The Resilience Element of the Comprehensive Plan was adopted by County Council March 10, 2020.
The County Administrator appointed Karen Green as the first Chief Resilience Officer in October of 2020, implementing an action item of the Resilience Element.
The Resilience Element also calls for identifying and pursuing amendments to existing County policies and regulations to improve the County’s resilience towards long-term stresses and acute disasters.
This led to the creation of the Resilience Committee which met from April 2021 through February 2022:
Comprised of community representatives/concerned citizens; representatives from the City of North Charleston, City of Charleston, Town of Mt. Pleasant, and Town of James Island; County departmental representatives from Budget, Facilities, Building Services, Zoning/Planning, and Public Works/Stormwater; representatives from the fields of property management, real estate, engineering, and home building; representatives from The Nature Conservancy, Coastal Conservation League, and the Medical District; and representatives from the County Planning Commission.
Made recommendations to staff about ways the ZLDR, Building and Flood Codes, and Stormwater Manual could be revised to address resilience.
Planning Department staff addressed the recommendations that could be implemented through the Zoning and Land Development Regulations Ordinance (ZLDR) and divided the recommendations into those already addressed in the ZLDR, those that could be addressed in the short-term through amendments to the ZLDR, and those that would require more research.
Staff drafted the short-term amendments and presented them to the Committee for review and feedback and then took them through the Planning Commission and Council adoption process (adopted Oct. 11, 2022).