Atlantic Beach reviews updated coastal vulnerability assessment, marsh baseline and grant funding

Atlantic Beach city planners updated the commission on revisions to the city’s coastal vulnerability assessment and adaptation plan at a June 16 workshop, saying the work will inform where and how the city pursues implementation funding.

Amanda Askew, director of the Neighborhoods Department, told the commission the update uses the city’s existing technical consultants and builds on a 2019 vulnerability assessment and a 2021 adaptation plan. "We are using the same technical consultants, Jones Edmunds," she said, and noted the project is largely grant funded.

Principal planner Abrielle Genest described the technical changes required by the state and the data that drove new maps. Genest said the update uses the state’s required planning horizons (2050 and 2080) and the 2022 intermediate and intermediate‑low NOAA sea‑level rise projections rather than the older intermediate‑high projections used in past work. She said the update also relies on newer 2018 lidar imagery to better capture recent development.

Genest summarized the city’s updated critical‑asset inventory, noting planners identified about 33 lift stations served, 83 major roadways, 16 parks, roughly 38 surface‑water parcels and about 109 wetlands across the municipal boundary and service area. She said the update requires mapping 20 state‑specified flooding scenarios — nuisance (sunny day) flooding, storm surge, tidal and rainfall‑induced flooding — and that staff produced combined maps that closely align with FEMA 100‑year flood modeling for future years.

On funding, Genest said the plan update was "94% grant funded. It was $162,000 and the City contributed $10,000 of that." Staff said the project drew from Community Development Block Grant mitigation funds and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resilient Florida program; completing the assessment and adaptation update, staff said, will make the city eligible for implementation dollars for prioritized projects.

A near‑complete marsh baseline was a central focus. Staff said consultants collected high‑resolution drone imagery and GIS data to establish a baseline of marsh habitats that can be re‑surveyed to detect erosion or gains over time. "The purpose ... is to monitor our marsh over time," Genest said; she told the commission the baseline is about 99% finished, with a few additional sample points requested from consultants.

Commissioners asked whether the work addresses shoreline erosion and which adaptation strategies would actually prevent marsh loss versus mitigate flooding. Staff said the adaptation plan includes multiple strategy types — prevention, elevation (such as raising road segments), stormwater improvements and backflow prevention systems — and that some options (for example bulkheads or living shorelines) will require specific feasibility work and may not be eligible for all grants.

The workshop also included discussion of natural mangrove migration. Staff reported the University of North Florida is monitoring naturally returning mangroves in the area (including Atlantic Beach) and that the university approached the city to monitor mangroves on city property and to share study results.

During public comment, Sarah Boren, speaking as a member of the Environmental and Stormwater Committee (ESC) and an Atlantic Beach resident, presented two ESC recommendations for the commission to consider: that the master stormwater management plan be integrated into the vulnerability assessment and adaptation plan, and that the commission delay removing a 400‑foot on‑site retention trigger in Chapter 24 until the master stormwater plan is complete. "We thought that more robust data will lead to more informed decisions," Boren said.

Staff said the city will hold a public workshop on June 25 for community input and that the commission will consider the updated plans on July 14. No formal commission vote occurred at the June 16 workshop.

Next steps: staff will finalize appendices (including elevation and asset ranking data), present at the June 25 public meeting with the consultants and bring the plans to the commission on July 14 for potential approval.