Ann Gerondelis, Director of Common First Year, College of Architecture, GA Tech

In this course, taught in Fall 2012, Georgia Tech’s COA freshman class explores the following questions: How can the disciplines of the designed, built and lived environment improve the health of our communities? What solutions can we imagine for our local communities? Two of the four freshman class projects are focused on the Westside of Atlanta.  Dawn Riley’s class explores low-income communities, focusing on nearby English Avenue. Claire Pardo’s class studies the concept of “healthy places” with a focus on the Howell Mill area.

Nancey Leigh, Professor of City and Regional Planning, College of Architecture, GA Tech

Nathaneal Hoelzel, PhD Candidate in City and Regional Planning, GA Tech

With a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the City of Atlanta, along with Atlanta BeltLine Inc., Invest Atlanta, and a Georgia Tech class in the School of City & Regional Planning is working with the community to develop specific measures of success for the Project in addressing the brownfield impacts in the Project Area. The Project Area consists of 11 Neighborhoods, 3,282 acres, over 25 Brownfield Sites, 3 TADs, and 4 NPUs in southwest Atlanta.

The City of Atlanta received a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for brownfields training, research, and technical assistance for a defined project area located in South Atlanta. Brownfield assessment, cleanup, and reuse are integral components of EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment.

The Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Pilot Program is designed to help communities confront local environmental and public health challenges related to brownfields, and benefit underserved or economically disadvantaged communities. The area-wide planning approach recognizes that revitalization of the area surrounding the brownfield site(s) is just as critical to the successful reuse and cleanup of an individual brownfield site. For purposes of this project however, grant funds will only be used to deliver training, research, and technical assistance which in turn will facilitate the assessment, cleanup, and reuse of individual brownfield sites in the target area, although, environmental benefits are anticipated to take place in the community at large as a result of individual brownfields revitalization.

As the brownfields area-wide plan is implemented by the City of Atlanta, and properties within the brownfields-impacted area are cleaned up and reused, it is anticipated that there will be positive environmental outcomes related to air and water quality, such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants, reduced stormwater runoff, and substantial reductions in pollutant loadings in local waterways. It is also expected that these types of environmental outcomes at brownfields would accommodate the growth and development that would otherwise have occurred on undeveloped, greenfield properties.