The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm maintains one of the most experienced and accomplished brownfields law practices in the State of Florida and is widely recognized for its leadership in navigating both the Florida Brownfields Redevelopment Program (Sections 376.79–376.85, Florida Statutes) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields Program. For almost three decades, our attorneys have guided cities, counties, housing authorities, private developers, Fortune 500 companies, institutional landowners, and nonprofit organizations through every stage of the brownfields redevelopment process—from initial eligibility assessments and Brownfield Area designations to the negotiation of Brownfield Site Rehabilitation Agreements (BSRAs), procurement of financial incentives, and oversight of site cleanup and redevelopment. Our work helps clients convert underused, contaminated, and economically distressed properties into productive residential, commercial, industrial, and public spaces while promoting public health, environmental stewardship, and economic revitalization.
Florida’s Brownfields Redevelopment Program
Our practice is deeply rooted in Florida’s Brownfields Redevelopment Act, codified in Sections 376.79 through 376.85, Florida Statutes. The Act provides a comprehensive framework for encouraging voluntary cleanup, facilitating redevelopment of environmentally impacted properties, and offering meaningful liability protections and economic incentives to participating site owners, developers, municipalities, and community stakeholders.
A major focus of our work involves the designation of Brownfield Areas under Section 376.80, Florida Statutes, which allows local governments to formally recognize areas burdened by actual or perceived contamination. Our firm has assisted with the designation of more than 185 Brownfield Areas across Florida—ranging from urban infill sites in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties to rural and industrial properties from Pensacola to the Florida Keys. These designations often serve as the first and most important step in accessing the full suite of state brownfield tools, including Brownfield Site Rehabilitation Agreements, liability protections under Section 376.82, state sales tax refunds, job bonus refunds, and Voluntary Cleanup Tax Credits (VCTCs).
As of January 2026, the firm has filed more than 420 VCTCs under Section 376.85, Florida Statutes. These filings help clients recover significant portions of eligible site rehabilitation costs through state tax credits, further incentivizing reinvestment in communities disproportionately affected by blight or contamination.
The scale of our practice is statewide and unparalleled. We have been engaged on more than 300 separate brownfield projects in over 93 jurisdictions, reaching every region of Florida—from Key West to Pensacola, Jacksonville to Naples, and throughout both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Our unmatched depth of experience allows us to anticipate regulatory requirements, expedite agency interactions, and craft creative solutions that accelerate cleanup and redevelopment.
Foundational Influence
The Firm’s Managing Partner, Michael R. Goldstein, has been directly involved in Florida’s Brownfields Redevelopment Act since its earliest days. He was present in Tallahassee in 1997 when the Act was passed, participating in negotiations with legislators, environmental regulators, local governments, community groups, and public health advocates. His involvement helped forge the unprecedented public-private coalition that produced the nation’s leading brownfield incentive and liability protection program.
Since 1997, Michael has participated in every legislative amendment to the Act, bringing practical, technical, and legal insight to improve its effectiveness. This includes a landmark statutory revision enacted in 2025, which Michael helped draft, modernizing program eligibility, strengthening liability protections, enhancing cleanup tools, and expanding economic incentives such as tax credits and refunds for qualifying redevelopment projects. Michael is also a co-founder of the Florida Brownfields Association (established in 2000) and served as its Chairman and President for the organization’s first five years. Under his leadership, the Association grew into Florida’s preeminent nonprofit dedicated to advancing brownfields policy, education, environmental justice, and community redevelopment. His longstanding leadership has made him an influential figure in the history of brownfield law and policy in Florida.
Representative Brownfield Clients
Our diverse client portfolio includes some of the state’s—and the nation’s—most respected residential, commercial, and industrial developers, as well as a broad spectrum of public and nonprofit institutions. Representative clients include:
Atlantic Pacific Communities • Blue Sky Communities • Carrfour Supportive Housing • City of Doral • City of North Miami • City of Oakland Park • City of Pompano Beach • Cornerstone Group • Darden Restaurants • El Ad National Properties • Encompass Health • Florida Crystals • Gerdau Ameristeel • Housing Trust Group • IKEA • JDS Development Group • KIPP Public Schools • Landmark Companies • Macklowe Properties • McArthur Dairy • Panattoni Development Company • Pelican Harbor Seabird Station • Pinnacle Housing Group • Publix Super Markets • Quadrum • Related Group • Resia • Richman Group • Sam’s Club • TECO • Toll Brothers • Town of Cutler Bay • Village of Key Biscayne • Walmart Stores • Waste Management • ZOM Development
Our firm has served as Brownfields Counsel to more than 15 of the most active affordable and workforce housing developers in Florida, helping them secure Brownfield Area designations or BSRAs for over 90 projects in more than 32 jurisdictions statewide. For these clients, brownfield incentives – including Sales Tax Refunds on Building Materials, Voluntary Cleanup Tax Credits, and statutory liability protections – often make the difference between a viable housing project and one that cannot be built. Our attorneys are fluent in the complex interplay between environmental due diligence, regulatory cleanup requirements, and the financing structures underpinning affordable and workforce housing, allowing us to deliver highly specialized, mission-critical counsel.
We have also served as Brownfields Counsel to numerous local governments, including the Cities of Doral, Florida City, Fort Lauderdale, Hialeah, Hollywood, Lauderdale Lakes, Miami, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Oakland Park, Pensacola, Sarasota, and West Palm Beach, as well as the County of Escambia, the Town of Cutler Bay, and the Village of Key Biscayne. For these jurisdictions, we provide legislative support, technical guidance, ordinance drafting, public meeting assistance, and intergovernmental coordination.
