Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Program
Introduction
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the Brownfields Area-Wide Planning (BF AWP) Program to
assist communities in responding to local brownfields challenges, particularly where multiple brownfield1 sites are
in close proximity, connected by infrastructure, and overall limit the economic, environmental and social prosperity
of their surroundings. Through the BF AWP Program, EPA provides assistance to advance community brownfield
revitalization efforts. The BF AWP program is part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities collaboration
among EPA and the Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
(www.sustainablecommunities.gov)

Brownfields Area-Wide Planning
Program Goals
EPA developed the BF AWP Program to enhance EPA’s
core brownfields assistance programs2 by helping
communities perform the research needed to develop an
area-wide plan for brownfields assessment, cleanup, and
reuse. The resulting area-wide plans provide direction
for future brownfields cleanup, reuse and related
improvements that are:
•   Protective of public health and the environment;
•   Economically viable; and
•   Reflective of the community’s vision for the area.

EPA’s Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Program
Initiated in 2010, the BF AWP Program provides
grant funding and technical assistance to brownfields
communities selected via a national grant competition.
These communities are using EPA resources to
research area-wide planning approaches that will help
them achieve brownfields cleanup and reuse in the
future. The BF AWP grant recipients represent a cross
section of community leaders on brownfield issues,
include public and non-profit organizations, and are
distributed across the country. Find more information at
www.epa.gov/brownfields/areawide_grants.htm. EPA
expects to award additional BF AWP grants as funding
is available.

Core Elements of Brownfields
Area-Wide Planning
Core elements of the BF AWP Program include:
•   Collecting information and identifying
community priorities related to brownfields
cleanup and near- and long-term revitalization;
•   Evaluating existing environmental conditions,
local market potential, and needed
infrastructure improvements;
•   Developing strategies for brownfields site
cleanup and reuse; and
•   Identifying resources or leveraging
opportunities to help implement the plans,
including specific strategies for public and
private sector investments and improvements
necessary to help with cleanup and area
revitalization.
1 
2 

A brownfield is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance,
pollutant, or contaminant. See www.epa.gov/brownfields/basic_info.htm
Please visit www.epa.gov/brownfields/grant_info/index.htm

 Types of Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Research Activities
•   Project Area Definition – BF AWP areas are
typically established within a local commercial
corridor, neighborhood, city block, downtown
district, or other geographically-defined area that
has a single large or multiple brownfield sites.
•   Community Engagement – Meaningful
and continuous community engagement is
fundamental to BF AWP. Stakeholders include
residents, businesses, government, communitybased organizations, nonprofits, and any potential
future partners. Engagement can be facilitated
through advisory committees, public meetings,
design charrettes, round table sessions, and other
means to gather community priorities for area
cleanup and reuse.

The vision for cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields is driven by local
community priorities, market demand, and area-wide investments in
New Bern, North Carolina

•  Partnerships – BF AWP should reflect diverse
perspectives on community priorities and shared
responsibility for implementation across multiple
entities. Partnerships typically include government
agencies, institutional or community-based
organizations, local or regional funding providers
and the private sector. Long-term collaboration
amongst partners helps ensure the interests
voiced in the community engagement process
are applied throughout the life of the project and
facilitates implementation of the area-wide plan.
•   Brownfields Site Prioritization – Prioritization
allows for strategic use of limited resources. It
can be customized to meet the unique needs and
goals of the community identified through the
community engagement process. Criteria may
include proximity to sensitive populations, property
size, human or environmental health threats,
likelihood of reuse, availability of other resources,
or potential to catalyze additional improvements
within the project area.
•   Existing Conditions – Establishing the local
physical, social, economic, and environmental
context on which to base the plan allows
stakeholders to: identify priorities, partnerships,
and general needs for the area; informs a
detailed opportunities and constraints analysis;

Ironbound Community Corporation, New Jersey brownfields planning area and
site reuse concepts

