Center for Community Systems and TAB Welcome New Director

Jessica Miller is the executive director at the Center for Community Systems at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design. She is also the executive director of the Environment Protection Agency’s Technical Assistance to Brownfield Communities Program in Regions 2 and 4 (NJIT TAB).

Miller brings two decades of experience in research and instructional development, project management and community and digital engagement. She has worked with nonprofit, academic and government organizations on community, environmental and organizational planning projects. She holds a doctorate in Earth and Environmental Sciences from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and sat down for a Q&A.

What should the NJIT community know about the work the Center for Community Systems (CCS) is doing?

Miller: Our work is a direct extension of the university’s commitment to urban research, design and innovation and the center is broadly engaged in environmental planning, community engagement and education. Our mission is to be a resource that connects a broad range of experts - from engineers and architects to economists and social scientists — with government, industry and community organizations in order to better address the complex issues facing communities with brownfield sites. 

In our largest and most active grant, we work with communities in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 and Region 4 as part of the Technical Assistance to Brownfield communities (TAB) program. We create learning and collaboration opportunities, review grant applications and conduct one on one technical assistance to assist communities in education, decision making and funding opportunities that will enable them to transform contaminated sites into community assets.

CCS and the team are working with communities in several areas: brownfield education and redevelopment efforts (through the TAB grant for Region 2 and Region 4), resilience planning and community engagement. What does that look like? 

The work of CCS endeavors to be holistic, addressing the interconnected challenges communities face. Our projects in brownfield redevelopment and their impact on economic development are all part of a single, unified effort to create thriving, sustainable and resilient communities. Cleaning up contaminated land can transform underutilized spaces into places that meet the needs of the community. This means we tailor our responses and presentations to the unique needs of each community. These projects often involve several facets of community planning, including community engagement and risk communications, resilience planning, historic and cultural preservation, assessing the impacts of challenging social and economic conditions, affordable housing needs and other types of community issues that intersect with brownfield redevelopment work.

What are the big goals the team is working towards? 

Our highest-level goals are to engage with, educate and empower communities. Through our EPA grant, we are constantly engaging with new communities, and we intend to keep the momentum going in Regions 2 and 4. By connecting early in a brownfield redevelopment process, we hope to help communities to see complicated and compromised properties like brownfields as opportunities to gain resources to tackle their most urgent priorities, such as affordable housing, green spaces and renewed sites of commerce. By educating communities on the resources within the EPA Brownfield program, we connect them with valuable funding and empower them to re-envision their communities with new tools. We are also in the midst of developing some tools, including ArcGIS dashboards for tracking our activities, which will help us get there.

Who does CCS partner with to accomplish these goals?

We are so grateful for our wide range of partners, as our work is built on collaboration. The EPA is our largest partner, funding our work to provide no-cost technical assistance to communities across EPA Regions 2 and 4. We also work closely with a diverse network of federal, state and local collaborators, including:

• Federal and state agencies: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Economic Development Administration, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, New Jersey Economic Development Authority, New York City Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation, and the New York State Department of State.
• Regional and local entities: Sustainable Jersey, Groundwork USA and their trusts, the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization, among many others.
• Region 2 and 4 communities: We believe that the real work is accomplished directly through the communities. We partner with municipalities, regional planning organizations, counties and other local coalitions to empower them to lead their own revitalization efforts.

Through these collaborations and events like the National Brownfields Training Conference, our state Brownfield Summits and other educational forums, we share resources and expertise to help communities, developers, consultants and tribes, envision and implement successful redevelopment projects. These partnerships are essential for creating the opportunities needed to transform contaminated sites into productive community assets.

What’s on the horizon? 

We have several exciting initiatives on the horizon. A major focus is expanding our collaborations to more holistically support communities throughout their brownfield redevelopment journey. Through our Brownfield Ambassadors program, we are working on pairing up student cohorts with brownfield communities in Region 4 to develop opportunities to engage hands-on in brownfield research and planning initiatives. This type of collaboration provides communities with valuable design and technical expertise while giving students real-world, mission-driven service learning and experience.

National Partnership Integration: We are working to strengthen our collaborations with our fellow EPA-funded Technical Assistance to Brownfields (TAB) providers. While we are one of five regional TAB program providers, the EPA has expanded their brownfield support, enlisting partners focused in various aspects of brownfield redevelopment technical assistance: to tribes, nonprofits, land banks, job training, Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund and more. These partners include Kansas State University, Groundwork USA, the Center for Community Progress, Grow America, Tetra Tech in collaboration with Adaapta, UMass Dartmouth and others. By holding regional sessions, we plan to create a more seamless network of support and resources for all communities we serve.

Tribal and Community Partnerships: We are also developing stronger partnerships with tribes and are actively engaging with our National Tribal TAB group. We are increasing our focus on collaborations with organizations that specialize in Revolving Loan Funds (RLF) and other nonprofits to help communities secure the financial resources needed for successful brownfield redevelopment.

What else would you like us to know about CCS? 

We are always interested in working with members of the NJIT community and collaborating on grants or projects. Collaborating to proactively respond to community issues and provide solutions is key to our growth. If anyone is interested in community-based engagement and environmentally driven planning projects in their research and would like to think through how we could work together, please feel free to reach out to us. 

At its core, the Center for Community Systems is about collaboration and building trust with the people we work with. We are committed to building long-term trust and rapport with the people and places we serve. Our work isn’t just about technical solutions; it’s about listening, learning and working side-by-side with communities to co-create a more resilient and sustainable future. We are proud to be a part of NJIT and bring the university’s resources directly to the communities that need them most.