U.S. EPA Brownfields Program
In addition to our work under Florida law, our Firm provides extensive counsel under the U.S. EPA Brownfields Program. We support clients in applying for and administering federal Brownfield Assessment Grants, Cleanup Grants, Multipurpose Grants, Job Training Grants, and cooperative agreements funded jointly by EPA and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The Firm has successfully supported numerous EPA grant applications, including: a $500,000 EPA Brownfield Job Training Grant for the City of Miami; a $450,000 EPA Brownfield Remediation Grant for Palm Beach County, a $250,000 EPA/FDEP Brownfields Contamination Assessment Grant for a private developer in Miami, and a $250,000 EPA/FDEP Brownfields Source Removal Grant for a private developer in Miami. The Firm also supported a Miami developer’s successful application for two $750,000 low-interest loans from a Florida Regional Planning Council that had received Revolving Loan Grant awards from the U.S. EPA Brownfields Program.
Other Leadership Expertise Supporting Federal and State Brownfields Redevelopment
Brett C. Brumund leads the Firm’s Brownfields Practice, bringing decades of programmatic experience, regulatory credibility, and transaction-level insight to the designation, cleanup, and reuse of environmentally impacted properties throughout Florida. Brett serves as the Firm’s principal strategist and advocate in securing Brownfield Area Designations, working closely with senior municipal leadership, elected officials, economic development professionals, and community stakeholders to demonstrate compliance with statutory designation criteria and to resolve complex legal, technical, and regulatory issues associated with designation approvals. Brett also leads the Firm’s negotiation and implementation of BSRAs with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and delegated local pollution-control programs, including Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Hillsborough County, as well as other implementing authorities. Complementing this regulatory and transactional work, Brett directs the Firm’s extensive work under Florida’s VCTC Program, one of the state’s most important financial incentive tools supporting brownfields redevelopment.
Matthew (Matt) Sander, Senior Attorney with the Firm, brings more than 25 years of experience with U.S. EPA and the Department of Justice supporting environmental redevelopment policy development and implementation, including in a senior leadership role with the Office of Site Remediation Enforcement in Washington, D.C. Matt played a significant internal role supporting EPA leadership during the implementation of the Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development (BUILD) Act of 2018, including advising on statutory interpretation affecting liability protections, grant eligibility, and site-reuse pathways; developing implementation guidance for new categories of brownfield recipients and expanded multipurpose grants. He also provided legal support on redevelopment coordination between EPA, other federal agency partners (including Housing and Urban Development and the Economic Development Administration), and state cleanup programs.
Matt also developed and co-authored signature federal guidance documents addressing Superfund and brownfields redevelopment, including for Prospective Purchaser Agreements, Comfort/Status Letters, Windfall Lien Resolutions, Third-Party Agreements, Institutional Control Implementation, and municipal liability protections. For 20 years, Matt was the key legal and policy advisor to EPA’s Superfund Redevelopment Program, where he assisted in drafting the national Ready for Reuse determination framework; developed guidance integrating redevelopment with remedial actions; led redevelopment feasibility analyses for major sites across the country; and worked directly with developers, municipalities, and PRPs to resolve liability obstacles to site reuse. Matt was also EPA’s designated national subject-matter expert on municipal liability, lender liability, and liability protections for public entities.
Matt’s federal background gives the Firm unmatched insight into liability management, enforcement risk, redevelopment feasibility, EPA negotiation strategy, and Superfund/brownfields integration.
Dr. Brian J. Dougherty, the Firm’s Director of Technical and Regulatory Services, brings exceptional technical, regulatory, and scientific credentials from his leadership roles within FDEP where he served as Program Manager and Environmental Administrator for FDEP’s Division of Waste Management District & Business Support Program, Environmental Administrator for FDEP’s Bureau of Waste Cleanup Program and Technical Support Section, and Environmental Administrator for FDEP’s Bureau of Petroleum Storage Systems Petroleum Cleanup Section, overseeing all technical decisions for statewide contaminated site cleanup and closure, directing statewide implementation of waste cleanup rules and contaminated site cleanup, coordinating expert staff providing technical support to all division cleanup programs, managing a public workgroup dedicated to examining regulatory procedures and recommending changes based upon most current science, directing development of new and revised cleanup target levels for contaminated site cleanup to updated science and emerging contaminants, and developing guidance and procedures for assessment of large land parcels with residual pesticide contamination in support of redevelopment.
Brian was the architect of statewide guidance on soil and groundwater cleanup standards, institutional controls, land use control restrictions, and risk-based corrective action. He served as technical lead on landfill assessments, petroleum contamination, solvent runoff impacts, hazardous waste, and emerging contaminants, including PFAS, all of which are contaminants of concern typically at issue at brownfield sites throughout Florida.
Brian’s technical authority strengthens the Firm’s ability to resolve complex regulatory issues, expedite approvals, defend cleanup strategies, and align remediation with redevelopment planning.
Together, the Firm’s lawyers and technical staff represent a nationally unique brownfields leadership team bringing redevelopment-focused execution, state regulatory mastery, federal enforcement experience, technical and scientific depth, policy-making influence, and legislative authorship. No other Florida firm offers this level of integrated, multidisciplinary brownfields expertise.