Meaningful community engagement like this meeting in Huntington Park,
California, allows the plan to reflect community priorities

 and begins the process of identifying resources
for implementation. For example, proposed
projects requiring private market investment and
development may benefit from economic research
or market studies to identify what the local real
estate market can support. Similarly, identifying
the extent to which a project will require public
subsidies is critical to determine project feasibility.
Brownfields cleanup and reuse strategies need to
be directly tied to the infrastructure that supports
the sites, including roads, water, sewer, power, and
telecommunications, if revitalization plans are to be
realized. Examining the adequacy of infrastructure
is important when developing strategies for
leveraging the use of existing infrastructure— or
identifying if upgrades are needed given the
planned reuse.
•   Brownfields Reuse Planning for Catalyst Sites –
Through the process of identifying the community’s
priorities and existing conditions of the project
area, the BF AWP process helps uncover specific
opportunities where communities can assess, clean
up and reuse high-priority, or catalyst, brownfield
sites. These sites may have the strongest potential
for reuse due to community interest, environmental,
health or economic concerns, and/or ability to spur
additional revitalization within the project area.
The brownfields area-wide plan should summarize
the cleanup and reuse implementation strategies
for these catalyst sites using information obtained
through research into community engagement,
prioritization, existing conditions, partnerships, and
potential resources.
•   Implementation Strategy – Identifying and
evaluating potential technical or financial resources
at the local, regional, state, tribal, and federal
levels are critical steps for the realization of BF
AWP goals. EPA encourages strong coordination
with other federal, state, tribal, regional and local
agencies to share relevant information and help
leverage technical assistance and resource
opportunities. Implementation strategies must also
consider partnerships, market-based feasibility of
redevelopment plans, and short- and long-term
actions to achieve full-scale implementation.

Brownfields like this in Ranson, West Virginia, are part of the city’s BF AWP
project area and targeted for cleanup and revitalization

Mobile community engagement in San Francisco tours the planning area for
close inspection

Public and private partners in Kansas City, Missouri, look at a key brownfields site
and work together to develop a strategy to implement the BF AWP vision

 Developing Action-Oriented Brownfields Area-Wide Planning with
Short- and Long-Term Implementation Considerations
The BF AWP process is meant to help communities
organize the short-and long-term actions that they
need to take to achieve the cleanup and reuse
goals for the project area. Often times, economic
limitations (such as financial resources and
market conditions) and local policy challenges can
prevent a brownfields area-wide plan from being
implemented immediately. However, the process
should help a community recognize that taking
initial or interim steps can keep momentum behind
the project. For example, a community can work
to integrate the plan across local government
departments, into partnership priorities or into
regional planning efforts. Additionally, pursuing
interim cleanup and reuse at brownfields sites can
also help demonstrate to the community that their
priorities are being addressed, even before the full
brownfields remedy and reuse are achieved.

Relationship of Brownfields Area-Wide Planning to
Existing Community Planning Efforts
BF AWP does not replicate or replace traditional planning
efforts such as city-wide comprehensive, regional land
use, or neighborhood planning. Rather, the research and
strategies developed through BF AWP can be used to
inform these more traditional planning process so they
are complementary and account for the unique nature of
brownfield cleanup, reuse, and the social, environmental,
and economic implications that differentiate them from
unencumbered property. For example, some community
planning efforts assume relative uniformity across
properties within a particular area – that all properties
are equally reusable, relatively unconstrained, and any
development limitations are influenced only by local policy
(such as zoning). These planning efforts do not always
account for the impact that real or potential contamination
associated with brownfields has on these assumptions.

Conclusion
EPA’s BF AWP program outlines an approach which
enables communities to research and evaluate
brownfields cleanup and reuse opportunities in
light of priorities and existing plans; local market,
infrastructure, and other conditions; and resource
availability. This information enables communities
to make more informed decisions about where to
direct scarce resources and helps advance the
Ohio River Corridor Brownfields Area-Wide Planning study area in
implementation of locally-driven initiatives, such as
Monaca, Pennsylvania
housing, parks, environmental improvement, economic
development, and ensuring environmental justice.
The BF AWP process is especially helpful to communities that have already been working within a specific area to
develop partnerships, engage the community on priorities and build agreement around a shared revitalization vision.
As available, EPA provides assistance to brownfields communities for BF AWP in order to help identify specific
cleanup and reuse opportunities for key brownfield sites that can serve as catalysts for revitalization of the
surrounding area.

United States
Environmental Protection
Agency

Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Program Fact Sheet • July 2012 • EPA-560-F-12-182