The city's new climate toolkit helps neighbors plan for heat and floods. A bigger resilience plan is due in 2027

Philadelphia's Office of Sustainability has released a free online Community Climate Resilience Toolkit to help residents prepare their blocks for extreme heat, flooding, storms, poor air quality, drought and winter weather (city release, WHYY).

It doesn't come with money or new rules. It gives residents the materials to run their own neighborhood meetings about the hazards they face and where to get help. The toolkit is at tinyurl.com/phlclimatetoolkit, and the city says it requires no prior experience.

What's in it

According to the city:

• Hazard pages for heat, flooding, storms, air quality, drought and cold weather, with local information, emergency resource links, what the city is doing and what residents can do.
• A gathering kit: a step-by-step guide, a slide deck, a participant workbook and a guide for difficult conversations about climate.
• Youth work from the "Change Depends on Youth" art and poetry contest for ages 14 to 21.
• Contacts for partner community groups and city experts when a gathering needs more support.

WHYY reported that the slides show how these hazards are projected to affect Philadelphia in the coming decades, and that the kit includes sample agendas and icebreakers. The city calls the model "train-the-trainer": residents learn to host gatherings themselves.

Who shaped it

More than 400 residents gave feedback, the city says, through 30 workshops run by 18 Climate Resilience Partner organizations, one in each planning district. The design partners were Hinge Collective and Creative Praxis.

"Climate change is having an impact on how intense and how frequently we're experiencing those hazards," Jordan Parés-Kane, a climate resilience specialist with the Office of Sustainability, told WHYY. Desiree Riley of the Mastermind Cooperative, who helped run the workshops, told WHYY that participants asked for more climate education. Chief Resilience Officer Abby Sullivan said in the release that the office's job "was to listen and build something that responds to that."

The bigger plan

The toolkit is a step toward an updated Climate Resilience Plan, expected in 2027. WHYY reported it will assess the city's vulnerability to climate-driven hazards and recommend responses. The update is being prepared with Hinge Collective and ICF, with support from the William Penn Foundation, the city says.

What our records add

Our records don't show a Council bill or resolution tied to the toolkit or the plan update. The toolkit was released by the administration, and the plan will be too. Several items before Council touch the same ground:

• Trees. The heritage tree bill, Bill 260689, which sets rules for removing large trees, is on the Nov. 17 Rules Committee agenda (our story).
• Flooding and sewers. The Water Department's sewer overflow tunnel plan and water bill discounts are covered in our earlier story.
• Environment Committee. Council's Committee on the Environment has a hearing scheduled for Nov. 18 at 1 p.m.. No agenda was posted as of today.

When the resilience plan arrives, any piece that needs new city law or money would come to Council as a bill or in the budget.

What's next

• Residents and groups can download the toolkit now.
• The Climate Resilience Plan update is expected in 2027.
• The city has also announced grants this fall through its Community Resilience and Environmental Justice Fund, listed in the release.