Manuel Velarde was sworn in as the 20th Mayor of San Isidro, a district within Lima, Peru, in January 2015. Since 2010, he has also taught at the University of San Martín de Porres. A lawyer who served in the firm of Lazo, Romagna and Gagliuffi Abogados, he was a legal counsel from 2003 to 2008 at the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Peru, and in 2009 he was made superintendent of the National Superintendency of Tax Administration of Peru. He graduated from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and earned master’s degrees in law from both the University of Pennsylvania and King’s College London. Lincoln Institute Senior Fellow Anthony Flint interviewed him in May 2018 for this issue devoted to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Anthony Flint: Governance structure affects the administration of large metropolitan regions and the quality of life for its citizens. Can you tell us about the challenges and opportunities of being part of the governance system in Lima?

Manuel Velarde: San Isidro is 1 of 43 districts run by the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima. Each district has its peculiarities. We are a 10-square-kilometer (3.86-square-mile) territory with approximately 60,000 residents. We are also the financial center of Peru. From Monday to Friday, around a million people come into San Isidro to work, shop, or do some other kind of task. It’s a big challenge to accommodate this. The policies we apply are seen as cutting edge. We are in a position to offer better services, generating a better quality of life, but we face challenges—for example, [the need for more] public transportation. We must also constantly coordinate with other districts.

AF: What are the major financial and planning challenges in San Isidro and how is the municipality dealing with those challenges?

MV: Today the district is financed by two taxes: the property and the service tax. Both taxes, but principally the service tax, provide the revenue for all services. In certain parts of our country, noncompliance is a big problem. That’s because the residents don’t feel they get what they paid for with their taxes because of poor management and corruption. There is a lack of trust in the local government. In San Isidro, however, around 90 percent of residents and businesses pay their taxes on time, and that allows us to generate public investment. Our budget is always limited and we need to prioritize. For that, we develop planning strategies to maximize the impact of investments.

AF: San Isidro is considered the financial center of Lima, if not Peru, and its population has a relatively high level of income for the region. To what extent does the municipality rely on land-based resources and financial tools such as the property tax or land value capture?

MV: At this time, land value capture here is not within our competencies. We are attracting private investment and creating public-private partnerships and making sure those projects are aligned with our sustainable development policies. The problem in San Isidro is that the value of the property is expensive, and there is not enough population—particularly younger residents—to support that. We need affordable housing. One solution is that we have reduced the minimum size of an apartment from 200 square meters to 45, 60, and 80 square meters to attract new residents, especially young people. We also have reduced parking requirements for this. Today, we have new housing investments starting construction at the financial center. This will allow people to walk to their jobs and reduce the use of cars that generate congestion. We are [focused on] transit-oriented development.

AF: Your efforts to prioritize pedestrians and bicycles over cars have prompted fierce criticism, including an attempted recall. Do you feel you have successfully changed the culture in the public realm?

MV: When I was elected mayor, I promised the voters I would modernize San Isidro but keep it on a human scale. Our area has suffered dramatically from the intensive use of cars. Our district needed to be retrofitted for pedestrians and cyclists. We began with the ideas that [it’s more affordable to live without] a car and that the car is having negative effects on the city and quality of life. Transforming underutilized land and areas dominated by cars, we have created public spaces that people would not [have thought] possible a short time ago. Of course, it meets resistance. Any city undergoing these kinds of reforms will face resistance. But as citizens start to recognize they can live in a better environment than before, that will change.

In the beginning, we created bike lanes and parking for bikes, and then we wanted to provide a public system of bikes. We wanted to promote intermodality and better [ways to] cover short trips that are currently [made] by car. Short trips should be made by bikes [or on foot], by promoting walkability and road safety. Our new bike-share system will stretch that policy. We have already signed the contract, and the implementation will be done soon. The operator is the same investor that recently revamped the bike system in Paris.

AF: Expansion of the Metro mass transit system is underway in Lima. How important is public transportation in San Isidro, and how does it fit in with your planning?

MV: There’s an additional line [under construction] right now. We have one line in operation, but it does not cross the district. We will have to wait around 10 years more for the next lines that pass through San Isidro. The new lines will be underground and funded by the national government. Investment in public transport is crucial to facilitate accessibility for residents and visitors. At the same time, we need better management of parking spaces. We don’t have parking meters, so we are inducing demand [because people can park for free on the streets]. We need to be able to build an efficient [parking payment system].

AF: You have partnered with IBM and others to make the district a “smart city.” Can you identify a few ways that technology has improved quality of life?

MV: We have to be careful with the use of technology. Look at history. At one point, we were told that using a car was affordable and efficient, and it had a huge impact in cities. We have been victims of the presence of cars in our environment and from thinking that the car was an absolute solution. We now know it is not, so we have to [avoid] becoming victims of any other kind of trap. Technology is useful, but we cannot commit the same mistake. What we need more than a smart city is smart citizens who know how to live in the city of the future.

A couple of years ago, we worked on a contest sponsored by IBM, and they gave us advice to implement certain applications. We want to help people with intermodality—to [give] people the tools to make their trips more efficient. That means [providing] up-to-date departure times and showing how you can connect to other modes—[such as] where the bike share is, and how far it is to walk. That is [how I view] the role of technology.

Puerto Rico was already on its heels when Hurricane Maria inflicted its destruction in September 2017. The US territory—home to 3.4 million American citizens—was bankrupt and depopulating. Nearly half the island’s housing didn’t meet code, its rickety power grid was inefficient and unreliable, and the economy was hobbled by staggering debt and a bloated public payroll.

The massive Category 4 hurricane made landfall against that backdrop, damaging or destroying most homes, knocking out telecommunications, and decimating infrastructure on virtually the entire island. Most of Puerto Rico lost electrical power for more than six months, cell service was spotty, and residents and leaders complained of poor federal disaster response.

A Harvard study published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that at least 4,645 deaths can be linked to the hurricane and its immediate aftermath—70 times the official estimate (Kishore et al. 2018).

By May 2018, power finally returned to all but about 20,000 people—albeit unreliably—and the federal government announced that Puerto Rico would receive $18.5 billion from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to rebuild its battered housing and infrastructure. The grant, the largest in the agency’s history, added to $1.5 billion already committed to Puerto Rico from HUD and more than $3 billion allocated for response and recovery by other federal entities such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Army Corps of Engineers.

But the total falls far short of the $94.4 billion that Governor Ricardo Rossello requested from the federal government to rebuild the island, where blue tarps—slow in coming to begin with—still draped roofs months after permanent repairs had been made to hurricane-ravaged states on the mainland.

By spring 2018, Puerto Rico was attempting to pivot—however unsteadily—from the massive response and relief phase of the disaster to mid- and long-term planning for recovery, even as another hurricane season loomed. But what will recovery look like on an island that was so compromised to begin with? How does the insolvent commonwealth, which experienced a post-hurricane exodus of an estimated 200,000 residents, address improvements in debt restructuring, tax collection, land use planning, flood control, and energy distribution?

It’s still very much an open question. “It seems the planning process doesn’t have a leader,” Ruben Flores-Marzan, former president of the Puerto Rico’s island-wide planning board, told a group assembled at Centro—the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Manhattan’s Hunter College—for a recent “diaspora summit” on rebuilding the island. “Who’s in charge here?”

The answer is still shaking out on the island—and in the corridors of power on the mainland—as community groups, developers, financiers, and government officials jockey for influence and primacy over the process.

“Lack of clarity is a big problem right now,” said Robert B. Olshansky, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “They are certainly hoping to build back better. That includes a more resilient electrical grid, a new building code, and improvements in governance and public finance, among other things. . . . I am sure that some improvements will be made, but it’s far too early to tell what.”

In After Great Disasters: An In-Depth Analysis of How Six Countries Managed Community Recovery, published by the Lincoln Institute, Olshansky and coauthor Laurie A. Johnson suggest that disaster reconstruction can offer a unique opportunity to fix long-standing problems (Johnson and Olshansky 2017).

Surely Puerto Rico, suffering from more than a decade of decline, needs a big fix and a robust plan for resiliency as the effects of climate change are likely to continue to batter the island. US government forecasters have predicted an active 2018 hurricane season with as many as nine hurricanes expected.

Planners were often ignored as Puerto Rico’s infamous urban sprawl and informal rural land development proceeded apace over many decades. They are hoping for more of a voice now. “Slowly there is a realization that planning has a lot to offer, and we should be part of the process,” Carmén M. Concepción Rodriguez of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Puerto Rico told the summit at Hunter, via videoconference from the island.

Flores-Marzan, who is now planner for the town of Ware, Massachusetts, hopes the island will also tap into its émigrés as it tries to recover. Nearly six million Puerto Ricans now live on the continental United States. “You see where they could be making small victories if they involved the diaspora, and they’re just not doing that,” he said. Still, there is hope: “We have to be hopeful because otherwise we will lose the island.”

First, Power

Restoring power is the first order of business. The prolonged absence of electricity has taken its toll on Puerto Rico, hampering recovery and exacerbating the misery on the ground. Particularly in the rural areas, people spent months powering medical equipment with noisy, polluting generators, and hauling water from streams because about half the island’s water delivery depends on electricity.

“I don’t know what was worse, being without power or having the generators run all night,” said Ruth Santiago, whose home in Salinas was dark for seven weeks following Maria. She slept with a mask to mitigate the generator fumes.

The island’s electrical grid was in trouble even before the storm. It was old, vulnerable, and inefficient when Hurricane Irma knocked out a portion of it in early September, leaving more than a million residents in the dark. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA)—mired in $9 billion in debt—was seeking bids to repair that damage when Hurricane Maria struck two weeks later, virtually wiping out the island’s remaining electrical infrastructure.

Like other aspects of the disaster recovery, PREPA’s rebuild has been marked by questionable decisions and missteps, such as the early $300 million repair contract—soon canceled amid controversy—with Whitefish Energy, a small, inexperienced utility company from Montana.

The vast majority of the island is powered by PREPA, whose hulking and rusting generation plants in the South run on fossil fuels and rely on old-school utility poles, wires, and transformers to traverse the mountainous interior in order to deliver power to populated areas like San Juan in the North. It’s an outmoded and balky system, but it’s being “hardened” with more hurricane-resistant replacement parts as Puerto Rico comes back on-line.

In some areas, like the town of San Sebastian, residents and town officials tired of waiting for PREPA, took it upon themselves to bypass the utility by getting a bucket truck and restringing the town’s downed electrical wires. So the integrity of the repaired grid is by no means assured.

The Department of Energy estimates it will take $17.6 billion to rebuild the system. About $2 billion has been committed to the effort to date. Even after more than 90 percent of power had been restored to the island in early spring, Puerto Rico suffered from intermittent blackouts, underscoring the fragility of the grid.

The island’s electricity is expensive too—about double the cost on the mainland—since it relies on fossil fuels that have to be imported. But the 1988 Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act authorizes government agencies to restore only existing utility service. Skeptics doubt that a plan promoted by the governor to privatize PREPA will infuse the utility with the capital needed to substantially improve its efficiency. For now, it seems that renewable sources like solar and wind aren’t likely to replace the grid, even on a sunny Caribbean island with year-round trade winds, because overhauling the mode of energy-transmission island-wide would require a significant public investment. Puerto Rico is broke, and Washington seems reluctant to increase its aid.

Some say political will is also lacking. “There’s a thing called the oil cartel. Somebody is cashing in, and a lot of those people are very influential,” said Flores-Marzan, the former planner for the island.

But a number of efforts are underway. A $750,000 federal block grant will go to the University of Puerto Rico to develop a Resilience Innovation Program to look for innovative solutions to promote home-based renewable energy generation and energy storage. The grant will also fund the study of community-wide resilience measures, home design, and construction methods (PRDOH 2018).

