HURRICANE MATTHEW DISASTER RECOVERY AND RESILIENCE INITIATIVE
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A project of the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory
Gavin Smith, PhD, AICP Project Director _________________
September 11, 2017
Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................. 2
A. Background......................................................................................................................................... 2 B. Objectives ........................................................................................................................................... 2 C. Activities ............................................................................................................................................. 2 D. Organizational Structure .................................................................................................................... 4
Leveraging State and Federal Resources..................................................................................................... 7 Executive Summaries of Project Reports .................................................................................................... 8
A. Home Place......................................................................................................................................... 8 B. Affordable Housing........................................................................................................................... 13 C. Economic Development ................................................................................................................... 23
Reports/Appendices availableuponrequest............................................................................................... 25
A. Home Place....................................................................................................................................... 26 B. Recovering Affordable Housing in Eastern North Carolina Post-Hurricane Matthew ................... 497 C. Development Finance Initiative Market and Financial Analysis Reports........................................ 538
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative
I. INTRODUCTION
This report describes the work that was funded through the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory. The budget for the project totaled $341,000 for the purposes of establishing the Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative. The period of performance for the research began on February 10, 2017 and concluded on June 30, 2017. The North Carolina Policy Collaboratory budget has served as a significant catalyst for other funding and resources that are summarized below. However, the focus of this report is to capture the substantial work done in the Spring and early summer of 2017 as supported by the UNC Policy Collaboratory.
A. Background
The Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative (HMDRRI) involves the
university engagement of faculty and students as well as professional planning experts in addressing community and state-level needs associated with recovery from Hurricane Matthew. This North Carolina Policy Collaboratory also provided a way to build upon a number of existing and emerging programs, relationships, and growing interest among faculty and students surrounding the study and practice of creating disaster resilient communities.
This idea for the Initiative was proposed by the Director of North Carolina Division of Emergency Management during a meeting held with the Division on October 19th. In addition, it was suggested that this effort should be codified as part of a formal ongoing partnership between the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management and the UNC system. Since that time three primary objectives were developed and implemented.
B. Objectives
The HMDRRI focused efforts around the following objectives: 1) Serve as point of contact for UNC faculty, students and staff to help the state address a range of policy and technical issues as identified.
2) Engage with select communities to assist them identify local needs and help them develop post-disaster recovery plans.
3) Coordinate activities with FEMA’s Community Planning and Capacity Building team which strives to assist communities collect data, assess needs and facilitate recovery planning.
C. Activities
Serve as point of contact for UNC faculty, students and staff to help the state address a range of policy and technical issues as identified.
One way the HMDRRI has assisted in the recovery effort is to serve as a conduit for the linkage of faculty expertise with specific needs identified by the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management. In addition to university faculty, a number of students have participated in the HMDRRI, many of whom are currently enrolled in the University of North Carolina’s Graduate Certificate in Natural Hazards Resilience (http://planning.unc.edu/nhrcp). Most of these student’s master’s projects and dissertations focus on the study of natural hazards and disasters, including some whose focus is on North Carolina communities. As such these efforts will be linked to the HMDRRI and findings provided to the State. This provides another unique
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative linkage as students have had the opportunity to present their findings to state and federal officials as their research evolves and garner meaningful practitioner feedback.
Informed by the HMDRRI concept, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University have taught several graduate and undergraduate classes focused on Hurricane Matthew recovery. A primary intent of the classes was to help educate the students participating in HMDRRI, thereby providing a base level of knowledge and experience that would help the larger team meet identified objectives. The three courses and associated faculty that taught the classes include:
1) The Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) taught a Planning Workshop
(PLAN 823) in which faculty and graduate students work with “clients” as part of a semester-long targeted project. DCRP focused on four communities to include assisting them collect pertinent information that is being used to help them develop disaster recovery plans as part of the larger HMDRRI effort. UNC-CH Department of City and Regional Planning Professor Mai Nguyen and Andrew Whittemore led this class with support provided by Professor Gavin Smith.
