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Resiliency Planning
How it Works
Planning for resilience empowers diverse stakeholders to evaluate plans, set strategic
policies, and implement projects that will enable communities to adapt and thrive when
faced with challenges. Natural and human-caused hazards constitute some of the acute
“shocks” to which a community can be vulnerable. Other disruptive threats include longer-
term societal “stresses,” such as
unemployment, poor access or barriers to
education, crime, or homelessness. Resiliency
planning can include updating land use codes,
zoning, development standards, incentive
programs, and other plans or policies to better
prepare for likely shocks and stresses while
also developing measures that allow for action
in the face of uncertainty or unexpected
events.
After the 2012 wildfires and 2013 floods, many
Colorado communities began considering not
only how to rebuild damaged homes,
businesses, infrastructure, and community
assets, but also how to develop long-term
strategies for resilience. This catalyst has made
Colorado a leader in the development of
resilience planning approaches and tools.
Hazards Addressed
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What is Resilience?
The State of Colorado published the Colorado Resiliency Framework in 2015, which defines
resilience as “the ability of communities to rebound, positively adapt to, or thrive amidst
changing conditions or challenges – including disasters and climate change – and maintain
quality of life, healthy growth, durable systems, and conservation of resources for present
and future generations.” Other leaders in the field of resilience have similar definitions of
resiliency. The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative defines urban resilience
as “the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a
city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks
they experience.”
Resilient communities are often characterized as systems that possess the following seven
qualities (100 Resilient Cities):
Reflective: using past experience to inform future decisions
Resourceful: recognizing alternative ways to use resources
Inclusive: prioritize broad consultation to create a sense of shared ownership in decision
making
Integrated: bring together a range of distinct systems and institutions
Robust: well-conceived, constructed, and managed systems
Redundant: spare capacity purposively created to accommodate disruption
Flexible: willingness and ability to adopt alternative strategies in response to changing
circumstances
Projects or policies developed to increase resilience usually fulfill many of the following
characteristics (Colorado Resiliency Framework):
Co-Benefits: Provide solutions that address problems across multiple sectors creating
maximum benefit
High Risk and Vulnerability: Ensure that strategies directly address the reduction of risk to
human well-being, physical infrastructure, and natural systems
Economic Benefit-Cost: Make good financial investments that have the potential for
economic benefit to the investor and the broader community both through direct and
indirect returns
Social Equity: Provide solutions that are inclusive with consideration to populations that are
often most fragile and vulnerable to sudden impacts due to their continual state of stress
Technical Soundness: Identify solutions that reflect best practices that have been tested and
proven to work in similar regional context
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Innovation: Advance new approaches and techniques that will encourage continual
improvement and advancement of best practices serving as models for others in Colorado
and beyond
Adaptive Capacity: Include flexible and adaptable measures that consider future unknowns
of changing climate, economic, and social conditions
Harmonize with Existing Activity: Expand, enhance, or leverage work being done to build
on existing efforts
Long-Term and Lasting Impact: Create long-term gains to the community with solutions
that are replicable and sustainable, creating benefit for present and future generations
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Approaches for Integrating Resilience into Planning and Land Use
Decisions
Resiliency planning is an emerging and far-reaching concept, with various approaches for
appropriately integrating resilience into community planning and land use.
Integrate Resilience into the Comprehensive Plan
As the comprehensive plan serves as the community’s long-term policy blueprint, it is
valuable to draft or update the comprehensive plan with resilience as an interwoven or
guiding theme. This allows a community to construct their own vision of what it means to be
“resilient,” as well as identify and prioritize action items that increase resilience. The process
for incorporating resiliency into a comprehensive plan can be achieved by following the steps
outlined in the Comprehensive Plan tool profile of this Guide. A resilient comprehensive plan
encompasses natural and human-caused hazards (the “shocks” to a community), while also
addressing the social, environmental, and economic “stresses” into the goals and strategies.
To achieve this, comprehensive planning efforts should be informed by a risk assessment that
includes identification of hazards and existing or potential stresses.
The City of Longmont updated their comprehensive plan in 2016 using a systems approach
with sustainability and resilience woven throughout the plan. Other examples of
comprehensive plans that address hazard risk reduction and resilience can be found in
the Comprehensive Plan tool profile of this guide.
