Kelly Leilani Main

Chelsea, MA is an industrial waterfront town near Boston, MA. As a predominantly minority and predominantly industrial city, Chelsea is faced with a host of environmental problems, stemming from years of industrial activity that have polluted the water and the air. Essential transportation networks such as highway 1 and the T line provide access between other metropolitan cities in the area and Boston’s city center, but they cut Chelsea into disparate parts, impacting connectivity and fragmenting the urban fabric. West Chelsea, which also includes parts of the neighboring town of Everett, is located in the area to the West of Highway 1, and bears the brunt of this industrial legacy. A host of scattered industrial elements include the Mystic Power Plant, Distrigas Oil and Gas Storage the New England Produce Center, and other light and medium industrial and commercial functions, all of which share this space with public institutions such as hospitals and schools. These industrial functions all have priority access to the Chelsea Creek and Mystic River fronts, disconnecting residents of the city from one of their most essential assets: the water. But access to this water also has its own risks. This industrial area is the most vulnerable to sea level rise and pluvial flooding, located in the infill of the historic Island’s End Creek. Without proper attention, this area faces serious flooding hazards. But rather than reduce Chelsea’s coastline with a barrier at the entrance to Island End’s Creek, as many resiliency initiatives may suggest, we pose a different question: what if we expand the coastline, and invite the water in? To determine the extent of floodable area, we identified three pieces of critical infrastructure: the New England Produce Center, the T LINE commuter rail, and Everett Avenue. To protect these three critical areas, we propose returning a large-low lying swath of Industrial land to coastal use and creating a multi-functional berm which emphasizes connections between the now protected and floodable sides of the city. Protecting these three pieces of infrastructure results in positive externalities. Over time, the floodable area can be transformed into a coastal wetland, a green space that provides recreational and leisure opportunities for residents and visitors alike. Unlike other berms, we believe this strategy describes a new urban condition we call 'bermanism'. 'Bermanism' is “the utilization of a berm not to protect as much land as possible, but as a strategic marker which differentiates areas of upzoning (increased urban intensity) with areas of downzoning (return to green space and recreational use). As a marker, the berm functions as the primary access point by which floodable areas are connected to those that are protected by its existence. This process of upzoning and downzoning support four critical hingepoints along the berm; creating opportunities for new functions and integrated programming between floodable and protected. Together, these components form a cohesive whole, connected by the berm, where before there were only scattered elements. Together, they create a new form of urbanism which dramatically improves the quality of life in Chelsea.

With Mario Giampieri, Juncheng Yang, and Yue Wu

East Boston, or “Eastie”, is a coastal neighborhood faced with rising sea levels and intensifying development pressure. Despite the current demand for housing, ‘retreat’ from high risk areas will likely happen in East Boston in the future due to climate change impacts. This ‘retreat’ may be ‘managed,’ through targeted public policy, disaster response mechanisms, or planning interventions for strategic abandonment, or ‘unmanaged,’ through economic drivers such as insurance costs that increase housing insecurity and induce displacement of the current community. Taking the need for managed retreat as a viable policy and design option in the face of rising seas, this project developed a toolkit for engaging coastal communities on the topic of managed retreat and uses community input to inform long-term urban design and planning strategies while addressing housing security. The toolkit uses an interactive 3D model, a series of design charrettes, and augmented reality to give community members the opportunity to experiment with the physical and spatial consequences of adaptation strategies. Adaptation scenarios are further developed through engagement workshops that focus on pathways to implementation, as well as the costs and opportunities of such actions. More specifically, the project introduces land pooling, land readjustment, and community land trusts as methods that may allow residents to remain in their communities while adapting to climate change impacts. These methods require consensus building and understanding between residents to build community-wide assets, while retaining individual equity in land, housing and security. The results of the workshop series will be documented and shared as a set of best practices for engaging communities on managed retreat and the viability of the aforementioned strategies in facilitating retreat from vulnerable coastal areas in the United States and beyond.

