The Brownfield Cleanup Program reform bill approved in the waning hours of the just-concluded session of the Legislature should put a valuable program back on track, increasing the number of contaminated properties that can be rehabilitated statewide and improving the quality of those cleanups, without bankrupting the taxpayer.

The new legislation, which Gov. David Paterson promoted and is expected to sign, fixes a loophole in the existing Brownfield Cleanup Program that extended exorbitant tax credits to a few developers, some of whom were building in areas so desirable their projects hardly justified the assistance. The program has been a force in revitalizing White Plains and Yonkers, among other locales.

The biggest problem with the existing law, which was passed in 2003, was that it lumped together the cost of cleaning up contaminated land and the cost of the development and meted out benefits accordingly; the latter expense, however, very often turned out to be substantially more than the environmental cleanup costs. Savvy developers received tax credits of up to 22 percent of the entire cost of a project, regardless of how small their remediation costs were.

That is a bonanza financially ailing New York can no longer afford.

A needed fix

The new legislation makes a necessary distinction between environmental clean up costs and other development costs and establishes caps so that no developer will see a windfall in tax credits. As reformed, the Brownfield Cleanup Program will provide a tax credit for 23 percent to 50 percent of the cost of the cleanup, depending on the standard of remediation that is met. It will also provide tax credit for the cost of development, an important incentive that can make downtrodden neighborhoods attractive to builders; the development credit will be capped at the lesser of $35 million or three times the cost of the cleanup, except for manufacturing projects, which will qualify for the lesser of $45 million or six times the cleanup cost.

The new legislation is a realistic compromise between the existing program and a more restrictive proposal that had been advocated by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer last year, Josh Nachowitz, state policy director for the a New York League of Conservation Voters, told the Editorial Board. Even those who opposed any reform of the program, like Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone, who was concerned that reducing the incentives would stifle development in his city, embraced the legislation that was adopted last week. The program has been used to lure builders and spark a downtown revival in Yonkers.

"This compromise achieves both of those objectives (capping costs and raising cleanup standards) while keeping the economic incentives in place for developers who put a substantial amount of their own money at risk in cities across New York State," Amicone said.

That was always the point of the program. Now, let's hope, that's how it proceeds in the future.

A Journal News editorial