Land Use Resources
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Resource
May 20, 2022
Mexico Beach is a small, coastal community in Bay County, Florida that has begun to adopt resilience measures following climate-enhanced disasters from hurricanes and flooding. Following Hurricane Michael, Mexico Beach amended its zoning regulations to require that new structures be elevated at least a foot and a half higher than the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s base-level flood predictions in both the city’s 100-year and 500-year floodplains. The city also partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement specific stormwater management projects, such as bioswales and retention projects, on certain streets. Smaller communities, such as in rural areas, and local governments can look to Mexico Beach as an example of how to incorporate resilience measures into zoning ordinances, especially in a post-disaster context.
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
2022
The Borough of Avalon, New Jersey updated their Floodplain Ordinance in 2022 by passing Ord. No. 849-2022, incorporating expanded areas subject to regulation and heightened standards designed to better ensure flood protection of structures.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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December 6, 2021
In December 2021, the City of Burlingame, California, passed Title 25 into its zoning ordinance, creating guidelines and development performance standards for ensuring public access and resilience to flooding and sea-level rise. These standards include minimum buffer zones, shoreline building and infrastructure elevation requirements, drainage standards, and real estate disclosure requirements.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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September 14th, 2021
The U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released this report, in response to congressional requests, to determine how agencies prevent or reduce natural disaster damage to real property. As the largest real property owner in the United States, the federal government has assets that are exposed to a high level of risk from extreme weather and climate-related events. The federal government has an opportunity to enhance natural disaster resilience of their real property through effective asset management.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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June 30, 2021
The New York City (NYC) Rezoning Commitments Tracker (Tracker) is an online tool that enables city residents to monitor the city’s progress in implementing several neighborhood-level comprehensive plans. The neighborhood plans, referred to generally as “rezonings,” include zoning code changes as well as city commitments to specific capital and programmatic investments. The tool can be used to both inform the city’s internal coordination and project management as well as provide external transparency for community members. The Tracker also serves to help users understand how zoning changes will manifest in tangible projects, translating the technical information from neighborhood rezoning plans into specific initiatives. Other local governments could consider developing and maintaining similar online tools to support and implement community-led decisionmaking processes including for adaptation and resilience.
Resource Category: Data and tools
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Resource
June 2021
In 2019, after decades of repetitive flooding, the town of Hamilton in Skagit County, Washington partnered with Forterra, a local land conservancy nonprofit, to annex a 48-acre parcel of land located outside of the town’s 100-year floodplain. Annexing this land will provide Hamilton with a higher, drier ground area where town residents could voluntarily relocate to new homes. Forterra is developing plans for the annexed parcel to build affordable, environmentally conscious homes for Hamilton residents. Hamilton provides an example for other municipalities and local governments either in a pre- or post-disaster context for revitalizing a community challenged by frequent flooding through adaptation actions. As done in Hamilton, local governments may consider possibilities for providing relocation options to residents within a floodplain, including by annexing new land, particularly where sufficient higher ground land within existing municipal boundaries is not available. Annexation can allow local governments to maintain local communities, tax bases, and economies.
Resource Category: Solutions
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April 21, 2021
On April 21, 2021, the State of Massachusetts, under the Governor Charlie Baker Administration, launched the Climate Resilience Design Standards Tool, an online platform that enables state and local governments to assess climate change considerations when designing and siting development and infrastructure projects. Specifically, the tool offers guidance for state-funded and other projects by creating project-specific climate vulnerability assessments and providing general guidance for ways that the state and local governments can consider making a project more climate resilient.
Resource Category: Data and tools
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February 4, 2021
On February 4, 2021, New Jersey enacted Senate Bill (SB) 2607 amending the required components for municipal master plans in New Jersey to incorporate climate change risks and adaptation strategies. Specifically, the land use element of any master plan adopted after the bill’s passage must include a climate change and extreme weather vulnerability assessment as well as natural hazard mitigation strategies.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Resource
January 2021
Housing insecurity and the impacts of climate change are two interrelated issues increasingly affecting cities across the United States. This report provides an overview of how community land trusts (CLTs) can present a solution to help cities mitigate both of these challenges by promoting community ownership and decisionmaking and providing permanently affordable and resilient housing. CLTs are nonprofit organizations with community-led governing structures that hold land in trust for the benefit of the community, often providing and preserving affordable housing, stewarding community amenities like parks and greenspace, and providing low-cost commercial properties that can support small businesses and economic resilience.
Author or Affiliated User: Jessica Grannis
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
November 4, 2020
In November 2020, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released a series of four guidance documents to implement part of the New York Community Risk and Resiliency Act (CRRA), as amended by the New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The CRRA requires that state agencies consider future climate impacts as a part of certain planning, permitting, and funding actions. The CRRA also requires that the DEC issue guidance for state agencies and other audiences to implement the CRRA. In accordance with that requirement, DEC issued four guidance documents: (1) Using Natural Measures to Reduce the Risk of Flooding and Erosion, (2) New York State Flood Risk Management Guidance, (3) a guide on Estimating Guideline Elevations, which presents the principles introduced in the New York State Flood Risk Management Guidance to assist planners, engineers, designers, and architects in flood mitigation project design; and (4) Guidance for Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Assessment. While these guidance documents were developed by DEC to facilitate implementation of the New York Community Risk and Resiliency Act, much of the information presented is applicable to other jurisdictions that seek to manage floodplains in accordance with climate risks.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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