[CPEO-BIF] Roanoke, Virginia

[Lenny Siegel]

Brightening the brownfields
Redeveloping neglected former industrial sites could boost Roanoke's 
economy.

By Jeremy Borden
Roanoke Times (VA)
September 4, 2006

At the old Evans paint shop off Cleveland Avenue, the windows are broken 
and the paint is cracked and peeling.

Ford Weber, the city's director of housing and neighborhood services, 
says he doesn't see a lost cause. Even this run-down property represents 
an opportunity, he said.

The former paint store is one of many relics of Roanoke's past that 
urban planners call "brownfields," once-developed areas that have become 
blighted. The best-known form of brownfields in Roanoke are old 
industrial sites. The city wants to join a national trend of 
redeveloping those brownfields, which take up space, pose a potential 
environmental threat and drag down property values.

"It's sort of just an odd little wasteland tucked away from everything," 
said Jim Crawford, president of the Mountain View neighborhood advocacy 
group, in whose area brownfields are prominent.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/81191

-- 
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org