Towns across the U.S. want to stop building homes that are vulnerable to climate-driven disasters, like wildfires, floods and droughts. It's easier said than done.
New homes are under construction in June at a housing development near Buckeye, Arizona. A growing number of local governments are considering limits on homebuilding in the face of floods, droughts and wildfires driven by climate change.
But with often deadly extreme-weather disasters on the rise, the problem can no longer be ignored. In the last five years, floods, wildfires, severe storms and droughts have causedNPR visited three places that are grappling with the question of how to stop building homes in harm's way — with varying degrees of success. Whether it's flooding, wildfires or drought that threatens a community, similar conversations are now playing out across the United States.
"I don't think the project should be built — that's the bottom line," he says."I don't think developers and decision-makers are willing to acknowledge that we are living in a new era of extreme weather and really grapple with what that means for the desire to build and build and build." Around a quarter of California's land is at high risk for burning, which means cities are facing tough choices about where to put much-needed new housing.In 2023, the City Council approved the project again, with several members saying they were satisfied with the wildfire safety measures after local fire officials supported the plan.
"If we site houses and infrastructure in places better, safer, that makes it easier to keep people safe as climate change intensifies into the future," Mach says."But it's not as if we have easy choices of just building in the safe places, because there are no places that are devoid of hazards right now."Arizona's population has quadrupled in the last 50 years, but climate change and a long-running drought are straining water supplies like never before.
So when it comes to development, McFarland consults a map that looks like a patchwork quilt. Some parcels of land are blue, which means a water supply would be ensured for new homes. But many other parcels are white. There, developers would have to find their own water supply in order to build. State law limits growth where water is in short supply, requiring new subdivisions to show they have 100 years of water for their customers.
A new development under construction in Casa Grande, Ariz., will feature 331 rental units, part of a larger boom of"build to rent" projects in recent years.That's because developers have found a profitable workaround. Arizona's water law applies only when lots are subdivided into smaller lots for six or more homes and those houses are either sold or made available for long-term rentals.
"If you build houses and you rent them, there's no way to go back and undo the fact that they're there and people are living in them," says Kathleen Ferris, senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. Still, the overriding conversation is about growth. With droughts expected to worsen, Arizona's water law is pushing cities to look at boosting their water supplies locally, whether that's through building water-recycling projects or amping up conservation.
Heavy rain caused flooding in Middlesex County, N.J. — home to Woodbridge Township — in October 2021. Woodbridge is more than a decade into a multipronged effort to reduce the number of people living in places at high risk for flooding.New Jersey has attacked its flooding problem from every angle. Since Superstorm Sandy devastated the region in 2012, New Jersey has passed regulations that make it harder to build new homes in flood zones.
But it was equally unthinkable that homes would be rebuilt in places that had flooded, he says. And there were alternative ways for the town to grow economically. Reducing the number of homes in harm's way isn't easy. In New Jersey, local flood plain managers and state case workers often spend years working with individual families to help them move to higher ground. Some people choose to stay in repeatedly flooded homes."These are very complicated and very difficult conversations to have," says Nick Angarone, New Jersey's chief resilience officer.
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