Hazard Regulations We Wish We Had Adopted Sooner
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Certification Maintenance
L | 1
Learning Outcomes
- Understand zoning and land use tools that can minimize damage and loss of life from wildfires and floods at neighborhood and site-level scales.
- Learn from other communities that failed to adopt hazard mitigation regulations and related strategies to protect their communities from disasters.
- Identify specific actions that your community can take to prepare for natural hazards, such as the adoption of building and development codes.
More Course Details
Climate change requires planners to look further ahead to prepare communities for environmental changes, public safety, resilient housing, and infrastructure. However, many community planners grapple with historical land use decisions that place areas at risk of natural hazards, state or local statutes that limit proactive hazard planning, and pushback from elected officials or members of the public who perceive advanced hazard regulations as limiting growth or increasing costs.
Take a hard look at what communities could have done in terms of adopting regulations to prepare for floods and wildfires and why they failed to act. By analyzing communities that approved development in flood- or wildfire-prone areas and the challenges that ensued, speakers emphasize the importance of taking preventive action. Find out how communities can still make changes based on best practices.
Examples include revisions to local development and zoning codes to incorporate hazards; statewide opportunities for adopting building codes and subdivision regulations; and implementation of post-disaster recovery ordinances and similar regulatory mechanisms to overcome past mistakes and meet future challenges.