2) Andy Fox and David Hill, faculty in the North Carolina State University’s College of
Design led a week-long DesignWeek in January focused on working with Kinston, Windsor and Greenville. This effort included Master of Landscape Architecture and Architecture students (to include those enrolled in the NCSU Coastal Dynamics Studio) and UNC-CH Master of City and Regional Planning students (to include those enrolled in the Natural Hazards Resilience Certificate).
3) Natural Hazards Resilience Speaker Series (PLAN 754) was taught in the Spring of 2017
by Dr. Gavin Smith as part of the 10-credit hour Graduate Certificate in Natural Hazards Resilience. The course was designed to expose students to a range of scholars, practitioners, and translational experts in the field and help foster an esprit de corps among those pursuing the Certificate. Invited guest speakers focused on disaster recovery and lectures that were intended to help inform the work of faculty and students involved in the HMDRRI.
Engage with select communities to assist them identify local needs and help them develop disaster recovery plans.
A key task undertaken by the HMDRRI includes working with communities identified by the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management and members of the HMDRRI. The Initiative has focused on assisting the following communities: Windsor, Princeville, Fair Bluff, Kinston, Seven Springs, and Lumberton. Following preliminary data collection efforts and briefings from state officials, initial visits were set up to scope out specific tasks. This information has been used to develop a targeted engagement strategy and develop disaster recovery plans in close coordination with public officials and those living in targeted communities.
Specific needs identified by communities included the development of housing relocation strategies. These locally-specific strategies included the development of interview instruments to collect data from those residents pursuing the “buyout” of their homes following Hurricane Matthew. Once acquired, the land is converted to open space. The HMDRRI relocation strategy
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative uses this information to assess the characteristics of families to determine the types of replacement housing (e.g., size, cost, local housing styles) that may be needed. The housing plans found in the Home Place document are designed to be used by builders (funded through federal funding) to construct replacement housing. The HMDRRI team is also conducting land suitability analyses, identifying areas for development located outside of the floodplain, but within a community’s extraterritorial jurisdiction in order to reduce future flood losses while helping to maintain the tax base of the six jurisdictions.
Coordinate activities with FEMA’s Community Planning and Capacity Building team.
The HMDDRI actively coordinated with FEMA’s Community Planning and Capacity Building (CPCB) team, to include Matt Campbell, who leads the program in Washington, D.C. Bob Haywood, who is the states designated FEMA representative for Hurricane Matthew and Kehla West CPCB RSF Field Coordinator, North Carolina. This partnership was further solidified on November 3rd as Matt Campbell and two field staff from FEMA served as reviewers of DCRP student projects which evaluated disaster recovery plans (in the PI’s Fall class), and based on this review, suggested that students should present their analysis to his staff in the Hurricane Matthew JFO. The activities of CPCB include data collection and community engagement, two tasks that have been closely coordinated with the faculty and students involved in the development of recovery plans in identified communities. This collaborative relationship is expected to continue through the remainder of time spent with Hurricane Matthew recovery.
D. Organizational Structure
The HMDRRI organizational structure (See Figure 1, next page) illustrates the various interdisciplinary connections and collaborations across institutions that formed the structure of the Initiative. It also highlights how the Collaboratory-funded work has been leveraged with other efforts to significantly expand the scope of HMDRRI and serve as the base upon which a long-term program has been developed to assist the State of North Carolina address Matthew recovery and serve as a model for future disasters in the state. This model is being explored by other universities as a way to assist the State of Texas recover from Hurricane Harvey.
Together, the partnership spans and connects efforts, including the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, the Governor’s Office, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), other federal agencies, experienced disaster recovery experts (hired using other funding sources), the private sector firm Skanska, and local communities recovering from Hurricane Matthew.
