The Response

Already, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach (as well as other local municipalities and the city’s Realtor association) are making efforts to curb future flooding.

Miami Beach – Every area of Miami, and South Florida as a whole, faces the threat of rising sea levels, but Miami Beach is Miami’s vanguard to the Atlantic. If the city sinks, it will be after Miami Beach has already gone under. And it’s because of the area’s precarious position that the City of Miami Beach has been among the most vocal and active local proponents of proactive construction and systems, including a major, $300 million project to install 60 underground pumps that will suck water off the streets and return it to Biscayne Bay.

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has been a champion of the project, as well as other current and forthcoming efforts to better prepare the city for the inevitable.

“We have a team that’s going to get it done, that’s going to protect this city,” he told the New Yorker. “We can’t let investor confidence, resident confidence, confidence in our economy start to fall away.”

However, while the efforts Miami Beach has made are well documented, many liken the city’s pump project to an expensive band-aid, including Wanless, who called the plan money down the drain. John Morales, the chief meteorologist at NBC’s South Florida affiliate, challenged the long-term viability of Levine’s plan during a local panel discussion titled “Eyes on the Rise.” He argued that the pumps themselves will eventually be swallowed by the sea.

Levine’s response called for faith in future human innovation; he used the sudden emergence of smartphones as an example for how quickly and unexpectedly technology can progress.

We reached out to Levine’s office directly to ask about Miami Beach’s ultimate strategy, and the mayor responded with an optimism similar to what he showed at the panel.

“Miami Beach is leading the way in showing the world that through smart planning and significant investment in infrastructure, we are creating the most resilient city in America for generations to come,” he said.

Levine pointed to the area’s high real estate sales prices per square foot as evidence of the market’s strength, and likened “doubters” of the city’s resilience to the “defeatists” of the World War II era.

Miami – The City of Miami has been similarly proactive in its approach to rising sea levels.

“With arguably the most exposed population and assets of anywhere in the world, the City of Miami is committed to addressing and increasing its resilience to sea level rise,” the City said in a statement to Miami Agent.

One of the major steps taken by the City in 2015 – specifically the City Commission – was the unanimous decision to establish the City of Miami Sea Level Rise Committee, which was charged with several missions, including establishing frameworks for sustainable communities and assisting in water supply protection and emissions reduction. Real estate is such a significant focus of the group that the Commission’s roster is required to have at least one voting member “possessing expertise in real estate development.”

“Moreover, the Committee has identified examining the effects of sea level rise on the property insurance and re-insurance sectors as one of its earliest and most critical priorities, especially as this unprecedented urban renewal continues in the City,” the statement included.

Over the long-term, the City hopes to forge more collaborative relationships with other local governments and organizations to develop more “regional solutions.”

Miami Association of Realtors – In regards to the sea level rise report issued by CBRE, the report’s author, Eddins, said plainly: “The real estate community can’t depend on public infrastructure to protect asset values.” The association agrees with Eddins.

“This year we sponsored a table at the Miami-Dade League of Cities Best Practices Conference to discuss and promote CRS (flood mitigation) to elected officials,” said MIAMI Senior Vice President of Communications Lynda Fernandez when asked whether the association was working with local governments to help strategize for rising sea levels. “In October, we interviewed several Miami Beach Commission candidates and flooding and sea level rise were certainly hot topics.”

Fernandez added that MIAMI has also hosted events for members specifically focused on sea level rise, where members are able to discuss the issue with experts from both the University of Miami and Miami-Dade County’s Sea Level Rise Task Force.