The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development has awarded two Valley brownfield sites grants for cleanup efforts.
The awards were part of $16 million being awarded to brownfield projects across the state, according to a press release issued by Gov. Dannel Malloy’s office.
The grants benefiting the Valley are:
- $500,000 for the Housatonic Wire property on River Street in Seymour. The site is slated for redevelopment as a mixed use village center.
- $325,000 for the Cel-Lastik property on Canal Street in Shelton. The site is slated to become open public green space.
Brownfields are sites with environmental contamination from past factory uses. The grants help pay to clean up that contamination so the sites can be redeveloped for new uses.
“Cleaning up Connecticut brownfields is an important component of our economic development agenda. These contaminated sites are a blight to their communities and significantly damper development and prosperity for adjacent sites,” Malloy said. ​“Investing in these redevelopment efforts is smart policy — we create jobs and thriving communities, expand our tax base, and clean up pollution in Connecticut.”
The awards total $7.5 million in grants for 18 projects across the state.
The projects include commercial and industrial remediation and expansion; affordable, disabled, student, and workforce housing; train stations and transit oriented development (TOD); and mixed-use developments with hotel, residential and retail space.
It is estimated the state funding will leverage over $300 million in additional private and public investment, according to the press release.
Funding will go directly to municipalities, businesses, developers and regional development agencies and can be used for environmental assessment, planning, design, remediation, demolition, construction and acquisition.
The state also offers a third party liability protection program for eligible developers of brownfields.The Seymour legislation applauded the announcement, in a press release issued last week.
Rep. Len Greene, who represents Seymour and Beacon Falls and serves on the Environment, Public Safety and Energy Committees, stressed the importance of these loans and grants for local and state-wide economic development.
“This is a smart investment by our state and these efforts will advance the economic productivity of our towns and cities across Connecticut,” Greene said.
The Shelton legislation also issued a press release about the grants.
“I am encouraged that this grant will be used to clean up the former Cel-Lastik property,” said Senator Kevin Kelly, who represents Shelton. ​“This investment will make our community a better place for families to live by paving the way for a public greenspace project.”