The biopharmaceutical company AbbVie recently announced a $50 million donation to the nonprofit group Direct Relief to equip more than 60 community health centers and local healthcare facilities with solar power, battery storage, and generators, and to enable them to power pumps that would ensure clean water supply. The group will also work over the next three years to rebuild the battered medical supply chain and fund telemedicine programs at select hospitals and health centers.

And there are smaller, grassroots initiatives pending. “Municipalities are tired of waiting for PREPA, so a lot of the push for resiliency and energy independence is coming from them,” said Flores-Marzan.

A group called Resilient Power Puerto Rico is fundraising to bring solar microgrids to the island and recently received a $625,000 grant to bring solar to 200 community centers.

If the PREPA grid failed, the microgrids could be used to power essentials like water pumps and medical devices. “We are rebuilding in a grassroots way. We’re not challenging or replacing PREPA” said Jonathan Marvel, a New York architect who leads the group.

With some funding from nonprofits on the mainland, Santiago and her neighbors in Salinas, who live in the shadow of two smoke-belching PREPA plants, are also working on plans for community-based solar micro grids that can at least provide a backup for essential services like water pumping and running medical devices, should PREPA power fail.

“PREPA is the provider of power to 95 percent of the island, but we want it to change its way of distribution. It’s not in the best public interest to do it the way it was done before,” said Santiago, a lawyer who lived in The Bronx before returning to Puerto Rico. “Developing energy infrastructure at the community level is not an easy thing to do, but we don’t have a choice. The old grid is unreliable—it’s killing us in the South.”

Recovering While Broke

Puerto Rico’s economic crisis looms large over any long-term planning and recovery efforts. Just four months before Hurricane Maria, the commonwealth declared a form of bankruptcy as it struggled under more than $74 billion in debt and $49 billion in pension obligations. The combined $120 billion debt made it the largest municipal bankruptcy in the United States, dwarfing Detroit’s $18 billion filing in 2013.

The territory’s cash solvency and liquidity problems and austerity measures imposed through economic and fiscal reforms inhibited its ability to provide services, notes Lourdes Germán, director of International and Institute-Wide Initiatives at the Lincoln Institute. “This dynamic significantly contributed to the humanitarian crisis that was building before the disaster and clearly continues,” she said.

Beginning in the 1970s, the island’s government had become more reliant on debt financing, and that crisis continued to unfold for decades. The bonds securing that debt—however risky—were easy to sell because they were exempt from federal, state, and local taxes thanks to a provision in the 1917 federal law that also granted Puerto Ricans American citizenship.

“People who invested in Puerto Rican bonds didn’t look at the credit risk. They just looked at the fact that they could get a high interest rate,” said Desmond Lachman, an economist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). “Puerto Rico didn’t have trouble borrowing money. Until it did. It kept borrowing until the music stopped, and that’s where we are now.”

Despite this common perception, Puerto Rican securities continue to trade, even a year after the island entered its de facto bankruptcy. The market activity among investors demonstrates that the risk profile is affecting the pricing and trading activity around the securities and resulting in new patterns of investor interest and segmentation. These factors will influence the island’s ability to attract outside capital and investment as well as the cost of capital, according to Germán. “The trading activity continues because there is a secondary market. Investors are looking at these securities and pricing risk while evaluating the potential for returns. Last April, for example, Bloomberg reported that Puerto Rico’s bonds emerged as a top performer in the US municipal market—gaining more than any other dollar-denominated debt in the world,” she explained.

Tax-supported debt is now 55 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in Puerto Rico, as opposed to the US average of 2.67 percent according to figures released in April by the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. The island is confronted with ever more volatile and challenging capital markets while it works through its bankruptcy, and opinions vary regarding how best to resolve the stalemate with investors.

AEI’s Lachman, for one, is unequivocal. “The debt has to be written down big time. That’s just basic math,” he said. “Creditors didn’t do due diligence when lending, so I don’t see why we should feel sorry for them or ask taxpayers to foot the bill when the creditors also messed up.”

Debt in the Aggregate

Puerto Rico accumulated unsupportable levels of debt in the form of general obligation bonds, which are secured by the territory government’s full faith and credit, and revenue bonds, which are secured by specific revenue sources, such as fees or specific taxes. Puerto Rico’s constitution provides guarantees for general obligation bonds.

“The heart of the problem is an inability to support their general obligation-backed bonds, which are subject to constitutional protection,” Germán explained. “And then you have the added problem of revenue bonds, which have been issued by over a dozen separate public and quasi-public entities in ways that are not sustainable. Puerto Rico’s revenue debt is secured by many different revenue sources—including, for example, sales taxes—which could have otherwise been used to fund current government operations. This combination was a recipe for disaster.”

Historical Context

Critics blame a bloated public sector, mismanagement, and corruption, but many believe the roots of the crisis lay in the island’s colonial history. Puerto Rico has had an often-fraught relationship with the federal government since the former Spanish colony was ceded to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American War in the late 1800s.

Puerto Ricans were granted American citizenship in 1917—just in time to serve as US forces in World War I. In 1920, the Jones Act required all goods ferried between US ports to be carried on ships built, owned, and operated by Americans. The mandate makes shipping more expensive, especially in Puerto Rico, where most commodities—even those needed for disaster relief—must be imported.

In 1996, the federal government began a 10-year phase-out of corporate tax breaks—Section 936 of the tax code—that were designed to spur manufacturing growth on the island. Puerto Rico lost 40 percent of its manufacturing jobs in the subsequent decade ending in 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The island’s tax base shrank, and the next blow came in fairly quick succession with the dawn of the Great Recession of 2008. Puerto Rico’s government continued to borrow to meet its obligations, and many of the island’s most employable citizens—the young and healthy—emigrated in large numbers to the mainland United States.

From a 2004 high of 3.8 million, the population in Puerto Rico fell to about 3.4 million last year (Table 1), and it is expected the island will lose nearly half a million more residents by 2023, according to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (FOMB 2018). The board was created by Congress under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) signed into law in June 2016.

The oversight board paints a grim picture for the island’s economy in the near term: fully 100 percent of the Gross National Product this year will come from the expected $62 billion in public and private disaster relief.

The panel in April approved a series of austerity measures aimed at “aggressive structural reform” in Puerto Rico, such as scaling back employee benefits unheard of on the mainland, like mandatory Christmas bonuses and allowing for “at will” employment. The recommendations also included loosening labor laws and implementing pension and welfare reform. Critics say the “reforms” are punitive and rely on unrealistic growth projections. As economic policy, they say the austerity measures are the last thing Puerto Rico needs as it struggles to recover.

“Can Puerto Rico be rebuilt under that plan? Not much,” said Carlos Vargas-Ramos, director of policy for Centro.

But proponents say it’s the best way to address the underlying fiscal crisis so the island can move forward. “From a community planning point of view, we are in the crossfire. . . . At this moment, the big question is, ‘What is going to happen with this government and the debt’?” said Frederico Del Monte Garrido, a government planner, vice president of the Puerto Rican Planning Association, and Hunter summit attendee. “The principal point is we need to accept this fiscal plan.”

One factor clouding Puerto Rico’s prospects has been its inconsistent classification under US law as a territory. Some past court decisions and US policies have treated Puerto Rico as a foreign jurisdiction and excluded it from certain sections of the US Code, Germán noted. “Part of what has made this very difficult is that our own laws are unclear. For example, Puerto Rico was not authorized to seek protection under the part of the US bankruptcy code, Chapter 9, that provides relief for some insolvent governments, and it’s unclear why it was excluded. PROMESA attempted to fix some of these issues, providing Puerto Rico with a remedy similar to Chapter 9 to enable it to adjust the debt problems that are at the heart of its insolvency.”

Taxation and Land Use

The panel also recommended implementing tax initiatives that many experts believe are essential to righting the ship. They include creating a unified payment system, reducing corporate taxes with the goal of increasing investment, broadening the tax base, and improving compliance.

Puerto Rico’s chaotic land development has, of course, led to a haphazard system of property taxation. In many rural areas, land has been handed down for generations, and there is no paperwork or deeds—a barrier for as many as 60 percent of the 1.1 million claimants seeking FEMA aid, according to the financial oversight board.

By some estimates, as many as half of Puerto Rico’s 1.6 million housing units may have been constructed “informally”—an umbrella term that includes illegal subdivisions. Entire communities grew informally, such as Villa Hugo, a makeshift settlement of 6,000 residents who were forced from their homes by an earlier hurricane, for which the community is named.

Most of the informal homes don’t have insurance of any kind. Many don’t have addresses and don’t show up on the tax rolls. An equitable property tax base—a staple of healthy communities—is absent in many parts.

“They haven’t done a great job in capitalizing on land value,” said George W. McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute. “They’ve done a very poor job of even collecting property taxes.”

By improving land registration systems, establishing property values, and enforcing taxation, Puerto Rico can tap an important revenue source needed for rebuilding, he said.

The fiscal oversight board found no workable assessments for “tens of thousands” of properties on the island and estimated that more than $800 million could be raised by improving tax compliance, registering properties not on the rolls, and capturing back taxes.

The issue is critical, said Flores-Marzan. “It’s an immense problem and an important issue to address right now,” he said. “A lot of lawyers in Puerto Rico—people with the skills to address this problem—are probably out of work now.”

Over the next five years, the nonprofit housing group Habitat for Humanity International, which also received a $50 million grant from AbbVie, will partner with families to repair and rebuild housing and to address so-called “land tenure” issues that have substantially hindered housing recovery, said Bryan Thomas, head of public relations for the Georgia-based group. “A large portion of the housing was built without clear title, and that has caused huge delays,” said Thomas. Habitat will also work with government officials to look for ways to address the problem on a systemic level, he said.

Thomas said Habitat encounters similar issues in many of the less-developed countries where it builds. “Puerto Rico is in many ways sort of a hybrid—it’s part of the US but doesn’t operate under the same systems or laws,” he said. Habitat also plans to train construction workers, since many left the island as the economy plummeted.

McCarthy said Puerto Rico could also benefit from the creation of more public land bank authorities as it grapples with what to do with tens of thousands of abandoned properties. Such mechanisms helped rebuild in Japan and Germany after World War II and more recently in Detroit, he said.

Land banks aggregate and pool property and then design more efficient use. They can promote economic development by leveraging loans and grants for an area. The public Detroit Land Bank Authority owns about 100,000 pieces of property in the city, much of which was in foreclosure.

When Maria hit, Puerto Rico was already in the midst of a foreclosure crisis, with rates that were three times higher than on the mainland. Tens of thousands of properties have been abandoned, and there are an estimated 40,000 vacant properties in the San Juan area alone, planners say. San Juan created a land bank for its most densely populated neighborhood, Santurce, in 2016 (Vélez 2016).

Puerto Rico will also need to demolish or repurpose hundreds of school buildings. A quarter of the island’s schools have been shuttered because of the exodus to the mainland. The territory’s education department this spring announced plans to close another 265 schools. This would leave Puerto Rico with one-third fewer public schools than it had at the outset of the 2017–2018 academic year, potentially accelerating the out-migration (Mazzei 2018).

“I don’t see a path forward unless they can rationalize their land use,” said McCarthy. “It all hinges on effective leadership. It’s going to require somebody who is both charismatic and visionary.”

But the path seems anything but clear-cut on the ground. “Everything in Puerto Rico has become really complicated. There’s a perception of an anarchic environment,” David J. Carrasquillo-Medrano, president of the Puerto Rican Planning Society, told a panel at the recent “diaspora summit” in Manhattan. “The narrative of the government is that Puerto Rico is a blank slate, and you can go do what you want to do,” he said, referring to the courting of developers. “In Puerto Rico, it’s not that we don’t have planning; it’s that there’s no real estate regulation.”

Housing, Infrastructure, and the Return of the Cruise Ships

Many planners are deeply concerned that desperation and expediency will upend any planning already in place and thwart innovative rebuilding in Puerto Rico. Zoning and planning vary across the island. Del Monte Garrido said much of the reconstruction in poorer areas has been makeshift. Flores-Marzan said there are island-wide zoning codes and plans in place in 30 of 78 municipalities, but enforcement often is lacking, as is regional planning.

In 2011, Puerto Rico adopted a uniform building code that required structures to be built to withstand winds of up to 145 miles per hour. But most homes on the island were built informally before then.

To date, there are few concrete plans for new housing; an “action plan,” drafted by the federal government when it awarded the Community Development Block Grants, was more a statement of need than a plan. There are enormous price tags for righting the island: $375 million for debris removal, $1.5 billion to repair and rebuild roads and bridges, $8 billion for public buildings.

Puerto Rico is poor: before the storm 43.5 percent of the population lived below the poverty line. The island is home to the second-largest US public housing authority, with over 55,000 units across 340 properties. More than a quarter of those units were damaged, and initial damage claims totaled over $119 million in public housing alone.

In all, a million homes were affected by the storm; 472,000 sustained “significant damage” and 70,000 homes were completely destroyed, according to government estimates. The preliminary federal action plan estimates that rebuilding for greater resilience could cost $34.3 billion.

Foundation and nonprofit funding could be important. Groups like the Resilient Puerto Rico Commission, supported by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, have been working with community groups to assess the damage and look for sustainable solutions. Rockefeller also has supported an island-wide public engagement campaign called Reimagine Puerto Rico. Still, many feel ignored after a lagging federal response and much confusion in the aftermath of Maria.

“I represent the people, and nobody is listening to us. We’re still being told 64 people died, and it’s over 1,000,” said Rev. Jose Antonio Oquendo, growing visibly agitated during a discussion at the summit at Hunter. Oquendo is a Catholic priest in the diocese of Caguas, and his parishioners had no electricity or running water for six months. “We say on the island that it is going to take us 10 years to set up again.”

Carrasquillo-Medrano, who heads the Puerto Rican Planning Society, said too much information is missing, such as accurate flood maps, to make informed planning decisions. And he cautions about the rush to build rather than rehabilitate housing. “We don’t need new homes; we have 326,000 vacant units on the island.”

Most planners agree that communities will probably have to be relocated from areas particularly vulnerable to the flooding and mudslides that affected the mountainous interior and coastal lowlands of the 35-by-100-mile island. More than 50 rivers and 60 watersheds surged with flood waters when Maria hit, according to the government.

Agriculture has nearly been wiped out and industry is flagging, but tourism is rebounding. Puerto Rico resumed cruise operations just two and a half weeks after Hurricane Maria, and 1.7 million passengers are expected for the 2018–2019 season, according to forecasts included in the federal government action plan. Traffic at the Luis Muñoz Marín airport is expected to reach pre-Maria levels this summer. And most hotels are back in business; the government estimates that the tourism sector has spent or planned for $1.9 billion in new developments and renovations.

McCarthy points to Puerto Rico’s estimable amenities—it is a Caribbean island after all—and said perhaps the island can look to New Orleans and Detroit, which have stabilized, if not rebounded, from decline and calamity. “It’s not like Puerto Rico is going to stay vacant for long. The question is, who is going to develop it?” said McCarthy. “Can you build a thriving economy in Puerto Rico beyond tourism?”

At the recent summit in Manhattan this spring, panelists and attendees seemed humbled by the work ahead. “We still need a lot of information. There is still a sense of the enormity of the task at hand,” said Hunter College’s Vargas-Ramos. “Rebuilding Puerto Rico is going to take decades, so we need to think short-term, medium-term, and long-term.”

Patricia Alex is a principal at Silk City Communications, which specializes in writing and editing for nonprofit organizations. She is a former newspaper reporter and editor in northern New Jersey.

Additional reporting by Loren Berlin.

Photograph: cestes001 (iStock/Getty Images Plus)

References

Brown, Nick. 2018. “Special Report: In Puerto Rico, a Housing Crisis US Storm Aid Won’t Resolve.” Reuters, February 6, 2018.

FOMB (Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico). 2018. “New Fiscal Plan for Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth and Prosperity.” Puerto Rico: Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (April).

Kishore, Nishant, Domingo Marqués, Ayesha Mahmud, Mathew V. Kiang, Irmary Rodriguez, Arlan Fuller, Peggy Ebner, Cecilia Sorensen, Fabio Racy, Jay Lemery, Leslie Maas, Jennifer Leaning, Rafael A. Irizarry, Satchit Balsari, and Caroline O. Buckee. 2018. “Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.” Special article, New England Journal of Medicine, May 29, 2018. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa1803972.

Johnson, Laurie A., and Robert B. Olshansky. 2017. After Great Disasters: An In-Depth Analysis of How Six Countries Managed Community Recovery. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Mazzei, Patricia. 2018. “Puerto Rico’s Schools Are in Tumult, and Not Just Because of Hurricane Maria.” New York Times, June 1, 2018.

PRDOH (Puerto Rico Department of Housing). 2018. “Puerto Rico Disaster Recovery Action Plan for the Use of CDBG-DR Funds in Response to 2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria.” Draft for public comment. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Department of Housing, Government of Puerto Rico (May 10).

Vélez, Eva Lloréns. 2016. “San Juan Creates Community Land Bank.” Caribbean Business, October 2016.

Al enfrentarse a las secuelas que dejó el huracán Harvey, la Agencia de Protección Medioambiental informó que 13 de los 41 sitios federales de Superfund en Texas se habían inundado. La Comisión de Calidad Medioambiental de Texas indica 26 sitios federales y estatales de Superfund en el condado de Harris. Houston es la sede del condado.

Vea la versión en PDF de este mapa para obtener más detalles y una clave.

Credito: The Place Database, www.lincolninst.edu/research-data/data/place-database

A fines de agosto del año pasado, el huracán Harvey arrasó en Texas, causó inundaciones generalizadas y destrucción, y ahogó la región metropolitana de Houston, con más de 130 centímetros de lluvias en cuatro días. Harvey paralizó a Houston, la cuarta ciudad más grande del país y centro mundial de la industria petrolera, y puso a prueba la resistencia de un estado que alberga a casi uno de cada doce trabajadores de los EE.UU. Mientras Houston se recupera y se enfrenta a la siguiente temporada de huracanes, prepararse para tormentas inevitables que podrían ser incluso más devastadoras es muy estresante para los planificadores urbanos, funcionarios públicos, altos cargos de empresas y otras personas que viven y trabajan allí. Después de haber sufrido inundaciones únicas en 500 años durante tres años consecutivos, la región se está replanteando la actitud de “construye y deja construir”. Harvey disparó una reflexión (si bien no una completa reacción) en lo que respecta al planeamiento y el desarrollo urbanos.

Houston, que lleva el apodo “Bayou City” (“Ciudad pantanosa”), es propensa a las inundaciones por naturaleza. Pero los críticos dicen que el antiguo enfoque de la región hacia el planeamiento urbano (es decir, la falta de él) ha dado como resultado un desarrollo sin zonificación, expansiones urbanas descontroladas de baja densidad y normas débiles que han ocasionado o exacerbado las inundaciones destructivas. Muchos exigen una planificación de resistencia para el territorio, con un enfoque a nivel regional, a largo plazo y más ecológico, así como para el desarrollo urbano y la gestión de las aguas de tormenta.

Los funcionarios de la ciudad y el condado están virando hacia normas más estrictas para construir viviendas nuevas en terrenos anegables, y consideran una amplia variedad de estrategias para atenuar las inundaciones, las necesidades de infraestructura y los cambios en el desarrollo. Entre ellos, crear una nueva barrera contra inundaciones e instalaciones de captura, rehabilitar los sistemas urbanos de drenaje, comprar más viviendas en zonas propensas a anegarse y crear infraestructura verde. Una prueba importante para la generación de resistencia será la manera en que pueda comunicarse y colaborar la región con respecto a estas estrategias.

“Harvey fue un llamado de atención de que tal vez sea hora de revisar los pecados del pasado”, dijo Patrick Walsh, director de planificación y desarrollo de Houston, quien presentó un resumen de las consecuencias de Harvey en el Big City Planning Directors Institute del Instituto Lincoln, en octubre de 2017. Walsh ha estado involucrado en varios aspectos de la planificación posterior a Harvey. “Entre la comunidad, los desarrolladores y los constructores hay un amplio consenso: tenemos que hacer mejor las cosas, estamos todos juntos en esto. Necesitamos una ciudad con capacidad de recuperación. Houston se ha recuperado de forma razonable a corto plazo”, dijo Walsh, quien nació en dicha ciudad, “pero muchas personas siguen sufriendo”. Dijo que es posible que se necesite una nueva forma de operar, “si queremos seguir atrayendo a personas talentosas y empresas a la ciudad”.

Catástrofe con oportunidades (no tan) equitativas

Houston posee un extenso historial de inundaciones por tormentas tropicales. En las décadas de 1920 y 1930, varios huracanes ocasionaron inundaciones catastróficas que mataron a miles de personas. En 2001, la tormenta tropical Allison provocó una anegación masiva y 20 muertes en Texas. Harvey le pisó los talones a la inundación del Día de los Caídos de 2015 y a la del Día de Declaración de Impuestos, en abril de 2016. Pero la diferencia de Harvey fue exponencial, anegó alrededor de un tercio de la región metropolitana de Houston, incluidas carreteras, plantas de depuración y el Ayuntamiento, en el centro de Houston. La mitad de las viviendas y los comercios alcanzados por Harvey nunca se habían anegado, mientras que muchos otros lo sufrieron por tercera vez en tres años. En Texas, Harvey causó 68 muertes y generó gastos de USD 125 000 millones en daños, según el informe oficial del Centro Nacional de Huracanes, en el que se destacó que fue el evento de lluvia con ciclón tropical más importante en la historia de los EE.UU., tanto en alcance como en cantidad de precipitaciones, desde que estas comenzaron a registrarse de forma confiable, en la década de 1880. En la zona de Houston, Harvey dañó unas 300 000 viviendas y desplazó a más de 1 millón de personas. Cerca de 42 000 de ellas se vieron obligadas a buscar refugios de emergencia. La tormenta dejó 153 millones de metros cúbicos de escombros.

Con el cambio climático, el aumento de la temperatura de los océanos generó tormentas más frecuentes e intensas y elevó el nivel de los mares; así, también aumentó el riesgo de inundaciones. Harvey podría haber ocasionado una catástrofe aun más inmensa. Una marejada del Golfo de México podría haber destruido las refinerías de petróleo y producido una inundación de agua tóxica por el Houston Ship Channel hacia la región de Houston. Esa amenaza aún existe, y muchos dicen que Houston no puede confiar en los datos anteriores para predecir tormentas futuras.

Harvey golpeó la economía y la calidad de vida de la región. Antes de la tormenta, gracias a los empleos disponibles en los sectores de petróleo y gas, tecnología, asistencia médica y otras industrias, además de las viviendas relativamente asequibles y abundantes, Houston era considerada una región asequible. En julio de 2017, la media de precios de viviendas era de USD 230 000, en comparación con los USD 293 400 a nivel nacional, según Redfin. En los meses que siguieron al huracán Harvey, la oferta de viviendas disminuyó y los costos se elevaron, porque los residentes competían por reubicarse en barrios que no estuvieran inundados. Alrededor del 80 por ciento de los propietarios del condado de Harris no contaban con seguro contra inundaciones; muchos no estaban en zonas designadas como propensas a anegarse. Las perspectivas de renovar o reconstruir las viviendas dañadas, y la disponibilidad y el costo del seguro contra inundaciones todavía son inciertas. Los beneficiaros de la asistencia federal ante catástrofes posteriores a Harvey deberán adquirir dicho seguro, según informó el New York Times.

