On the waterfront – An opinion

By Amy Christie Anderson
architect/urban designer
acatects
February 18, 2020

Florida has the largest exposure to sea level rise of any mainland state. Projected costs for short term defense to year 2040 are $76 billion.1 The state budget for 2019 was $85 billion.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is $20 billion in debt. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has a $98 billion backlog of authorized projects with only a $7 billion annual allocation of federal funds.3

Taxpayers and property owners are primarily responsible for climate adaptation costs. Because of the size of its taxpayer base, a small community faces an enormous challenge of funding these costs.

Competition for financial resources to combat sea level rise will be intense. Fernandina Beach will be competing for public funding in Florida with large cities, Jacksonville, Miami, and well known seaside spots, such as Key West. How will the City position itself in this financial landscape of adaptation demands?

With the goal of achieving a compelling plan, the community might ask the following questions of the current proposals for waterfront development:

Integration of information from three separate design entities

Is there one drawing that shows synthesis of issues and solutions? How has geographical scope been determined? by land ownership or geographic behavior of water? Does work output match contractual agreements?

Methodology of design proposal

Is there evidence of data, analysis and conclusions, such as:
a       Computer simulation for
i sea level rise scenarios under different extreme weather conditions
ii traffic flow across different user groups and times of impact in particular, access to   businesses at the Marina
b Detailed sections through the waterfront that support design solution
as response to sea level rise
c Integration with existing conditions
i soil types, stratification, land fill conditions supported by testing
ii impact on below and above grade infrastructure

Engineering component

Why are the drawings constrained to a narrow edge of the waterfront?
What is time horizon for extreme events?
What is authoritative research to underpin proposed solutions?

Landscape component

Does landscape plan show clear evidence that the proposal fundamentally
understands sea level rise?
Why is radial design a good solution for a linear park? Multiple connections to link
a city grid to a waterfront edge does not result in one dominant point in space.

Marina component

Do any drawings show the renewed Marina? or just ghosted remnants of the old?
If key assumption is to showcase a working waterfront, does it appear in drawings?
Has the financial value of the Marina to the City been quantified?
Is there a robust plan to intensify the business at the Marina to facilitate a self-sustaining enterprise?

Financial scope

How are the following issues addressed?
a Cost / benefit analysis tied to different adaptation strategies
b Reliable cost estimates or just order of magnitude numbers
c Phasing strategy
d Realistic funding strategy
e With three independent entities for the structure of the proposal,
who will assume risk for design or engineering failure?

1 cost estimate for seawalls only in areas with public infrastructure
High Tide Tax: The Price to Protect Communities from Rising Seas
Resilient Analytics and Center for Climate Integrity, June 2019
2 Army Corps of Engineers: F2020 Appropriations
Congressional Research Service, December 2019
3 Introduction to the National Flood Insurance Program
Congressional Research Service, December 2019

Editor’s Note” Amy Anderson, a resident of Amelia Island, is a practicing architect and urban designer. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. After graduation, she apprenticed with
the Italian architect Romaldo Giurgola in New York.

Awarded the Rome Prize in Architecture she became a fellow at the American Academy, a think tank of artists and scholars in Rome. Her work under that fellowship centered on modeling the spatial dynamics of politics in hill towns of central Italy.

In New York for twenty years, Amy led a practice and was Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at Columbia University. After recruitment as professor to
the University of Hawai‘i to recast the design curriculum in the School of Architecture, she transferred the architecture and urban design practice to Honolulu. The enduring thread through her practice and teaching has been to temper human intervention in the natural environment.