing--are still finding it difficult to get their projects approved for the program

Furthermore, some argue the tax credits for developers accepted into the program--which could yield a hefty 22% of the total cost of the project after completion--may encourage larger developers to sign on while leaving smaller firms who must foot significant initial costs in the dust.

Yet without BCP, many small, affordable housing projects wouldn't stand a chance of surviving.

"The BCP does not work for smaller sites that have lower levels of contaminants, because they are deemed ineligible for the program. Yet the sites must get cleaned up in order for people to live in the buildings." said Mathy Stanislaus, director of New Partners for Community Revitalization, a nonprofit group specializing in brownfield redevelopment for affordable housing that has been advocating for reforms in the BCP for the past four years. "The costs of remediation range from a half million dollars, to a million and a half dollars just for the initial cleanup.

"While these costs may be insignificant for a large developer working with on a $100 million project, it could devastate a small affordable housing project.

Though the group has had some success in getting the 25 projects it was working on through various stages of the remediation process, not a single one has yet been completed through the program.

Over the years, the state has received 327 applications for the BCP and approved 231. Of these, 109 applications were New York City applications, with 77 approved.

Even those who find themselves approved can often face considerable threats.

Tom Ciano, principal owner of TAC Partners, a developer of affordable housing projects in New York, is in the process of negotiating the purchase of a 1.7 acre Queens site that was formerly a uniform cleaning factory and was recently approved for the Brownfield Cleanup Program.

Ciano said legal and consulting fees incurred just to obtain the information necessary to push the project through the BCP program ran about $400,000.

"There is a considerable amount of risk for any developer to take on a brownfield site," said Frances Hoffman, PHD, director of redevelopment for Somerset Development.

"You never really know the extent of the contamination until you start digging. Sometimes you have what you thought was an ugly nasty site, and find that there is much less contamination than you thought, and that is a very pleasant surprise. Other times you have what you thought was a relatively clean site and find unpleasant and expensive surprises," added Hoffman, who formerly headed up the Brownfield Interagency Team in New Jersey and worked on a national brownfield pilot project.

Even larger projects have difficulty stomaching risks to include affordable housing in their projects. Leviev Boymelgreen, in partnership with Jewish Press, has been working to develop Gowanus Village, on five acres of land along a severely contaminated Gowanus Canal.

"The difficulty is that additional development costs along the canal, including remediation and infrastructure upgrades, complicate the project and add time and cost. This is in addition to rising construction values and other related development expenses as compared to other projects with fewer complication creates greater project risk and overall expense. For this reason, without significant housing density, affordable housing is less feasible," said Sara Mirski, managing director of development of Boymelgreen Developers.

Ciano was willing to stomach the risk associated with getting his project approved largely because he didn't see any way lenders would sign on for the project without the state's stamp of approval and because he knew the approval would protect his company against lawsuits if, by some chance, they arose in the future.

And the land was the best option for affordable housing out there. "We were open to considering a contaminated site because of the scarcity of available land. It is just becoming harder and harder to find properties that would work for affordable housing," Ciano said.

Advocates argue when planning for the future of the city, it is important to consider BCP reforms which could help more developers like Ciano to secure some of what is left.

"If affordable housing is going to happen, and we are going to be able to absorb the million and a half people the mayor is anticipating by 2030, we are going to have to come up with a way of solving this brownfield question," Stanislaus said.