The Ann Arbor City Council will decide today whether to approve the higher standards for brownfield cleanup recommended to them by the city's Environmental Commission. The standards are significantly higher, but they may prove to be a deterrent to the redevelopment of Ann Arbor's brownfields because developers will be expected to pick up the costs. The council should approve the stricter standards, but it should also work to encourage private developers to purge the sites of contamination.

Brownfields - areas that have been polluted with compounds like arsenic, lead and PCBs - pose serious health and environmental risks to their communities. Redeveloping them not only limits these risks, but also addresses sustainability and urban planning problems that plague cities like Ann Arbor. It allows for the re-use of land that is already linked to existing infrastructure, thus reducing urban sprawl and providing development sites within developed areas as opposed to outlying green spaces. Redevelopment can also result in the rejuvenation of struggling city districts.

An Ann Arbor News story from last Tuesday illustrates the difficulty local governments face when trying to balance high environmental standards with the expenses of brownfield cleanup. Developer Peter Allen owns property at Maiden Lane and Broadway in Ann Arbor's Lower Town. His property is contaminated by tetra-chloroethylene, a chemical that can cause liver and kidney damage. Under the proposed cleanup guidelines, Allen would be expected to shoulder the additional cleanup costs, a figure that could reach $1 million. Because the contamination was the result of a dry cleaner's chemical dumping 40 years ago, it would be impossible to hold the original polluter accountable for the costs of cleanup.

Cleanup of the site, however, is crucial. If Ann Arbor's brownfields go undeveloped, they will remain a perpetual health and environmental hazard to the community. This is unacceptable. So while the city should hold property owners to the strictest environmental standards, it should do everything in its power to secure the assistance of developers in the essential task of cleanup.

Developers can provide crucial funding and coordination in reclaiming brownfields. They will eventually profit off the land and should be expected to put forward a reasonable amount of capital toward cleanup costs.

Currently, mechanisms such as federal and state grants and loans exist in order to create incentives for businesses to redevelop brownfields. But in many cases the cost of removing contaminants from brownfields is still high enough to deter developers. Ann Arbor needs to create additional incentives to encourage brownfield redevelopment so that contaminated land is reclaimed as quickly as possible. Peter Allen intends to build affordable housing on the Maiden Lane and Broadway site, more of which is needed in Ann Arbor. To allow him to build elsewhere would be a shame. Brownfield recovery is an important step toward redirecting urban planning policy towards more sustainable communities. It should be a priority for the City of Ann Arbor..