Fourteen graduate students and two faculty from UNC-CH’s Department of City and Regional Planning as well as eight graduate students plus seven faculty from North Carolina State University’s College of Design assisted the six HMDRRI communities throughout the summer, many working full time on the project. Specific efforts included conducting the housing strategy, undertaking the financial analysis of community downtowns (via UNC’s Development Finance Initiative housed at the School of Government), and assisting with the development of disaster recovery plans.
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative
The data collected through the Initiative also supported research tied to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, funded through the UNC Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence. For instance, the DHS-funded Flood Apex program brings together new and emerging technologies designed to increase communities’ resilience to flood disasters and provides flood-predictive analytic tools. Funds from this program are being used to assess the degree to which hazard mitigation and disaster recovery actions taken following Hurricane Floyd in 1999 (the state’s most costly disaster to date) in the 6 HMDRRI communities influenced the impacts and consequences of Hurricane Matthew in 2016. This coordinated effort will apply the Apex-related findings to assist in the development of better disaster recovery plans designed to increase resilience. Additional research underway or under development include assessing the application of Coastal Resilience Center-developed disaster recovery indicators in the 6 HMDRRI communities as well as the assessment of lessons learned spanning infrastructure-related efforts post-Matthew.
Following the completion of the UNC Policy Collaboratory-funded project, HMDRRI has applied for a federal grant that, if funded, will provide up to 12 personnel from AmeriCorps National Civilian Conservation Corps (NCCC) to assist the 6 HMDRRI communities address a range of issues including gutting downtown businesses, cutting greenway trails and creating greenspaces (designed through Collaboratory-funded efforts), building flood memorials, and other tasks as assigned.
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative
FIGURE 1. HMDRRI Organizational Chart
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative
II. LEVERAGING STATE AND FEDERAL RESOURCES
The Collaboratory funding has been leveraged with funding provided by the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management as well as resources provided by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of University Programs and the UNC-based Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence. This array of funding has allowed the team directly engage with our 6 communities, conduct applied research, whose findings are shared with the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management and HMDRRI communities, and involve students in all aspects of the Initiative. The HMDRRI has also allowed the UNC-led team to develop a North Carolina Resilience Lab to include international partners in Australia and Vietnam.
The Division of Emergency Management has also provided office space for the HMDRRI in the Joint Field Office (JFO) which has been set up in the Research Triangle Park. A JFO, which is typically established following a Presidentially-declared disaster, provides a space for federal and state officials to work together on issues associated with the long-term recovery needs of stricken communities. In large events, the JFO is often maintained for several years. This additional funding is expected to cover the costs of HMDRRI for an additional year.
The ability of UNC and NCSU faculty and students to co-locate in the JFO has provided a unique level of access to state and federal officials and varied types of data that would be difficult to obtain otherwise. The value of these experiences cannot be overstated for both faculty and students as this partnership is very uncommon as most states do not actively engage with the academic community in a systematic manner. Examples of proposed interactions included regular meetings in the JFO with those involved in the recovery effort; the hosting of class lectures in the JFO as appropriate; the hosting of interns paid for through the proposal or other sources of funding; the review and use of post-disaster data in conducting research, developing policy briefs, and teaching; as well as traveling to impacted communities where members of the HMDRRI have been working in partnership with federal, state and local officials, non-profits, quasi-governmental organizations (e.g., Council of Governments), the private sector, and other stakeholders as identified.
In addition to work focused on North Carolina, the HMDRRI served as the first step in the creation of the North Carolina Community Resilience Lab. The Lab concept recognizes that the state is highly vulnerable to a number of natural hazards including coastal storms and flooding, which makes it an ideal environment for research, learning, and the transition of findings to practice. Further, North Carolina, following Hurricane Floyd, was involved in several important initiatives that provide important lessons. These include one of the largest single state acquisition and relocation of floodprone homes in the nation (more than 5,000 homes) and the elevation of more than 1,000 structures; the creation of state disaster recovery programs meant to compliment federal assistance (some of which are likely to be used again following Matthew); and the creation of the nation’s most advanced floodplain mapping program in the country.
