Urban Land Institute Selects Portland & South Portland as First Community Resiliency Program Recipient

Nationally Renowned Panel of Land Use & Urban Planning Experts to Visit

Area May 12-16 to Develop Strategies for Resilient Waterfront

PORTLAND, Maine – The City of Portland is excited to announce that the Urban Land Institute has chosen Portland and South Portland as its first Community Resiliency Program recipient. A group of nationally renowned land use and urban planning experts has been convened by ULI to make recommendations to the cities of Portland and South Portland on developing strategies for a resilient waterfront. ULI will host a public reception at Ocean Gateway for the resiliency grant program on Monday, May 12, 2014 at 4:00 PM to kick off the work here in the Portland region, and acquaint the public and interested parties with the panel members and the advisory services panel process.

Conducted through ULI’s advisory services program, the panel, which will be visiting the cities May 12-16, will be evaluating many aspects of waterfront resilience, including the impact of sea level rise and storm surge on real estate values and infrastructure systems. Now in its 67th year, the ULI advisory services panel program assembles experts in the fields of real estate and land use planning to participate on panels worldwide, offering recommendations for complex planning and development projects, programs and policies. Panels have developed more than 600 studies for a broad range of land uses, ranging from waterfront properties to inner-city retail.

“We are honored to be among the first cities in the county with which the Community Resiliency Program will work,” said Jeff Levine, Portland’s Director of Planning & Urban Development. “We are looking forward to developing strategies to preserve the region’s economy and quality of life when change happens.”

The ULI panel assignment for Portland and South Portland is the first in a series of advisory panels being supported by an $800,000 grant from The Kresge Foundation to advance the institute’s pursuit of urban design and development practices that are more resilient and adaptable to the impact of climate change. Through the grant from The Kresge Foundation, ULI is leveraging the substantial expertise of its members to provide guidance on community building in a way that responds to inevitable climate change and sea level rise, and helps preserve the environment, boost economic prosperity, and foster a high quality of life.

The communities chosen for advisory panel assistance through ULI’s community resilience work are being selected on the basis of 1) the community’s long-range resilience challenges and vulnerabilities to weather and sea-level changes, and 2) the opportunity for the results to be applied to other communities with similar vulnerabilities.

The blueprint of these five-day resiliency panels is the panel that ULI conducted in New York and New Jersey following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. In that groundbreaking panel, ULI assembled a team from around the world, with expertise in infrastructure, design, real estate development, finance and investment, and public policy and made 23 specific recommendations. The Sandy Panel focused its research and recommendations around four core topics; and the Portland region will do the same.

The results of the work here in Portland and South Portland will be presented at an event at 8:30 AM on Friday, May 16 at the Jewett Auditorium on the campus of Southern Maine Community College. The event is open to the public.