INNOVATIVE TRAINING PROGRAM

ON

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

BROWNFIELDS, VACANT PROPERTIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Sustainable Community Development Group, Inc. (SCDG) introduces an innovative training program that builds real estate and economic development skills in community based organizations tackling reclamation of contaminated urban and rural brownfields properties and vacant properties.  Development of this training program was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and it was piloted in Pittsburgh, PA and Houston, TX.  The program is a new integrated approach to under-utilized properties that bridges environmental justice, health, cleanup and reuse goals with neighborhood revitalization objectives.  It’s an innovative teaching initiative designed to help a community preserve its cultural and historical resources, clean up the environment and, ultimately, lead to reuses of under-utilized properties that meet community needs.

In view of the nexus between health and environmental impacts and the economic factors associated with brownfields cleanup projects and addressing vacant areas, community-based constituencies involved in this program will gain an improved knowledge of these areas.  Community organizations are trained in ways that promote engagement in growth and development decisions, advance networking opportunities with key public and private sector stakeholders, stimulate tech transfer, cross pollinate the skills that local sectors bring to neighborhood revitalization, and enhance community leadership and coordination on local redevelopment projects. 

This program shows how a curriculum that integrates environmental justice, brownfields cleanup, land use, and community development can accelerate the learning curve of trainees as they tackle the triple ends of environmental and health protection, and sustainable redevelopment.  To deliver the curriculum, local partners and the implications for involved organizations are addressed at each stage of the training.  We deploy interdisciplinary faculty that delivers the tools needed in managing a redevelopment real estate deal including skills and techniques in visioning, project management, real estate financing and grants, economic development, environmental compliance and risk management, social and equity factors and public health.

Multi-stakeholder practitioners are faculty – environmental and health professionals, regulators, attorneys, corporate property owners, lenders, developers, insurers and key governmental officials.  Our goal is to enable community leaders with differing levels of development experience to learn about and successfully plan, finance, and manage their own local revitalization projects. 

Sustainable Community Development Group, Inc. works with the public, private and community sectors to advance environmental sustainability, equitable development and global smart growth.

Feel free to inquire about this training, our HUD training on environmental review requirements or other services.