Good morning. Thank you for allowing us to come and speak with you today about the East Central Florida Regional Resiliency Action plan. The action plan is just one of many ways for agencies, jurisdictions and departments across the region to collaborate to create more resilient communities. I’m Tara McCue, the planning director at the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council.

Project Goals: Increase capacity of regional stakeholders resiliency and climate adaptation capacity Engage stakeholders Obtain support for adoption of the action plan In 2017,The ECFRPC received funding from FDEP to develop an action plan that would focus on items that local governments, agencies, higher education institutions, non profits and others across the region could implement to become more resilient across all sectors. This plan is aimed to help answer the questions where do we start? Now what? What can my agency do? The project began in August of 2017 with the goals to: Increase capacity to implement resiliency and climate adaptation strategies across disciplines; Engage stakeholders and Obtain support of the plan through adoption by agencies and communities in the region.

To ensure we had full collaboration and vetting of everything related to the plan and stakeholder engagement, we developed a steering committee made up of over 50 individuals from 38 different communities and agencies on the local, regional, state, and federal levels. We also had 2 sub-committees. One was focused on the development of a regional approach to sea level rise planning and the second was focused on stakeholder engagement.

Definition RESILIENCY: The capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a region to plan, sustain, adapt, recover, improve and grow collaboratively–regardless what kind of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience – through specific actions and implementation strategies geared to address specific vulnerabilities. (adapted from 100 Resilient Cities for the Regional Resiliency Action Plan ) It was important from the beginning to make sure everyone was on the same page concerning the term resiliency and how the plan would address it. The steering committee worked on defining resilience for the plan and for the region. We used the 100 Resilient Cities definition as a base and adapted it to become a more regional definition and more specific to our goal. Our definition focuses on the capacity of everyone and every discipline to work together to plan, sustain, adapt, recover, improve and grow through specific actions and strategies to address vulnerabilities. (FYI – 100 Resilient Cities created by Rockefeller Foundation in 2013)

Framework After some research of different approaches to resilience across the globe, the team felt that the 100 resilient cities framework offered a good base for the region to develop it’s action plan. The framework is based on 4 pillars that work together to reach a resilience goal. the four areas of this framework are: Leadership and Strategy Health and Wellness Economy and Society And Infrastructure and Environment.

Goal 1: Leadership & Strategy - Promote leadership, education and empowerment both in government, and public and private sectors to foster the implementation of resiliency strategies across disciplines and communities. Goal 2: Economic & Society - Provide opportunities and strategies to foster economic prosperity and improve social equity and justice in preparation for and recovery from stressors and shocks. . The matrix is sorted into each of the pillar areas discussed previously and then broken into objectives developed through the planning process. Action items are then assigned to each of the objectives. The leadership and strategy goal is aimed to promote leadership, education and empowerment throughout the community to implement resiliency strategies. The Economic and Society section aims to provide opportunities and strategies for economic property and social equity. The infrastructure and environment goal promotes the development of cross-disciplinary plans, policies and strategies reated to all aspects of the community including infrastructure, natural resources and the built environment. Finally the health and wellbeing goal focuses on creating resilient communities by facilitating programs, opportunities and education pertaining to sustainability, disaster response and mitigation strategies.

Goal 3: Infrastructure & Environment - Encourage development of cross-disciplinary plans, policies and strategies to protect the health, safety and economic welfare of residents, businesses and visitors through recognition that natural disasters, changes to climate, and human manipulation require careful consideration of when and how to develop infrastructure, natural resources and a built environment that can withstand and adapt to these changes. Goal 4: Health & Well Being - Create resilient communities by facilitating programs, opportunities, and community-wide education pertaining to local sustainability, disaster response, and climate change mitigation strategies. The matrix is sorted into each of the pillar areas discussed previously and then broken into objectives developed through the planning process. Action items are then assigned to each of the objectives. The leadership and strategy goal is aimed to promote leadership, education and empowerment throughout the community to implement resiliency strategies. The Economic and Society section aims to provide opportunities and strategies for economic property and social equity. The infrastructure and environment goal promotes the development of cross-disciplinary plans, policies and strategies reated to all aspects of the community including infrastructure, natural resources and the built environment. Finally the health and wellbeing goal focuses on creating resilient communities by facilitating programs, opportunities and education pertaining to sustainability, disaster response and mitigation strategies.