Sasaki Foundation Community Design Award, 2018-2019

With Collyn Chan, Mario Giampieri, and Kannan Thiruvengadam

Broward County, Florida, is one of the most at-risk counties in the United States from the adverse effects of sea level rise. Thousands of homes are projected to be flooded or at extreme risk of flooding events, and policy makers are searching for good options for their cities and their residents. Unlike some climate adaptation strategies, which promote defensive measures such as hard infrastructure or home elevation, my project begins with the fundamental assumption that some homes will have to be relocated as impacts of sea level rise worsen. To examine relocation suitability, my project asks the question: What parcels in Poblano Beach, Florida would be potential sites for the relocation of multi-family housing currently located in flood zones? To explore this question, I used a weighted overlay to identify potential parcels for relocating multi-family housing in Poblano Beach, Florida, with FEMA flood zone, distance from existing multifamily parcels, and land use as my three raster inputs.

The reconstruction process in Nepal in respone to the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake is characterized by procedural incongruities and bureaucratic hassles which resulted in delays in reconstructions despite NRA’s continuous attempt to streamline the process over time using various guidelines and regulations. There are three broad procedural categories for the process including: (a) information flow; (b) technical supervision and (c) financial flow. However, grievance handling transcends these three categories and, aside from financing, is the primary cause of delay to the overall reconstruction work. Local governments are deeply involved in all three processes, and have become even more so since the devolution of authority granted by the 2015 Nepalese Constitution. While municipalities were part of the reconstruction process before the local elections, their role in the process has started to change since elected representatives first assumed office in the summer of 2017. Now, the municipality is much more involved in the expediting decision making, in redressing grievances, and in providing other concessions to the affected households.

With Niti Foundation, 2018

Developed a spatial methodology for predicting proximity to surface water as part of market research for Burro’s irrigation projects for small-scale farmers in Ghana using QGIS. Wrote tutorials and taught Burro staff on how to use GIS for their own projects. Developed a methodology for improving in-field data collection as part of relational data base management with their sales database.

Comprehensive case study analysis of post-disaster housing provision and reconstruction policies to inform a new housing typology for post-disaster FEMA housing.

With Urban Risk Lab, 2017

Massachusetts has positioned itself as a leader in climate adaptation and mitigation action. However, there is little knowledge about how exactly climate adaptation is occurring at the local level and what barriers municipalities in the state face in implementing adaptation strategies. In response to a 2011 study on barriers to climate adaptation in coastal municipalities in Massachusetts that found ‘leadership’ and ‘values and beliefs’ as the two main barriers to adaptation, this thesis set out to ask: how, given the increase in extreme weather events and the presence of significant political leadership at the state level, have barriers to climate adaptation for coastal municipalities changed? And if the barriers have changed, what are the new barriers? The research draws on sixteen interviews with staff in six municipalities and arrives at the following findings: (i) barriers to adaptation have shifted from the understanding phase to barriers found in the implementation phase, and include the following cross cutting themes: (ii) private property interests are a significant barrier because publicly funded adaptation projects require public easements on all property that benefits from public funding; (iii) the potential of decreasing property tax revenue continues to be a concern for towns that rely on valuable waterfront property as a pillar of their municipal income; (iv) the town meeting process illuminates many concerns about equity in regards to who should pay for adaptation projects; (v) planners are aware of zoning and land use strategies for long-term adaptation, but such projects are still unpopular and unlikely to pass a town meeting vote in the near term; and (vi) uncertainty about significant damage caused by extreme weather events is more challenging to manage than slow-onset changes such as sea level rise or temperature changes. The findings lead one to believe that adaptation planning is not in fact a bureaucratic issue to be overcome with information, charts, and resources, but a much more fundamentally conceptual issue faced by a society grappling with the implications of shifting economic, social, and environmental conditions caused by climate change. By viewing the story of coastal adaptation through the unique challenges of individual towns and the experiences of the people who make these towns function, one finds that layered deep within this tension is the challenge and opportunity of restoring a highly privatized coastline to the commons. (Read full thesis here)