Si bien las viviendas de los barrios de ingresos bajos, medios y altos de la región se vieron afectadas por igual, muchos líderes regionales destacan que las consecuencias en los hogares de ingresos medios y bajos han sido mucho más considerables, si se tiene en cuenta que dichos hogares cuentan con menos recursos para recuperarse de los daños, la pérdida de ganancias, de empleo y de tejido comunitario. Los medios nacionales informaron acerca de los problemas que tienen los arrendatarios en los barrios más pobres, cerca de las plantas petroquímicas y otras zonas industriales, como niveles altos de toxinas en el agua de inundación y en el aire, y la falta de recursos para prepararse ante las tormentas, y de respuesta y de recuperación después de estas. Muchos de ellos no pudieron pagar una limpieza adecuada de la vivienda ni encontrar una vivienda alternativa.

Hacia principios de diciembre, la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA, por sus siglas en inglés) que debió enfrentarse a la limpieza de múltiples desastres relacionados con el clima, prometió una ayuda de USD 160 000 millones a Houston después de Harvey, además de los fondos para ayudar en la recuperación individual y la colecta de los escombros. Los fondos federales son apenas una fracción de lo que se necesita para recuperarse y planificar para resistir. El Houston Chronicle señaló que la legislatura estatal no se volverá a reunir hasta 2019, pero se pedirá a los legisladores que consideren una serie de propuestas, como aumentar la capacidad de los gobiernos locales de prohibir los desarrollos en ciertas zonas, modificar las pautas operacionales de los embalses y exigir la divulgación del riesgo de inundación a los compradores o arrendatarios de viviendas. Mientras tanto, los funcionarios del condado de Harris de Houston evalúan realizar un referéndum de bonos para financiar más de USD 1000 millones en proyectos para controlar las anegaciones.

Aumento de los riesgos de inundación

Se suele criticar a Houston por la falta de zonificación: es la única ciudad importante de los EE.UU. que no cuenta con un código de zonificación que ayude a determinar la planificación del uso de territorio y las reglas de desarrollo. Si bien el planeamiento urbano en sí mismo no puede evitar una catástrofe como la de Harvey, los críticos han indicado que la zonificación, junto con una planificación cuidadosa del uso del territorio y normas de desarrollo más estrictas, podrían haber evitado gran parte de los daños (Figura 1).

Walsh, Director de planificación y desarrollo, sostiene que la zonificación no habría hecho a la ciudad menos propensa a anegarse. “Es hora de que derribemos el mito de la zonificación”, dijo. “Si fuéramos una ciudad zonificada, con Harvey habríamos sido una ciudad zonificada e inundada. Cualquier ciudad zonificada que sea llana, como la nuestra, se habría inundado”. Indicó que la “tremenda cantidad” de normas de desarrollo en la ciudad, tales como los requisitos de distancia entre el edificio y la calle, de estacionamiento y de parquización, además del enfoque que depende del mercado, determina cómo y dónde se da el desarrollo. “Nos parecemos mucho a una ciudad zonificada. Poseemos desarrollo comercial en vías principales y barrios retirados en calles más angostas”, dijo.

Según Walsh, son otros los factores que contribuyeron al impacto de Harvey, entre ellos las precipitaciones extremas, el suelo arcilloso de la región, que no absorbe bien el agua, la infraestructura anticuada e inadecuada para el agua de tormenta y “una cantidad importante de expansión urbana descontrolada de baja densidad” en el condado circundante.

Walsh destacó que Houston se drena de oeste a este y que el crecimiento intensivo en la periferia occidental ha aumentado el volumen de escorrentía que pasa por la ciudad. “Alterar el patrón de crecimiento será difícil, pero deberíamos estar considerando opciones, como proteger Katy Prairie”, dijo, con relación a los restos disminuidos de la amplia llanura y humedal que están al oeste de Houston.

A unos 32 kilómetros al oeste del centro, miles de viviendas que se inundaron por primera vez se habían desarrollado hace décadas en las cuencas “secas” de las presas Addicks y Barker. El cuerpo del ejército de los EE.UU. las construyó en la década de 1940 para controlar el flujo de agua del Buffalo Bayou y evitar que se inunde el centro. Dado que los mapas de la FEMA no ilustraron estas cuencas en el terreno inundable en tormentas únicas en 100 años, las empresas hipotecarias no exigían seguro contra inundaciones, y los potenciales compradores no se enteraron de los riesgos. Preocupado de que las presas fallaran durante el huracán Harvey, el cuerpo permitió que se liberara agua de forma controlada desde los diques hacia el pantano; así, se inundaron las zonas más bajas, entre ellas, el centro.

Los desarrollos con falta de control han aumentado el riesgo de anegaciones en toda la región, según explican los hidrólogos, ingenieros ambientales y funcionarios federales entrevistados en 2016 para el Texas Tribune y el ProPublica. La región tiene una elevación aproximada de 15 metros sobre el nivel del mar, y se drena con 22 cuencas con las que el agua de tormenta fluye de oeste a este en una red de pantanos y canales de drenaje que se vacían en el Houston Ship Channel. La zona solía ser una gran expansión de llanuras, humedales y bosques con mayor capacidad de absorber agua de lluvia. Ahora, gran parte de ella está cubierta con desarrollos de baja densidad.

Houston es una ciudad con 2,2 millones de habitantes que se extiende a lo largo de 1623 kilómetros cuadrados. Se encuentra en el condado de Harris, de 4600 kilómetros cuadrados, que posee casi 4,6 millones de habitantes, según estima el censo nacional de 2016. La amplia región metropolitana alcanza los 6,8 millones de habitantes y, con sus 23 300 kilómetros cuadrados, tiene el mismo tamaño que Nueva Jersey. Desde el año 2000, más del 80 por ciento de los poco menos de un millón de habitantes nuevos en el condado de Harris se mudaron a zonas no incorporadas, conectadas por miles de kilómetros cuadrados de calles pavimentadas, estacionamientos y más de 360 000 edificios nuevos, según indica el Houston Chronicle. Los desarrollos han aumentado la escorrentía del agua de tormenta y, durante el huracán Harvey, la cantidad récord de precipitaciones hizo que esta, mezclada con químicos tóxicos y aguas negras, se elevara más que antes, se esparciera e inundara zonas que antes no se consideraban vulnerables.

“La ciudades que tienen una cultura sólida de planificación, como planes generales y una caja de herramientas de políticas que utilizan como parte de la práctica cotidiana (con planes para catástrofes, planes de atenuación de peligros naturales y planes de zonificación que reflejan los riesgos), tienden a ser mejores”, dijo Laurie Johnson, consultora de planificación de la zona de la Bahía de San Francisco que se especializa en modelado de riesgos ante catástrofes, y coautora de “After great disasters” (“Después de grandes catástrofes”), publicado por el Instituto Lincoln. Johnson, autora principal de un plan de recuperación para Nueva Orleans tras el huracán Katrina, dijo que una de las pruebas más importantes para Houston es si la ciudad y el condado pueden trabajar en conjunto de forma efectiva.

Trabajos de resistencia

En octubre de 2017, los funcionarios del condado de Harris publicaron un plan con 15 puntos en el cual buscaban estrategias, tales como organización para el control regional ante inundaciones para coordinar la gestión del agua entre los condados, y normas más estrictas en el desarrollo en las zonas propensas a anegarse. Además, el plan proponía comprar todas las viviendas ubicadas en el terreno anegable de 100 años o en lugares que se inundaron repetidas veces, una expansión de un programa existente en el condado de compra que costará miles de millones de dólares.

La ciudad de Houston ha comenzado a definir sus propias estrategias. “Nos estamos concentrando en recuperar y en considerar una resistencia a largo plazo”, dijo Stephen Costello, antiguo miembro del concejo municipal e ingeniero con 40 años de experiencia en gestión de aguas de tormenta; electo como funcionario principal en la resistencia de la ciudad en 2016 por el alcalde de Houston, Sylvester Turner. Costello dijo que Houston no cuenta con un plan de resistencia en sí, y que su papel es “abrir el debate, y, con suerte, los asuntos legislativos”. Él organizó y lideró el cuerpo especial para la renovación y el drenaje de la ciudad, que emitió un informe en febrero acerca de las reglas de captura para la renovación, ubicación de tierra de relleno en los terrenos anegables y protección de los vados de la ciudad que obstruyen el flujo del drenaje.

En septiembre de 2017, el alcalde Turner designó a Marvin Odum, antiguo director y presidente de Shell Oil Co., para que sea el funcionario principal de recuperación en Houston. Odum lideró la recuperación del negocio de Shell tras el huracán Katrina. Está a cargo de acelerar la recuperación ante desastres y preparar a la ciudad para la siguiente tormenta récord. Los funcionarios de resistencia y recuperación informan al alcalde, quien acerca recomendaciones de políticas al concejo municipal de 16 miembros electos. Estos, a su vez, votan.

La ciudad y el condado colaboran en un cuerpo especial conjunto de gestión de aguas de tormenta y con el Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), un distrito especial no regulador que desarrolla planes de gestión de aguas de tormenta y construye y mantiene infraestructura para el control de inundaciones. Los cinco funcionarios electos por el condado determinan normas para las zonas no incorporadas. Cada uno de los 34 municipios del condado posee sus propios criterios para los sistemas de drenaje, entre ellos el almacenamiento de captura de agua de tormenta. El HCFCD, entre otras cosas, ha solicitado “un esfuerzo de planificación a nivel regional, más abarcador”, dijo Rob Lazaro, funcionario de comunicaciones. Costello dijo que no prefiere una autoridad regional de atenuación de inundaciones. “En vez de crear una entidad que se superponga, necesitamos convenios intergubernamentales”.

Houston considera construir una barrera costera de dunas y puertas para contar con protección ante marejadas para las refinerías de petróleo vulnerables de la región y el canal comercial fluvial. La construcción del sistema costaría USD 10 000 millones. El condado de Harris ha apoyado el concepto, que también se incluyó en un pedido de financiación de la FEMA.

Normativas de desarrollo

David Hightower, vicepresidente ejecutivo de Midway Companies, un desarrollador con base en Houston, es miembro del cuerpo especial para la renovación y el drenaje de la ciudad. Dijo que las soluciones “podrían requerir algunas ideas creativas, lo cual es un desafío cuando se trata de burócratas a cargo de más de 1500 kilómetros cuadrados”. Los desarrolladores considerarían normas “razonables, equitativas, aplicadas con justicia”, pero objetan cuando las personas culpan de las inundaciones a los desarrollos, como los centros comerciales, “cuando los factores como la infraestructura anticuada e inadecuada” son los verdaderos culpables, afirma.

Hightower también es miembro de un comité de atenuación de inundaciones del condado de Harris, y dijo que se demostró que las normas de drenaje que emitió el condado en 2009 fueron efectivas. Dijo que el condado analizó dónde y cómo el huracán Harvey anegó las viviendas en las zonas no incorporadas, y descubrió que solo se inundaron 467 de las construidas después de 2009.

“Las más afectadas son las zonas mucho más antiguas, como Meyerland, desarrolladas en los 60, y ubicadas principalmente dentro de los límites de la ciudad”, dijo. En Meyerland, un enclave de lujo con 2000 casas ubicado al oeste del centro de Houston, junto a Brays Bayou, algunas casas se inundaron tres años consecutivos. Muchos propietarios dicen que estas casas más antiguas se anegaron debido a los nuevos desarrollos aguas arriba, y quieren que les compren la propiedad.

