Pioneer Valley
Planning Commission

Eric Carle Museum, Amherst, MA

Media Release

CONTACT: Anne Capra, PVPC Principal Planner (413) 781-6045


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2011

Brownfields Planning Project to Begin in Chicopee

Residents, property owners, and businesses in the West End of downtown Chicopee will be invited to participate in a series of public planning events and informational meetings over the upcoming spring and summer months to discuss revitalization of brownfields in the area. The neighborhood is thought to contain at least nine brownfield sites, which are properties where redevelopment is complicated by the presence (or potential presence) of environmental contaminants.

Funded by a $175,000 grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the planning process will include a review of environmental conditions at key sites, a market study, and an infrastructure inventory. Community input will be sought to help planners develop site-specific and area-wide strategies for the assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment of brownfields in the neighborhood. The planning process will conclude with a detailed road map for plan implementation. This project, a collaboration between PVPC and the City of Chicopee, follows from the city’s Downtown Revitalization Plan, which was completed in 2009.

Chicopee’s downtown West End was once the industrial core of the city. Today, several former mills and commercial properties in the area are abandoned or underutilized, including the historic Cabotville Mill complex and the former Hampden Steam power plant site. When cleaned up, neighborhood brownfields may be suitable for residential, commercial, recreational, and industrial re-use, or for use in sustainable solar or geothermal energy production.

Twenty-three communities across the United States were awarded EPA brownfields planning pilot grants in October 2010. Three are located in New England, including two in Massachusetts.

Public charrettes and other meetings relating to the project will be advertised when scheduled over the next several weeks. Please visit www.pvpc.org and www.chicopeema.gov for updates.

For more information, please contact Andrew Loew, PVPC Senior Planner, at (413) 781-6045 or aloew@pvpc.org or Carl Dietz, Director of Chicopee’s Office of Community Development, at (413) 594-1489.