BEDI funds are used to enhance the security of a loan guaranteed by HUD under Section 108 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, as amended, for the same brownfields economic development project, or to improve the viability of a brownfields economic development project financed with the
Section 108-guaranteed loan, in order to stimulate economic development by local governments and private sector parties at brownfields sites and to return those sites to productive economic use.
All BEDI grants must be used in conjunction with a new Section 108-guaranteed loan commitment.
HUD encourages brownfields economic development projects that propose the redevelopment of a brownfield site through new investments by identified private sector parties in addition to BEDI/Section 108 financing and projects that will directly result in new business or job creation, increases in the local tax base or other near-term, measurable economic benefits.
BEDI is designed to help local governments redevelop brownfields, defined in this NOFA as abandoned, idled, or underutilized real property, including industrial and commercial facilities, where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by the presence or potential presence of environmental contamination.
A BEDI grant award will be conditioned upon, and must be used in conjunction with, a new (i.e., not previously approved) Section 108-guaranteed loan commitment.
Both Section 108 loan guarantee proceeds and BEDI grant funds are initially made available by HUD to units of general local government eligible for assistance under HUD�s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program (specifically, the Entitlement and State programs, certain jurisdictions in the state of Hawaii under the Small Cities program, and the insular areas of Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands).