ENVIRONMENT
COMMUNITY RESILIENT SURVEY
Complete by deadline: August 31, 2021
The Town of Ponce Inlet, in collaboration with the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, invites you to complete our Resilient Ponce Inlet survey. Your feedback will help the Town develop strategies to plan for the impacts of current and future flooding in the community.
The Town needs YOU to help identify which measures you would like to see implemented to minimize these impacts.
To begin, visit http://metroquestsurvey.com/h73x.
Survey closes August 31, 2021.
For more information, please contact:
Adam Mendenhall at amendenhall@ponce-inlet.org
or Charles Abbatantuono at CAbbatantuono@ecfrpc.org.
SEA LEVEL RISE VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT WORKSHOP
Date: February 14th, 2021
By: Joe Perrone
The Town Council has engaged the services of the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council (ECFRPC) for the purpose of improving the Town’s capacity to deal with future threats from sea level rise. The first phase of the ECFRPC’s study, an assessment of the Town’s vulnerability in this regard, will kick off in a workshop for Ponce Inlet residents at the Community Center and via Zoom on Thursday, February 25th at 6:00pm. The vulnerability assessment will evaluate impacts to the Town (flooding, storm surge, erosion, and evacuation support, as well as impacts to roads, land uses, and property values) as sea levels rise.
The purpose of this workshop (the first of two) is to discuss Town vulnerabilities, resilience strategies, as well as project and policy ideas. Your input is important and, using the information gathered from this initial workshop, the ECFRPC project team will develop an online survey that will focus on values, priorities, and short-term and long-term strategies and actions to increase the Town’s resilience and adaptability in dealing with the effects of future sea level rise. The ECFRPC will create the survey and a flyer for the Town to distribute.
Whether or not your property is currently in a flood designated area, you are encouraged to attend and to participate in this important presentation. Needless to say, we are the peninsula portion of a barrier island, surrounded by water on three sides, with areas, especially along the Halifax River, that have already experienced the effects of sea level rise, e.g. flooding of canal front homes along Inlet Harbor Road and Ponce de Leon Circle during hurricanes, as well as high tide events along the sea walls in the Emerald Isle and Yacht Haven developments. Please come to the ECFRPC workshop on February 25th, either in person at the Community Center or via Zoom. Because seating at the Community Center is limited, if you plan to attend in person you must first pre-register by February 24th.
COASTAL RESILIENCY VULNERABILITY STUDY
Date: November 17th, 2020
By: Joe Perrone
At its October 15th meeting, the Town Council approved the scope of services with the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council (ECFRPC) for coastal resiliency planning, the purpose of which is to improve the Town’s capacity to deal with future threats from sea level rise. The ECFRPC will work with the Town through public engagement and education, and by an assessment of the Town’s vulnerabilities, to ensure its resiliency to changing climate conditions that would influence and guide the decision making process for future development, infrastructure projects, and various programs within the Town. The study will be in three phases.
Phase 1 – Vulnerability Assessment:
The project team will conduct a vulnerability assessment related to sea level rise, frequent flooding, storm surge and erosion, as well as modeling completed for Volusia County that evaluates new storm surge impacts as sea levels rise. (Existing analysis completed for Volusia County will be used as a base for the assessment with data localized to the Town.) The vulnerability assessment will evaluate impacts to facilities critical to the Town’s function, health, safety, and evacuation support, as well as all roadway facilities, land uses, and social characteristics to identify vulnerabilities in public service and response. Modeling will also evaluate potential economic impacts of future flooding.
Phase 2 – Public Engagement:
The ECFRPC will engage stakeholders in the Town through an online survey and will facilitate two workshops and one meeting with Town staff to discuss vulnerabilities and to gather input concerning issues, opportunities, and needs which will be used to identify areas of concern for the vulnerability assessment. The purpose of the first workshop is to engage participants in roundtable type discussions of local vulnerabilities, resilience strategies, and project and policy ideas. Using the information gathered from this initial workshop, the project team will develop an online survey that will focus on values, priorities, and strategies to increase the Town’s resilience. The ECFRPC will create the survey and a flier for the Town to distribute, which Planning Department staff has indicated should be available either in late December or in January. The final workshop will provide an overview of the survey results and identified strategies for consideration, as well as other pertinent topics that may emerge during the process.
Phase 3 – Develop Peril of Flood Policies for the Coastal Element of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan:
The project team will develop goals, objectives, and policies with related data and figures for the coastal element of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan. This may (1) include new or revised goals, objectives, and policies, including development principles, strategies, and engineering solutions that will reduce the flood risk in coastal areas from high tide events, storm surge, stormwater runoff, and the related impacts of sea level rise; (2) propose strategies that will result in the removal of coastal real property from flood zone designations established by FEMA; (3) identify site development techniques that may reduce losses due to flooding; (4) be consistent with, or more stringent than, the flood resistant construction requirements in the Florida Building Code; (5) provide compliance with state code requirements on any construction activities seaward of the Coastal Construction Control lines; (6) encourage local government to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System administered by FEMA to achieve flood insurance discounts for residents. (Note: the Town currently participates in this program and has the lowest flood insurance premiums in the state.)