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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 3, 2022 02:49 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Joe Pittman and Sen. Nikil Saval |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Extending Environmental Liability Protections to Land Banks |
| In the near future, we plan to introduce legislation that would grant land banks the same environmental protections other economic development agencies are granted when dealing with brownfields. During our Urban Affairs and Housing Committee hearings in Philadelphia and Kittanning, we heard from local community actors, including land banks. One of the recurring themes during those hearings was the need to extend environmental liability protections to land banks. Land banks are governmental entities that acquire vacant, abandoned, and foreclosed properties to support the redevelopment of property for the benefit of the local community. It is not uncommon for land banks to take properties into their inventory that are subject to environmental liability enforcement. To incentivize the funding of environmental testing and remediation of brownfields sites, current statue exempts certain entities from environmental liability. Economic development agencies, which include redevelopment authorities, municipal authorities, and other government and community-based entities, are exempt from environmental liability. Our legislation would grant the same protections to land banks that are presently given to other economic development agencies when they are dealing with brownfields. This would relieve land banks of this burden and allow them to operate more efficiently in the fight against blight. I hope you will consider co-sponsoring this important piece of legislation. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Sarah Stauffer at sstauffer@pasen.gov or 717-783-5193 or Jane Allen at Jane.Allen@pasenate.com or 484-506-2678. |
Introduced as SB1282