SALEM — The framework of rules to keep a routinely flooded Salem alive for decades is being considered by city officials.
The City Council and Planning Board held a joint meeting Monday to discuss the creation of a “Coastal Resiliency Overlay District,” which would guide development in floodplains to ensure they’re taking seriously environmental challenges — most importantly flooding during now-annual 100-year flooding events.
“These proposed zoning changes do two things,” Senior Planner Tom Devine said at City Hall. “One, they require buildings to be resilient to the projected future worsening flood risk, and two, they’ll keep the city eligible for federal flood insurance.”
As it stands today, the only place in Salem’s municipal structure that reviews projects for climate change considerations is the Conservation Commission through the recently built Wetlands Protection Ordinance. The proposal, abbreviated CROD, would give the Planning Board similar power out of necessity for future-proofing construction that will likely be routinely inundated by ocean water decades from now.
The work ahead is not going to be easy. In fact, it’s due to become more difficult over time, Devine said.
“There’s going to have to be continued, ongoing planning to prioritize what programs, policies and infrastructure projects we put in place to protect ‘what’ in the city, ‘where,’ and for ‘how long,’” he said. “There will be some areas of the city that we can’t protect forever. Those are hard decisions we have to make in the future, but that additional work is just another necessary step — like a zoning ordinance to have a full, robust response to the threat of climate change in Salem.”
The new rules require “development in flood zones to be resilient to future flooding,” Devine said. “That’d be a Planning Board site plan review. At the same time, the state and federal government require we have an ordinance tied to the FEMA maps.”
The boundaries for CROD were established based on what a 100-year flood is projected to look like in the year 2070, which focuses on 4.3 feet of sea level rise beyond the baseline measured in 2008.
It requires effectively all new construction — outside of “unoccupied detached accessory structures” like sheds — to follow the guidelines, along with major renovation projects for buildings with six or more housing units, or less than six if they’re doubling their footprint or adding a dwelling unit, according to the city’s presentation.
The guidelines require that all dwelling units and mechanicals — i.e. heating and cooling systems — to be raised above the projected base flood elevation, the presentation continues. Other uses are allowed under that elevation if they’re floodproofed, and enclosed parking below that level is allowed “if no feasible alternative exists and if (an) adequate management plan (is) provided.”
The rules currently exempt non-major renovations, cases of divided ownership like condominium buildings, and if mechanicals aren’t being reconfigured or expanded. Smaller buildings rebuilt after a catastrophe, so long as they’re less than six units or include less than 7,500 square feet in residential space, are also exempted.
The idea of building around flooding scenarios in 2070 was alarming to Ward 1 City Councilor Cindy Jerzylo, who spoke to the frequency of neighborhood-isolating flooding hitting the Willows and Juniper Point happening today, 46 years ahead of 2070.
“In 2018, we saw two of the 100-year storms, and since then, every year, we’ve seen just about a 100-year storm in our city,” she said. “I think you should be looking more like 2030 or 2035. We’ve seen it over and over again.”
The point, however, is to go big — and in 2070, that’s what the city will be facing, according to Andrew Gorman, a senior environmental planning specialist with consultant Beals + Thomas, which helped with the project.
“2030 is six years away,” he said, “so 2070 represents a higher scenario of sea-level rise than had we gone with smaller models.”
Also criticized in the meeting is how the ordinance provides a general waiver for “resiliency achieved through innovations not foreseen” when the ordinance was created. That was picked up by Ward 5 City Councilor Jeff Cohen and Ty Hapworth, a councilor-at-large and the council president.
“Undoubtedly, future technology and climate change are going to be linked in ways we can’t imagine, but it seems we could do that with almost any ordinance,” Hapworth said. “I’m just curious why this ordinance allows for that.”
“It seemed to be of great interest, looking at and encouraging future innovation,” Gorman said. “There’s no good way to regulate that in an ordinance without putting in either some waiver language or having it available to be vetted for third-party review. This draft does both of those things.”
The proposal generated a mixed response in public comment, with feedback coming from Justin Whittier and Stacia Kraft, two Salem residents who were recently muted while registering opposition with the Planning Board for a proposal targeting 75 North St. building within a floodplain.
Whittier attacked a portion of the proposal that moves the existing Flood Hazard Overlay District (FHOD) from a Planning Board consideration to an administrative decision made by the city’s building department instead, which would happen as the Planning Board picks up the CROD program in its place.
“There are plenty of good changes that are being presented here… great resilience, best practices for building, updating the building code… that seems to be all to the good,” Whittier said. “What I want to focus you all on is the loss of the Planning Board special permit.
“Losing this removes essential protections for neighborhoods and assurances of wise development. The flood hazard special permit allows the city to say no to bad developments — this change would eliminate that ability and only allow tweaking of proposals through the site plan review process.”
Kraft, meanwhile, reminded the board of how “the newly appointed environmental chief of Massachusetts recommends a managed retreat for structures already located in these areas… but we’re planning for new development with ‘resilient methods,’ which in reality are really old-fashioned environmental ideas.”
“As presented,” she said, “this Flood Hazard Overlay District (under building department oversight) will in reality streamline new development in our flood zones.”
The meeting ended with the three components to the proposal — the creation of the CROD, the shifting of the FHOD, and the overlay districts that would establish them on city maps — being sent to the Planning Board for their review, comments, and suggested changes. That would lead to all three pieces coming back to the City Council for further debate and eventual votes at a future meeting.
Contact Dustin Luca at 978-338-2523 or DLuca@salemnews.com. Follow him at facebook.com/dustinluca or on Twitter @DustinLucaSN.