City Of WPB Awarded $450,000 For Assistance With Developing Plans To Enhance Resiliency

From City of West Palm Beach:

January 13, 2021

The City of West Palm Beach, through the West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, has been awarded $450,000 through the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s (DEO) Rebuild Florida General Planning Support Program to prepare resiliency updates to city plans, data mapping, and community outreach.

Funding will be utilized on a project with Florida Atlantic University that uses immersive technology to engage the North End community, schools, and decision-makers on the topic of sea-level rise to ultimately develop an action plan to mitigate sea level rise impacts. Mitigating flooding impacts in this community will enhance the city’s overall resilience while serving the community in the areas of disaster-preparedness, public safety and health, infrastructure and transportation. Project team members will include Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction, Virtual Planet, Chen Moore and Associates, and Cummings Cederberg Coastal & Marine Engineering.

The project will involve developing a virtual reality experience to inform and engage the North End community including schools, stakeholders, and decision-makers about sea level rise impacts to our community. The experience will be utilized to outreach to the public, to develop an action plan based on community needs and willingness to support changes to mitigate sea level rise impacts as well as the city’s land management and development planning.

A similar project was undertaken by the City of Santa Cruz and Virtual Planet Technologies, which launched their Sea Level Rise Explorer Santa Cruz interactive experiences which are made available through download. Users can interactively raise sea levels and watch in real time potential sea level rise impacts on top of hyper-realistic 3D models at three of that city’s iconic destination. They can also see relevant solutions. To learn more, please visit: https://vimeo.com/444035972.

“The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s Rebuild Florida grant will help the City of West Palm Beach to utilize the latest in technology to engage the public on the issue of sea level rise and to develop a plan of action that is supported by the community,” said West Palm Beach Mayor Keith A. James. “Through this project, we hope to improve our community’s resiliency and provide a benefit to the health, welfare, and economic vitality of the surrounding area. We thank the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity for this award.”

“This grant will give the City an opportunity to use cutting-edge technology with which to engage the community, particularly our youth, in a more meaningful way to create a more resilient future,” said John Renne, Ph.D., AICP. Renne, who is Director of FAU’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning, added, “FAU is excited to work with the City of West Palm Beach and Stanford University to bring forward this new virtual reality technology to engage with the city.”

The Florida General Planning Support Program, administered by DEO, provides funding for communities and organizations to develop or enhance state, regional, or local plans which will enable the state of Florida to withstand future disasters. The funds are allocated through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant – Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) program formed in response to the 2016 to 2017 presidential disaster declarations.

“The resiliency of the state of Florida remains a top priority for my administration as we approach the two-year anniversary of my executive order to achieve more now for Florida’s environment,” said Governor DeSantis. “I’m pleased to build on our environmental achievements with this first-of-its-kind, mitigation program that will provide Florida’s communities the opportunity to become more resilient to future storms.”

DEO is the governor-designated state authority responsible for administering all U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) long-term recovery funds awarded to the state. Rebuild Florida uses federal funding for Florida’s long-term recovery efforts from the devastating impacts of natural disasters. For more information, visit RebuildFlorida.gov.

This press release was produced by the City of West Palm Beach. The views expressed are the author's own.