So, the ECF RRAP Matrix of the report which is broken into those four main focus areas and the subsequent objectives. Action items to address the objectives have been arranged based upon the suggested year (1-5) of implementation or “on-going” for tasks that should be conducted every year or continuously. Each action item has been “assigned” an agency or jurisdictional department where appropriate to complete or lead the task. Where applicable, an existing or future plan has been identified that may be impacted or developed as a result of the action item. When the agency is listed as “all jurisdictions”, this item may refer to various departments of a community or the jurisdictional elected body. It is important to note that, as this is a regional plan, the department nomenclature may not be applicable to all jurisdictions and it is recommended to identify those items that would fit appropriately within various jurisdictional departments. It should be also noted that while all jurisdictions (or agencies) have required plans such as the comprehensive plan, other plans or documents identified may be considered a best practice of another community or agency. Finally, this action plan provides opportunity for replicability and refinement on a local or agency level to incorporate additional actions to address local resilience to more shocks and stressors and assign tasks more specifically. This slide is an example of a section of the Leadership and Strategy section. Many of the items include ways to collaborate and move forward the conversation of resilience.

Here is another example from the health and wellness section’s objective concerning engagement of the community about natural hazards and sustainable practices. Various agencies can work towards implementing or integrating the different tasks. As you can see many of these tasks focus on educating the community, working with community organizations and evaluating existing programs for applicability to the local level.

“economic resilience becomes inclusive of three primary attributes: the ability to recover quickly from a shock, the ability to withstand a shock, and the ability to avoid the shock altogether.” social resilience is the “resilience of communities when confronted by external stressors” As part of this report, we felt it was important to provide a socio-economic profile of Brevard and Volusia Counties. We approached this by combining the idea of social resilience and economic resilience. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines social resilience as the resilience of communities when confronted by external stressors. A community’s social vulnerability may determine how well it prepares for and responds to a disaster, as well as properly planning for future conditions such as increasing flooding and sea level rise. A number of factors weaken a community’s ability to secure human welfare and reduce economic loss from shocks and stressors, including poverty, inefficient housing and transportation, and prevalence of high-risk populations. The EDA’s view of economic resilience is complimentary and looks at the ability to recover quickly from a shock, the ability to withstand a shock and ability to avoid the shock all together. The role of economic development organizations, and others such as Chambers of Commerce, is essential in helping to build the capacity of economic resilience in a community and region through coordination and education, information dissemination and funding opportunities. As the EDA Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Program is a function of the ECFRPC, and as the “CEDS provides a critical mechanism to help identify regional vulnerabilities and prevent and/or respond to economic disruptions” (EDA), the ECFRPC and the CEDS document and steering committee are dedicated to work with communities, and regionally, to implement steady-state and responsive strategies focused on economic resilience.

A socio-economic profile was developed for both Brevard and Volusia Counties. This profile is an excerpt from the report for Brevard County and as you can see the profile provides an overview of population changes, and economic factors such as median home value and household income. It also focuses on vulnerable populations which includes those in poverty, the elderly population, limited English speakers, the unemployed and those who are transit dependent.

A regional, coordinated approach to planning for sea level rise is important as agencies and communities identify potential risks to infrastructure, plan for future land uses, and determine appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to minimize the risks of future flooding and inundation. One way that local governments can collaborate is to create sea level rise projections that are jointly developed and utilized across a defined area. Two examples of successful Florida regional coordinated sea level rise adaption workgroups that have undertaken such efforts include the southeast Florida Climate Compact and Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel. As part of this process the sea level rise subcommittee developed a regional approach to sea level rise. The approach states that No one projection rate curve should be used for planning purposes across all projects and programs. Instead, a range of rise should be considered based upon the vulnerability, allowable risk, project service life and the forecast project “in-service” date of a facility or development. The range should include a minimum rise of 5.15 feet by 2100 reflective of the 2013 USACE High with an upper range of 8.48 feet by 2100 consistent with the 2017 NOAA High projections.

East Central Florida Regional Resiliency Action Plan Adoption Since January 2019: East Central Florida Regional Planning Council City of Cocoa Space Coast TPO Brevard County

Director of Planning and Community Development Tara McCue, AICP Director of Planning and Community Development East Central Florida Regional Planning Council tara@ecfrpc.org 407-245-0300 ext. 327 Stephan Harris, River to Sea TPO sharris@r2ctpo.org 386-226-0422 ext. 20428 Thank you and al of the information, documents and template resolution are available on perilofflood.net/ecfresiliency or through the ECFRPC webpage www.ecfrpc.org www.perilofflood.net/ecfresiliency