HomeMy WebLinkAboutExhibit AClimate Resilience Committee
Legislation
Resolution
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A RESOLUTION OF THE CLIMATE RESILIENCE COMMITTEE
RECOMMENDING THAT THE CITY OF MIAMI ("CITY") COMMISSION
DIRECT THE CITY MANAGER TO ESTABLISH THE STORMWATER
PARKS OFFERING NATURAL GREEN -INFRASTRUCTURE
ENHANCEMENT ("SPONGE") PROGRAM AS A CITY INITIATIVE;
EVALUATE AND PRIORITIZE CANDIDATE SITES CITYWIDE WHERE
SPONGE PARKS WOULD BE MOST EFFECTIVE; COORDINATE
SPONGE PARK SITING WITH GRAY STORMWATER
INFRASTRUCTURE; FORMALIZE KNOWLEDGE -SHARING AND
COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS WITH PEER MUNICIPALITIES,
ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS; AND
REPORT FINDINGS TO THE CITY COMMISSION WITHIN ONE
HUNDRED EIGHTY (180) DAYS; AND FURTHER PROVIDING FOR AN
EFFECTIVE DATE.
WHEREAS, the Stormwater Parks Offering Natural Green -infrastructure
Enhancement ("SPONGE") Program is a framework for creating parks that actively
function as stormwater retention infrastructure, delivering flood resilience, urban cooling,
and public green space simultaneously; and
WHEREAS, SPONGE would formalize and expand existing City of Miami ("City')
practices more broadly by coordinating with conventional gray infrastructure and
prioritizing neighborhoods where need is greatest and gray infrastructure is farthest
away; and
WHEREAS, SPONGE parks are designed as high -quality public landscapes that
perform stormwater functions, rather than stormwater facilities with incidental park
features; and
WHEREAS, the City faces compounding flood risks from extreme rainfall, storm
surge, tidal intrusion, sea level rise, and rising groundwater; and
WHEREAS, the City currently experiences over 100 days per year at or above 90
degrees Fahrenheit, rising from an average of 40 days per year in 1970, and this number
is projected to reach approximately 180 days per year by 2080; and
WHEREAS, by mid-century, Miami could face 88 days annually with a heat index
of 105 degrees Fahrenheit or greater; and
WHEREAS, in 2023, Miami experienced 42 days reaching a heat index of 105
degrees Fahrenheit or more, compared to an average of six days per year over the
previous 14 years; and
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WHEREAS, Miami -Dade County has recorded 101 flood events and 61 flash
flood events between 1950 and 2024, causing over $542 million in property damage;
and
WHEREAS, SPONGE parks address both crises simultaneously through
stormwater retention and urban cooling; and
WHEREAS, the City already integrates stormwater retention into select park
designs, demonstrating the technical feasibility and public benefit of this approach; and
WHERAS, Miami Forever Climate Ready ("MFCR") documents that residents
explicitly called for "sponge" areas for stormwater retention and identifies flood
mitigation that combines retention with recreation, shade, and park access as the City's
model for multiple -benefit solutions; and
WHEREAS, Goal 5 of MFCR sets an explicit target of improving the City's
National Flood Insurance Program ("NFIP") Community Rating System ("CRS") Score
below a 5; and
WHEREAS, SPONGE would extend stormwater retention to appropriate existing
neighborhood parks and enable the creation of new parks purpose-built for retention in
flood -vulnerable areas; and
WHEREAS, Resilient305 commits the City of Miami, Miami -Dade County, and the
City of Miami Beach to integrating resilience into parks and open spaces, with metrics for
flood -resilient parks to be implemented within one to five years; and
WHEREAS, Miami -Dade County's Thrive305 Action 8.1, consistent with this
Resolution, directs the County to explore acquiring properties in Special Flood Hazard
areas and transforming them into parks and open spaces that provide multiple benefits,
including stormwater management, expanding on the model of the Little River
Adaptation Action Area Plan as the framework to replicate countywide; and
WHEREAS, the City's Comprehensive Stormwater Master Plan ("SWMP")
established a Capital Improvement Program ("CIP") requiring five $50 million projects
annually over a 20-year horizon, resulting in continuous construction across City streets
for 25 years; and
WHEREAS, the SWMP estimates costs of approximately $3.8 billion to achieve a
five-year flood protection level of service and approximately $5.4 billion to achieve a 10-
year level of service with 100-year building protection; and
WHEREAS, the SWMP recommends that the City consider converting its lowest -
lying areas into dedicated stormwater storage lands and notes that the synergistic effect
of green infrastructure systems spread throughout the City can help address chronic
