On April 22– 23, the Building Climate Resiliency through Urban Plans and Designs (BCRUPD) Project held a two-day workshop on Module 3, the final module on climate-resilient urban plans and designs, for 51 technical staff from national partners HLURB, DILG, NEDA, HUDCC, CCC, and LCP. These agencies also participated in two other national trainings held separately in November 2018, tackling the first training modules of BCRUPD.

Module 3 guided participants in translating policy, development controls, building guidelines, and related regulation into climate-responsive urban design, as well as in using tools and instruments for implementation of climate resilient urban design projects.

Participants were then divided into groups and tasked with assessing a city map of Tagum, one of the partner cities, as a city case, identifying key problem areas considering current and projected climate impacts, and mapping out proposed climate policy and urban design solutions.

Comprised of planners and trainers with monitoring and policy development functions, participants successfully applied forward-thinking, climate-responsive concepts from earlier technical inputs. One of these concepts was the shift from static to dynamic zoning, letting climate change thresholds trigger changes in requirements and development controls in specific areas. They also used development controls as enablers instead of constraints, optimizing them to promote development in line with—not in spite of—climate change and arrest negative impacts. Outputs were presented in plenary, with feedback enriched by the diversity and plurality of perspectives given the different agencies present.

On the second day, a draft outline of a national supplemental guide for climate-resilient urban planning and design was presented for participants, grouped per agency, to review and flesh out.

While HLURB and DILG have mainstreamed climate change and risk reduction into their training guides for city-level spatial and multisectoral planning and strategies, there was an emergent need for more detailed guidance on developing specific urban plans and designs that would facilitate local climate change adaptation and resilience-building. It is for this purpose that a national supplemental guide for climate-resilient urban planning and design is being developed by BCRUPD in close and constant collaboration and consultation with national partners.

While the guide can act as a standalone reference, it will be integrated into the current modules that HLURB and DILG use to train cities on land use planning and multisectoral development planning, respectively, with content customized where needed based on the agencies’ mandates and priorities.

Following the training, finalization of all three modules is underway for handover to national partners and the national supplemental guide will be launched when the project culminates.

Documentation reports of the national coaches’ training held by the BCRUPD Project on climate resiliency and urban planning and design can be accessed in the following links: