Identifying Opportunities for Community Resilience: FEMAs Community - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Identifying Opportunities for Community Resilience: FEMA’s Community Rating System

Amanda Perkins and Abbie Sherwin

Maine Sustainability and Water Conference March 29, 2016

Presentation Overview

• CRS and community resilience
• CRS in Maine
• Opportunities for CRS credit
• Developing a transferable model for assessing potential CRS credit
• Implications for state and local geospatial data

The Community Rating System (CRS)

• Voluntary NFIP program that offers

discounts on flood insurance in exchange for actions that reduce flood risk within a community

• Incentivizes resilience, alleviates

increasing flood insurance costs, and makes communities and residents safer from flooding

• Municipalities participate in the

program

Goals of CRS

• 1. Reduce flood damage to insurable

property

• 2. Strengthen and support the

insurance aspects of the NFIP

• 3. Encourage a comprehensive

approach to floodplain management

• C. Adams 9/30/15

CRS Rating Table

CRS Activity Categories

• Public Information

Newsletters, brochures, presentations, reading flood maps

• Flood Damage Reduction

Acquisition/relocation, mitigation, hazard planning

• Warning and Response

Flood emergency response and warnings

• Mapping and Regulations

Stormwater management, open space preservation,

Open Space Preservation

rOSP = aOSP aSFHA

• Objectives
• Prevent flood damage by keeping flood-

prone lands free of development

• Protect and enhance the natural functions
• f floodplains
• Credit for development restrictions (local

regulations & individual property owners)

• Maximum possible credit points: 2,020 (avg.

points earned: 463)

CRS in Maine

Statewide 17 communities of 889 (2%) Coastal Zone 9 communities of 141 (6%)

Good News...

Many communities are already doing things that would qualify for CRS credit

• Comprehensive planning
• Outreach and education
• Building code
• Freeboard
• Shoreland Zoning Act

Overcoming Challenges to Increase Participation in CRS

• Arduous requirements
• Strained resources
• Lack of capacity
• Incentive disparity

What can be done to facilitate participation and streamline the CRS process?

Collaborating to answer questions about CRS and Open Space Preservation in Maine

Only one of many possibilities!

CRS in Bath

Municipal Variation

Bath, ME Georgetown, ME Boothbay Harbor, ME Damariscotta, ME

http://www.covesidebandb.com/aerial-images-of-georgetown-maine/ mmcclung on panoramio

Georgetown, ME Bath, ME

Ratios of open space in Bath, ME Ratios of open space in Georgetown, ME

Gathering Data

Public Data Source Bath Conserved Lands MEGIS Bath FEMA Flood Zones FEMA Bath KELT Forest Blocks MEGIS / Chris Cabot, KELT Bath Cemeteries Maine Old Cemetery Association and MEGIS Bath Schools MEGIS Bath Farms MEGIS Bath Waterbodies and Wetlands USGS

Data Formatting

There was no park layer for Bath (or any of the communities we studied)!

Lessons Learned

Small Scale Lessons

• Building resilience to flooding (in ways

incentivized by the CRS program) will take largely different forms in different localities.

• The process of gathering relevant data for

this analysis is valuable for communities in itself.

• Creative collaborations benefit many

stakeholders and streamline resources. Please reach out to students and academic institutions; we want to work with you! Large Scale Lessons

• Paying attention to the CRS standards in

writing legislation on the municipal or even state level could help coastal communities to automatically qualify for insurance cost reductions.

• It is important to collect data in widely

applicable formats.

• The State especially may want to consider

gathering information broadly about features such as parks that would be useful for a variety of municipal planning initiatives.

Sources and Acknowledgements

A special thanks to Bowdoin students Bailey Moritz (‘16), John Layman (‘18), and Greg Anrig (‘18) for their work on this project in partnering communities. Thanks to Professor Eileen Johnson for teaching us these skills and arranging community partner opportunities. Thanks to Abbie Sherwin, Liz Hertz, Pete Slovinsky, Chris Cabot, Bob Faunce, Andrew Deci, Brenda Cummings, and the Town of Georgetown for the support, advice and data they contributed to these projects. Other data sources included MEGIS, USGS, FEMA, KELT, Beginning with Habitat, and Bowdoin College.

Potential CRS cost savings for policyholders* in Bath and Georgetown

*SFHA Zones