Belleair blighted?
Blighted industrial areas could be eligible for EPA grants
By LESTER R. DAILEY
| Article published on Thursday, March 23, 2006 |
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BELLEAIR – Steve Spratt, the county administrator, sounded more like the town crier at the March 21 County Commission meeting, as he made a legally required announcement regarding a public hearing on two potential brownfields in the town of Belleair.
Brownfields are rundown industrial sites, and the properties in question are Belleair’s town garage and wastewater treatment plant.
Spratt announced that the county’s local planning agency will seek public comments on whether those sites should be declared brownfields.
The hearing will be Tuesday, April 4, 5 p.m. in the Belleair Town Hall, 901 Ponce de Leon Blvd., and the regular Belleair Town Commission meeting will follow at 5:30.
The LPA will then prepare a report to be considered by the County Commission at its May 2 meeting.
“Designation of the parcel as a brownfield area will allow us to offer economic incentives to encourage redevelopment of the area,” Spratt told the county commissioners. “As a brownfield area, new and expanding eligible businesses can receive up to a $2,500 job creation bonus refund for each new job created. The town of Belleair will be receiving Environmental Protection Agency grant funds for environmental site assessments at the wastewater treatment plant and town garage. These funds are available in the county EPA assessment grant.”
But as attractive as the financial incentives are, there are downsides to a brownfield designation. Not the least of these is that it requires municipal officials to admit that part of their town is “blighted.”
In other brownfield news, the County Commission approved the ranking of the top four applicants to be consultants for the first two phases of the county’s economic development department’s brownfields master plan.
Eleven firms applied for the four two-year contracts, which will pay up to $150,000 each, and the commissioners authorized county staffers to negotiate with the four finalists for the best deal.
In accordance with the Consultant’s Competitive Negotiation Act, the applicants were rated by a panel of five county employees, with another county staffer as proctor, on such categories as capability, experience, past performance, location, workload and minority status. The top-ranked firms were Environmental Consulting and Technology, OHC Environmental Engineering, Chastain-Skillman and the TBE (Tampa Bay Engineering) Group.
The four firms will provide engineering consulting services as needed throughout the county.
In Phase I, they will survey for asbestos and lead-based paint and develop quality assurance project plans.
Phase II will involve performing environmental site assessments and services related to the EPA assessment grant and soliciting involvement from the community and stakeholders as needed.
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Article published on Thursday, March 23, 2006
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