Johnson, la consultora de planificación, dijo que el modelado de riesgos puede mostrar situaciones que vinculan el desarrollo con el riesgo de inundación. “Se puede mostrar que, si se pone una casa en un lugar, esa superficie impermeable afectará a todo el sistema de algún modo”. El hecho de que durante tres años consecutivos, en Houston haya habido tormentas únicas en 500 años “demuestra que el pasado ya no es un buen indicador del futuro”, dijo. “Lo que falta es una visión común del riesgo futuro, y ese es el desafío del presente, con los cambios del clima. Como modeladores, nosotros debemos considerar el rango de posibilidades, la incertidumbre”.

Houston está utilizando el modelado de clima para predecir consecuencias futuras por inundaciones, según indica Walsh. Después del huracán Harvey, el condado de Harris exige que todos los edificios nuevos de los territorios no incorporados se eleven, al menos, 61 centímetros por encima del terreno anegable. El primer piso completado de una nueva construcción debe tener, al menos, el mismo nivel que la inundación récord de 500 años. Las viviendas nuevas en el terreno anegable se deben construir sobre pilares y no se puede utilizar tierra de relleno para elevar la construcción. Las normas recibieron mucho apoyo de Greater Houston Builders Association, Houston Real Estate Council, American Council of Engineering Companies of Houston, Asociación de Apartamentos de Houston y la sección de Houston del Instituto Americano de Arquitectos.

“Estas normas se aplican a los terrenos anegables de 100, 500 y más de 500 años”, dijo Christof Speiler, vicepresidente y director de planificación de la firma Huitt-Zollars de arquitectura y planeamiento urbano de Houston, y gerente de proyectos en Greater Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium. “Estos son cambios muy esenciales que tienen un impacto muy real en los nuevos desarrollos”.

Sin embargo, las normas solo aplican en las zonas no incorporadas del condado, y Houston y otros municipios hacen sus propias normas, destacó Speiler. Además, es poco probable que las nuevas normas eviten que las viviendas de las zonas desarrolladas anteriormente se inunden, porque “una gran parte de la ciudad está compuesta por edificios antiguos, anteriores a cualquier tipo de regulación en inundaciones”.

Walsh concuerda en que muchas viviendas fueron construidas en lugares donde nunca debían haber sido construidas; por ejemplo, junto a los pantanos. Indica que cuatro de cada cinco estructuras que se encuentran en los terrenos anegables declarados oficialmente por la ciudad fueron construidas antes de 1981, cuando se adoptaron normas más estrictas. “Durante décadas, hemos permitido desarrollos en los terrenos anegables, pero deberíamos haberlos hecho más altos”. Las normas actuales de la ciudad exigen que las viviendas nuevas reconstruidas estén 30 centímetros por sobre la elevación de 100 años indicada por la FEMA. Como resultado, en algunos barrios, las viviendas que están a nivel del suelo se inundaron durante el huracán Harvey y, junto a ellas, hay viviendas elevadas que no se inundaron.

En enero, el alcalde Turner propuso nuevas normas de desarrollo por las cuales se exigiría que todos los edificios nuevos estuvieran elevados 60 centímetros por sobre el nivel de inundación proyectado, y mencionó que Houston no puede pedir más financiación estatal y federal ante inundaciones ni de resistencia “sin demostrar que nos estamos moviendo con urgencia a nivel local para encontrar soluciones por nuestra cuenta”.

Terrenos anegables y atenuación de captura

La captura es el método principal que tiene Houston para controlar las inundaciones, pero la falta de terrenos disponibles limita la capacidad de la ciudad de construir infraestructura importante de captura que podría lidiar con las anegaciones del estilo de Harvey. El HCFCD gestiona unas 6300 hectáreas de embalses para aguas de tormenta, en un área de 445 000 hectáreas. Durante el último año, el HCFCD invirtió más de USD 100 millones en proyectos de mejora de capital para reparar cuencas de captura y ampliar y profundizar los canales de los principales pantanos del condado. El estado planea pagar un tercer embalse para proteger mejor las zonas al oeste de Houston y evitar el tipo de liberaciones de las represas Addicks y Barker que inundaron a Houston durante el huracán Harvey. Una mejora en todo el sistema que pueda proteger por completo a la región de una tormenta única en 100 años necesitaría unas 21 000 hectáreas adicionales de captura, pero el costo para adquirir ese territorio excede el presupuesto anual del HCFCD.

En enero, el alcalde Turner propuso nuevas reglas para este método, basadas en recomendaciones del cuerpo especial para la renovación y la captura. Con las medidas actuales, solo se exige a los nuevos desarrollos que gestionen la escorrentía de aguas de tormenta en techos, estacionamientos y otras superficies impermeables. El cuerpo especial recomendó cerrar esta laguna, para que un desarrollador que pretende construir un rascacielos en un estacionamiento ahora deba ofrecer infraestructura de captura para poder garantizar un drenaje efectivo. Otra norma nueva exigiría que quienes remodelen lotes inferiores a los 1400 metros cuadrados paguen una tasa en vez de proporcionar infraestructura de captura. Las modificaciones propuestas también ofrecerán créditos de captura para las opciones de desarrollo de bajo impacto, como paulares verdes, que suelen ser cuencas plantadas poco profundas diseñadas para absorber y filtrar escorrentía.

Gran parte de la infraestructura de captura y drenaje de la ciudad data de los 40 y 50. Un informe emitido en enero de 2017 por Storm Water Maintenance Branch, de Houston, indicó que ciertas zonas desarrolladas antes de 1985 eran propensas a inundaciones debido a su “infraestructura inadecuada y pequeña”. La ciudad gasta más de USD 250 millones al año en infraestructura vial y de drenaje, y el departamento de obras públicas estima que costaría USD 650 millones al año reconstruir y mantener la infraestructura deteriorada de aguas de tormenta para reducir las amenazas de anegación en los pantanos de la ciudad, quitar las propiedades del terreno anegable, reemplazar las cañerías de desagüe, reacondicionar zanjas y lograr otras mejoras.

La ciudad se enfrenta a otras decisiones importantes. Harvey inundó 18 de las 39 plantas de depuración; de ellas, ocho estaban totalmente cubiertas, dijo Costello. ¿La ciudad debe modernizar y diseñar protección para las plantas inundadas, o las debe reubicar? ¿Consolida el sistema de depuración, con un costo estimado de USD 10 000 millones?

Necesidad de nueva cartografía

Walsh dijo que la ciudad adoptó normas más estrictas de atenuación en terrenos anegables luego de que la FEMA volviera a publicar los mapas del condado de Harris, en 2007. Las viviendas construidas después de 2007 suelen ser elevadas y tienen protecciones contra inundaciones. En los barrios inundados por el huracán Harvey, muchas viviendas no elevadas tuvieron agua hasta el primer piso. Los mapas nuevos ayudarían a regular el desarrollo en terrenos anegables y facilitarían otros trabajos de resistencia, dijo.

La FEMA mapea terrenos anegables y niveles de inundación al realizar modelos de cómo el agua se vuelca por arroyos, pantanos y zanjas durante las tormentas y proyectar dónde esta se eleva y cuánto se eleva. En el condado de Harris, un “evento único en 100 años” equivale a entre 30 y 35 centímetros de precipitaciones en 24 horas, y un “evento único en 500 años” produce entre 43 y 50 centímetros de precipitaciones en 24 horas. Las estimaciones iniciales de la Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica posteriores al huracán Harvey elevaron el nivel de Houston a 45 centímetros en 24 horas para un evento único en 100 años. Los datos demuestran que Harvey fue, al menos, un evento único en 500 años en todo el condado, y en algunas zonas superó el nivel de fenómeno único en 1000 años.

Sin embargo, Costello destaca que los nuevos mapas pueden haber llegado demasiado tarde, con un costo demasiado elevado, y con pocas consecuencias. “Aunque decidiéramos actualizar los mapas, nos llevaría un par de años modificar las normas”, dijo.

Adquisiciones

Un informe realizado después del huracán por el Instituto Baker de Políticas Públicas, de la Universidad Rice, recomendó un programa de adquisición y eliminación de viviendas, y destacó que muchas de ellas se inundaron tres veces o más desde la tormenta tropical Allison.

Si bien las adquisiciones incluyen una inversión pública inicial y eliminan a las propiedades de la nómina impositiva, atenúan el riesgo de inundación y reducen el costo de daños reiterados a propiedades e infraestructura, y, a su vez, fomentan la resistencia de las comunidades (Freudenberg et al., 2016).

Desde 1985, el programa voluntario de adquisición del HCFCD ha comprado más de 3000 propiedades, y se han restablecido más de 430 hectáreas como terrenos anegables naturales. Hacia noviembre de 2017, el condado había recibido más de 3000 pedidos de adquisiciones relacionadas con Harvey, y en febrero el HCFCD notificó al estado que solicitaría USD 180 millones para ese fin. Hoy, en todo el condado, más de 100 000 viviendas y otros edificios se encuentran en terrenos anegables de 100 años junto a 4000 kilómetros de canales, declaró el HCFCD.

Los defensores dicen que una mayor cantidad de adquisiciones traería toda una serie de beneficios a la resistencia: harían reubicar a las personas en lugares seguros y eliminarían futuros daños por inundaciones y riesgos a la salud y la seguridad, reducirían los pagos repetidos subsidiados por seguro y asistencia federal ante inundaciones y permitirían devolver la función natural al terreno anegable para que pueda almacenar y liberar aguas de tormenta.

Por otro lado, un programa de adquisición de gran escala podría costar miles de millones de dólares y tener sus desventajas. “En un lote con subdivisiones muy bien establecidas, a la gente le gusta su hogar y su escuela, y uno dañaría el tejido de la comunidad”, dijo Walsh. “Un programa así, ¿no sería muy agresivo? ¿Tomaríamos la primera fila de casas que están junto al pantano? ¿Tomaríamos las primeras tres filas? Contamos con recursos limitados. Es una cuestión política complicada”.

Infraestructura verde

Una estrategia de planificación regional concentrada en la infraestructura natural, como los humedales, podría ofrecer “protección contra impactos” de las inundaciones provocadas por efectos climáticos y, a su vez, almacenar y liberar paulatinamente las aguas de inundación, dijo Forster Ndubisi, profesor de arquitectura paisajística y planeamiento urbano en Texas A&M, miembro sénior del Hazard Reduction Recovery Center y colaborador de Nature and Cities, del Instituto Lincoln. La ciudad y el condado podrían ofrecer protección contra inundaciones y servicios, como parques y senderos, si compraran y eliminaran las viviendas en ciertos barrios, y remodelaran zonas ribereñas pantanosas con estanques de captura y vegetación nativa, dijo. “Es un plan proactivo, y es muchísimo más barato” que las soluciones de ingeniería.

La región de Houston ya comenzó a crear cuencas de captura y pantanos que también funcionan como parques. En el Sims Bayou, el HCFCD y el cuerpo del ejército construyeron dos cuencas regionales de captura de aguas de tormenta y plantaron árboles y arbustos a orillas del canal. “Sims fue el único pantano que no se anegó con el huracán Harvey”, destacó Lazaro, del HCFCD. En un proyecto de USD 480 millones que lleva adelante el HCFCD con el cuerpo del ejército, se están construyendo cuatro estanques de captura, y se está ampliando y profundizando una extensión de 33 kilómetros del canal Bray’s Bayou, en el que plantarán vegetación nativa. La Junta de Parques de Houston y el Departamento de Parques y Recreación de la ciudad, en colaboración con el HCFCD, están desarrollando el proyecto Bayou Greenways 2020, un sistema de senderos verdes de 241 kilómetros que ofrece drenaje, transporte y recreación en ocho pantanos. Un referéndum de bonos aprobado por los votantes está financiando USD 100 millones del proyecto, que requiere un total de USD 220 millones.

