MARCH 9,
2015
NEW YORK, NY
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today it is providing
$200,000 to the City of Camden Redevelopment Agency in Camden, New Jersey to
create a plan for revitalizing the Mt. Ephraim Choice Neighborhood. This
funding is part of EPA’s Brownfields Area-Wide Planning program, which helps
communities develop specific strategies that integrate the cleanup and reuse of
brownfields sites in larger, coordinated efforts to revitalize neighborhoods.
Brownfields are properties where moderate contamination threatens environmental
quality and public health and can interfere with productive reuse of the
properties.
“This EPA funding to Camden
empowers community leaders to assess, clean up and revitalize formerly
contaminated sites and their impacted neighborhoods through a locally-driven
planning process,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “This
comprehensive approach will help create jobs while protecting the health of
area residents and improving the environment.”
The Camden Redevelopment
Agency will use the EPA funding to transform the Mt. Ephraim Choice
Neighborhood in Camden into a revitalized, mixed-use and sustainable community
for residents at a variety of income levels. They will develop a detailed plan
to create and rehabilitate housing, attract new businesses and rehabilitate or
demolish existing blighted buildings. Multiple city agencies, community groups
and other organizations have worked together to leverage these funds with a
2012 Housing and Urban Development Choice Planning Grant. The area-wide project
will build on past planning efforts by focusing on brownfields and including
job skills training, health care, and community engagement activities.
The EPA’s
Brownfields Program supports states, communities, and others to work together
to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields sites.
The Brownfields
Area-Wide Planning program is part of the
Partnership for Sustainable Communities collaboration among EPA, the
Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. The
Partnership for Sustainable Communities ensures that the agencies consider
affordable housing, transportation, and environmental protection in concert to
create healthier communities.
The partnership is helping communities across the
country to create affordable housing choices, make transportation more
efficient and reliable, reinforce existing infrastructure investments, and
support vibrant and healthy neighborhoods that attract businesses. To date the
program has leveraged approximately $418 million in infrastructure and project
development investments.