South Portland Progress
CLIMATE RESILIENCE
4 IN ACTION
11 IN PROGRESS
3 Not started
(Updated Dec 2025)
Integrate resilience standards and targets into Portland and South Portland’s land use code to minimize flood risk and promote resilient buildings and neighborhoods citywide.
Status: In Progress
Update: Developed a climate resilience overlay and zoning standards for approval by City Council in 2026. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestones: No new incompatible, vulnerable, or hazardous uses built in areas of highest flood risk by 2026 (with adoption of resilience overlays)
Build knowledge, tools, and resources on climate risks and adaptation options for buildings and property.
Status: In Action
Update: Completed a dynamic flood inundation model for South Portland; Coastal Resilience project highlights assets at risk under different scenarios and potential approaches for building coastal resilience; modeling and community input integrated into Comp Plan update; regularly convene a staff team to develop an integrated plan for resilience measures across City departments. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestones: All city residents have access to tools to assess future flood risk to property by 2026; Maine real estate flood risk disclosure required by 2026
Establish open space climate resilience goals and protocols for monitoring process towards those goals in Portland and South Portland’s open space planning.
Status: In Progress
Update: Adopted and revising an ordinance (Ch. 2) for open space protection; adopted park and open space zoning districts that reflect current and future land use intentions; updated Open Space Acquisition Fund; ongoing acquisitions of open space parcels. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestones: Benchmark ecosystem and resilience metrics for open spaces and establish performance goals by 2028
Continue to expand access to resilient and energy efficient affordable housing, contributing to diverse and inclusive communities.
Status: In Action
Update: Planning completed a Housing Needs Assessment to document existing conditions, identify market and other forces that affect supply and demand, and identify gaps in maintaining equitable access to housing; Council adopted goals; Planning overhauled ADU requirements, expanded density bonuses, streamlined 4-units to go through CEO only, and wrote a Housing Trust Fund manual. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Establish affordable housing goal through comprehensive plan or standalone process*
*South Portland-specific milestone
Expand the “cooling capacity” of Portland and South Portland.
Status: In Progress
Update: Council adopted Tree Protection ordinance in 2023; developing a Tree Plan and Canopy Assessment in 2026/27. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: All residents live within a half mile of a cooling center by 2035; all residents live within a half mile of a park or open space by 2035
Cultivate healthy, regenerative, and just food systems.
Status: In Progress
Update: Community garden established at Redbank in 2023; Parks is updated the community garden at Hinkley Park in 2024 to add a food forest. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Establish small grants for food system innovators by 2025; secure funding to commission foodshed assessment by 2028; expand access to community agriculture to all neighborhoods to meet demand
Continue to prioritize decision-making processes and transit investments that advance equity in our cities.
Status: In Progress
Update: South Portland is part of GPCOG’s “Bus Ambassadors” program, which aims to help people, especially new Mainers, navigate using transit. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Address first round of proposals made by Community Transportation Leaders by 2026
Support and strengthen our existing community resources.
Status: In Progress
Update: Developed an Equity Atlas with social vulnerabilities, climate risks, and community assets; exploring neighborhood hub initiatives in 2026. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Award the first round of community organizations or neighborhood groups with resilience grants by 2025
Create an ongoing platform for collaborative planning to ensure that Portland and South Portland’s port and waterfronts can respond, adapt, and thrive with new climate stresses.
Status: In Action
Update: Coastal Resilience project will aim to engage port entities; Waterfront Alliance continues to convene people around these topics. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Grant funding and partnerships secured for resilient working waterfronts project by 2026
Attract, mentor, and build the skills of our cities’ workers to partake in quality jobs that help build a diverse, resilient, and regenerative economy.
Status: Not Started
Update: None (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Targets set through the collaboration for net increases in individuals trained in specific sustainability and resilience fields
Build the capacity of the businesses and industries in our cities to bounce back, adapt, and innovate.
Status: In Progress
Update: Economic Development Dept is promoting a harbor restoration project through public-private partnerships; dredge project will address individual piers, including some for South Portland businesses. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Revise land use policies to reduce barriers to traditional and merging marine related industries by 2026
Use modeling and flood data to upgrade the Cities’ stormwater and sewer systems to handle future climate scenarios.
Status: In Progress
Update: WRP continues to build its asset management system: geospatial data for sewer systems is 95% complete, stormwater has manholes and pipe locations, WRP is working on collectiong elevation data; Pearl Street Pump Station upgrade with two CSO separations and upstream gravity pipe upsizing are ongoing, followed by sludge dewatering, collection system upsizing, and sewer lining program; down the road stormwater utility fee is possible; WRP is completing designs to install stream-smart culverts in Trout Brook and seeking funding for construction. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Full geospatial data set completed for sewer and stormwater system by 2024; hydrologic/hydraulic drainage model completed by 2028
Expand the use of green infrastructure systems to capture and infiltrate the first inch of stormwater in any storm.
Status: In Progress
Update: As a requirement of the state’s municipal stormwater permit (MS4), the City is required to develop and implement a “Low Impact Development (LID) Measures” Ordinance. WRP is participating in the development of a regional model ordinance that will require new and redevelopment projects to implement LID strategies consistent with OCF resilience measures; could be incentivized with stormwater utility fee in the future. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: 5% of the cities’ impervious surfaces converted to green infrastructure by 2035; 10% by 2040; and 15% by 2050
Build Portland and South Portland’s energy resilience.
Status: Not Started
Update: None (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Development of Resilient Power Plan by 2026; all new development over 500,000 square feet to evaluate district energy/microgrids starting within one year of microgrid enabling legislation
Adopt a risk-based transportation asset management approach.
Status: In Progress
Update: South Portland is building out a geospatial inventory of transportation assets and add risk assessment to criticality and condition/lifespan measures through development of a Risk-Based Asset Management Tool (RBAMT) together with Portland in 2026/2027. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Climate hazards and resilience indicators applied to all asset management decision-making by 2028
Strengthen ecosystem resilience through enhancing connectivity, biodiversity, and healthy habitat.
Status: In Progress
Update: Parks continues to remove invasive plants at City parks; completed Willard Beach Master Plan in 2023; WRP continues to work closely with the Long Creek Watershed Management District to reduce stormwater pollution; completed Simonton Cove dune restoration in 2024. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Fertilizer ordinance adopted by 2022; No net coastal wetland loss by 2035; establish biodiversity and connectivity targets by 2028
Build back the health of our soils for ecological vitality, water infiltration, and carbon sequestration.
Status: In Action
Update: Adopted a fertilizer ordinance and soil standards for new development; successfully launched and completed a “100 Resilient Yards” program in 2023, continuiting each year through 2026 to support more than 230 participants throughout South Portland. (Updated Dec 2025)
Key Milestone: Post-construction soil health standards adopted for new construction or major renovations by 2025; “100 Resilient Yards” achieved in each city by 2028
