Table of Contents
There are numerous opportunities to effectively integrate and address the mitigation of known hazards in local plans and policies.
The comprehensive plan is a community’s most important and potentially effective tool for consolidating and articulating various policies that relate to planning, land use, and development. Hazard-related issues arise in a range of planning contexts, and there are different approaches for integrating hazards into comprehensive plans, discussed below. Beyond the comprehensive plan, the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan is an obvious and important place to address local hazard policy.
In addition, communities should utilize other supporting plans, policies, and programs to demonstrate clear linkages and potential synergies between hazard risk reduction and other important community goals. Each supporting plan typically should include a background study or assessment of existing and future conditions, as well as goals, strategies, and policies that can contribute to the implementation of multi-objective solutions.
Safe Growth Audits – An Effective Tool for Planners and Hazard Practitioners
As first shared by the American Planning Association’s “Practice Safe Growth Audits” publication, the purpose of a safe growth audit is to “analyze the impacts of current policies, ordinances, and plans on community safety from hazard risks due to growth.” The audit enables a community to evaluate the positive and negative effects of its guidance on existing and future growth on hazard vulnerability by reviewing the comprehensive plan, zoning ordinance, subdivision regulations, capital improvement plan/program, and infrastructure policies. In many ways, a safe growth audit provides a “checks and balances” approach for communities that are interested in future development but not at the expense of public safety or vulnerability to hazards.
For example, a safe growth audit asks questions such as:
- Does the future land-use map clearly identify natural hazard areas?
- Are transportation policies used to guide growth to safe locations?
- Do environmental policies provide incentives to development that is located outside of protective ecosystems?
- Are the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan related to those of the FEMA Local Hazard Mitigation Plan?
- Does the zoning ordinance conform to the comprehensive plan in terms of discouraging development or redevelopment within natural hazard areas?
- Do subdivision regulations allow density transfers where hazard areas exist?
- Does the capital improvement plan/program provide funding for hazard mitigation projects identified in the FEMA Mitigation Plan?
These and similar questions can naturally be tailored when looking at a specific hazard. As a holistic approach, however, the safe growth audit provides a comprehensive yet succinct look at a community’s future based on a critique of existing plans, policies, and tools that direct new development. It also equips practitioners with the ability to zero in on the most relevant questions, gaps, or conflicts related to planning strategies that may warrant further consideration.
Additional Resources:
- American Planning Association’s Practice Safe Growth Audits (Zoning Practice Issue Number 10, 2009): planning.org/zoningpractice/open/pdf/oct09.pdf
- Safe Growth Audit Worksheet (excerpt from FEMA Local Mitigation Planning Handbook, 2013): mitigationguide.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Worksheet-4.2.pdf
- American Planning Association. Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning, pp. 54-58 (“Testing Implementation with a Safe Growth Audit”). Planning Advisory Service Report 560. May 2010. fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/19261
Several examples of supporting plans are discussed below, including community wildfire protection plans, climate plans, and parks and open space plans. Beyond this guidebook, other important supporting plans and programs deal with issues such as transportation, economic development, public facilities, housing, and redevelopment. In particular, it is also important for communities to address risk and factor the cost of mitigation programs into local capital improvement plans.
This section explores tools that communities can use to integrate hazard mitigation into their long-range plans and policies. Tools profiled in this section include:
Interdepartmental Coordination – Getting Them Involved; Keeping Them Involved
Coordination is essential to achieving a more sustainable, resilient, and safe community. Management by silos has traditionally been the norm, and promoting integration among departments can be a challenge due to limited resources and over-burdened staff. This is particularly the case in communities that have endured recent significant hazard events.
Yet the key to a successful hazard mitigation program is having departments working in an integrated fashion, routinely sharing information and ideas and avoiding policies or actions that are in conflict with each other. The following are a few tips to achieve effective, sustainable interdepartmental coordination.
Leadership. Achieving and maintaining effective interdepartmental coordination first requires commitment from the elected governing body and the chief executive official. They should consider creating an interdepartmental committee to promote coordination across all local efforts. To be effective, such a committee should be chaired by someone with leadership qualities. An effective leader is able to persuade his or her superiors, peers, and subordinates to adopt a common vision and strategy for how to achieve it. From a hazards perspective, they should be able to help reconcile competing objectives between departments that want to execute recovery and mitigation projects and also future planning projects.
Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities. Effective interdepartmental cooperation and coordination requires all parties to clearly understand their role and how their job or their office contributes to the overall vision, goals, and objectives of the committee. Before any coordination effort is initiated, it is important for leadership to describe the mission of the interdepartmental committee and how it will function as an organization.
For those on the interdepartmental committee to be effective, it is important not only for the individual to understand their role, but to understand the other agencies’ roles. They must be able to put themselves in another agency’s shoes to understand where they are coming from and what they want to achieve.
Effective Communication. Open and regular communication is key to interdepartmental coordination. Effective interchange of opinions and information helps in resolving differences and in creating mutual understanding. Thus, defining protocols for both formal and informal communication between committee members and entire agencies is critical.
Personal Contact. Personal or face-to-face contact is the most effective means of communication and coordination. Intragovernmental decisions are collective decisions and should reflect the engagement, coordination, and general consensus among different departments or functions in the enterprise.
The Heads-Up. Finally, hold meetings only when you have something important to discuss. Prepare an agenda and distribute it to the committee members prior to the meeting so when they walk into the meeting they have a clear understanding of the purpose of the meeting.