Develop a Stand-Alone Resiliency Framework or Plan
This approach may be helpful if multiple jurisdictions are coming together to develop
strategies for resilience, or if a community seeks to develop and apply a consistent “resilience
lens” across multiple initiatives, processes, or departments. A resiliency framework, plan, or
strategy can also provide guidance if a comprehensive plan update is not scheduled to occur
in the near future. The development and implementation of a stand-alone resiliency plan
requires many stakeholder groups to come together, establish a common vision for
resilience, and share responsibility for certain aspects of community resilience.
Initiatives such as the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities have developed
frameworks and guiding documents to support towns and cities in becoming more resilient.
Twenty four U.S. cities were selected to participate in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, and
many, such as the City of Boulder, Colorado, have developed resiliency plans.
In December of 2016, the City of Boulder adopted their Resilience Strategy, which identifies
Boulder’s core resilience challenges and develops a framework for tackling those challenges.
The document outlines fifteen actions to further three strategies, including “connect and
prepare,” “partner and innovate,” and “transform and integrate.” Additionally, the Resilience
Strategy highlights three “frontiers,” or long-term, transformative investments in Boulder’s
future.
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Other Colorado communities that are developing region-wide resiliency plans
include Larimer, El Paso, and Boulder Counties. In 2015, with assistance from the Colorado
Resiliency and Recovery Office, each of these communities held several planning sessions
over a six-month period of time to discuss actions they can undertake to improve their
collective resilience.
Participant stakeholders from each county included county and municipal agencies, state
and federal partners, emergency response and recovery organizations, locally-based research
institutions, non-profit and faith-based organizations, and private sector partners.
The Colorado Resiliency Framework planning process consisted of the following steps:
(Insert website chart)
• Establish a vision of resilience for the community.
• Document existing conditions in the community.
• Review the shocks and stresses to understand vulnerabilities the community faces.
• Develop forward-looking goals, actionable strategies, and priorities.
• Provide a framework for ongoing implementation and action for communities to build
capacity, increase community connectivity, and move forward toward a more-resilient
future.
The Colorado Resiliency Resource Center’s Resiliency Framework webpage has more detailed
information and guidance on developing local resiliency frameworks.
Conduct a Resilience Audit of Existing Plans and Policies
Another approach for assessing and promoting resilience is to conduct an audit or evaluation
of plans and land use policies that already guide the functioning and operation of the
community. This enables a community to identify possible inconsistencies among plans,
policies, and programs that can be addressed to increase resilience to both shocks and
stresses. Below are several examples of audits that can be tailored to a community’s existing
conditions.
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A 2015 article published in the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) details
the development of a resilience scorecard that maps the physical and social vulnerabilities of
the community to hazards. It then evaluates different types of local plans that govern land
use to determine whether the goals reduce or increase vulnerability to hazards. Using the city
of Washington, North Carolina as a pilot community, the authors first delineate the city’s
planning districts and hazard zones using the comprehensive plan, land use map, and FEMA
flood maps, also accounting for future conditions projections. Next, vulnerability is
determined by applying data from building tax rates and the Social Vulnerability Index for
Disaster Management of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Finally, each policy in each plan
is evaluated for how it affects physical planning districts and hazard areas and whether it
increases or decreases vulnerability to hazards. The level of consistency of policies across
plans is also evaluated.
Published in 2009 by the American Planning Association in issue 10 of Zoning Practice,
the Safe Growth Audit remains another valuable tool for ensuring that comprehensive plans,
zoning, capital improvement programs, subdivision regulations, building codes, and more
are promoting policies that reduce the vulnerability of communities to hazards. This process
involves reading and evaluating all relevant plans and policies, and answering targeted
questions about how they promote hazard mitigation. The author, David R. Godschalk, FAICP,
also outlines several common principles of safe growth that should be carried out by
communities:
• Guide growth away from high-risk locations
• Locate critical facilities outside high-risk zones
• Preserve protective ecosystems
• Retrofit buildings and facilities at risk in redeveloping areas
• Develop knowledgeable community leaders and networks
• Monitor and update safe growth programs and plans
Refer to issue 10 of Zoning Practice for the full list of Safe Growth Audit questions. While
the Safe Growth Audit focuses primarily on resilience to hazards, this approach can easily be
expanded to include questions regarding social and economic resilience specific to
community stresses. Example audit questions include:
• Does the comprehensive plan set forth policies to reduce the number of housing units
that are not up to code and/or vulnerable to natural hazards?
• Does zoning density encourage the construction of affordable housing in non-
hazardous areas?