Despite the intention of the 2015 Lebanon Crisis Response Plan for implementing a national agenda, de-facto responsibility for responding to the Syrian refugee crisis has been and continues to rest with municipalities, in part a result of the current climate of (non) governance in Lebanon. However, municipalities often suffer from a lack of clear principles for action, as well as the resources and capacity to implement localized planning and infrastructure projects. These often arise from the challenges of central budgetary allocation, regulatory staffing requirements, and political deadlock. Although there are a few instances of bilateral agreements with the central government and Unions of Municipalities, the government generally adopts a policy of ‘dissociation’, where it tends to focus on blocking “particularly undesirable options” rather than partnering proactively on desired options. The lack of effective planning capacity at the national and local level has simply been exacerbated by an influx of refugees. Many poor Lebanese households also face a lack of adequate shelter, access to water, and basic infrastructure services, meaning that there have been increased reports of host community resentment due to in-kind and cash-based assistance that target refugees alone. To help build capacity for municipal/ humanitarian coordination to address these issues, UN-Habitat has set up Regional Technical Offices (RTOs) at Unions of Municipalities (administrative units that encompass at least two municipalities) that provide data and coordination for development projects in vulnerable areas. These efforts have unified humanitarian and development efforts of a multitude of actors, yet the novelty of this approach makes national implementation difficult.

With Max Budovitch, 2017

MIT Aga Khan Travel Grant

Urban and peri-urban reconstruction efforts, such as those in traditional Newari communities, will continue to pose many unique challenges. Strong consideration should be given to rebuilding communities in ways that maintain their unique cultural heritage but are also structurally sound in preparation for future earthquakes. However, neither heritage nor safety can take precedent over the desires and goals of the community to guide their own reconstruction process and to grow in accordance with their own values. New methodologies and building codes may need to be developed in order to ensure that construction is both safe and culturally appropriate. While many aspects of this agenda are technical, there are significant political, economic, and social factors that will determine whether the reconstruction effort can be considered a success. Lumanti’s community-led reconstruction work is a model approach because it takes many factors beyond the building structures into account. A multi-stakeholder approach, rather than a top-down management and oversight, will contribute to the development of a strong civil society and hopefully support durable solutions for earthquake victims in Nepal for years to come.

With Lumanti, Support Group for Shelter, 2017

HI TECH HISTORIC We envision a highly local, yet definitively global urban intervention that pays homage to the rich history of Nanjing, and imagines how SEU can propel itself into the future. Thus, we find that slowness, the capacity to tune in to the microfiber already existing, and understand the placebased historicity of Silicon Alley, in a manner that weds the analogue and technical, contains the best potential for collaboration. It is our understanding that the rich history, knowledge base, and potential for collaboration, is of critical importance in facilitating the unique sucess of Silicon Alley not only as a virtual destination, but a place of communing, ideating, and most importantly interacting. Creating an app allows us to invite those who live and visit SEU to become better entrenched, rather than isolated from, their surroundings.

With multiple collaborators - Nanjing Silicon Alley Competition, September 2019

A literature review of current climate action and adaptation strategies reveals two shortfalls in terms of preparing cities for the impacts of climate change. First, many climate action recommendations are often provided at single building scales and do not consider large-scale transformation of urban landscapes over longer time periods. Coastal cities have yet to adopt dramatically different land use strategies to cope with increased vulnerability, opting instead for hard infrastructures or mandating home and business owners to be responsible for their own risk mitigation. Secondly, even if city-wide regulations and action plans exist, they are often limited and informed by administrative and political, as opposed to environmental, boundaries that reduce opportunities for a territorial or system-wide response. In response, this research argues that ecological and geomorphological features that contribute to risk should be the primary determinant of land use and development practices in coastal cities, and that these features can help define long-term planning objectives to adapt to sea level rise. Urban Risk Lab at MIT and the University of Toronto have been working with data from Broward County, Florida to explore how environmental data can be used to enable an informed response to addressing risk while still achieving the county’s objectives for economic development and a high quality of life for residents. By examining environmental risk data in conjunction with the land use and planning practices of the cities and counties, URL is proposing a new form of spatial planning driven by “Climate Action Zones.” From the Climate Action Zones, planners and policy makers can set strategic, long-term targets and objectives to minimize risk and encourage development in safer areas.

With MIT Urban Risk Lab & University of Toronto