City Dumps Brownfield Proposal

A proposal to declare most of New Port Richey a brownfield area has been ditched.

City Manager John Schneiger said at a regular City Council meeting Tuesday that he will pull further discussion of the proposal from a December workshop agenda.

“There didn’t seem to be a lot of support for it (the designation),” he said afterward. 

Schneiger told the council Tuesday the proposal was taking up time and producing “diminishing returns.”

For the present, he doesn’t see the city revisiting the proposal, he said to the press.

A brownfield area designation would pave the way for economic incentives to be granted to people who cleaned up or redeveloped contaminated property.

Brownfield areas contain property that is either contaminated or perceived to be contaminated. New Port Richey's brownfield area would encompass the entire Community Redevelopment Area.

In 2001, the city council declared New Port Richey “blighted,” which allowed it to apply for new revenue bonds, tax-increment financing and grants. The CRA expanded to encompass the entirety of the city at that time, although later annexation expanded the city boundaries beyond that area.

Not all properties in a brownfield area are necessarily contaminated.

The city had proposed tapping some of the $1 million Pasco County received from the Environmental Protection Agency to identify specific brownfield sites, mainly commercial and industrial properties, that qualified for incentives.

Incentives could include tax credit for cleanups, bonus tax refunds for employers creating jobs during a site rehabilitation and other offerings.

The city had suggested calling its brownfield area the "New Port Richey Economic Incentive Area" to lessen the potential for stigma.

The City Council approved the first draft of the proposal Oct. 18. When the second draft was presented Nov. 1, council members agreed to table a vote. They agreed to hold a work session on the proposal on Dec. 13 and take comments from the public in the meantime. They said they had received public feedback.

Realtors who attended the Nov. 1 meeting expressed concern that stigma caused by the designation would taint property values, which is a concern Councilwoman Judy DeBella Thomas raised when the proposal was first read. A real estate broker expressed concern about a 1985 Florida Supreme Court decision that stated a seller has a duty to disclose to a buyer anything they know about that could affect property values.

Schneiger said all the feedback he received from the public was negative. He thought part of the response "was people not understanding that there’s a distinction between brownfield area and brownfield sites,” he said after Tuesday's meeting.

An idea to educate residents about brownfield through information sent in the mail with city utility bills was estimated to cost $500, and that could be used elsewhere, Schneiger said.

He wrote in an email to the city council Thursday that he was suggesting pulling further discussion. He thought the mailing could stir up more "unnecessary controversy" and that it "will be nearly impossible to explain the benefits with so many people upside down on their mortgages and the property values already being so depressed."

Schneiger said to the council Tuesday that if property owners request making a cetain location a brownfield site in the future, the city can discuss it.