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The Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Growth Implementation Assistance program in
Vermont developed a Flood Resilience Checklist to “help communities identify opportunities
to improve their resilience to future floods through policy and regulatory tools, including
comprehensive plans, Hazard Mitigation Plans, local land use codes and regulations, and
non-regulatory programs implemented at the local level.” Some examples of questions asked
in the Flood Resilience Checklist include:
• Does the comprehensive plan cross-reference the local Hazard Mitigation Plan and
any disaster recovery plans?
• Has the community implemented non-regulatory strategies to conserve land in river
corridors, such as:
• Acquisition of land (or conservation easements on land) to allow for
stormwater absorption, river channel adjustment, or other flood resilience
benefits?
• Buyouts of properties that are frequently flooded?
• Transfer of development rights program that targets flood-prone areas as
sending areas and safer areas as receiving areas?
• Tax incentives for conserving vulnerable land?
• Incentives for restoring riparian and wetland vegetation in areas subject to
erosion and flooding?
• Do land development regulations and building codes promote safer building and
rebuilding in flood-prone areas? Specifically:
• Do zoning or flood plain regulations require elevation of two or more feet
above base flood elevation?
• Does the community have the ability to establish a temporary post-disaster
building moratorium on all new development?
• Have non-conforming use and structure standards been revised to encourage
safer rebuilding in flood-prone areas?
• Has the community adopted the International Building Code or American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) standards that promote flood-resistant
building?
• Does the community plan for costs associated with follow-up inspection and
enforcement of land development regulations and building codes?
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Advantages and Key Talking Points
• A resiliency plan or audit provides the community with an understanding of policies,
programs, and other actions that can be taken across many sectors to improve the
community’s resilience to hazards or changing conditions.
• Planning for resilience can reduce future disaster related response and recovery costs
and improve recovery time following natural or human-caused hazard events.
• Planning for resilience can help anticipate and reduce the severity of economic
downturns and other stresses.
• Resilience can be interwoven into any planning process in the community, such as an
economic development plan, hazard mitigation plan, or parks and recreation plan.
Challenges
• Since resilience spans across many sectors, it may be challenging to secure sustained
participation and support from all relevant stakeholders.
• Strategies that may promote resilience in one sector (such as increasing affordable
housing) may conflict with another component of resilience (such as prohibiting
development in high-hazard areas) without consistent coordination.
Key Facts
Administrative
capacity
Varies depending on approach. Requires staff time and taskforce to
create and impleme
nt the plan.
Mapping
May be needed to analyze shocks and stresses with a
spatial dimension
Regulatory
requirements
None required
Maintenance
Review annually to track progress; updates are community dependent
and may be prompted by a major disaster event, significant changes in
community existing conditions, updates to related
plans (e.g., hazard
mitigation plans), and completion of a significant number of
recommendations identified in the plan
Adoption
required
No, though strongly encouraged if plan is developed
Statutory
reference
N/A
Associated costs
Dependent on scale and level of complexity. Could include staff time,
plus potential costs for mapping or other technical work, public outreach
activities, and consultant services. Could also include applying resilience
criteria to existing budgeting processes.
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Examples
Longmont, CO
Envision Longmont
Comprehensive Plan
https://envisionlongmont.com/document/envision-longmont-
adopted
-062816
City of Boulder
Resilienc
y Strategy
https://bouldercolorado.gov/resilience
Larimer County
Community Resiliency
F
ramework
https://www.larimer.org/sites/default/files/larimer_resiliency_fra
mework.pdf
For More Information
100 Resilient Cities
http://100resilientcities.org/#
American Planning Association: Zoning Practice, Issue 10. Practice Safe
Growth Audits (October 2009)
http://planning-org-uploaded-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/legacy_resources/zoningpractice/open/pdf/oct09.pdf
Colorado United: Local Resiliency Initiatives
https://sites.google.com/a/state.co.us/coloradounited/resiliency/local-resiliency-initiatives
Colorado Resiliency Resource Center: Resiliency Frameworks and Community
Worksheets
https://www.coresiliency.com/resiliency-frameworks
Colorado Resiliency Framework
https://sites.google.com/a/state.co.us/coloradounited/resiliency-framework
EPA Flood Resilience Checklist
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-07/documents/flood-resilience-
checklist.pdf
Evaluation of Networks of Plans and Vulnerability to Hazards and Climate
Change: A Resilience Scorecard. Journal of the American Planning Association
(November 2015)
https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2015.1093954
Resilient Communities Starter Kit
https://sonoraninstitute.org/resource/resilient-communities-starter-kit/
