Purpose
In this activity, you will work with local and regional partners, municipal and county decision-makers, community organizations, businesses, and others, to implement resilience actions.
Why?
Resilience planning does not end with a published plan or framework. On the contrary, it is just the beginning. Now that you have prioritized actions, developed a timeline for implementation, and put together your implementation team, you are finally ready to take action! You will want to ensure that the implementation of resilience actions is effective, and continues to be effective, for your community. Having an established plan will help set you up for long-term success.
When?
The duration of this activity will vary between communities and depend greatly on the timeframe for the implementation of different strategies. For strategies that are easier to implement, it may only take a few weeks or months, but for longer-term strategies that require more planning and resources, it may take years to implement.
Tips
- Don’t forget about the public. As you carry out the implementation process, be sure to continue to seek public input, involvement, and engagement. Reaching out to individuals who are willing to help spread the message and enhance public awareness on these issues can be helpful to engage the community, especially those who may not typically engage in these processes.
- Effectively communicate your progress. Report back to the community frequently throughout the process as you hit “newsworthy” milestones. It is important to celebrate success as it happens. Make sure people know how they can be involved and help implement the plan. This can be done through education and outreach events and various programs designed to help them make progress in their own homes and businesses.
- Leverage existing work. Consider how to best leverage existing work already happening across your community and consider implementing actions that already likely have support. With small and early “wins” under your belt, you will be able to demonstrate the ability to succeed and the potential for the remainder of resilience strategies; this will, in turn, strengthen community support for your efforts.
How does my community do this?
- Refine the implementation details and indicators of success. Review the draft implementation details and indicators of success identified in Step 4 Activity 2 and work with your implementation team to refine them. The defined criteria and metrics can be similar across all actions or you can choose to define different ones based on the action itself. For example, you will likely evaluate education or outreach action differently than you would an infrastructure project. Success will mean different things to different communities throughout Colorado. Do your best to assign at least one relevant indicator of success for each resilience action. The old adage that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is certainly true for building resilience. Consider utilizing the Action Implementation Template in the workbook.
Note: the CRO has created a list of indicators that Colorado communities can use to create a local baseline, analyze local priorities and goals, and monitor their progress. This approach enables you to select indicators according to local priorities and data availability. For more information, see the indicators. - Establish effective communication pathways within your implementation team. Communication with individuals involved in the implementation process will play a significant role in the success of your resilience strategies. While this depends on the specific strategies you are planning to implement, a variety of information should be communicated to your Council and municipal staff, including (but not limited to):
- Emergency service updates and preparedness plans;
- Changes to by-laws, zoning requirements, and codes;
- New plans or guides; and
- New land-use regulations.
- Identify training that will help streamline the implementation process. The implementation phase requires a diverse array of stakeholders and skills. Training for staff, elected officials, or key stakeholders can help add to both your community’s skill set and knowledge base as well as contribute to successful implementation. Some training topic examples can include new standards or codes of practice; benefits of a given resilience action; new technologies that may be used in new infrastructure or the replacement of existing infrastructure; and rationale behind policy changes or amendments to existing plans.
- Implement resilience actions. It is time to implement actions you already have funding for. As you have already determined the priority short-term actions, you can begin to implement them by reaching out to the people, organizations, or departments responsible for implementing them. This can be done by members of your Implementation Team for more discrete actions, but in some instances, subcommittees may be necessary to address the more complex or long-term actions. You can also organize subcommittees by strategy and may provide more opportunities to hear from invested community members. Implementation mechanisms will vary depending on the type of resilience action or strategy. Implementation is key to many planning efforts, including the pre-disaster recovery planning process [see Step 4, Activity 4].
Community Call out: El Paso Regional Resiliency Framework
A resilience strategy identified in the El Paso Regional Resiliency Framework indicated that the community “Evaluate and revise zoning and building codes and the development review to create a foundation for resilient housing.” The specific action that the community implemented was to “improve existing regional building and maintenance codes and local zoning ordinances to support resiliency and sustainability in the region.” Actions come in a myriad of shapes and forms: from education and outreach programs, to resilient affordable housing projects, to green infrastructure development policies. Actions can be low-cost and volunteer-heavy, or multi-million dollar projects requiring dedicated staff, environmental analyses, and permitting processes.
Great job!
You have completed Step 5.