MASSACHUSETTS ENVIRONMENTAL OFFICIALS are ripping the band-aid off what was once a third rail: They are calling on the state to establish a voluntary buyout program for residential properties at risk of being consumed by rising seas.
The state’s final ResilientCoasts plan, unveiled on Thursday after a draft strategy was released earlier this year, calls for such a program to be stood up within three to five years, once a study currently underway is completed.
Talk of a statewide buyout program has been bubbling up from the shores of coastal communities battered by storms — and bedeviling state and local officials who recognize the economic risks posed by increased flooding resulting from a warming planet but balk at the political and logistical hurdles of roping off sections of shoreline property for human living.
Now, those tradeoffs are set to ramp up as the state pursues the buyouts, a form of managed retreat in which people, buildings, and infrastructure are relocated from hazardous areas.
“There was a lot of enthusiasm for this as an option during our public engagement process,” Deanna Moran, chief coastal resilience officer at the state Office of Coastal Zone Management, said in an interview in Chelsea where the plan was announced. “It really does come down to both community choice and also individual choice. It’s a voluntary program, so the homeowners who want to participate are the ones for which it would be available.”
Other states, like New Jersey, have established buyout programs to keep residents out of harm’s way and allow them to relocate with some free will and with payments resembling the fair market value of their homes — before the seas swallow up what is for many people their largest investment.
Doing so, however, isn’t cheap. Massachusetts will likely need to confront a hefty price tag if it is to help make residents whole who are living on eroding cliffs in Nantucket or in low-lying flood-prone areas in Marshfield or Winthrop, for instance. And forbidding development on certain properties or moving people away from their homes could also disrupt the local tax base.
“That’s one of the things that we’ll be looking at in the study,” Moran said.
Still, all of it may be worth it to avoid the economic consequences of sky-high insurance rates and communities upended as a result of the encroaching ocean.
Every $1 invested in resilience and disaster preparedness can yield up to $13 in cost savings, according to the report, which was prepared by the state’s Office of Coastal Zone Management. And the state could experience over $1 billion in coastal property damage each year by the 2070s, the report found.
“Sitting around doing nothing is going to cost more than taking action,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper.
Massachusetts will now be forced to confront these and other thorny issues.
The plan also calls for the state to adopt flood risk disclosure requirements so that would-be homebuyers and renters are aware of the property’s potential flood risks — something that Gov. Maura Healey proposed in her environmental bond bill but could face resistance from the real estate industry. Massachusetts is one of just 14 states not to require flood disclosures.
The plan establishes 15 coastal resilience districts ranging from Cape Cod to the Boston Harbor Islands to Buzzards Bay and the North Shore, assessing in each the number of structures exposed to flood risk and shoreline type from coastal dunes to salt marshes. Since 2000, Massachusetts has spent $194 million in coastal resilience investments, with the dam and seawall repair and removal program accounting for $66 million in spending.
But no one expects the scope and scale of past investments to come close to matching the need. “New sources of revenue from a variety of stakeholders including local, state and federal governments and private property owners are needed to meet the full scale of the challenge,” the report said.
The plan also proposes a statewide home elevation grant or loan program to assist low-income homeowners, incentivize municipalities to prioritize development in higher-elevation areas, prepare guidance for insurance companies to offer discounts for homeowners that undertake resiliency efforts, and give municipalities the authority to raise more money for coastal projects.
The state’s vision outlined in the new plan is a big lift. So is the harm if sea level rise projections come to pass.
“People always need to eat,” said John Lucero, general manager of the Chelsea-based New England Produce Center, the largest privately owned terminal market in the country. “That’s why it’s so important to protect this area from flooding. The problem is getting worse. An interruption in service would be absolutely devastating to the region, our economy and the health of 9 million people.”