UBRI partnered with faculty and students at the School of Architecture and Planning to support the Niagara County Department of Emergency Services on a Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP). The plan is now available at niagara.mitigateny.org

FEMA requires counties to update HMPs every five years for local jurisdictions to be eligible for federal hazard mitigation funding. The New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES) is leveraging Mitigate NY—a new online tool to develop county HMPs. Mitigate NY provides an interactive platform that can assist local stakeholders implementing hazard mitigation efforts to better protect the community from hazards. Niagara County is among the first few counties in NYS to use this platform for its HMP update.

UBRI worked with Niagara County to enhance the hazard mitigation planning process by using the Mitigate NY platform and other online tools. UBRI is documenting lessons learned from this process to provide guidance to other counties who will use Mitigate NY to update their HMPs in the future. The process involved a community survey, public meetings, project oversight from a Mitigation Advisory Committee, and a series of in-depth discussions with local officials from each municipality in Niagara County.

Public comments on the draft HMP were submitted through an online form. The public comment period closed on July 9, 2022. The plan is currently under review by the State and FEMA and will then be adopted by all local municipalities.