Article Courtesy of The Palm Beach Post
By Kimberly Miller
Published July 10, 2018
From the frothy assault of the Atlantic Ocean to the
placid trespass of the Lake Worth Lagoon, sea level rise is a mounting
concern for South Florida property buyers who are turning to science, and
private companies, for guidance.
The 3-year-old startup Coastal Risk Consultants was co-founded by the former
director of Florida Atlantic University 's Center for Environmental Studies,
and has amassed an advisory board of respected atmosphere experts from the
University of Miami , Pennsylvania State University and Florida
International University .
Jupiter , a Silicon Valley firm launched this year by entrepreneur Rich
Sorkin to analyze the effects of climate change on individual properties,
includes a Nobel Prize winner, a former leader at the National Science
Foundation, and Todd Stern, the chief negotiator for the U.S. on the 2015
Paris Climate Agreement.
The companies see a market in sea level rise consultation, but also other
climate change-related challenges that traditional property inspectors and
building codes don't consider — hurricane storm surge, flooding rains and
extreme temperature changes.
When seas could rise 10 inches by 2030 and up to 26 inches by 2060 above
1992 levels, the basis of inquiries is often whether buying a beach house
will be an asset or liability to future generations.
"I just think as a practical matter, this is something people should do,"
said homebuyer Kevin Kennedy, who ordered four reports from Coastal Risk
Consulting on Palm Beach County properties along the Intracoastal and on the
ocean. "The results discouraged me from purchasing two of them."
Kennedy said he was surprised to learn the Intracoastal homes were more
vulnerable to sea level rise than a condominium he liked on the ocean.
"My instinct was absolutely wrong," he said. "I started looking at
properties on the ocean and I and got the same report done. Believe it or
not, the prognosis was dramatically better."
He bought the oceanfront condo.
Coastal Risk Consultants, which raised $2 million to develop software to
evaluate individual parcels for flooding, is on the cusp of profitability,
said President Albert Slap.
The Plantation-based firm has counseled myriad interests from individual
home buyers to well-heeled island developers and entire towns. Property
fixes can be as simple as self-inflating barriers available at home
improvement stores to pricey permanent blockades against rising tides.
"Something like raising your crawl space vents could buy you another 15
years," said Brian McNoldy, a senior research assistant at the University of
Miami's Rosenstiel School of Atmospheric Science, who is an unpaid advisor
to Coastal Risk Consultants. "They try to give clients an idea of possible
fixes, high-priority items, and recognize people don't have an endless
supply of money."
Although some have more wherewithal than others. The solution for one
coastal homeowner was an elevated, curved sea wall hidden in landscaping
that she insisted not obstruct the view from her infinity-edge pool.
"There's no one size fits all," Slap said. "What one home needs may be very
different than what the house right next door needs."
Home buyers trying to do their own research can find it confusing. FEMA
flood maps are based on historical data and don't consider sea level rise.
Online tools from federal and private groups can paint a wide swath, but not
combine multiple event models for individual properties.
Fine tuning the details to focus on single parcels will be one of the
nascent industry's challenges, said Jayantha Obeysekera, director of Florida
International University's Sea Level Solutions Center.
"I think it's a viable business, but the key is to get to the scale needed
to give residents the right assistance," Obeysekera said. "To do that, they
need some fairly sophisticated tools."
On June 18, the Union for Concerned Scientists released a sea level rise
report targeting properties that could see increased tidal flooding under
the worse-case scenario presented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
What it found was 2,400 Palm Beach County homes could face a month's worth
of tidal flooding each year by 2045. That balloons to 60,026 properties
worth a staggering $36.2 billion in today's dollars by 2100.
Statewide, about 64,000 homes are at risk of chronic flooding by 2045. The
report defines chronic flooding as an average of 26 flood events or more per
year, even in the absence of major storms.
By 2100, that report says 1 million Florida homes will be at risk. That's
about 10 percent of the state's current residential properties and 40
percent of the homes at risk nationally.
Florida Climatologist David Zierden emphasizes the report is the most dire
forecast, seven times higher than the global rate of sea level rise of 3 mm
per year.
Still, the Southeast Florida Regional Compact on Climate Change says South
Florida's sea level rise could be faster than the global rate because of
changes in the Gulf Stream current.
The compact is projecting 6 to 10 inches of sea level rise by 2030 and 14 to
26 inches by 2060 (above the 1992 mean sea level).
In the long term, the compact projects 31 to 61 inches of sea level rise by
2100, and cautions that long-term construction projects with lifespans of 50
or more years should be built based on the upper curve of predictions.
"We just think the prudent thing to do is build to higher elevations," said
Cody Crowell, managing director for the Palm Beach-based Frisbie Group,
which is a client of Coastal Risk Consulting. "Some of the buildings we
spend a lot of time, money and energy working on, we hope will be around for
the next 100 years."
But building to a higher elevation means taller buildings, which doesn't
always sit well with neighbors or planning boards.
South Florida cities have spent tens of millions of dollars in planning and
construction efforts to keep the sea at bay.
Miami Beach 's ambitious plan to raise roads, install pumps and redo water
mains gained international attention for its bullish approach to combat
flooding tides. But just last month, a community slated for the next
elevated road project had the plan sacked.
Some neighbors told Miami Beach commissioners they didn't need the
modification and were concerned about whether water from a higher road would
flood their homes.
"We're seeing very, very different approaches from just ignoring it and
thinking maybe it will go away to some places that are being very proactive
wanting to confront it," said David Titley, a meteorology professor at
Pennsylvania State University and an unpaid advisor for Coastal. "We have
big challenges as a nation, but they can be addressed."
Coastal Risk Consultants charges $199 for a basic assessment of a
single-family home. A commercial building costs $499. From that initial
report, clients can choose to go more in depth for higher fees.
This week, Coastal Senior Staff Scientist Hilary Stevens visited the former
Charleys Crab restaurant on Palm Beach that was bought in April by the
Frisbie Group. Crowell said the company wants to put five homes on the
oceanfront land and is working with Coastal on a detailed review.
"The demand is so powerful to be on the water," Stevens said looking out to
an Atlantic the color of jade and turquoise. "But this is a classic
situation where when this area was designed it was not built to handle what
we are likely to see 30, 40, 50 years from now."
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