Connecticut Public Act No. 25-33 (2025), Sections 5-16: Resilience Planning and Zoning
Connecticut Public Act No. 25-33, signed by the Governor on June 10, 2025, is a wide-reaching environmental and climate adaptation law that creates new standards and requirements for state and local government as well as the private sector. The Act establishes new obligations and frameworks across several different policy areas: flood risk disclosure, municipal and regional climate planning, local resilience financing, water and infrastructure climate proofing, and pesticide restrictions to protect pollinators and wildlife. Sections 5-16 of the Act make revisions to Connecticut's land use and planning statutes, ensuring that Connecticut’s local planning and regulatory frameworks account for observed and projected climate conditions.
The Act substantially revises Connecticut’s land use municipal planning statutes to embed climate resilience as a core planning obligation. These changes flow across coastal site plan review, municipal hazard mitigation and evacuation plans, municipal plans of conservation and development (POCDs), regional plans of conservation and development, the state plan of conservation and development, municipal capital reserve funds, state highway funds, civil preparedness planning, and zoning regulations.
Coastal Site Plan Review (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 22a-109)
When construction or development is proposed in Connecticut’s coastal areas, it must undergo a special review process designed to ensure that new development does not damage sensitive coastal resources, increase flood risk, or degrade the natural systems. This process requires local zoning commissions to evaluate proposed projects against coastal resources protection standards, and in certain cases to refer plans to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) for additional review and conduct.
Previously, individual single-family homes were largely exempt from this process, even when proposed in close proximity to beaches, duns, wetlands or eroding bluffs. Sections 5 and 6 of the Act require any single-family residential project proposed within 100 feet of tidal wetlands, coastal bluffs, beaches, or dunes to go through the full coastal site plan review. Projects located within FEMA-designated coastal flood zones must be referred to DEEP for state-level review and comment before the local zoning commission can take final action.
The Act expands the categories of coastal site plans that must be referred to the DEEP Commissioner for review and comment. Under the updated statute, a copy of each coastal site plan must be referred to DEEP within 15 days of receipt if the plan involves:
- Any shoreline flood and erosion control structure;
- Any activity proposed within a FEMA-designated V, VE, A, AE, or Limit of Moderate Wave Action (LiMWA) area; or
- Any site containing tidal wetlands, beaches, or dunes.
The practical effect is that single-family homes proposed in the most flood and erosion prone coastal locations are now subject to the same level of scrutiny as larger commercial and multi-family projects. This is a shift in how Connecticut regulates development at its most vulnerable shoreline areas.
Municipal Hazard Mitigation and Evacuation Plans (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 25-68o)
Section 7 of the Act requires municipal hazard mitigation and evacuation plans to specifically identify how climate change (e.g. sea level rise, increased flooding, extreme heat, and heavier precipitation) threatens local roads, utilities, and critical facilities. These plans must also now identify concrete actions, strategies, and capital projects to reduce those risks. The section also requires that the infrastructure, land uses, and projects identified in the plan be captured in geospatial data. Municipalities that lack the technical capacity to produce this data are explicitly encouraged to coordinate with their regional council of governments to meet this new technical requirement.
Culvert and Bridge Inventory (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4d-91a)
Many Connecticut municipalities do not have complete records of where their culverts are located, how old they are, or what condition they are in. A new statewide infrastructure mapping obligation, established in Section 8 of the Act, requires every municipality to submit geospatial data on culverts and bridges within its boundaries to its regional council of governments (COG) by May 1, 2028, and annually thereafter. Data must include location coordinates, age, dimensions, and any additional information required by OPM in consultation with the Departments of Transportation and Energy and Environmental Protection.
Municipal and Regional Plans of Conservation and Development (Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 8-23, 8-35)
Plans of Conservation and Development (PCODs) are the foundational land use planning documents that every Connecticut municipality is required to prepare and update at least once every ten years. A POCD sets out a community’s long-term vision for how land should be used, where development should be directed, how natural resources should be protected, and what infrastructure investments are needed. POCDs are not zoning regulations themselves, however, they do guide zoning decisions, capital budgeting, and other municipal policy choices.
Sections 11-12 of the Act creates a two-tier framework for integrating consideration of climate change impacts into municipal POCDs based on plan adoption date:
- Plans adopted before October 1, 2027, must consider the most recent sea level change scenario and federal and state climate projections in their preparation.
- Plans adopted on or after October 1, 2027 must include a full Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment. This is a structured analysis of existing and anticipated threats from natural disasters, flooding, wildfire, drought, extreme heat, sea level rise, and saltwater intrusion. This includes goals, policies, and techniques to reduce identified risks. These plans must also include geospatial data, land use map informed by climate vulnerability, identify critical evacuation infrastructure, and describe resilience strategies.
Municipalities may also choose to incorporate resiliency improvement districts, transfer of development rights programs, and climate-risk land use programs but are not required to do so.
Just as individual municipalities are required to prepare Plans of Conservation and Development, Connecticut's nine regional councils of governments (COGs) are each required to prepare a regional POCD covering their member municipalities. Regional POCDs serve a coordinating function to address land use, housing, transportation, environmental protection, and economic development at a scale that crosses municipal boundaries. They are intended to provide a regional framework within which local municipal plans can be understood and aligned.
Section 13 of the Act requires that regional COGs update their plans of conservation and development to demonstrate consistency with regional long-range transportation plans and hazard mitigation summaries, and must identify and map critical regional facilities with geospatial data. These requirements apply to plans adopted on or after October 1, 2025.
State Plan of Conservation and Development (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 16a-27)
Section 14 of the Act requires the Office of Policy and Management to include climate inputs for revisions of the State Plan Conservation and Development. Revisions made after adoption of the 2025-2030 state plan must address the risks from changing precipitation patterns and extreme heat alongside existing sea level rise and coastal flooding considerations, the impacts of extreme heat, drought, and increased flooding on infrastructure and natural resources, land use strategies that minimize risks to public health and the environment, and the state's greenhouse gas reduction goals.
State Civil Preparedness Plan (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 28-5)
Connecticut’s state civil preparedness plan is a comprehensive emergency management and preparedness framework developed and maintained by the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP). The plan guides the state on how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies and disasters. The plan establishes the protocols, resources, and coordination structures that municipalities, utilities, and state and local agencies rely on when responding to major incidents.
Beginning October 1, 2028, Section 15 of the Act requires the state civil preparedness plan consider observed and projected climate trends across a broad range of hazards, including extreme weather events, drought, coastal and inland flooding, storm surge, wildfire, extreme heat, and any other hazards the DESPP Commissioner deems relevant. This means the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection should begin integrating climate projections into its next plan update cycle ahead of that deadline.
Zoning Regulations (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-2)
Effective October 1, 2027, under Section 16 of the Act, local zoning regulations must be designed to mitigate and avoid negative impacts to public health and the environment from sea level change, and may promote resilience including protections against extreme heat, drought, and intense precipitation. Zoning incentives for flood-risk reduction building methods are explicitly authorized. Regulations must also align with the municipality’s POCD and consider climate change risks in land use decisions.
Sections 5-16 of the Act, which are codified in state law within the sections noted in the headings above, reorient Connecticut's planning and zoning statutes to acknowledge climate change impacts, moving from a framework in which climate considerations were optional enhancements to one in which there are inputs at every tier of the planning hierarchy required by state statute.
Publication Date: June 10, 2025
Related Organizations:
- State of Connecticut
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