Section 8-7-1101 - Declaration of policyThe General Assembly finds and declares as follows:
(1) The redevelopment of abandoned industrial, commercial, or agricultural sites or abandoned residential property should be encouraged as a sound land use management policy to prevent the needless development of prime farmland, open spaces, and natural and recreation areas and to prevent urban sprawl;(2) The redevelopment of abandoned sites should be encouraged so that these abandoned sites can be returned to useful, tax-producing properties to protect existing jobs and provide new job opportunities;(3) Persons interested in redeveloping abandoned sites should have a method of determining what their legal liabilities and cleanup responsibilities will be as they plan the reuse of abandoned sites;(4) Incentives should be put in place to encourage prospective purchasers to voluntarily develop and implement cleanup plans of abandoned sites without the need for adversarial enforcement actions by the Division of Environmental Quality;(5) The division now routinely determines, through its permitting policies, when contamination will and will not pose unacceptable risks to public health or the environment, and similar concepts are used in establishing cleanup policies for abandoned sites;(6) Parties and persons responsible under the law for pollution at abandoned sites should perform remedial responses which are fully consistent with existing requirements;(7) As an incentive to promote the redevelopment of abandoned industrial sites, persons not responsible for preexisting pollution at or contamination on abandoned industrial sites should meet alternative cleanup requirements if they acquire title after the nature of conditions at the abandoned industrial site has been disclosed and declare and commit to a specified future land use of the subject abandoned industrial site; and(8)(A) Property transactions at times necessitate title acquisition prior to completion of the actions contemplated at § 8-7-1104(b) -(d) by persons not previously involved with the abandoned site or otherwise considered responsible parties for environmental conditions at an abandoned site.(B) These persons should not be foreclosed from participation under the procedures enacted under this subchapter.(C) Therefore, these persons, at the discretion of the Director of the Division of Environmental Quality, may submit a letter of intent that will set forth the persons' desire to purchase the abandoned site and retain their eligibility for participation in the voluntary cleanup program established by this subchapter.Amended by Act 2019, No. 910,§ 2827, eff. 7/1/2019.Acts 1997, No. 1042, § 1; 1999, No. 1164, § 108; 2001, No. 164, § 1; 2005, No. 1164, § 1.