Hoboken Resilience Planning and Engineering

Princeton Hydro provided professional planning and engineering services to the City of Hoboken for post-Sandy disaster resilience planning. Hurricane Sandy’s storm tide had community-wide severe impacts to the City. As a result, the City was the first New Jersey municipality to begin a comprehensive evaluation and adaptation of its policies, including updates to the City’s zoning, stormwater, and flood damage prevention ordinances.

Princeton Hydro conducted planning & engineering in support of an amended stormwater management plan, hazard mitigation and emergency management planning, and a stakeholder engagement process. Deliverables included updates to the city’s zoning, stormwater and flood damage prevention ordinances, as well as a Stormwater Management Plan Amendment. The Amendment contained recommendations for a comprehensive stormwater management ordinance that prioritizes the use of green infrastructure practices for runoff volume retention. Princeton Hydro also produced Resilient Building Design Guidelines, which educated homeowners and developers on how to retrofit existing structures, comply with FEMA Substantial Damage/Substantial Improvement standards, and implement best practices when building new construction in flood-prone areas. The plan and recommendations contributed to Hoboken’s initiative, which is ahead of the mandates to be instituted by the North Hudson Sewerage Authority’s Long Term Control Plan to address combined sewer overflows.

Additionally, the City updated the Recreation and Open Space Inventory to be consistent with the City’s open space advancement and stormwater management implementation in parks. A Resilient Capital Improvement Plan was another outcome of their proactive effort and contains details on projects to prepare the City for future natural hazards. Hazard mitigation and emergency management planning resulted in mitigation project development, an Emergency Operations Plan update and a Continuity of Operations/Government plan. Resiliency measures and philosophies were integrated into the Master Plan elements.

The flagship product of this planning effort is the Resilient Building Design Guidelines, educating homeowners and developers with tangible examples on how to retrofit existing structures, comply with FEMA Substantial Damage/Substantial Improvement standards, and best practices when building new construction in floodprone areas. The Guidelines have instructions on how to reduce future flood losses by using flood resistant materials and flood considerate techniques, all in keeping with the character of Hoboken. The Guidelines are a first of their kind in New Jersey and, as the techniques are implemented, the floodprone areas will be safer and recover more quickly after an event. Click here to read and download the complete 52-page guidelines document.

The City received the New Jersey Association for Floodplain Management’s 2015 Outstanding Floodplain Management Award for these efforts.