How Brownfield Redevelopment and Affordable Housing Are Helping Address the Housing Crisis

As housing costs rise and land availability shrinks, communities across the Pacific Northwest are turning to a promising solution: brownfield redevelopment. By transforming formerly contaminated or underused industrial and commercial sites into vibrant, livable spaces, cities are unlocking new potential for affordable housing development.

What Is a Brownfield?

A brownfield is a property where the presence, or potential presence, of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants complicates future use. These sites, often abandoned factories, gas stations, or rail yards, are common in urban areas and can sit idle for years due to cleanup costs and liability concerns.

The Affordable Housing Challenge

The Pacific Northwest is deeply affected by the nationwide affordable housing crisis, with a significant portion of households—especially in urban areas such as Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland—spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing. In Washington state alone, more than 70 percent of extremely low-income renters are severely cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than half their income on rent. Meanwhile, developers struggle to find buildable land in urban areas where housing is most needed.

This is where brownfield redevelopment comes in.

How Brownfield Redevelopment Supports Affordable Housing

• Unlocking Land in Urban Cores: Brownfields are often located in central, transit-accessible neighborhoods. Redeveloping these sites allows cities to build affordable housing close to jobs, schools, and services—a key factor in reducing poverty and improving quality of life.
• Leveraging Public Incentives: Federal and state brownfields programs, such as those offered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Business Oregon, and Washington State Department of Ecology, offer grants and tax incentives for site assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment. These financial tools help reduce the up-front costs for developers committed to affordable or mixed-income housing.
• Promoting Environmental Justice: Historically, many brownfield sites are located in low-income communities or communities of color where environmental contamination has had a disproportionate impact on sensitive groups. Turning these neglected areas into safe, affordable housing is an act of environmental justice, helping repair the inequities of the past.
• Driving Economic Revitalization: Brownfield-to-housing projects don’t just provide homes—they catalyze neighborhood revitalization. New housing attracts investment, improves infrastructure, and supports local businesses, creating a ripple effect of economic benefits.

Case Study - City of Vancouver EPA Brownfields Grant Program

Project Summary

Maul Foster & Alongi helped the City of Vancouver, in coalition with Clark County Public Health and Vancouver Housing Authority, implement a U.S. EPA Brownfield Coalition Assessment grant awarded in 2020. The grant focused on assessment and community engagement within the Fourth Plain Corridor and broader Clark County to further local subarea revitalization, economic development, environmental protection, and housing goals.

Sites prioritized for assessment funds met multiple criteria for impact, return on investment, and community benefit. A key achievement of the grant was successfully directing funds toward projects that support the Coalition’s housing goals.

Program Accomplishments

The Brownfield Assessment program achieved several goals, including:

• Conducting 27 Phase I environmental site assessments (ESAs) and 11 Phase II ESAs to identify potential contamination on brownfield sites, as well as completing one cleanup plan and one area-wide plan.
• Leveraging further grant funding from Washington State to enable the Vancouver Housing Authority to expand the brownfield inventory work through layering on additional environmental conditions, social determinants of health factors, and site characteristics. This funding assisted in building a pipeline of potential brownfield opportunity sites in Clark County that could feasibly support affordable housing developments.
• Engaging with business and property owners, as well as developers and other community stakeholders, to initiate redevelopment efforts to effectively reuse land once burdened by perceived or existing environmental impacts. More than a dozen newspaper articles highlighted the redevelopment work at the Brownfield Assessment program sites.
• Leveraging several hundreds of millions of dollars combined, from private, local, state, and federal sources, to fund redevelopment, including from the City of Vancouver Affordable Housing Fund, Clark County Mental Health Sales Tax fund, Washington State Department of Commerce funds, and HUD Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
• Conducting assessment and planning activities on brownfield sites is resulting in over 855 affordable housing units developed or in planning stages.

Benefits from the Assessment Grant

The grant allowed the coalition to engage with business and property owners, as well as community stakeholders. Grant funds have been critical in initiating redevelopment efforts to effectively reuse land once burdened by perceived or existing environmental impacts. The grant also generated opportunities for the Vancouver Housing Authority to pursue additional grant funds from Ecology brownfields program to build a pipeline of potential brownfield opportunity sites in Clark County that could feasibly support affordable housing developments.

Conclusion

Brownfield redevelopment is a powerful tool for addressing the affordable housing crisis. By transforming contaminated sites into safe, livable spaces, cities can unlock new opportunities for housing development, promote environmental justice, and drive economic revitalization. The City of Vancouver Coalition's Brownfields Grant is a testament to the success and potential of these initiatives.