James comes to us from the planning departments in Portland most recently, and NYC for 12 years prior. In his new role as Director of Strategic Initiatives, James will oversee many projects, including a regional broadband initiative providing leadership in economic development.

James grew up outside of Boston and got a master’s degree at UMass Lowell in urban planning. Says James, “​I'm an omnivore when it comes to my planning practice - I'm interested in every last facet of it, from housing, to transportation, to urban design, as well as environmental planning, and to understanding the causal chain between an idea of what a given parcel of land could be - and what it could solve." James lives in Saco with his partner and five year old son. He enjoys cycling and recently started computer coding as a hobby.

SMPDC has recently allocated funding to expand the GIS assessment of vulnerability to sea level rise and coastal hazards to include Biddeford, Saco and Old Orchard Beach.

This work is an extension of the Economic Resilience Planning for Coastal York County project which concluded earlier this year. The project developed interactive mapping tools to visualize vulnerability to sea level rise and coastal hazards in Kittery, York, Ogunquit, Wells, Kennebunk and Kennebunkport.

By extending the assessment up the coast, we will have the full York County coastline assessed for vulnerability to coastal storm surge flooding, under 1.6ft and 3.0ft sea level rise scenarios.

To learn more about this project, visit our website.

The Climate Ready Coast – Southern Maine project has entered a new and exciting phase of work aimed at drafting recommendations for specific climate resilience projects in ten coastal communities.

The project has collected vast information about coastal hazards, culminating in a Regional Coastal Vulnerability Assessment and associated web-based mapping decision support tool which details hazard exposure and risks to human and ecological assets in the region. The most recent project workshop brought stakeholders from all along the coast to collectively identify priority sites for coastal adaptation.

SMPDC is in the process of selecting a consultant to assist the project team with recommending adaptation strategies and nature-based solutions to address regional vulnerabilities, reduce flood risk, and make those 15 priority sites more resilient to coastal hazards. This phase will result in general and site-specific adaptation strategies and visual renderings of those strategies for each of the 15 priority areas. Identified strategies will form the base of the project’s final work product, a regional coastal resilience plan.

To follow along with project progress, visit the Climate Ready Coast website.