Brownfield reuse comes with a lot of questions: Where are your brownfields? Why are they contaminated? How can sites best be reused? What end use will the community most benefit from? End use planning and visioning driven by the community can answer important questions and improve your reuse project: increasing benefits to the community and grant eligibility. The Center for Creative Land Recycling offers cost-free support to kickstart and maintain community visioning. Our technical assistance can help:
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Advancing Equity in Land Reuse Planning and Visioning
 | To help non-profit, community group, and local governments conduct equitable community-centered brownfield reuse, the Center for Creative land Recycling partnered with Groundwork USA to create a practical guide to engaging the community. This 27-page guide provides strategies, tools, and resources for advancing environmental justice and equity in land reuse projects. You can also watch a virtual training to discover practical steps to embed environmental justice principles in every phase of the land reuse process. |
Vision to Action
Vision to Action is a four-step process where CCLR works with you, your partners, and community members:
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In a matter of months, you will have a final report that details the community engagement process, end use vision, and next steps for your brownfield project. This document can be used in grant applications, loan applications, to attract development partners, and to keep your project on track.
Thanks to our cooperative agreement with the U.S. EPA, we are able to offer this service cost-free in EPA Regions 9 and 10. Schedule a Meeting with our technical assistance staff to learn more. If your project is outside of these EPA regions, CCLR can still help! Contact [email protected] to learn more.
What We Do
Through meetings and research, we will identify community needs and opportunities. This information will be augmented by community input to produce a robust understanding of your community’s potential.
CCLR will help you plan events, outreach to community members, and run community events designed to gather and utilize ideas, feedback, and desires of the community to determine a vision for your brownfield.
The final deliverable of the V2A process is a summary of the outreach efforts, an end use vision for your brownfield, and actionable next steps for you to take now and into the future to guide your community through the transformation.
Norman Wright, AICP
Senior Technical Consultant
Norm, former local government executive, led planning, economic development, and redevelopment efforts for 18 years across diverse locations in the “Lower 48.” His teams achieved national recognition, receiving awards from industry groups like the American Planning Association and Urban Land Institute. Norm holds a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Clemson, specializing in spatial modeling through Geographic Information Systems.
Sheryl Gonzales
Senior Brownfield Consultant
Sheryl Gonzales has more than 35 years of experience supporting communities throughout California and Northern Nevada with community and economic development. She has worked for government, non-profits, and owned her own planning company for which she served on teams to develop parks, recreation and master plans, youth development and marketing programs.
Joelle Greenland, AICP
Senior Planning Consultant
Joelle, a certified planner, has been in the brownfields arena for over 30 years and is a brownfields redevelopment expert. Having written, secured and managed all types of EPA brownfields grants (including an RLF), she has a deep understanding of grant writing/management, procurement, visioning and the redevelopment process.
Ignacio Dayrit
Lead Program Consultant
Ignacio, a redevelopment expert, coordinates CCLR’s technical assistance program, drawing from his 20-year tenure with the City of Emeryville’s Redevelopment Agency. His extensive 30+-year public sector development experience encompasses financial analysis, financing, feasibility analyses, project and program management, and urban design. Instrumental in the city’s redevelopment of blighted, contaminated property, Ignacio holds degrees in Architecture and City Planning.
Devyn Rainwater
Senior Program Associate
Devyn Rainwater is a dedicated advocate of environmental and social justice and has worked on projects which highlight the intersectional issues of environmental protection, human rights, and community activism. She has served as website coordinator for a team building the first online platform for the Chilean activist group Dignidad Incan to support their fight against invasive mining corporations and co-created the first Journal of Global Environmental Justice at UC Santa Cruz, for which she was also an editor. Devyn brings her strengths in administration and project development to CCLR.
Lauren Ghazikhanian
Communications Manager
Lauren Ghazikhanian manages CCLR’s promotional and communications needs. In this role, Lauren drives awareness and knowledge around brownfield reuse within CCLR’s regions to improve communities and lives through land recycling. She has a degree in Public Relations and Advertising from Chapman University as well as an Associates Degree in Environmental Science. Throughout her career she has worked on projects and campaigns for health, living wage, housing, and fair representation in California, Arizona, and Idaho. This includes nearly two decades of experience with land and water-use issues in California, where she helped facilitate conversations and understanding between landowners, elected leaders and communities around housing and conservation.
CCLR hosts a robust resource center with guides, examples and best practices to ensure successful planning and visioning for brownfield reuse.
A rural city and Native American tribe are working together to redevelop a large brownfield. CCLR developed a reuse plan driven by community input.
Continue on to the next Services section with more information on brownfields grants and programs.
