San Francisco faces coastal flood risks today, and these risks will increase in the future due to sea level rise and extreme storms, threatening buildings, small businesses, jobs, and critical services such as BART and Muni. To defend San Francisco from current and future flood risk, as well as urgent seismic risk, the Port of San Francisco created the Waterfront Resilience Program to adapt shoreline elevations to address 3 to 7 feet of sea level rise expected by 2100. The Port hired Civic Edge in 2017 to support communications and community engagement for this important effort.
Starting in 2017, Civic Edge led engagement, outreach, and communications for the Port of San Francisco’s Waterfront Resilience Program. Our work started as a broad, citywide educational campaign to raise awareness about the little known Embarcadero Seawall ahead of a $425 million bond measure for safety improvements on the November 2018 ballot. After more than a year of robust outreach including events, education and awareness, and culturally relevant marketing, the bond measure passed with 82 percent voter approval. Our team’s work then expanded to lead a team of sub-consultants to devise and implement a robust outreach and engagement plan for the Program as comprehensive adaptation plans for the Port’s 7.5 miles of waterfront were developed.
Our work included community asset mapping, public awareness campaigns around risks and hazards, innovative engagement strategies to solicit feedback from communities who historically have not participated in long-range planning processes, and communicating complex science concepts, technical data, and planning jargon through approachable messaging and graphics. Most recently we crafted and coordinated all communications and engagement for a key milestone of the program - the release of the Draft Plan for the San Francisco Waterfront.
Target audiences and communities served included all San Franciscans with a focus on waterfront adjacent neighborhoods and communities who have been historically marginalized including the Southeast community of Bayview Hunters Point, monolingual Spanish and Chinese speakers, and youth. Over the 7 years we worked with the Port of San Francisco, our team engaged tens of thousands of people through more than 150 events and 30 community meetings.
The impact of our work is highlighted by the passage of the 2018 Seawall Safety Bond with 82% voter approval, outreach to tens of thousands of community members through over 150 engagement events, two communications awards, and the recent positive public reception to the release of the SF Waterfront Flood Study - Draft Plan in January 2024.