SUBJECT/RECOMMENDATION:
Title
Authorize an agreement between the City of Clearwater and the State of Florida, Department of Economic Opportunity, to receive a Community Planning Technical Assistance Grant in the amount of $20,000 to prepare Comprehensive Plan amendments to address the Peril of Flood requirements in Florida Statutes, authorize the appropriate officials to execute same and adopt Resolution 17-05.
Body
SUMMARY:
On September 3, 2015, Resolution 15-21 was adopted which entered the City into an agreement with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) as a pilot community for the DEO’s Coastal Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan (Project). This Project is currently underway, and aims to provide the City with planning approaches to help reduce the risk of coastal hazards, such as storm surge, flooding, and sea level rise.
On May 21, 2015, Florida Senate Bill 1094, “An Act relating to the peril of flood,” (Peril of Flood) was signed into law, which specifies components that must be contained in the coastal management element required for a local government comprehensive plan, including a coastal redevelopment component that addresses how to eliminate inappropriate and unsafe development in the coastal areas when opportunities arise.
Because the City is currently already serving as a pilot community, the DEO selected the City to receive a technical assistance grant in the amount of $20,000 to evaluate existing comprehensive plan policies and other implementation tools in terms of potential effectiveness in reducing flood risk, all consistent with the Peril of Flood requirements set out forth in Section 163.3178(2)(f), Florida Statutes. The grant funding will be used for consulting services to produce draft comprehensive plan requirements that address engineering solutions that reduce flood risk in coastal areas, and those site development techniques that may reduce losses to the local government and property owners due to coastal flooding. The analysis that was conducted for the current Project will be used to support the additional comprehensive planning work.
Resolution 17-05 Exhibit A is the Memorandum of Agreement between the City and DEO. The City would be contractually obligated to hold a first reading (transmittal public hearing) of the proposed comprehensive plan amendments by June 23, 2017 to send to the State for review and comment.
APPROPRIATION CODE AND AMOUNT: N/A
USE OF RESERVE FUNDS: N/A