Land Use and the Built Environment Adaptation Strategies
This tab includes strategies for how to avoid or reduce climate change impacts through policies that relate to land use and the built environment, including best practices and legal and policy analysis.
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Resource
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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August 2021
In August 2021, the California Coastal Commission (CCC), one of California’s three coastal management agencies, issued the Critical Infrastructure at Risk: Sea Level Rise Planning Guidance for California’s Coastal Zone. The guidance serves as an advisory document for the state and local governments, asset managers, and stakeholders in California to update plans and policies for critical transportation and water infrastructure to adapt to sea-level rise and flooding. The guidance is based on different studies held to be the best available science on sea-level rise in California, which includes a projection of a 6-10 feet of sea-level rise by 2100.
Resource Category: Planning
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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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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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December 2020
The Wisconsin Governor’s Task Force on Climate Change, established in 2019, included a broad array of stakeholders and conferred with people from across the state to identify, examine, and include strategies to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience to climate change impacts. The task force issued its report in December 2020, which identifies 55 strategies across 9 sectors: Climate justice and equity; Energy; Transportation; Agriculture; Resilient Systems; Clean economy; Education; Food systems; and Forestry.
Resource Category: Planning
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October 2020
The Greening in Place guide serves to assist public agencies and developers in pursuing equitable green development and combating the displacement impacts that green investments can invoke. It includes an assessment of the displacement risks associated with green investment, a framework for equitable green development, several case studies, and a range of policies and strategies that can be used in partnership with the affected communities. By pursuing these strategies, park agencies and community advocates can advance racial and economic equity and promote healthy, sustainable, and inclusive green development.
Resource Category: Data and tools
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October 2020
The Energy and Environmental Study Institute’s (EESI) October 2020 report contains 30 actionable recommendations, guided by 6 principles, on how the federal government can better support coastal resilience. The report emphasizes throughout the importance of consultation with local communities in designing programs and policies related to adaptation and resilience to ensure their specific needs are met. It also describes how the policy recommendations can be implemented, including identifying Congressional Committees with relevant jurisdiction.
Resource Category: Solutions
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December 7, 2020
The Brussels Community Land Trust (CLTB) focuses on providing affordable housing for the most at-risk populations in the capital region of Belgium, such as low-income workers, immigrants, single mothers, seniors and people with disabilities. CLTB focuses on developing multi-family apartment buildings; it has constructed three projects with 48 units and has seven other projects under construction or study that would deliver more than 120 units. It is building highly energy efficient “net zero” housing developments that conform to sustainability requirements established by the Brussels-Capital Region. Several CLTB projects are also incorporating other green design features, such as green roofs, public gardens, and other community spaces to enhance both the environmental and social benefits of the project. It is exploring opportunities to build local energy cooperatives, to leverage incentives to build housing powered by renewable energy sources, and to shift development patterns to enhance access to transit and shift mobility patterns to emphasize biking and walking. CLTB is also working to develop “social economy hubs” in its projects to provide business incubation opportunities for the neighborhood and to support local job creation. For example, one of their development sites had old warehouses and rather than tear those buildings down immediately, CLTB worked with residents to organize temporary uses on the site including pop-up restaurants, cooking classes, and incubation of a catering business.
Author or Affiliated User: Jessica Grannis
Resource Category: Solutions
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December 6, 2020
The Bristol Community Land Trust (Bristol CLT) operating in the City of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, presents an example of a CLT that is benefiting from low-cost transfer of city-owned surplus land and delivering sustainable, resilient, affordable housing options for lower-income residents. Bristol CLT is building shared-equity and affordable rental units that meet the highest standards of energy efficiency and incorporate renewable energy with back-up batteries, air-source heat pumps, shared green space, “car share,” and other environmental and social amenities. The city adopted a policy in 2020 that will help the CLT develop affordable housing by recognizing the social, environmental, and economic benefits delivered by a project as part of the “consideration” it receives in exchange for the transfer of the land. This policy will better enable Bristol CLT to access low-cost land by rewarding the unique values of CLT-housing, including engaging residents, building social cohesion, and delivering permanently affordable housing. It also demonstrates how cities can change policies related to how they dispose of surplus lands to facilitate transfers to community-led organizations that will redevelop these properties for publicly beneficial uses, like affordable housing.
Author or Affiliated User: Jessica Grannis
Resource Category: Solutions
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September 2020
Developed by the Center for American Progress, the report Building a Just Climate Future for North Carolina (report) provides state leadership in North Carolina with strategies to address the pressing public health and safety threats that stem from climate change. The authors recommend six actions for policymakers to take that -- alongside actions laid out in the state’s executive order (EO) 80 and EO 143, the state’s Clean Energy Plan, and Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan -- they argue will help the state address climate change while advancing conomic, racial, and environmental justice.
Authors or Affiliated Users: Cathleen Kelly, Rita Cliffton
Resource Category: Solutions
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