En el centro de Houston, una extensión de 3,7 kilómetros de Buffalo Bayou Park (parte de un proyecto público y privado de USD 58 millones dirigido por Buffalo Bayou Partnership, la ciudad y el HCFCD) incluyó la restauración de las orillas con infraestructura reforzada y un paisaje ribereño, senderos, muelles para botes y zonas para pícnics. Durante el huracán Harvey, cuando se liberó el agua de las represas Addicks y Barker al pantano, el nivel del agua llegó a los 7 metros verticales, dijo Scott McCready, diseñador de proyectos sénior y director de SWA Group, en Houston. El aluvión dejó pilas de arena de 2,5 metros, pero, en comparación con los canales diseñados en los pantanos, dijo que el parque funcionó tal como se había esperado: había retenido las aguas de inundación y las había liberado poco a poco.

Los funcionarios de la región de Houston también podrían usar campos de golf como cuencas para capturar aguas de tormenta. La zona metropolitana cuenta con más de 200 de ellos, que suelen ser más fáciles y baratos de desarrollar en lo que respecta a control de inundaciones que las zonas construidas. Clear Lake City, una comunidad planificada con maestría ubicada a 37 kilómetros al sudeste del centro de Houston, tenía antecedentes de inundaciones, y en 2011 las autoridades del agua de la ciudad adquirieron un antiguo campo de golf para utilizarlo en tareas de captura. Ahora, una organización sin fines de lucro está desarrollando Exploration Green, un parque de captura y espacio abierto, con cuencas delimitadas, reservas de humedales y kilómetros de senderos resistentes a las inundaciones. Superó la primera prueba del huracán Harvey: salvó a 150 viviendas de anegarse. Cuando se complete, tolerará hasta 20 000 millones de litros de aguas de tormenta y protegerá hasta 3000 viviendas, según el Texas Tribune.

Concentrarse y acelerar

“Hay una conversación más importante pendiente”, dijo Speiler. “¿Qué significa capacidad de recuperación para la región?” Indicó que muchos trabajos locales “parecen ser correctos, pero, simplemente, no hicimos lo suficiente”. Es posible que se requieran algunos cambios para modernizar la infraestructura de las secciones desarrolladas más antiguas de la ciudad y proteger el hábitat natural aguas arriba. Pero, en general, dijo: “No es tanto que necesitamos cambiar nosotros, sino más bien que necesitamos concentrarnos y acelerar lo que estamos haciendo”.

Muchos dicen que es probable que Houston no habilite un código de zonificación como medida de resistencia, tampoco es probable prohibir o siquiera suspender los desarrollos en los terrenos anegables. Pero Walsh dijo que Houston tiene un enfoque más reflexivo. Dijo que los funcionarios de la ciudad y el condado consideran un plan de resistencia y toman decisiones enfocadas en ella. Por ejemplo, el concejo municipal observa las decisiones de infraestructura y desarrollo con más cuidado, cuando antes solían aprobarlas de forma rutinaria. “Han demostrado preocupación por el desarrollo en las zonas propensas a inundaciones”, dijo, “incluso en algo como los MUD [distrito municipal de servicios públicos, por su sigla en inglés]”.

En última instancia, dijo Walsh, la preocupación a largo plazo de Houston es “mantenerse concentrada en la capacidad de recuperación; ese es el desafío político cuando el cielo está despejado”.

Kathleen McCormick, directora de Fountainhead Communications en Boulder, Colorado, escribe con frecuencia sobre comunidades saludables, sostenibles y con capacidad de recuperación.

Fotografía: Maribel Amador / SWA

Referencias 

Blake, Eric S. y David A. Zelinsky. 2017. “National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Harvey.” (AL092017). 17 de agosto – 1 de septiembre. Centro Nacional de Huracanes.

Ciudad de Houston. 2018. “Final Report Redevelopment and Drainage Task Force.” 6 de febrero. http://www.houstontx.gov/council/g/Final-Report-Redev-Drainage.pdf.

Freudenberg, Robert, Ellis Calvin, Laura Tolkoff y Dare Brawley. 2016. “Buy-In for buyouts: The Case for Managed Retreat from Flood Zones.” Enfoque en políticas de suelo. Cambridge, MA: Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo.

Ndubisi, Forster. 2016. “Adaptation and regeneration: A Pathway to New Urban Places.” In “Nature and cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning,” ed. Frederick R. Steiner, George F. Thompson y Armando Carbonell, 191–211. Cambridge, MA: Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo.

En 2012, el Servicio Forestal de los Estados Unidos realizó un estudio de la cobertura arbórea urbana. en él, se estimó que las ciudades del país perdían alrededor de cuatro millones de árboles al año. Según el Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza, todos los años, a nivel mundial se eliminan más de 75 000 kilómetros cuadrados de bosques por la agricultura, la explotación forestal y otros factores. Sin embargo, es difícil cuantificar el costo de esta pérdida. Es de amplio conocimiento que las plantas absorben dióxido de carbono y, así, ayudan a atenuar los efectos del cambio climático, pero los planificadores de ciudades podrían beneficiarse si se hiciera una evaluación más precisa y basada en datos del valor del manto verde urbano. Esta evaluación serviría como guía sobre el modo en que los árboles y otras plantas pueden presentarse en el diseño y la planificación de la ciudad contemporánea de la manera más razonable.

Después de todo, así es cómo evaluamos e instalamos infraestructura gris: contamos cada uno de los postes de luz y espacios de estacionamiento, para poder pensar cómo funcionan estos elementos en el diseño de una ciudad. Según David Nowak, científico experto del Servicio Forestal de los EE.UU., históricamente, no hemos sido tan considerados ni exigentes con la cuantificación y, por lo tanto, con la gestión, de la infraestructura verde.

Como regla general, las ciudades compilan los detalles de la infraestructura construida y hacen un seguimiento de estos, pero no hacen lo mismo con los árboles. Así, resulta más difícil planificar e incluso debatir los diversos impactos potenciales que implica mantener, aumentar o reducir la vegetación urbana.

Pero esto ha empezado a cambiar. Nowak encabeza un trabajo pionero manifestado en un proyecto del Servicio Forestal llamado i-Tree, un conjunto de herramientas web que, en parte, funciona con datos de sistemas de información geográfica (SIG). I-Tree combina imágenes satelitales con otros datos para ayudar a ciudadanos, investigadores y funcionarios a comprender los mantos urbanos y otros elementos de la infraestructura verde, en general, en términos económicos.

Por ejemplo, en un análisis de i-Tree de Austin, Texas, se descubrió que los árboles le ahorraron a la ciudad unos USD 19 millones al año en consumo de energía residencial, USD 11,6 millones en captura de carbono y casi USD 3 millones en eliminación de contaminación. Por ejemplo, la infraestructura arbórea de la ciudad produce oxígeno y consume dióxido de carbono, lo cual reduce aún más las emisiones de carbono, que i-Tree estima en USD 5 millones al año. Los árboles aportan otras ventajas; algunas de ellas están cuantificadas, otras no. Entre ellas, absorben la radiación ultravioleta, ayudan a absorber el agua de lluvia y reducen la contaminación acústica.

En otro análisis de i-Tree, realizado en 2017, investigadores de los Estados Unidos e Italia concluyeron que, en todo el mundo, las ciudades con más de 10 millones de habitantes alcanzan una mediana de ahorros anuales de USD 505 millones en reducción de contaminación atmosférica, atenuación de los efectos de la “isla de calor” y otros beneficios que aporta su manto urbano.

Gracias a este tipo de análisis, las ciudades pueden implementar recursos verdes para lograr un máximo impacto y comprender el balance entre las ventajas y las desventajas al momento de tomar muchas decisiones de planificación. Nowak destacó que derribar árboles para hacer estacionamientos genera una pérdida y no solo la ganancia asociada a la mayor cantidad de lugares de estacionamiento.

En el pasado, los árboles eran más bien una preocupación relacionada con los parques y el departamento de silvicultura. Ahora, tienen un papel cada vez más primordial en la respuesta de las ciudades al cambio climático. “Le puedo decir con absoluta certeza que, ya sea que se pueda hablar del cambio climático a nivel político o no, las ciudades y los pueblos de todo el país están muy interesados en descifrar la pregunta: ¿qué haremos hoy al respecto, exactamente?”, dijo Jim Levitt, director asociado de los programas de conservación territorial en el Instituto Lincoln y director de innovación en conservación en Harvard Forest. Agregó que eso es cierto desde Nueva Inglaterra hasta Miami, y Newport News, Virginia, y Phoenix, aunque los motivos específicos varíen, ya sea por problemas de inundaciones, los efectos de la isla de calor u otros.

La última tecnología relacionada con la infraestructura de los árboles responde de forma directa a este interés que tienen las ciudades. A fines de 2016, Senseable City Lab, de MIT, en colaboración con el Foro Económico Mundial, lanzó una herramienta llamada Treepedia y, desde entonces, ha publicado análisis de cobertura arbórea en 27 ciudades de todo el mundo. Con una interesante vuelta de tuerca, no obtiene los datos de los satélites, como muchos proyectos SIG, sino de imágenes seleccionadas de Google Street View. Ofrece otro enfoque a la información de los árboles, dado que, por ejemplo, representa en menor escala los parques urbanos grandes. Pero esta es una decisión de diseño. Los creadores de la herramienta creen que, al detallar el “verdor de la calle” que los ciudadanos experimentan de verdad, el proceso de planificación contará con más información. Según indica Carlo Ratti, director de Senseable City Lab de MIT y fundador de la empresa de diseño Carlo Ratti Associati, el laboratorio seguirá agregando ciudades y tiene un listado de pedidos de distritos, académicos y otros.

“Las ciudades intentan adquirir mejor información y comprender el estado actual del manto urbano”, explica. “La mayoría de ellas no posee los recursos para evaluar toda la ciudad de forma manual. Los datos de Treepedia pueden ofrecerles un punto de referencia firme” y se pueden concentrar en donde más se necesitan. “Para otros, como planificadores y diseñadores, es útil como agente para medir la percepción que tienen los ciudadanos sobre el espacio verde y los árboles”, indica, porque captura una especie de perspectiva compartida “desde el suelo”. Pronto, el laboratorio lanzará una versión de código abierto de su software para que las ciudades, las organizaciones no gubernamentales y los grupos comunitarios puedan recopilar sus propios datos. Con esto esperan que las ONG y los grupos locales utilicen Treepedia “como herramienta para determinar dónde se necesita plantar y presionar a los gobiernos locales con campañas basadas en evidencia”, explica Ratti.

Esto se condice con un interés más amplio entre los ciudadanos y los planificadores en las iniciativas de ciudades ecológicas, como los proyectos a gran escala de Nueva York y Atlanta, entre otros. Nowak, del programa i-Tree, dijo que sus herramientas ayudaron a guiar a los organizadores de Million Trees NYC, una iniciativa pública y privada que aumentó en alrededor de un 20 por ciento el total del bosque urbano de Nueva York. El proyecto London i-Tree Eco Project, según su informe de 2015, utilizó i-Tree para cuantificar “la estructura del bosque urbano (los atributos físicos, como densidad y salud de los árboles, área de las hojas y biomasa)”, con miras específicas a la captura de su valor “en términos monetarios”. Según el informe, se registraron ahorros en captura de carbono por GBP 4,79 millones (unos USD 6,75 millones) al año. “Esperamos ofrecer números derivados de forma local, para ayudar a las personas a tomar decisiones informadas, ya sea a favor o en contra de los árboles”, dice Nowak.

Landscape, una aplicación de i-Tree, está pensada para los planificadores en particular. Los usuarios pueden explorar el manto de árboles, cruzado con información demográfica básica que llega al nivel del censo por manzana, y ofrece datos relacionados con la atenuación de contaminación, impactos en la temperatura y otros factores. Por ejemplo, los usuarios pueden identificar con facilidad las zonas con alta densidad de población, pero baja cobertura arbórea. Durante el año que viene, el proyecto i-Tree agregará datos sobre especies de árboles y está intentando obtener comentarios para modificar la herramienta de forma que ayude más en la planificación, indica Nowak.