Considering many of the same communities were impacted by Hurricane Matthew, this provides a unique opportunity to comparatively study past and current activities. The North Carolina Division of Emergency Management program, which is widely recognized as a national leader in the field, has welcomed our engagement with them as evidenced by not only their idea of the Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative, but also through prior efforts such as hosting our summer interns, allowing students enrolled in the University of North Carolina’s Graduate
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative
Certificate Program in Natural Hazards Resilience classes to visit their facilities as part of regularly scheduled field trips, and the hiring of our students upon graduation.
This policy rich and hazard-prone area has provided a unique learning environment and as such serves as part of an emerging program designed to foster an international exchange with other nations facing similar challenges. Thus the HMDRRI and the closely aligned Community Resilience Lab serve as a key node in a larger International Learning Laboratory concept that is currently under development. The International Learning Laboratory concept is comprised of partnerships between North Carolina, Vietnam and Australia. The PI’s have established relationships with Vietnamese and Australian and officials which will be leveraged to support the North Carolina-focused Community Resilience Laboratory. In Vietnam, the foreign collaborators are the dean and department head in the School of Architecture of planning at National University of Civil Engineering (NUCE) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Since 1966, NUCE has trained more than 60,000 technical experts, including engineers, architects, and urban planners, in Vietnam. In Australia, the foreign collaborators work at the Bushfire & Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Center (BNHCRC), a public not-for-profit and Hawksley Consulting, a private consulting firm. The BNHCRC draws together all of Australia and New Zealand's fire and emergency service authorities, land management agencies, as well as nongovernment organizations and leading experts across a range of scientific fields to explore the causes, consequences and mitigation of natural disasters. The BNHCRC is funded by the Australian Government, as well as partnering agencies, government organizations, and research institutions in Australia and New Zealand. In the summer of 2017, Dr. Gavin Smith the Director of HMDRRI and Collaboratory PI, travelled to Australia to further solidify the partnership with the Natural Hazards and Bushfire Centre, to include the proposed development of a Memorandum of Understanding that codifies this relationship. The MOU is currently under development.
III. EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES OF PROJECT REPORTS
Next, we highlight three specific projects funded through the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory. These project reports include: 1) Home Place, 2) Recovering Affordable Housing in Eastern North Carolina Post-Hurricane Matthew: A Strategy Forward, and 3) Development Finance Initiative Market and Financial Analysis Reports. Each full project report (found in the Appendix) is preceded by an executive summery which summarizes the extensive work done by members of the research and community engagement team, comprised of faculty, practitioners and students.
A. Executive Summary: Home Place
Summary of the Research
In an effort to support innovative, resilient planning and design strategies for hazard prone communities in North Carolina, the Home Place project was created to build capacity, extend the reach, and transfer knowledge of existing and novel processes, research, and best practices related to resilient planning and design strategies, tools, policies, and procedures.
The overarching goal of the project is to assist in the development of design strategies that support the long-term function, health, and vitality of communities located in historically floodprone North Carolina communities. Home Place offers design and planning recommendations for neighborhood and housing (re)construction activities associated with post-Matthew
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Progress Report Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative recovery efforts and is a component of the ongoing Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative (HMDRRI). The project team has incorporated into Home Place, hazardrelated issues facing this region, including the potential impacts of flooding, development patterns, and population trends. Home Place is a design-guide meant to spark and inform conversation around crucial themes for resilient redevelopment in affected communities, within and between government agencies, and by other involved parties like non-profit aid and planning entities. Guidance focuses architectural and landscape architectural approaches to development, conservation, and management practices and uses, with an emphasis on assessing options and providing recommendations tied to infill development in existing neighborhoods as well as options and recommendations tied to new neighborhoods and developments. Design recommendations in Home Place reflect current codes and standards in the six communities and include suggested changes needed to meet proposed design options and recommendations.