Page 368 - Beyond Decommissioning

344 Beyond Decommissioning

The keys to success for a redevelopment project include such aspects as stakeholder
involvement, early appraisal of potential hindrances, funding, schedule, and timing.
Recommendations to those responsible (at various levels) for the redevelopment pro-
jects include:
l Define who the property owners are and will be.
l Ensure timeliness of decisions and providing assurance of cleanup costs.
l Work with the local governmental offices to fit the project into local political priorities and
regional development plans, as well as land use laws.
l A clustering of activities as opposed to a single-building project can start a large scale, suc-
cessful redevelopment program. A change in the greater area may be necessary to make a site
commercially profitable.
l Many successful schemes were led by the individuals with vision: do not “wait for deus ex
machina.”
l Mixed use redevelopments are generally successful.
l Maintain records relevant to a redevelopment project: they might turn out to be useful for the
next redevelopment.
Protect human health and the environment before, during, and after the redevelopment
l
project.
Inform the regulators and community of the political importance and other benefits (envi-
l
ronmental, social, and economic) of the project to garner their support and help to overcome
any hindrances to redevelopment; pay due attention to objections and reservations.
l Eliminate environmental contamination and its remaining (although unfounded) stigma.
l Plan for the project to conserve natural resources and maintain essential components of nat-
ural systems.
l Secure the economy or other benefits of the project. For private developers, this requires that
the selected reuse support initial refurbishment, provide the developers with a reasonable
return on their investment, and generate a regular income to ensure the long-term mainte-
nance of the building and any associated open spaces. The financial return should also take
account of the additional risk associated with onsite contaminants. Ultimately, the economic
feasibility of most projects will depend upon the ability of the private developer to predict the
market and meet market demand. In that sense, the redevelopment of actually or potentially
contaminated sites is no different from any other development project. Instead, the public
redevelopment projects are typically designed to improve the quality of the local environ-
ment for the community directly or to make the community more attractive for further devel-
opment. In general, public sector funding can help to launch a solution.
Not two cases of industrial reuse are identical, due to multiple internal and external
factors: it is up to the owners, planners, and stakeholders to use available experience
(mostly from the nonnuclear sector) to identify and agree to a strategy acceptable to all
parties. As industrial reuse is inherently case specific, a lot of focused expertise, on
one side, and imagination, on the other side, are required in concrete applications.
And expertise and imagination should go hand in hand.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge … Albert Einstein (1879–1955).”