- The Liquidity Crisis, Investor Sentiment, and REIT Returns and Volatility, Daniel Huerta, Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management, Forthcoming.
- Counting Casualties in Communities Hit Hardest by the Foreclosure Crisis, Matthew J. Rossman, Utah Law Review (2016 Forthcoming).
- Climate Change and Long-Run Discount Rates: Evidence from Real Estate, Stefano W. Giglio, Matteo Maggiori, Johannes Stroebel & Andreas Weber, CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP10958 (Paid Access).
- Commercial Bank Failures During the Great Recession: The Real (Estate) Story, Adonis Antoniades, BIS Working Paper No. 530.
Tag Archives: climate change
Floodproofing Communities
NYU’s Furman Center has released a Research Brief, Planning for Resilience: The Challenge of Floodproofing Multifamily Housing. The Brief opens,
As sea levels rise and storms become more frequent and severe due to climate change, many urban areas along the coasts and rivers of the United States are facing a flood-prone future. Especially in the older urban areas along the eastern seaboard, there is a significant stock of multifamily housing that will be increasingly at risk. Much of this housing is out of compliance with federal flood-resistant design and construction standards. Some of these buildings have housing units that are out of compliance because, regardless of their age, they were only recently mapped into the floodplain. And, even buildings that have been in the floodplain for longer may be out of compliance with the rules because their construction predated their jurisdiction’s adoption of the standards. (2)
And it concludes,
As the nation’s floodplains expand, the number and types of housing units at risk of flooding also grows. Multifamily housing makes up a larger share of the at-risk housing in the floodplain than was previously understood, and mitigating the risk to this housing and its residents presents unique challenges that local governments must be prepared to face. While there is no easy answer to how to fund the often costly and disruptive retrofit measures needed in these buildings, there are steps that local governments can take to make it easier for buildings to adapt, such as educating owners about risks, providing them with information about retrofit strategies, and helping them finance improvements. Including strategies like these in a long-term resilience plan will make communities stronger and will ensure that multifamily buildings and their residents are not left behind as flood-prone areas adapt. (10)
There is no doubt that this is right. New York City under both Mayors Bloomberg and De Blasio have taken this issue very seriously, but a lot of work remains to be done. And the odds are that the amount of work will only increase with time as sea levels rise higher and higher. Because many other local governments do not have the resources of NYC, they will get their wake up calls the hard way.
Given the broad effects of climate change, resiliency efforts would ideally be led by the federal government. But I don’t see that happening for a long time, probably after an avoidable tragedy on a large scale spurs Congress to action, notwithstanding its ideological commitments.
Rebuilding After Sandy
My Property Law Colloquium this semester will address topics relating to climate change, resiliency and sustainability with a particular focus on how those issues affect post-Sandy New York City. I co-teach this class (which is also open to graduate students in urban planning and related programs at the Pratt Institute) with Brad Lander. Brad is a NYC Councilmember, but more importantly for this class, he was the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development before being elected to the Council.
I will be blogging about the issues addressed in the class intermittently, particularly since hurricane season is back. I recently discussed NYC’s hurricane preparedness with the Christian Science Monitor in ‘Above Normal’ Hurricane Season Coming. Is New York Ready for Another Sandy?. The likelihood of another Sandy-level event is extremely low in the near term (because of Sandy’s perfect storm conditions: a full moon, high tide and bad luck as to where the storm hit land) but certainly those of us on the East Coast are right to feel wary.
The City and the federal government have been working to address short and long term issues relating to Sandy-like storms and they have issued a number of reports on this issue over the last few months. Most recently, the federal government’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force has issued its Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy (link to full report at bottom of the press release).
I was struck by how many of the Task Force’s recommendations were straight real estate and real estate finance issues, including
- Prioritizing the engagement of vulnerable populations on issues of risk and resilience. [remember how public housing and adult home residents were particularly hard hit by Sandy]
- Helping disaster victims to be able to stay in their homes by allowing homeowners to quickly make emergency repairs. Preventing responsible homeowners from being forced out of their homes due to short term financial hardship while recovering from disaster by creating nationally-consistent mortgage policies. [remember the images of people having to live in the shells of their homes after they were gutted to address mold and other damage]
- Making housing units – both individual and multi-family – more sustainable and resilient through smart recovery steps including elevating above flood risk and increased energy efficiency [remember the images of safe raised homes next to destroyed ground-level homes]. (13-14)
I’ll follow up on these issues over the course of the semester, but for now let’s just hope that those perfect storm conditions don’t reappear for a long time.
