Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning - A Guide for Florida Communities

Rebuilding a community after a major or catastrophic disaster is a huge undertaking. The most effective way to accomplish holistic post‐disaster redevelopment is to be prepared before a disaster strikes. Developing a Post‐Disaster Redevelopment Plan (PDRP or the Plan) requires envisioning the potential obstacles to reconstructing a community in a compressed timeline – and hopefully not just reconstructing what was there, but redeveloping a more sustainable and disaster‐resilient community with participation from various community stakeholders.

This Guide provides an accessible and practical method for developing a Plan during “blue skies,” otherwise referred to as the pre‐disaster period. Florida’s communities are diverse and one plan template cannot meet the needs of each. To give this Guide the flexibility to work for a variety of local governments, five counties and one municipality volunteered to be pilots representing different qualities and aspects of Florida jurisdictions that would be undertaking this type of planning. Throughout the Guide, you will find brief case studies of issues the pilot communities faced during their planning process. You will also find that most suggestions in this Guide are categorized as one of three levels of achievement. This will be useful to the local government that wants to incrementally develop a Plan as well as the local government that already has excellent planning documents in place addressing hazard mitigation and disaster recovery but is looking to enhance them during future updates.