Planning for a Rainy Day: Addressing Natural Hazards in State Land-Use Laws

Abstract

With the passage of the Disaster Mitigation Act (DMA) of 2000, Congress pushed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) one giant leap closer to significant involvement in local land-use policy for mitigating natural hazards. For the first time, the law predicated grants to states and local communities for hazard mitigation projects on the preparation of adequate local hazard mitigation plans. Such plans almost necessarily need to address the ways in which local land-use patterns affect a community's vulnerability to natural disasters.