Resilience Planning

Table of Contents

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Colorado is growing and is endowed with tremendous natural, cultural and economic resources. We are also challenged by numerous hazards. Shocks are direct vulnerabilities; they are intense, acute events that can disrupt communities. They include flash floods, wildfires, widespread loss of electrical power, dam failures, public health crises, and terrorist attacks. Shocks can lead to significant damage to infrastructure, as well as injuries and deaths. In contrast to shocks, stressors are underlying long-term conditions that can negatively impact a community’s environmental, social, and economic health; they are indirect vulnerabilities. Stressors can also limit a community’s ability to address and recover from a shock. Stressors can include aging infrastructure, an economic downturn, long-term high rates of unemployment, and a lack of affordable housing.

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There is no one “right” way to do resiliency planning. Instead, resiliency planning means finding an approach that is best matched to your community’s unique needs and resources. The Colorado Resiliency Office offers a resiliency planning toolkit to assist your community with its planning efforts. The toolkit describes 6 steps to resiliency planning, each with a set of activities and resources:

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From a land-use perspective, resiliency planning means considering shocks and stresses throughout your community’s plans, land-use codes, zoning, development standards, incentive programs, and other plans or policies that guide and shape development. In that sense, the entire Planning for Hazards guide is designed to support your community’s resiliency planning. Here, we highlight a few key connections between land-use and resiliency planning:  

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  • Planning for resilience can reduce future disaster-related response and recovery costs and improve recovery time following natural or human-caused hazard events.

  • A resilience plan or audit provides the community with an understanding of policies, programs, and other actions that can be taken across many sectors to improve the community’s resilience to hazards or changing conditions.

  • Planning for resilience can help a community anticipate and reduce the severity of economic downturns and other stressors.

  • Resilience can be interwoven into any planning process in the community, such as an economic development plan, hazard mitigation plan, or parks and recreation plan

  • Since resilience spans across many sectors, it may be challenging to secure sustained participation and support from all relevant stakeholders.

  • Strategies that may promote resilience in one sector (such as increasing affordable housing) may conflict with another component of resilience (such as prohibiting development in high-hazard areas) without consistent coordination.

  • Clearly articulating the concept of resilience and its value to the public can be challenging. The planning team will need to thoughtfully consider how to craft this message.

Key Facts

Administrative Capacity

Varies depending on approach. A resilience audit of existing planning, for instance, would require less administrative capacity than developing a stand-alone resilience plan.

Mapping

May be needed to analyze the spatial patterns and dimensions of potential shocks and stressors.

Regulatory Requirements

None required

Maintenance

Review annually to track progress; updates are community dependent and may be prompted by a major disaster event, significant changes in community existing conditions, updates to related plans (e.g., hazard mitigation plans), and completion of a significant number of recommendations identified in the plan

Adoption Required

No, though strongly encouraged if plan is developed

Statutory Reference 

N/A

Associated Costs

Dependent on scale and level of complexity. Could include staff time, plus potential costs for mapping or other technical work, public outreach activities, and consultant services. Could also include applying resilience criteria to existing budgeting processes.

Upcoming Events

There are no upcoming events