Environmental Finance.

• Position: From the Library

New Ways to Pay for Property Redevelopment

Singer, Molly

Public Management, September 2001, pp. 17-20

There are an estimated 500,000 parcels of contaminated property sites, or brownfields, in the United States. A January 1998 study by the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that $205 to $500 million of annual tax revenue could be generated and 236,000 jobs created through the redevelopment of these sites. Despite these and other benefits of brownfield remediation, the process is an expensive one that many local governments cannot afford on their own. One emerging solution to the financing problem is to access the insurance policies of the parties responsible for polluting these properties. Prior to 1985, general liability insurance in most states covered property damage, which the courts have repeatedly interpreted to include environmental remediation costs. Over the past few years, insurance companies in most of the 50 states have paid billions of dollars to federal, state, and local...