Integrating climate impacts considerations into policy for safer buildings
Dave Hampton, RA, WEDG
Seeking opportunities to continue to address the challenges of our changing climate with nature-based solutions, especially on waterfronts and along coasts, rivers, and lakeshores.
#TheAdaptationMinute 7-1-2021 is in the form of a question to prompt discussion from you, esteemed colleagues.
Background: The June 24, 2021 #ChamplainTowersSouthcollapse in Surfside, Florida has prompted considerable speculation in recent articles on the effects of climate change in that particular disaster.
Attributing causality for individual events to the effects of climate change is problematic, and the current focus is - and should rightfully be - on response and recovery. However, the broader goal of ensuring that rare events like these never happen again should spur us to do now what we can to make disasters like these history in order to save lives and protect property.
So, the question for discussion:
Q: How to best account for climate impacts on construction, existing and new?
Are building codes the ideal place? Local zoning ordinances? Both?
How about land use planning documents?
What are the particular challenges to ensuring existing construction is (and will remain) safe? Is getting the unbuilt climate-ready necessarily easier?
What is the right mix of incentivizing versus mandating? What part does enforcement play?
What is an ideal scale for policy interventions? Municipal? County? State? National?
A few prompts with examples:
Municipal scale
Effects of Sea Level Rise for Christchurch City - Prepared after the 2011 Mw6.2 earthquake, this study makes very simple, straightforward recommendations (Table 5-1 below) for zoning and city rules to limit development in areas vulnerable to natural hazards; consider building, filling, and excavation; and provide information on the extent and location of natural hazards via a hazard register.
The Coastal Flood Resilience Zoning Overlay District - Boston's 2021 ordinance will require new development and retrofits to take additional steps to limit the damage and displacement related to the impacts of major coastal storms - known as a 1 percent chance flood event - and sea level rise to the tune of 40-inches (expected between 2070 and 2100). The?zoning?overlay promotes resilient planning and design and provides consistent standards for the review of projects.
Boston joins a host of other cities, including Cambridge, Massachusetts, Norfolk, Virginia, and East Hampton, NY whose zoning ordinances and other policies incorporate preparing for climate impacts.
State level
ZONING FOR SEA-LEVEL RISE: A Model Sea-Level Rise Ordinance and Case Study of Implementation Barriers in Maryland - drafted in 2012, this still-relevant study focused on coastal land use identifies some of the challenges to implementation at the state level. Key takeaways include:
- States apply different models for regulating coastal lands.
- Regulation tend to be highly “siloed†based upon the type of habitat or ecosystem (e.g., beaches, coastal wetlands, floodplains).
- State statutes often include antiquated policies that could hinder or prohibit local adaptation efforts, such as grandfathering provisions that allow for the continuation of uses that existed before the statute was enacted.
- Localities should first analyze state coastal laws to ensure that the policies they want to implement do not conflict with state law requirements.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
All of the above and coordination among them. Easier sad than done.
Flood Planning Director at American Flood Coalition
3 å¹´No infinite wisdom here, but I like to think of a spectrum from land-use regulations through building codes and on to risk transfer. The better we do on the first two, the more bang for our buck on the third. Utilizing all three tools together gives us a decent shot at minimizing our total cost of ownership.
Transition risk is real, complex, and underpriced. Prepare with rapid adoption of sustainability and business resilience metrics
3 å¹´What do you mean by safer buildings? Safer investments or safer for shelter-in-place kind of situations? In terms of channeling investment away from the most climate-change-challenged sites, I suppose it starts with a jurisdiction-wide consensus projection of impact (even if bracketed in a range) and then quantifying the current cost compared to anticipatable costs, agreeing to a discount rate, and financing the future adaptation into the contemporary resilient design. Some sites/risk profiles will be unable to pencil out, channeling development toward "better" places/projects. Resilient design (including ever-advancing technology) will always evolve and creative solutions will command a premium as usual. We've generally financed real estate under the assumption that the surrounding environment is basically static and endures indefinitely...which is not the case now (if it really ever was (just much faster now))...
Seeking opportunities to continue to address the challenges of our changing climate with nature-based solutions, especially on waterfronts and along coasts, rivers, and lakeshores.
3 å¹´Seeding the convo with Rachel Minnery, RICK EHLERT, Darrin Punchard, Jack Krolikowski Bradley Dean, Blake Jackson, Devanshi Purohit,