Title
Ordinance Creating A Resilient Hampton Grant Fund For the Purpose of Providing Grant Funds To Property Owners Within The City of Hampton for Stormwater Management and Erosion Prevention Pursuant to Code of Virginia Section 15.2-2114.01
Purpose
Background Statement:
One of the implementation recommendations of the Resilient Hampton initiative, adopted by the City Council in 2016, was to address coastal resiliency at the individual-parcel level. The Resilient Hampton interdepartmental team is in the process of creating a new Resilient And Innovative Neighbors ("RAIN") grant program, which will enable the City to provide funding to individual property owners to incentivize small-scale stormwater projects such as: rain barrels, tree plantings, rain gardens, permeable pavements, cisterns, drains, and other stormwater management best management practices to mitigate flooding and improve resilience in neighborhoods.
In 2019, Section 15.2-2114.01 of the Code of Virginia was added by the General Assembly to provide local governments with express authority to disburse grants to owners of individual properties for stormwater management and erosion prevention purposes, with such grant funding to be used for the construction, improvement, and repair of stormwater management facilities and for erosion and sediment control. The Code of Virginia requires the City to create, by ordinance, a specific fund for this purpose. The attached ordinance would create that fund and enable the staff to continue working on RAIN grants, with the goal of disbursing the first individual property grants in calendar year 2020.
Body
WHEREAS, in 2016, the City of Hampton adopted a Phase I Resilient Hampton report entitled, “Living With Water Hampton: A Holistic Approach to Addressing Sea Level Rise and Resiliency,” which identified important high-level goals, guiding principles, and values to lead Hampton towards resiliency;
WHEREAS, in 2018, the City formally recognized this Resilient ...
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