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Western Connecticut Council of Governments
POCD Climate Provisions

POCD Climate Provisions

POCD Climate Provisions

A suite of planning resources for WestCOG municipalities to plug directly into their POCDs to meet PA 25-33 compliance requirements.

  • Climate Resilience Model Chapter. A template with natural hazard and climate resilience content and placeholders for specific municipal information that can be added to local POCDs to help meet the requirements of PA 25-33. See the Implementation Guidance link below for instructions to integrate this resource into your next POCD update. Also available in word file format, see working documents link below.
  • Implementation Guidance. Instructions and considerations for using the Climate Resilience Model Chapter.
  • Regional Climate and Stormwater Assessment. A regional-scale assessment of climate and stormwater trends and hazard conditions across the 18 WestCOG municipalities.
  • Locally Variable Hazard Differentiation. A community-by-community analysis of climate hazard risks across WestCOG’s 18 municipalities, organized into five risk-based community categories for seven hazard types. These same categories are used in the Climate Resilience Model Chapter to organize example natural hazard impacts and planning considerations for each community type.
  • Planning and Zoning Presentation. A template PowerPoint presentation appropriate for Planning and Zoning Commission meetings that concisely describes PA 25-33 POCD resilience requirements and has placeholders for sharing information about your municipality’s POCD update.
  • Hazard Maps. Maps have been created for each member municipality for input into placeholders within the model chapter to show floodplains, heat vulnerability, wildfire vulnerability, and hurricane storm surge extents (if applicable) within the municipality. (Pending)
  • Technical Data Interpretation and Integration Memo. A guidance document that summarizes the datasets used to develop the Regional Climate and Stormwater Assessment and Locally Variable Hazard Differentiation, sourced from agencies including NOAA, FEMA, CIRCA, UConn, CLEAR, and USDA. The memo also explains how to interpret and appropriately apply data within a municipal planning content. GIS data is available on our Data – Downloads page or by request. Contact Nick Trabka at ntrabka@westcog.org with special GIS Data Requests.
  • Working Data File Package. Includes editable word files of all the above PDFs.

Background

Public Act 25-33, enacted during the 2025 legislative session, introduces new requirements for municipal Plans of Conservation and Development (POCDs) adopted on or after October 1, 2027. The Act substantially expands the scope of POCDs to incorporate climate resilience and vulnerability assessment, reflecting growing legislative emphasis on integrating climate adaptation into local land use policy. It will also require plans to note any inconsistencies with defined growth management principles.

To assist member municipalities, WestCOG will provide the technical analyses and template materials necessary for compliance with the new climate-related provisions, ensuring that each municipality can seamlessly incorporate these requirements into its next POCD update.