A grandes rasgos, la idea es la misma que dio forma a i-Tree desde el inicio: un enfoque basado en datos para pensar en la infraestructura verde. “Queremos ayudar a responder la siguiente pregunta: si puedo plantar un solo árbol o hacer un solo cambio en el entorno verde de la ciudad, ¿dónde debería hacerlo?”, dijo Nowak.

Rob Walker (robwalker.net) es columnista de la sección Sunday Business del New York Times.

Credito de imagen: Servicio Forestal de los EE.UU.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that 13 of the 41 federal Superfund sites in Texas had flooded. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality lists 26 federal and state Superfund sites in Harris County. Houston is the county seat.

View the PDF version of this map for more detail and a key.

Source: The Place Database, www.lincolninst.edu/research-data/data/place-database

Late last August, Hurricane Harvey swept through Texas, causing widespread flooding and destruction when it stalled over the Houston metropolitan region, dumping over 50 inches of rain in four days. Harvey paralyzed Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and a global center for the oil industry, and it tested the resilience of a state that’s home to nearly one in twelve U.S. workers. As Houston recovers and faces the next hurricane season, preparing for inevitable and potentially more devastating storms is highly stressful for urban planners, public officials, business leaders, and others who live and work there. Having been slammed with three 500-year floods in the past three years, the region is reconsidering its “build and let build” attitude. Harvey has occasioned a rethink—though not a complete redo—regarding urban planning and development.

Nicknamed the “Bayou City,” Houston is naturally flood-prone. But critics say the region’s longtime approach to urban planning (read: the lack of it) has resulted in zone-free development, low-density urban sprawl, and weak regulations that have led to or exacerbated destructive flooding. Many are calling for resilience planning that takes a regionwide, long-term, and greener approach to land planning, urban development, and storm water management.

Houston’s city and county officials are pivoting to stricter regulations on building new homes in floodplains, and considering a wide range of flood mitigation strategies, infrastructure needs, and development changes. These include creating new flood barrier and detention facilities, rehabilitating urban drainage systems, buying out more homes in flood-prone areas, and creating green infrastructure. An important test of resilience-building will be how well the region can communicate and collaborate on these strategies.

“Harvey was a wake-up call that it might be time to revisit the sins of the past,” said Houston Director of Planning and Development Patrick Walsh, who presented a summary of Harvey’s impacts at the Lincoln Institute’s 2017 Big City Planning Directors Institute last October. Walsh has been involved in several aspects of post-Harvey planning. “There’s a broad consensus from the community and from developers and builders that we need to do better, that we’re all in this together. We need a resilient city.” Houston has recovered reasonably well in the short term, said the Houston native, “but many people are still suffering.” A new way of operating may be needed, he added, “if we want to continue to attract talented people and businesses to the city.”

(Not So) Equal Opportunity Disaster

Houston has a long history of flooding from tropical storms. Hurricanes in the 1920s and 1930s caused catastrophic floods that killed thousands. Tropical Storm Allison triggered mass flooding and caused 20 Texas deaths in 2001. Harvey came on the heels of the Memorial Day Flood of 2015 and the Tax Day Flood of April 2016. But Harvey was exponentially bigger, causing flooding in about one-third of the Houston metro region, including highways, waste-water treatment plants, and City Hall in downtown Houston. Half of the homes and businesses that were flooded by Harvey had not flooded previously, while many others flooded for the third time in three years. Harvey caused 68 deaths and $125 billion in damages in Texas, according to the National Hurricane Center’s official report, which noted that it was the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in U.S. history, both in scope and peak rainfall amounts, since reliable rainfall records began in the 1880s. In the Houston area, Harvey damaged an estimated 300,000 housing units and displaced more than 1 million people, forcing some 42,000 of them to seek emergency shelter. The storm left 200 million cubic yards of debris.

With climate change, rising ocean temperatures have fueled more frequent and more intense storms and higher sea levels, increasing the risk of flooding. Harvey could have caused an even greater catastrophe. A storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico could have destroyed oil refineries and sent toxic floodwaters up the Houston Ship Channel to the Houston region. That threat remains, and many say Houston cannot rely on past data to predict future storms.

Harvey slammed the region’s economy and quality of life. Before the storm—spurred by jobs in oil and gas, tech, healthcare, and other industries, as well as relatively cheap and plentiful housing—Houston was considered an affordable region. Its median July 2017 home price of $230,000 compared to a national median of $293,400, according to Redfin. Housing supply declined and costs jumped in the months following Harvey as residents competed to resettle in neighborhoods that weren’t flooded. Roughly 80 percent of Harris County homeowners lacked flood insurance; many weren’t located in areas designated as flood-prone. Prospects for renovating or rebuilding damaged homes, and the availability and cost of flood insurance, remain uncertain. Recipients of post-Harvey federal disaster assistance will have to purchase flood insurance, the New York Times reported.

While homes in the region’s high-, middle-, and low-income neighborhoods alike were affected, many regional leaders note the impacts on middle- and lower-income households have been much greater, considering these households have fewer resources to rebound from flood damages, lost wages, lost jobs, and the lost fabric of community. National media reported on problems faced by renters in poorer neighborhoods near petrochemical plants and other industrial areas, including high levels of toxins in the floodwater and air, and lack of resources for storm preparedness, response, and recovery. Many renters could not pay for proper home clean-up or find alternative housing.

As of early December, the budget-strapped Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), facing clean-ups from multiple climate-related disasters, had promised $160 billion in post-Harvey aid for Houston, in addition to funds for individual recovery assistance and debris pickup. The federal funds are only a fraction of what’s needed to recover and plan for resilience. The Houston Chronicle noted the state legislature won’t reconvene until 2019, but lawmakers will be asked to consider a range of proposals, such as increasing local governments’ ability to bar development in certain areas, changing the operational guidelines of reservoirs, and mandating disclosure of flood risk for new home buyers or renters. Meanwhile, officials in Houston’s Harris County are considering a bond referendum to finance more than $1 billion in flood control projects.

Magnified Flood Risks

Houston is often criticized for its lack of zoning: It’s the only major U.S. city without a zoning code to help determine land-use planning and development rules. While urban planning alone can’t prevent a disaster like Harvey, critics have said that zoning, along with careful land-use planning and stricter development regulations, could have prevented much of the destruction (figure 1).

Planning and Development Director Walsh maintains that zoning would not have made the city less flood-prone. “It’s time that we dispel the myth of zoning,” he said. “If we were a zoned city, we would have been a zoned, flooded city with Harvey. Any zoned city that is flat like ours would have flooded.” He said the city’s “tremendous amount” of development regulation such as setbacks, parking, and landscape requirements, plus a market-driven approach, determine how and where development occurs. “We look a lot like a zoned city. We have commercial development along major thoroughfares and neighborhoods tucked away on smaller streets,” he said.

According to Walsh, other factors contributed to Harvey’s impact, including the storm’s extreme rainfall, the region’s clay soils, which don’t absorb water well, its aging and inadequate storm water infrastructure, and a “significant amount of low-density sprawl” in the surrounding county.

Walsh noted that Houston drains from west to east and that intensive growth on the western periphery has increased the volume of runoff flowing through the city. “Altering this growth pattern will be difficult, but we should be considering options like protecting the Katy Prairie,” he said, referring to the shrinking remnant of the vast prairie and wetlands west of Houston.

About 20 miles west of downtown, thousands of homes that flooded for the first time had been developed decades ago inside the “dry” basins of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs. The U.S. Army Corps constructed the basins in the 1940s to control the flow of water along Buffalo Bayou and prevent downtown flooding. Because FEMA maps didn’t place these basins in the 100-year floodplain, mortgage companies did not require flood insurance, and prospective home buyers had not been informed of the risks. Concerned that the reservoirs would fail during Harvey, the Corps allowed a controlled release of water from the dams into the bayou, inundating downstream areas, including downtown.

Unchecked development has heightened flood risks regionwide, according to hydrologists, environmental engineers, and federal officials interviewed in 2016 by the Texas Tribune and ProPublica. At an elevation of about 50 feet above sea level, the region is drained by 22 watersheds in which storm water flows west to east in a network of bayous and drainage channels that empty into the Houston Ship Channel. Once a great expanse of prairie, wetlands, and woods that were better able to absorb rainwater, much of the area is now covered with low-density development.

A city of 2.2 million people, Houston spans 627 square miles. It lies within 1,777-square-mile Harris County, which has nearly 4.6 million residents, according to 2016 U.S. Census estimates. The vast metro region has a population of 6.8 million people and, at 9,000 square miles, is equivalent in size to New Jersey. Since 2000, over 80 percent of Harris County’s nearly 1 million new residents have moved into unincorporated areas, connected by thousands of square miles of paved streets, parking lots, and over 360,000 new buildings, according to the Houston Chronicle. Development has increased storm water runoff, and during Harvey, the record amount of rainfall caused storm water, mixed with toxic chemicals and sewage, to rise to new heights and spread out, inundating areas previously not considered vulnerable to flooding.

“Cities that have a strong planning culture, including general plans and a tool kit of policies they use as part of everyday practice—with disaster plans, natural hazard mitigation plans, and zoning that reflects risk—tend to do better,” said Laurie Johnson, a Bay Area planning consultant who specializes in catastrophe risk modeling, and coauthor of After Great Disasters, published by the Lincoln Institute. Johnson, lead author of a recovery plan for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, said that one of the biggest tests for Houston is whether the city and county can work together effectively.

Resilience Efforts

In October 2017, Harris County officials released a 15-point plan calling for strategies such as a regional flood control organization to coordinate water management across county lines, and tougher regulations on development in flood-prone areas. The plan also proposed buying out all homes that are located in the 100-year floodplain or that have flooded repeatedly, an expansion of an existing county buyout program that could cost billions.

The City of Houston has begun to define its own strategies. “We’re now focusing on recovery and looking at long-term resilience,” said Stephen Costello, a former city council member and an engineer with 40 years of storm water management experience who was appointed the city’s chief resilience officer in 2016 by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Costello said Houston does not have a resiliency plan per se, and that his role is “to open the discussion, and hopefully the regulatory issues.” He organized and led the city’s redevelopment and drainage task force, which issued a report in February addressing rules on detention for redevelopment, placement of fill dirt in floodplains, and protection of the city’s rights of way that obstruct drainage flow.

In September 2017, Mayor Turner appointed former Shell Oil Co. Chairman and President Marvin Odum as Houston’s chief recovery officer. Odum led Shell’s business recovery after Hurricane Katrina. He is charged with expediting disaster recovery and preparing the city for the next record-breaking storm. The resilience and recovery officers report to the mayor, who brings policy recommendations to the 16-member elected city council for a vote.

The city and county collaborate through a storm water management joint task force and with the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), a nonregulatory special district that develops storm water management plans and builds and maintains flood control infrastructure. The county’s five elected officials determine regulations for unincorporated areas. Each of the county’s 34 municipalities has its own criteria for drainage systems, including storm water detention storage. HCFCD, among others, has asked for a “big-picture regional planning effort,” said Rob Lazaro, communications officer. Costello said he doesn’t favor a regional flood mitigation authority. “Rather than creating an overlapping entity, we need intergovernmental agreements.”

Houston is considering building a coastal barrier of dunes and gates to provide storm-surge protection for the region’s vulnerable oil refineries and shipping channel. Construction of the system could cost $10 billion. Harris County has supported the concept, which was also included in a request for FEMA funding.

Development Regulations

David Hightower, executive vice president of Midway Companies, a Houston-based developer, is a member of the city’s redevelopment and drainage task force. He said solutions may “require some out-of-the-box thinking, which is a challenge when you’re dealing with bureaucrats managing over 600 square miles.” Developers would consider “reasonable, equitable, fairly applied” rules, but they object when people blame development such as strip malls for flooding, “when factors like aging and inadequate drainage infrastructure” are really to blame, Hightower asserted.

