NYC Brownfield Investigation Grants are intended to stimulate interest in brownfield sites (i.e. contaminated properties) and enable these properties to become competitive with non-contaminated properties for new development projects. These grants are intended to assist land purchase agreements by helping define the environmental problems on a property, so they can be valued as part of a property transaction, and enable developers to determine the cost and time associated with brownfield cleanup. NYC Brownfield Investigation Grants provide capability for necessary brownfield investigation by providing funds during the earliest stage of development and prior to availability of lender financing. Projects thus stimulated are candidates for enrollment into the NYC local brownfield cleanup program.

The NYC Brownfield Investigation Grant Program is currently under development and grants are not yet available. It is anticipated that grants under this program will be available in early 2009. Stay tuned for more details.

Anticipated Grant Delivery Mechanism. Numbered items in the narrative below are illustrated in the underlying flow chart.

1. NYC Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation (OER) works in conjunction with NYC Economic Development Corporation to administer the grants.
2. OER earmarks roughly $750k of its annual $3M brownfield incentive funding to provide cleanup investigation grants to be disbursed in allotments of approximately $30,000 to grant applicants (approximately 25 grants per annum).
3. Grant applicant selects vendor from an OER-approved list. OER grants are passed through the grant applicant to the vendor for cleanup investigation services.
4. Vendor performs cleanup investigation services according to a service agreement approved by OER (one contract is negotiated for all vendors).
5. Vendor completes services and issues cleanup investigation report to grant applicant.