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.
Explore the Tools
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.
Explore tools that communities can use to integrate hazard mitigation into their long-range plans and policies.
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)
- Safe Growth Audit Worksheet (excerpt from FEMA Local Mitigation Planning Handbook, 2013)
- 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.
Interdepartmental Coordination
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.