When local governments around Hampton Roads build things like bridges and storm drains, they want them to last well into the future.
Climate change is making that more difficult. Sea level rise and heavier rainfall is dumping more water onto local streets that can quickly overwhelm outdated infrastructure.
“The trouble is that our current standards are based on the past. They are based on historic observations that are now out of date, in some cases by many decades worth of data,” Ben McFarlane, chief resilience officer for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, said at the commission’s board meeting Thursday.
“Making our communities more resilient really requires us to think about what it means to build for the future, not just for yesterday or even for today.”
Regional guidelines approved by the commission’s board this week aim to help local officials with forward-thinking design. The group represents 17 localities in southeastern Virginia.
The “resilient design standards” advise local governments to update their policies to incorporate expected rises in sea level and rainfall, especially for stormwater management.
The board’s resolution isn’t enforceable and doesn’t change anything in code. It’s meant to prompt cities and counties to take their own action on the issue, following the lead of Virginia Beach, which previously adopted its own such standards for public works projects.
The planning commission now recommends that local officials plan for at least 1.5 feet of relative sea level rise by 2050, 3 feet by 2080 and 4.5 feet by 2100, as compared to the average during the last two decades of the 20th century.
The group also says localities should factor in significant increases in the frequency and intensity of rainstorms. Data collected at the Norfolk International Airport shows the amount of annual rainfall has already increased by more than 14% since 1946.
The federal government’s most recent National Climate Assessment released in 2023 noted that warmer waters will make it more likely for hurricanes to stall near the Atlantic coast, dumping heavy rains for a longer period.
Sewage and stormwater infrastructure built to accommodate outdated rainfall projections will be overwhelmed more often, contributing to more pollution and flooding, scientists wrote in the national document.
The Hampton Roads commission has been working on the resilient design standards for more than a year. Some local leaders raised concerns about the standards driving up the cost of development, especially while the region struggles with a housing crisis.
“It underscores a dilemma that we’re all going to have in our cities,” Virginia Beach Mayor Bobby Dyer said during a discussion on the topic late last year. “Finding that balance between growth and development (and updated infrastructure) … is going to be a very difficult challenge for us.”
McFarlane said that while standards will make things more expensive in the short term, spending money preemptively ultimately saves more down the road.
“The costs are going up, whether we pay for it upfront in terms of higher development standards, or we pay for it in terms of increased risk,” he said.
Michael Hipple, a member of James City County’s Board of Supervisors, said at the meeting officials need to adapt and try to minimize additional costs.
“Every inch (of change) is a dollar cost for localities and for our citizens,” he said. “But keep in mind that if it doesn’t flood, you’re saving money. So there’s a balance between the two.”
The document lays out different technical standards based on the location within Hampton Roads, desired lifespan of a project and whether it is considered critical, like a hospital or fire department.
Solutions could include constructing rain gardens or stormwater ponds at the site of a project to capture water, elevating structures and using larger pipe systems.