Managing “Managed Retreat”

Workshop offers municipal leaders and others better practices for moving community members to safer ground

Homes in Luthers Corner, East Providence, where Kathy Ribeiro and others accepted buyouts to relocate out of the floodplain. Photo courtesy of NRCS

The repeat flooding of her house in East Providence near the Runnins River became too much for Kathy Ribeiro to manage. She, along with 17 neighbors, accepted a federal buyout in 2022, according to a 41°N story by Ellen Liberman. 

“I was holding back tears, because I have a lot of memories there,” she said. “But I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing.”

The federal government offers buyout programs designed to purchase homes at repeat risk of environmental damage and remove them, allowing homeowners to relocate to safer areas. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Rhode Island recently has worked on buyouts of flood-prone properties including in Ribeiro’s neighborhood in East Providence, as well as Johnston, Lincoln, and Middletown. Years ago, properties in Cranston and Warwick were also bought out and demolished.

These buyouts accomplish more than one goal—they enable homeowners to leave problem properties where the rising cost of flood insurance (if it even remains available) and repairs make them unaffordable, while also removing structures from the floodplain, thus allowing those areas to absorb more water and reduce flooding in adjacent areas. But the programs themselves can be challenging, taking years to complete, and the emotional toll of uprooting community members can be significant. Municipal leaders and residents may have a lot of questions about the process and about the effects of buyouts on themselves and their communities. 

To help address these concerns, Rhode Island Sea Grant, through the Rhode Island Climate Resilience Learning Network, recently hosted a workshop on managed retreat at the Marine Affairs Institute at Roger Williams University School of Law. The Exploring Managed Retreat: Pathways to Community-Led Resilience Workshop included discussions of not only buyouts but also other methods for moving structures out of the floodplain, for 53 attendees from municipal government, nonprofit organizations, and state and federal agencies.

Speaker Kim Starbuck, senior research associate at the Urban Harbors Institute at UMass Boston, described how some Massachusetts municipalities are considering managed retreat, but perceived barriers have held some back, such as a lack of places to move to, dependence on taxes on shoreline properties, and anticipated negative public response. The positives they anticipated, however, included reduced flooding of structures, reduced maintenance and emergency response costs, and enhanced natural resources. The municipalities were interested in tools to assist with managed retreat planning that would address funding, community engagement, and regulations, such as model bylaws.

Carri Hulet of CH Consulting, who has worked with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, presented recommendations from other practitioners who have worked on buyouts, including planning ahead by incorporating the possibility of buyouts into local planning processes and doing as much work as possible before the next disaster. She shared that community members called for more assistance—financial as well as logistical and educational—during the buyout process, including recommending that buyouts compensate people for what they need, not just what they’ve lost.

The first row of cottages at Roy Carpenter’s Beach were moved further inland on the property after 2012’s Superstorm Sandy (above) and more were moved back a few years later as the shoreline eroded further. Photo by Melissa Devine

The New Jersey Blue Acres program, run by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, offers a model of how to provide institutional support for local residents facing decisions about whether to accept buyouts. The program serves as a basically a conservation real estate office with case managers assigned to property owners to help them through the process.

With buyouts and other forms of managed retreat (such as moving cottages further from the ocean at Roy Carpenter’s Beach) taking place in Rhode Island, participants in the workshop were interested in follow-up sessions, which the Rhode Island Climate Learning Network is planning.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Floodplain Buyouts: Challenges, Practices, and Lessons Learned
• Managed Retreat Toolkit – Georgetown Climate Center
• Planned Coastal Relocation Learning Network
  • Planned Coastal Relocation Network – Discussion Group Resource Folder NE Discussion Group Resources

• A new framework for flood adaptation: introducing the Flood Adaptation Hierarchy – Ecology & Society
  • Flood Adaptation Hierarchy – Executive Summary
• Building Better Buyouts Through Lived and Learned Experience
• Perspectives on Managed Retreat in Massachusetts Coastal Communities | UMass Boston
• Introduction to Managed Retreat 
• Climigration Network
• InnSure
• Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW)
• New Jersey Blue Acres Program