Hightower, also a member of a Harris County flood mitigation committee, said 2009 county drainage regulations proved effective. The county analyzed where and how Harvey flooded homes in its unincorporated areas, he said, and found that only 467 built after 2009 were flooded.

“It’s the areas that are much older, like Meyerland, developed in the 1960s and located mostly within the city limits, that got hit really hard,” said Hightower. In Meyerland, an upscale enclave of 2,000 homes located west of downtown Houston along Brays Bayou, some homes have flooded three years in a row. Many homeowners say these older homes have flooded because of newer upstream development, and they want buyouts.

Planning consultant Johnson said risk modeling can show scenarios that link development with flooding risk. “You can show if you put a house here, that impervious surface will affect the system in a certain way.” Three years of 500-year storms in Houston “shows that the past is no longer a good indicator of the future,” she said. “What is lacking is a common understanding of the future risk, and that’s the challenge right now with a changing climate. As modelers, we have to add in the range of possibilities, the uncertainty.”

Houston is using climate modeling to predict future flooding impacts, according to Walsh. Post-Harvey, Harris County is requiring that all new buildings on unincorporated land be raised at least 24 inches above the flood plain. The first finished floor of new construction must be at least as high as the 500-year flood level. New houses in the floodplain must be built on piers and cannot use fill dirt to elevate construction. The regulations received wide support from the Greater Houston Builders Association, Houston Real Estate Council, American Council of Engineering Companies of Houston, Houston Apartment Association, and the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

“These regulations apply in 100-year, 500-year, and outside of 500-year floodplains,” said Christof Speiler, vice president and director of planning for Houston’s Huitt-Zollars architecture and urban planning firm and project manager for the Greater Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium. “These are very fundamental changes that have a very real impact on new development.”

The regulations apply only in unincorporated areas of the county, however, and Houston and other municipalities make their own regulations, Speiler noted. It is unlikley that new regulations will stop homes from flooding in older developed areas, however, because “a very large portion of the city is legacy building stock, which preceded any flood regulations at all.”

Walsh agrees that many homes were built in places where they never should have been, such as along the bayous. Four out of five structures in the city’s official floodplain areas were built before stricter regulations were adopted in 1981, he said. “For decades, we have allowed development in the floodplain, but we’ve had to build it higher.” Current city regulations require new or rebuilt homes to be raised one foot above the 100-year FEMA floodplain elevation; as a result, in some neighborhoods, ground-level homes that were flooded by Harvey sit side-by-side with elevated homes that were not.

In January, Mayor Turner proposed new development regulations that would require all new buildings to be raised two feet above the projected flood level, noting that Houston could not call for more state and federal flood and resilience funding “without showing that we are moving urgently at the local level to find solutions for ourselves.”

Floodplain and Detention Mitigation

Detention is Houston’s main method of flood control, but lack of available land limits the city’s ability to build large detention infrastructure that could handle Harvey-like flooding. HCFCD manages about 15,700 acres of storm water reservoirs across a 1.1 million-acre area. In the past year, HCFCD invested over $100 million in capital improvement projects to repair detention basins and widen and deepen channels along the county’s major bayous. The state plans to pay for a third reservoir to better protect areas west of Houston and to avoid the kinds of releases from Addicks and Barker dams that swamped Houston during Harvey. A systemwide upgrade to protect the region fully from a 100-year storm would require an estimated 52,000 additional detention acres, but the cost of acquiring that land exceeds HCFCD’s annual budget several times over.

Mayor Turner in January proposed new detention rules based on the recommendations of the redevelopment and detention task force.Under current measures, only new development is required to manage storm water runoff from rooftops, parking lots, and other impervious surfaces by means of detention. The task force advised closing this loophole, so that a developer intending to build a skyscraper on a parking lot would now have to provide detention to support effective drainage. Another new rule would require those redeveloping lots under 15,000 square feet to pay a fee in lieu of providing detention. Proposed changes also would provide detention credit for low-impact development options like green swales—typically planted, shallow basins designed to absorb and filter runoff.

Much of the city’s detention and drainage infrastructure dates from the 1940s and ’50s. A January 2017 report from Houston’s Storm Water Maintenance Branch said certain areas developed before 1985 were prone to flooding because of “inadequate and undersized infrastructure.” The city spends over $250 million per year on street and drainage infrastructure, and its public works department estimated it would cost $650 million annually to rebuild and maintain decaying storm water infrastructure to reduce flood threats along the city’s bayous, remove properties from the floodplain, replace storm sewer and outfall pipes, regrade ditches, and accomplish other upgrades.

The city faces other big decisions. Harvey flooded 18 of the city’s 39 waste water treatment plants, eight of which were completely inundated, said Costello. Does the city retrofit and design protection for inundated plants, or does it relocate them to other sites? Does it consolidate the waste water treatment system at an estimated cost of $10 billion?

New Mapping Needed

Walsh said the city adopted more stringent floodplain mitigation regulations after FEMA reissued maps for Harris County in 2007. Homes built after 2007 are generally elevated and protected from floods. In neighborhoods that were flooded by Harvey, many homes that were not elevated had their first floor flooded. New maps would help regulate floodplain development and facilitate other resilience efforts, he said.

FEMA maps floodplains and flood levels by modeling how water spills out of creeks, bayous, and ditches during storms and by projecting where and how high the water would rise. In Harris County, a “100-year event” equates to between 12 and 14 inches of rainfall within 24 hours, and a “500-year event” produces between 17 and 20 inches of rainfall within 24 hours. Initial post-Harvey National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates for Houston increased the 100-year-event level to 18 inches of rainfall within a 24-hour period. Data show that Harvey was at least a 500-year event across the county and in some areas rose above a 1,000-year storm level.

Costello noted, however, that remapping might come too late, at too high a cost, and with too little effect. “Even if we were to decide to remap, it would take a couple years for regulations to change,” he said.

Buyouts

A post-Harvey report from Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy, recommended a home buyout and removal program, noting that many homes had flooded three or more times since Tropical Storm Allison.

Although buyouts involve an initial public investment and remove properties from tax rolls, they mitigate flood-risk and reduce the cost of repeated damage to property and infrastructure while bolstering communities’ resilience (Freudenberg et al. 2016).

Since 1985, the HCFCD’s voluntary buyout program has purchased more than 3,000 properties; over 1,060 acres have been restored as natural floodplain. By November 2017, the county had received over 3,000 requests for buyouts related just to Harvey, and in February HCFCD notified the state it would request $180 million for home buyouts. Countywide, over 100,000 homes and other buildings currently sit within 100-year floodplains along 2,500 miles of waterways, said HCFCD.

Advocates say more buyouts would have a host of resiliency benefits: They would relocate people out of harm’s way and eliminate future flood damages and health and safety risks, reduce repetitive subsidized flood insurance payments and federal disaster assistance, and allow for restoration of the floodplain to its natural function for storm water storage and release.

On the other hand, a larger scale buyout program could cost billions and have other downsides. “In a lot of very established subdivisions, people like their homes and schools, and you’d damage the fabric of the community,” said Walsh. “How aggressive should a buyout program be? Do you take the first row of houses backing up from the bayou? Do you take the first three rows? We have limited resources. It’s a difficult policy question.”

Green Infrastructure

A regional planning strategy focused on natural infrastructure like wetlands would provide “shock protection” from climate-related floods and store and slowly release floodwaters, said Forster Ndubisi, professor of landscape architecture and urban planning at Texas A&M, senior fellow with its Hazard Reduction Recovery Center, and contributor to Lincoln Institute’s Nature and Cities. The city and county could provide flood protection and amenities like parks and trails by buying and removing homes in certain neighborhoods and redeveloping bayou riparian zones with detention ponds and native vegetation, he said. “It’s a proactive plan, and it’s so much cheaper” than engineered solutions.

The Houston region has already begun to create detention basins and bayous that double as parks. On the Sims Bayou, HCFCD and the Army Corps built two regional storm water detention basins and planted trees and shrubs along the channel banks. “Sims was the only bayou that didn’t overflow its banks during Harvey,” noted HCFCD’s Lazaro. In a $480 million project with the Corps, HCFCD is building four detention ponds and widening and deepening a 21-mile stretch of the Bray’s Bayou channel, which they will plant with native vegetation. The Houston Parks Board and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, collaborating with HCFCD, are developing the Bayou Greenways 2020 project, a 150-mile greenways trail system that provides drainage, transportation, and recreation along eight bayous. A voter-approved bond referendum is funding $100 million of the $220 million project.

In downtown Houston, a 2.3-mile stretch of Buffalo Bayou Park—part of a $58 million public-private project led by the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the city, and HCFCD—included restoration of the banks with reinforced infrastructure and a riparian landscape, walking trails, boat launches, and picnic areas. During Harvey, when water from the Addicks and Barker dams was released into the bayou, the flood level reached as high as 25 vertical feet, said Scott McCready, senior project designer and principal of SWA Group in Houston. The deluge left 8-foot piles of sand, but compared to engineered bayou channels, he said, the park worked as intended, detaining and slowly releasing floodwaters.

Houston region officials may also use golf courses as storm water detention basins. The metro area has more than 200 golf courses, which are generally easier and cheaper to redevelop for flood control purposes than areas with construction. Clear Lake City, a master-planned community 23 miles southeast of downtown Houston, had a history of flooding, and in 2011 the city’s water authority acquired a former golf course for detention purposes. A nonprofit organization is now developing a detention and open-space park, Exploration Green, with contoured basins, wetland preserves, and miles of trails that can survive flooding. It passed its first trial during Harvey by saving 150 homes from flooding. When completed, it will manage up to one-half-billion gallons of storm water and protect up to 3,000 homes, according to the Texas Tribune.

Focus and Accelerate

“There is a larger conversation that needs to happen,” said Speiler. “What is resiliency for the region?” He said many local efforts “seem to be the right things, but we just haven’t done enough of them.” Some changes may be required to retrofit infrastructure for older developed sections of Houston and protect natural habitat upstream. But generally, he said, “it isn’t so much that we need to change, but rather that we need to focus and accelerate what we’re doing.”

Many say Houston is not likely to enact a zoning code as a resilience measure, nor is a prohibition or even a moratorium on development in floodplains likely. But Walsh said Houston is taking a more thoughtful approach. He said city and county officials are considering a resilience plan and making decisions with resilience in mind. City council, for example, is looking more carefully at infrastructure and development-related decisions they used to approve routinely. “They’ve shown they’re concerned about development in flood-prone areas,” he said, “even something like a MUD [municipal utility district].”

Ultimately, Walsh said, Houston’s long-term concern is “keeping the focus on resiliency—that’s the political challenge when the skies are blue.”

Kathleen McCormick, principal of Fountainhead Communications in Boulder, Colorado, writes frequently about healthy, sustainable, and resilient communities.

Photograph: Maribel Amador/SWA

References

Blake, Eric S. and David A. Zelinsky. 2017. “National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Harvey.” (AL092017). August 17–September 1. National Hurricane Center.

City of Houston. 2018. “Final Report Redevelopment and Drainage Task Force.” February 6. http://www.houstontx.gov/council/g/Final-Report-Redev-Drainage.pdf.

Freudenberg, Robert, Ellis Calvin, Laura Tolkoff, and Dare Brawley. 2016. Buy-In for Buyouts: The Case for Managed Retreat from Flood Zones. Policy Focus Report. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

Ndubisi, Forster. 2016. “Adaptation and Regeneration: A Pathway to New Urban Places.” In Nature and Cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning, ed. Frederick R. Steiner, George F. Thompson, and Armando Carbonell, 191–211. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.