flooding while allowing each resident to participate in flood solutions; and
WHEREAS, the 2023 Parks and Recreation System Master Plan independently
corroborates this approach, stating that adding new stormwater management facilities in
parks, including green infrastructure and the preservation and creation of wetlands, will
need to occur to achieve the levels of service outlined in the SWMP; and
WHEREAS, SPONGE parks deliver the greatest benefit in low-lying, inland areas
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where gray infrastructure is most expensive and least effective, where the SWMP does
not anticipate conventional CIP investment for a decade or more, and where residents
have limited access to parks; and
WHEREAS, candidate sites may include the lowest -lying parcels, as well as
adjacent land at slightly higher elevations that can be designed to temporarily hold and
slowly release stormwater across a topographic gradient, maximizing retention volume
beyond what the lowest point alone could store; and
WHEREAS, site pathways to be evaluated include retrofit or expansion of
existing City -owned land, coordination with Miami -Dade County on County -owned land
within City boundaries, and acquisition of private parcels, including individual repetitive
loss lots and multi -parcel treatment train assemblages; and
WHEREAS, in low-lying areas where stormwater rises above the invert elevation
of gravity drainage pipes, making conventional gravity drainage physically impossible,
SPONGE parks sited near challenged gray infrastructure can temporarily hold stormwater
volume, reduce drainage and pumping requirements on the system, and filter water while
retaining it; and
WHEREAS, SPONGE parks can be configured as distributed treatment trains,
meaning linked non-contiguous parcels that pass water sequentially through the system
and need not be adjacent to function together; and
WHEREAS, the City currently holds CRS Class 6 status, which provides up to a
20 percent discount on flood insurance premiums and generates approximately $8.6
million per year in combined flood insurance savings for residents and the City; and
WHEREAS, MFCR sets an explicit goal of achieving a CRS Score below 5,
which requires reaching a total of 2,500 verified points; and
WHEREAS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA") CRS
Coordinator's Manual states that acquisition is the most effective mitigation alternative
for addressing repetitive loss properties and explicitly encourages the combination of
Activity 520 acquisition credit and Activity 420 open space preservation credit on the
same parcel, noting that additional credit is available if a deed restriction is recorded or
the site is restored to natural condition; and
WHEREAS, open space preserved in the regulatory floodplain earns credit
proportional to acreage, and a community may apply for a CRS class improvement at
any time through a modification submission without waiting for a scheduled cycle
verification visit; and
WHEREAS, MacDill 48 Park in Tampa, Florida, demonstrates the viability of
layered public funding for stormwater parks, with its $51.4 million total cost funded
through a combination of $25 million from the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection's ("FDEP") Resilient Florida Program, $12.5 million from the Southwest
Florida Water Management District, and $13.9 million from the City of Tampa; and
WHEREAS, a diverse portfolio of federal, state, and local funding sources may
be available and applicable to stormwater park acquisition and construction, including
FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, FEMA's Hazard
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Mitigation Grant Program, FDEP's Resilient Florida Program, U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant Program,
South Florida Water Management District cooperative funding, City stormwater utility
revenues, the Miami Forever GO Bond, and private philanthropic partnerships; and
WHEREAS, the Climate Resilience Committee convened experts across two
meetings to inform this Resolution; and
WHEREAS, on April 30, 2026, the Climate Resilience Committee heard from Ben
Hutchens, PLA, Principal at ArquitectonicaGEO, presenting Canopy Park: Creative
Development Leading to Neighborhood Stormwater Benefits, and from Barry Miller,
Adriana Savino-Miller, and Kelly Hitzing of Savino and Miller Design Studio, presenting
Bayshore Park: A Model for Climate Resilient Public Spaces in Coastal Cities; and
WHEREAS, on June 1, 2026, the CRC heard from Thomas Klein, Director of the
Center for Urban and Community Design at the University of Miami School of
