Public Agency:
Bond, Consulting or Both:
Practice Areas:
NHA Contributions: Prepared the financing guide for funding the long-term costs of adapting to sea level rise.
Project Completion: August 2018
NHA Contact: Mark Northcross
Unique Characteristics of Project: A year-long collaborative design challenge bringing together local residents, public officials and local, national and international experts to develop innovative community-based solutions that will strengthen our region’s resilience to sea level rise, severe storms, flooding and earthquakes.
Executive Summary: NHA was selected as the Municipal Advisor for the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge, a collaborative design challenge funded by the Rockefeller Foundation with a goal of bringing together local residents, public officials, and local, national, and international experts to develop nine innovative community-based solutions to strengthen the region’s resilience to climate change. Our assignment was to evaluate various financing and funding mechanisms to improve Bay Area resiliency to sea level rise. A key element of NHA’s role was to prepare educational materials and presentations for design teams and stakeholders to present the complex ideas and financing plans for climate change infrastructure and make those concepts understandable for non-finance professionals. NHA staff evaluated the nine different strategies, each for different segments of our region’s bay front, to develop appropriate potential funding mechanisms.
NHA’s work in climate change adaptation and infrastructure financing can be of use to many of our clients facing climate change adaptation challenges. NHA knows the major players on both the regulatory side and the grant funding side for sea level rise adaptation, including ABAG, BCDC, DWR, the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Ocean Protection Council and the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority. We can bring this relationship network to bear in developing realistic public finance plans for our clients.