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Canton village to take over responsibility for state Brownfield Opportunity Area grant from town

Posted 8/21/18

By ADAM ATKINSON CANTON — The village board of trustees has agreed to take over the responsibility for a state Brownfield Opportunity Area grant that the town applied for last year. The grant …

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Canton village to take over responsibility for state Brownfield Opportunity Area grant from town

Posted

By ADAM ATKINSON

CANTON — The village board of trustees has agreed to take over the responsibility for a state Brownfield Opportunity Area grant that the town applied for last year.

The grant totals $195,555 and requires a 10 percent municipal share ($19,555) to be contributed, leaving the total state funding to be leveraged from the grant at $176,000.

The state grant money will be reimbursed back to the village through the town to pay for various projects outlined in Canton’s Brownfield Opportunity Area Pre-Nomination Study done in 2011 when the Brownfield grant program was first available.

“Basically we would be responsible, but payments would come through the town,” said Village Mayor Mike Dalton at the village board meeting Monday, Aug. 20.

The village will oversee hiring contractors for the various projects and other management, working with the Canton Economic Development office (a shared village and town department) and its coordinator Leigh Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said the entire BOA is located within the village boundaries. The sector of the village in question is more than 200 acres draped over the Grasse River, and covering the old industrial district of the community. The border of the BOA follows Riverside Drive, then Chapel, cuts through downtown and then along Park Street, then over to Lincoln and Stevens streets, around Bend in the River Park, across the River, up Gouverneur Street, crossing Route 11, and following the river for a while before it crosses back onto Riverside Drive.

The entire BOA is divided into four sectors. The BOA study done in 2011, and found on the village website here, identifies various brownfields within its sectors and some areas needing further study.

According to the 2011 document, there are 36 brownfield, abandoned or underutilized sites identified totaling approximately 73 acres.

“The brownfield sites are widely dispersed throughout the BOA on 27 parcels totaling 65 acres.

“Most of the brownfield sites are suspected, rather than known to be contaminated, due to either prior or current use of the site or adjacent sites. The abandoned or underutilized sites are equally dispersed throughout the BOA on 9 sites totaling 7.72 acres and represent everything from parking lots and vacant strip mall storefronts to the underutilized Kraft Foods plant and co-generation facility,” the document said.

“It makes all the sense in the world that (the grant) would be with the village,” said Village Trustee Carol Pynchon. Pynchon said the grant probably should of been with the village in the initial application phases as well.

Rodriguez said the grant has money for a variety of projects within the scope of the BOA study, including a town wide housing and marketing assessment, feasibility studies and conceptual design for three sites, phase 1 environmental assessments for up to 5 other sites, funding for potentially moving the county DPW building, streetscape enhancement along Gouverneur Street (a corridor into the village), redevelopment plans for another area and a review of the village’s zoning and funding to research ways landowners, with the help of the village, can mitigate blight within the BOA.

All of the various projects covered by the grant will allow the municipality to compile information and build strategies to move forward with rehabilitating the area.