The Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) has released a white paper “Unlocking Opportunity: Ohio’s Brownfield Remediation Fund Awards & The Benefit of Brownfields,” which analyzes the 313 projected awarded grant funding through the Brownfield Remediation Fund, and makes the case for additional funding for environmental clean-up.

The white paper examines the $341 million awarded by the Ohio Department of Development through the three rounds, announced in June 2022 and December 2022. The $341 million awarded includes 313 assessment and cleanup projects in 83 of Ohio’s 88 counties. These funds will clean up 188 sites and support 125 assessments.  The anticipated end uses for the remediated sites are impressive, including: mixed-use, affordable housing, transit, and new industrial sites. The white paper provides additional analysis of the awards.

The white paper also makes the case for allocating another $500 million to the program and recommends one adjustment to help communities, especially smaller and more rural communities, successfully compete for funds.

The Brownfield Remediation Fund (BRF) brought the most significant investment in brownfield grant dollars to Ohio in nearly a decade. Over the past several years, the Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) has served as Ohio’s lead advocate for policies that encourage brownfields redevelopment, which includes a dedicated grant funding program. GOPC research has shown that accessible grant dollars significantly increase environmental cleanup by providing local communities and brownfields practitioners with additional resources to assess, remediate, and revitalize brownfields sites across the state of Ohio.

In October 2022, GOPC released a White Paper to analyze the Brownfield Remediation Fund grant awards for the first round of the program. The updated White Paper analyzes the program’s full funding, which includes Round 1. To read the October 2022 White Paper, click below

To review a mapping of the awarded projects, and to read project case studies, please access that information here.