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Five California Coastal Communities Commit to Resilience Accelerator
Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) launches the California Coastal Accelerator, a new two-year program to drive coastal leadership and resilience project implementation in five cities across the state.
Inaugural cohort members will be supported by a new $1.1M grant from Alumbra Innovations Foundation, and leverages $3.5M in additional funding from Builders Vision, the California State Coastal Conservancy, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and the City of Oceanside. RCC continues their work with Santa Barbara and Oceanside to advance their coastal resilience goals, and this new program adds three new coastal communities.
“The City of Santa Barbara’s adaptation efforts would not be successful without regional and state partnerships and we are excited to share ideas, working together to plan for the future of California’s shoreline.”
Through participation in the initiative, each of the five coastal communities will receive membership into the cohort network, catalytic grant funding, and targeted technical assistance to advance local priorities. The California Coastal Accelerator is designed to unlock additional resources, including grants and partnerships, to advance projects.
“The City of Oceanside has partnered with RCC to find the best solution to our coastal challenges, and by joining the Coastal Accelerator, we can continue to build momentum, secure the resources needed to get RE:BEACH implemented, and learn from and provide insight to other coastal cities grappling with similar challenges.”
The California Coastal Accelerator supports leaders doing visionary work to advance resilience in their communities. These five coastal communities were chosen for their unique roles in their municipality, as well as their capacity and readiness to implement projects. Representing diverse regions across the state, the five coastal communities in the inaugural cohort for the California Coastal Accelerator are:
Alameda
Fort Bragg
Oceanside
Santa Barbara
Santa Cruz
“The City of Alameda is excited to join the California Coastal Accelerator, and we look forward to sharing our experiences and learning from peer communities that are also facing the existential threat of sea level rise. By working together, we can develop innovative solutions to protect our coastlines and quality of life, while creating best practices that can be used by cities everywhere.”
The Cohort will train leaders on the cutting edge practices of coastal resilience, advance projects, and build support for their coastal agendas. Through cohort members’ mutual support and collaboration, the Cohort will unearth common barriers to implementation across California coastal communities and highlight necessary policy and process changes to facilitate action.
“We are honored that Fort Bragg has been chosen to join the California Coastal Accelerator. This opportunity allows us to share our voice, challenges, and vision as part of a statewide effort to build a stronger, more resilient California coast. Fort Bragg takes pride in being a leader among coastal communities—leading with creativity and collaboration—and this program gives us the chance to put that spirit into action on a larger stage. ”
The priorities of each coastal community represent different, yet complementary action to push the envelope on building climate resilience in California. Through the Accelerator, strategic seed funding will help projects advance and unlock additional funding resources from within philanthropy and through other state programs.
“The City of Santa Cruz is pleased to join the Resilient Cities Catalyst’s California Coastal Accelerator and appreciates the resources it will bring to our work. We are eager to share our experiences in coastal resilience building as well as learn from the other cities in the cohort.”
About the California Coastal Accelerator Communities
Alameda
The City of Alameda in the San Francisco Bay, consists of Alameda Island, Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island. Their climate challenges are entangled with the larger Bay Area region, requiring significant collaboration to successfully plan for sea level rise adaptation. Since 2021, Alameda has been leading the Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee to identify regional priorities and aligned local actions. They are currently working to advance two priority projects that address local challenges while still aligning with regional priorities. The Estuary Adaptation Project addresses the complex ecosystem of coastal and inland water management and will integrate levees, seawalls, and redevelopment at higher elevations, as well as green and grey detention basins to protect ingress/egress route of the Posey/Webster Tubes and improve Alameda’s northside stormwater drainage for today’s volumes with added capacity as precipitation increases. The Bay Farm Island Adaptation Project seeks to address near-term risks along the northern shoreline as a first step in a long-term adaptation plan for the whole island, and includes a levee to reduce coastal flooding, Bay Trail enhancements, nature-based solutions to reduce erosion and to improve marshes and beach habitat, tide gate and pump station replacements, and storm drain modifications. Alameda is also advancing planning for a priority project along the Alameda Beaches, including a state park, 3-mile swimming beach and bird sanctuary providing critical habitat for protected bird species.
Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg, on Mendocino Coast in Northern California, is known for its historical Noyo Harbor and significant fishing industry that has faced decline due to environmental challenges, regulatory changes, and economic pressures. Fort Bragg’s working waterfront remains an integral part of local culture, and they have sought to reinvitalize the community through building a “blue economy” with a focus on infrastructure improvements and community-led actions to support the legacy of fishing in the area. In 2022, the City of Fort Bragg, Noyo Harbor District, Mendocino Community College, Noyo Center for Marine Science, and West Center for Business Development formed the Noyo Ocean Collective to better organize and plan. With support from California Sea Grant and the California Coastal Commission, Fort Bragg developed the Noyo Harbor Blue Economy Visioning, Resiliency and Implementation (BEVRI) Plan, to create a roadmap for coastal resiliency within the harbor – balancing environmental stewardship with economic vitality.
Oceanside
Oceanside’s shoreline is rapidly eroding, a process that has accelerated over the past 10 years. To manage this challenge and respond to public demand for more innovative approaches to coastal resilience building than traditional hard infrastructure, the City of Oceanside partnered with Resilient Cities Catalyst and GHD USA to launch RE:BEACH. They hosted an international design competition to bring ideas from experts across the world to Oceanside’s residents in order to identify a community-driven, viable pilot project for coastal resilience and sand retention. The winning project, the Living Speedbumps, designed by Australian design firm ICM,, includes an artificial reef and headlands, combined with sand nourishment, that will aim to stabilize sand retention and slow down nearshore erosive forces. RE:BEACH pilot has since received support from California’s Coastal Commission to fund monitoring associated long-term planning and management, and was selected as a representative regional pilot project by San Diego Association of Regional Government (SANDAG) to be explored through the Regional Beach Sand Project (RBSP III).
Santa Barbara
The City of Santa Barbara’s extensive public Waterfront, working Harbor, beautiful beaches, creek corridors, and proximity to Los Padres National Forest makes the region beloved for its recreational opportunities and natural resources. What makes Santa Barbara beautiful, though, also makes it highly vulnerable to flooding, wildfires, and wave impacts. The City has experienced several years of back to back years of flooding downtown, erosion of its harbor infrastructure, and storm surge on its Waterfront. The City has created an Adaptation and Resilience Division whose mission is to prepare the community for the impacts of climate change, providing a multifaceted approach to hazard reduction by proactively adapting City infrastructure, monitoring coastal changes, reducing flood and erosion hazards while restoring habitats, increasing building resilience standards, and providing resources the community. In February, to better address future climate challenges and collaborate with local actors, Santa Barbara began developing a 30-Year Waterfront Adaptation Plan. This effort will create a roadmap to responding to increased storm surges, erosion, and flooding and provide solutions that preserve and enhance recreation, commerce, beach access, habitat, and critical infrastructure for the near-term and future generations.
Santa Cruz
Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay on the Central Coast, Santa Cruz is a popular tourist destination due to its beaches, surf culture, and historic landmarks, like the Santa Cruz Wharf and Boardwalk. In 2019, Santa Cruz began developing an innovative adaptation pathways approach to coastal management . The working adaptation pathways decision-making framework uses triggers and thresholds to indicate when investments should be made to address coastal hazards overcoming the timing uncertainties associated with climate change, particularly sea-level rise. This flexible strategy involves selecting a portfolio of initial adaptation actions, monitoring key indicators, and then transitioning to new strategies as specific thresholds for risk are met, allowing the City to help balance long-term environmental protection with the need to safeguard existing infrastructure and community needs. By deploying a more dynamic process, Santa Cruz can avoid locking into expensive, long-term solutions prematurely or too late and continue to advance climate resilience in the face of deep uncertainty.
The California Coastal Accelerator is part of RCC’s suite of statewide efforts under the California Resilience Partnership, which has, over the last 5 years, sought to enhance resilience practice in the state and advance policy for climate action. Through CRP, RCC has years of deep engagement with Oceanside and Goleta/Santa Barbara through the RE:BEACH Design Competition and Pilot, and the Goleta Slough Coastal Resilience Project Acceleration effort, supported by the State Coastal Conservancy, and looks forward to continuing the support of these coastal communities and expanding impact by working across the state. The California Coastal Accelerator was organized in partnership with Farallon Strategies.
