Cities can prepare for hurricane season by reforming shortsighted and outdated laws
Extended displacement also means that long after a disaster, empty homes remain boarded or, worse, unsecured. New and returning local businesses cannot afford to open their doors when neighborhoods remain dark.
Laws guide storm recovery
As government officials and scholars note, laws are critical instruments that can bolster or hamper communities’ resilience against natural disasters. Prior to storms, laws guide hazard mitigation efforts by setting development standards to minimize loss of life or property in the event of a future disaster. Laws also define the range of options for rebuilding cities and regions.
However, many relevant state constitutional provisions, local ordinances and federal laws were adopted before hazard mitigation, climate change and sea level rise were part of politicians’ lexicons. And some newer laws have been conceived narrowly, without considering disaster risk reduction or recovery. These laws can make it hard to restore businesses, families, schools and hospitals after disasters strike.
Cities rebuilding from hurricanes need large infusions of federal grant money to purchase storm-damaged homes or help rebuild them. But these funds must be spent in strict compliance with a thicket of federal laws and regulations. Cities that fail to follow regulations may lose federal funds for locally administered recovery projects.
One notable example is the Stafford Act, which was amended and improved immediately following Sandy. Problematic execution of the National Environmental Policy Act caused delays in New Orleans’ post-Katrina neighborhood recovery.
State constitutions, statutes and city ordinances also can obstruct post-storm housing and community development projects. Examples include:
- a Louisiana state constitutional provision that can frustrate donation of publicly owned, blighted and abandoned properties for post-storm development of affordable housing;
- widespread adoption of state constitutional and statutory provisions, such as a Louisiana constitutional provision repealed only in 2010, that may prevent cities from using eminent domain to redevelop long-neglected properties by transferring them to private low- and moderate-income housing developers;
- a lack of essential affordable housing planning documents to guide post-storm housing redevelopment efforts – another impediment to post-Katrina recovery in New Orleans; and
- problems for homeowners who cannot show clear legal title to their homes – frequently because they have taken possession of houses from deceased former owners without navigating state probate law systems. In Texas following Hurricanes Ike and Dolly, low- and moderate-income homeowners were denied federal grants and private loans and grants because they could not establish clear legal title to their homes.
In short, every city hall that could potentially be hit by a tropical storm should examine local ordinances and state and federal laws for requirements that could impede disaster recovery. City leaders should also look for opportunities to develop ordinances that will speed recovery.
In How Cities Will Save the World, Albany Law School Professor Ray Brescia and I examine a range of pressing concerns for U.S. cities, including becoming more resilient to disasters. In our view, creative problem solving flourishes in cities out of necessity. Many local officials are developing innovative approaches to disaster recovery and mitigation where existing laws have provided little guidance. Examples include relocating residents from vulnerable neighborhoods and developing historic resource preservation programs for coastal cities.
The American Planning Association (APA) also has identified multiple ways in which cities can prepare ahead to improve post-storm recovery. APA emphasizes the importance of mitigation – steps such as updating building codes to reflect new flood projections. The APA also urges cities to lay the legal groundwork for recovery by adopting ordinances that will prepare them for managing the recovery process. A core theme tying the APA’s research together is that communities confronted with disaster must strategize about how they’re going to bounce back – or better yet, bounce forward – from storms and other natural hazards.
In the past decade major storms have devastated U.S. coastal cities from Galveston to Atlantic City and New York. They also have ravaged inland capitals, including Baton Rouge, Richmond, and Montpelier. Ensuring that our cities have the legal infrastructure in place to build safer, more efficient, and more equitable neighborhoods and communities after storms is just as important as preparing homes and businesses to ride out those storms.
John Travis Marshall is Assistant Professor of Law, Georgia State University. Edward A. Thomas, Esq., President, Natural Hazard Mitigation Association, and member of the Advisory Committee of the Natural Hazards Center of the University of Colorado, contributed to this article. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivative).