Architecture, and from Robert Colon, Resiliency Coordinator at Miami -Dade County
DERM; and
WHEREAS, the precedent stormwater park projects presented to the Climate
Resilience Committee were led by licensed landscape architects; and
WHEREAS, the sponge city concept has been implemented at scale
internationally, including through China's National Sponge City Program spanning 30 pilot
cities, Singapore's Active, Beautiful, Clean ("ABC") Waters Programme, Tokyo's Water
Saving City initiative, and a well -documented 20-year policy trajectory in Rotterdam,
Netherlands, from 2001 through 2023 that its own municipal documentation describes
as building toward a blue-green sponge city of the future; and
WHEREAS, this body of international practice provides the intellectual foundation
for the Spongy Urbanism Studio, a joint multidisciplinary offering of the University of
Miami School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of
Design, led by Thomas Klein, Director of the Center for Urban and Community Design at
the University of Miami, and Matthijs Bouw, Professor of Practice at the University of
Pennsylvania, with Johan Verlinde, Program Director of Climate Adaptation at the City of
Rotterdam, and Robert Proos, Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, serving
as named core collaborators; and
WHEREAS, Florida International University landscape students are engaged in
sponge park design as part of a coastal watershed resilience plan informed by
neighborhood residents, presenting a potential opportunity for research and monitoring
collaboration;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CLIMATE RESILIENCE
COMMITTEE OF THE CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA:
Section 1. The recitals and findings contained in the Preamble to this Resolution are hereby
adopted by reference and incorporated herein as if fully set forth in this Section.
Section 2. The Climate Resilience Committee strongly recommends that the City
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Commission direct the City Manager to:
1. Establish the SPONGE Program as a City initiative consistent with strategies
already adopted in Miami Forever Climate Ready, the Stormwater Master Plan,
the 2023 Parks and Recreation System Master Plan, and Resilient305, and to
work in concert with conventional capital improvement investments;
2. Evaluate and prioritize candidate sites citywide where SPONGE parks would
be most effective, using Stormwater Master Plan model data, the 2023 Parks
and Recreation System Master Plan, FEMA Repetitive Loss records, City of
Miami 311 flooding complaint records, iSeeChange community -reported flood
observations, and Flood Insurance Rate Maps, across existing City -owned
land, County -owned land within City boundaries, and private parcel acquisition;
3. Ensure that SPONGE park design coordinates with adjacent gray stormwater
infrastructure, where present, to relieve stress on the drainage system,
improve pump performance, and extend infrastructure lifecycle;
4. Pursue partnerships on two tracks: knowledge -sharing with peer
municipalities, including the City of Miami Beach, the City of North Miami, and
the City of Rotterdam; and academic collaboration with the Spongy Urbanism
Studio ("Studio") jointly offered by the University of Miami and the University
of Pennsylvania, including by providing City -identified areas of interest to the
Studio for analysis and exploring collaboration with Florida International
University or other academic and research institutions on sponge park design,
research, and long-term ecological performance monitoring; and
5. Report to the City Commission within one hundred eighty (180) days with a
SPONGE Program Assessment, including candidate site maps across all
three site pathways; acquisition cost estimates and available leveraged
funding; a CRS improvement pathway toward a Score below 5; an evaluation
of potential gray CIP cost deferral; a summary of academic and
intergovernmental partnership opportunities; and a review of maintenance,
monitoring, and stewardship funding best practices from comparable
stormwater park programs.
adoption.
Section 3. This Resolution shall become effective immediately upon its
Aaron DeMayo, Chairman
June 4th, 2026
Date
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Vote Record:
Member
Aaron DeMayo, Chair, D2
Sarahi Perez, Vice Chair, At -Large
Irela Bague, Member, Mayor
Grant Musser, Member, City Manager
Silvio Frank Pupo-Casco, Member, DI
Wayne Pathman, Member, D3
JennyLee Molina, Member, D4
Allison Weinstock, Member, D5
Avra Jain, Member, At -Large
Aye Nay
Absent /
Not Voting
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