ULI Tampa Bay and ULI Boston/New England have been selected as winners of ULI Urban Resilience District Council engagement grants. The award recognizes outstanding local, member-initiated projects that help buildings, communities, and cities be more resilient in the face of climate change and its impacts on health, viability, and economic vitality.

The Urban Resilience District Council grants, which are supported by The Kresge Foundation and The JPB Foundation, help implement ULI member-led technical assistance projects and raise local awareness of urban resilience and climate risk.

ULI Tampa Bay will be partnering with the City of St. Petersburg to provide technical assistance to deliver innovative recommendations for zoning standards in Coastal High Hazard Areas (CHHA) in the city. This area has recently doubled in size, covering 41% of the City and includes significant areas for economic development.

This project will build on findings from the 2016 Realizing Resilience workshop which looked at how to address climate change in a wholistic and equitable way.

ULI Tampa Bay will convene member expertise and stakeholders through a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to create guidelines on design standards to ensure developments are more resilient to storm surge, mitigate for service and infrastructure needs during and immediately following a major storm events, and enable safe re-occupation following an evacuation or weather event.

TAP recommendations will be used to inform amendments to the St. Petersburg comprehensive plan as well as land development regulations to allow for development and redevelopment within the CHHA.

ULI Boston/New England will use grant funding to support their Living With Heat initiative, which will work to generate best practices to help landowners, developers, designers, and public officials act to protect their projects, investments, and communities from the risks associated with urban heat island effect and climate change more broadly.

While heat waves occur periodically in New England, climate change poses an increasing public health threat due to rising temperatures and the current pattern of development, which will also be compounded by possible effects on infrastructure and water and energy demands. ULI Boston/New England’s membership recognizes their potential to coordinate a multidisciplinary group to make a roadmap on how to address this issue and implement mitigation strategies.

ULI Boston will convene a charrette which will develop ways to mitigate short- and long-term impacts of urban heat island effect in four communities that are particularly vulnerable. This project utilizes the Trust For Public Land (TPL)’s Climate -Smart Cities decision-support mapping tool that the District Council recently collaborated on to help identify “hot spots” in the Greater Boston metropolitan area.

Join the Urban Resilience program in congratulating these excellent proposals by ULI Tampa Bay and ULI Boston/New England.

If you are interested in participating in either project or initiating your own within your district council, please contact the urban resilience program at [email protected].