Enviornmental Assessment Funding Moves to Council
Vol. III, No. 125 - Council Committee Moves Forward With County Grant After Long Discussion
Your message can be here!
Are you interested in becoming a sponsor of Civic Capacity? This publication has grown substantially with a subscriber roll of nearly 2,500 indidividuals receiving this newsletter daily. If you are interested in partnering to get your word about your civic minded business, please email pinnaclestrategiesltd@gmail.com.
The City of Troy’s Law and Ordinance Committee recently met for a fairly long that featured an in-depth discussion for the property at 1375 South Union Street. The land is a brownfield—an industrial site left idle because of suspected pollution. City leaders want to see it turned into something useful again, but before any cleanup can happen, officials first need to complete what’s called a Phase II Environmental Assessment. This publication recently talked about this project here:
It’s important to recognize that this grant is for the Phase II Enviornmental Assessment and does not involve cleanup work. Instead, work will be done to test the property’s soil, groundwater, and air to uncover exactly what contaminants are present and how serious the pollution is. The results will guide the actual cleanup plan and must be submitted to the Ohio Enviornmental Protection Agendy through Ohio’s Voluntary Action Program to meet state environmental standards.
Funding the assessment
The work will be carried out by Burgess & Niple, an engineering firm from Columbus. The cost is projected at about $241,200. Of that total, $237,200 will go toward site testing and reporting, with another $4,000 for administrative costs.
Importantly, the money does not come from the City of Troy’s local budget. Funding is provided through a grant awarded by the State of Ohio’s Brownfield Remediation Program to the Miami County Land Reutilization Corporation, better known as the Land Bank. Troy is listed as a “subrecipient” of that grant. Under this arrangement, the City will pay the consultant upfront but will then be fully reimbursed by the Land Bank. That means the assessment is 100% grant-funded and carries no direct cost to Troy taxpayers.
The debate over value and ownership
Even with no local expense, the discussion raised questions about fairness. Council member Jeff Schilling argued that since the money—state taxpayer money—will benefit a privately owned property, the public should have some protection against the owners profiting unfairly.
The property is owned by J&B Properties of Troy LLC, whose listed members are the Bruns family and Joe Johnson. Schilling noted that its current county valuation is $151,000, but with environmental clearance, the land’s worth could rise to $450,000 or more. He suggested the City consider placing a lien of about half the grant amount on the property to protect the public’s interest.
City staff and other council members pushed back. Committee Chair Jeffrey Whidden and Public Service and Safety Director Patrick Titterington explained that, because the money comes from the state and is routed through the county, Troy cannot legally attach a lien. They added that even if the grant supports a private property, the larger benefit comes to the community by removing a polluted eyesore and preparing the site for new jobs and tax revenue down the line.
So, why does public tax money go to clean up brownfields? Why can’t the property owners be responsible? Well, first off, simply owning the property doesn’t make a property owner responsible for the contamination of a property that happened before they owned the property. That is largely why brownfields exist today. There are many properties that are contaminated and owned by entities that had no role in the contamination; yet, they are hamstrung. Many times, they can’t afford to develop the property to make it useful in any real sense and having enviornmentally contaminated land lay fallow isn’t a good long term solution either.
It’s also important to understand that Enviornmental laws have changed, what’s completely illegal now may have been completely legal decades ago when the contamination first occurred. Before the arrival of the Enviornmental Protection Agency, environmental laws were few and far between and the enforcement was almost non-existent; open dumping of hazardous materials was a fairly common occurrence on industrial properties for most of the Twentieth Century.
And these enivronmental assessments help determine not only what kind of contaminants there are in the land, but the research in these reports try to pin down what caused the contamination and what the property was being used for. It’s helpful information to know, but it’s challenging to bring litigation against a party for behaviors that may have been completely legal at the time those actions took place.
Moving forward
In the end, the committee agreed the testing needs to happen before any cleanup can begin. With unanimous support, members recommended that City Council approve the necessary grant agreements through emergency legislation so that the assessment can proceed without delay.
The decision moves the property at 1375 South Union Street one step closer to possible redevelopment. While the process raises questions about how best to balance public investment and private ownership, officials made clear that this stage is strictly about assessment. The true cleanup decisions—and the costs tied to them—will come later.
Thank you Readers!
Well, this newsletter was named a “Best Seller” on the Substack platform. But, since we recently lost a paid subscriber, we aren’t on the “Best Seller” list anymore.
Want to show your support and get us back on the list?
Consider spending $5 a month, or $50 a year to support this newsletter and the time, effort and energy it takes to create an opportunity for over 2,400 people each to learn something new about the place they call home. This is one of the lowest price daily newsletters on the platform!
Your generous support is vital to this effort!
A New Handbook to grow Civic Capacity!
Recently, we created a new digital handbook, “The Citizen’s Guide to Public Records”. This handbook is designed to help residents have a better understanding of public meetings and meeting records. It’s filled with templates, ideas and other information that will open a new world of public affairs.
Also, if you have ideas for future handbooks, please let us know at pinnaclestrategiesltd@gmail.com.
Want to Learn More About Troy’s Businesses?
Our publication has recently released our September 2025 Economic Abstract, the most comprehensive and up-to-date report on the businesses and industries in the City of Troy. For those that want to understand our community’s business and industries, this is a must-have report.
Thank you to our New Media Partners!
Recently, many of our stories has been showing up on the local news website, www.mymiamicounty.com. We are grateful for the good folks for sharing our work with their audience and we would encourage our readers to check them out at their website!
Our publication would also like to recognize the good work being done at www.piquanewsnow.com. Piqua News Now is a new web-based news and information site for the Miami County area, with a specific focus on Piqua!
In addition, the good folks at Piqua News Now have started a new, 24-hour streaming YouTube channel. This channel is awesome with continuous weather updates and more importanly, it provides a 24-hour audio feed from county wide dispatch. Check it out here!
You Can Help Support This Work!
Our readers and subscribers have been asking for a new way to support the work being done here at Civic Capacity! Some of our readers do not like the idea of having to sign up for another subscription service. Some of our subscribers occasionally want to give more support through a one-time transaction.
Civic Capacity is partnering with “Buy Me A Coffee” to give our readers, subscribers and friends an opportunity to give one-time support to Civic Capacity. Personally, I don’t like coffee, but I will never turn down a nice iced tea. If you feel compelled to support this effort, just click the button below. In other words, this is an online tip jar.
Also, thanks for reading today’s Civic Capacity Newsletter! Please feel free to share this information with your friends and neighbors.
Also, please consider subscribing to our work. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. For less than $1 a week, you can get timely and conversational updates about the decisions that are impacting you and your community!