[McC]

The worst part about this one, is that it doesn't actually "pay out" any money at all, it just foregoes revenues that wouldn't exist unless the property was re-developed, and therefore would likely never exist given the economics of cost of cleanup versus value of property. That said, I have no problem with using this incentive program to lever other worthy policy objectives (e.g., affordable housing, green design, there could be others, too) as long as doing so doesn't fundamentally undermine the economics. We do have to keep in mind that cleaning up contaminated sites and redeveloping them into something useful is a good and worthwhile policy objective in itself, one that delivers economic, environmental, and social benefits that justify at least some public "investment" (i.e. the foregone revenues).