Baton Rouge Brownfields Program

A brownfield is any property with real or perceived contamination that is holding up the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of the site.  These sites are typically passed up by developers as too costly, high risk, and low returns on investments. The most common brownfield sites in Baton Rouge include
  • Abandoned motor vehicle repair shops, tire shops, and gas stations
  • Former dry cleaning sites
  • Vacant historic buildings and warehouses
  • Small petro-chemical businesses
  • Vacant sites in older commercial areas
  • Removal of blight
  • Improves and protects the environment
  • Protects human health and reduces environmental risk
  • Improves the quality of life 
  • Brings real estate back into productive use
  • Increases the tax base
  • Increases jobs
  • Uses the existing infrastructure and takes development pressure off of undeveloped land
  • Helps developers obtain standard bank financing


  1. Program
  2. Eligibility
  3. Services
  4. Partners

About the Program

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative was created to empower states, federally recognized Indian tribes, local governments, communities, and other stakeholders involved in economic redevelopment to work together to assess and safely cleanup brownfield sites to put them back into reuse. 

As part of this initiative, in 1999, EPA awarded Baton Rouge funds to establish a Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot. The Brownfield pilot program was the foundation of a dynamic land revitalization program that the City of Baton Rouge-Parish of East Baton Rouge Planning Commission has managed for over 20 years resulting in numerous public-private partnerships that place idle properties back into commerce.