CCLR Mission
 
The Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR or "see clear") is a nonprofit organization that repairs fractured communities and discourages urban sprawl through creative private, public, and nonprofit partnerships. Our work is accomplished through training, technical assistance, small grants, and loans for communities who are attempting to turn around vacant or environmentally distressed properties.
The Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR or "see clear") is a nonprofit organization focused on creating sustainable communities by identifying and implementing responsible patterns of land use and development. Our mission is to encourage and facilitate land recycling in ways that revitalize urban areas, discourage urban sprawl, and conserve greenspace. CCLR was founded in 1996 as a project of The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national, nonprofit land conservation organization with seed funding from The James Irvine Foundation. CCLR became an independent 501(c)(3) organization in 1999. CCLR promotes the reuse and recycling of previously developed and passed-over land and buildings in both urban and rural areas, with a focus on environmentally distressed properties, or what are more commonly known as brownfields.

CCLR accomplishes its work through the following programs:

Workshops
Recycling abandoned under-utilized properties ("brownfields") requires specific knowledge and skills in order to manage contaminant issues. CCLR offers intensive, one-day seminars and special workshops for project managers and stakeholders who are involved in redeveloping brownfields. CCLR developed its training program after documenting a clear community need for technical, regulatory, and financial information on managing the environmental challenges of redevelopment projects. Our practical, interactive workshops provide the tools, techniques, and resources required for managing the redevelopment of environmentally challenged properties.

Grant Program
CCLR's Project Learning Program (PLP) offers nonprofit developers, municipalities with very limited resources, and urban park advocates small grants and technical assistance for brownfield redevelopment projects. The objectives of PLP are to study the conditions that contribute to the abandonment and under-use of brownfields in under-served communities and to develop approaches and solutions that can be applied to help bring other brownfield redevelopment projects to completion.

Loan Program
CCLR offers low-interest, forgivable loans of up to $125,000 for brownfield site assessment and characterization, technical assistance, and remedial action planning. The goal of our loan program is to address the uncertainties of brownfield redevelopment by determining project economics and quantifying liability.

Policy & Practices
CCLR's experience with brownfield projects informs policy research and advocacy of reforms. CCLR promotes reform of state and local land use and development policies to help "level the playing field" between brownfields and greenfields (undeveloped areas at the outskirts of metropolitan regions). The goal is to make land recycling an accepted, economically feasible pattern of development.

Consulting
CCLR offers fee-for-service consulting and technical assistance in support of land recycling and brownfield redevelopment efforts for a range of diverse groups. Clients typically include municipalities, redevelopment agencies, nonprofit organizations, community groups, community development corporations (CDCs), and affordable housing developers. CCLR serves as a trusted advisor, facilitator, and project manager focusing on the environmental components of brownfield redevelopment.

Research
The mission of CCLR's research program is to provide a scientific foundation to support progressive brownfield policy initiatives on both state and federal levels. Our research projects seek to answer some of the toughest questions in the field, including, "How clean is clean?"