HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

Syd Kitson, former NFL player and leader of Florida real estate development firm Kitson & Partners, stressed that land-use patterns that support walkability are also an important part of community sustainability.

He noted that Babcock residents can easily walk or bike to parks and shopping and dining destinations.

More than 50 percent of the development, which is still being built out, is dedicated to greenways, parks and lakes.

“While Babcock Ranch is designed uniquely to its location and ecosystem, we’re seeing consumers, counties and builders alike begin to take the progressive steps to adopting a new standard for climate resilience to meet their needs across the globe,” Syd Kitson, former NFL player and leader of Florida real estate development firm Kitson & Partners, said of Babcock’s exportable resilience model.

“From building codes to technology and other innovative adaptations.

Babcock Ranch might have been an early adopter, but the tides are changing, and builders/developers are reacting differently today than they did 10 years ago.

HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

Heather McGowan, manager of Association Archives for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), said being very intentional about master planning for sustainability and resiliency paid off for Babcock, while surrounding communities built to conventional subdivision standards suffered huge losses.

Babcock also proves that resilient design can be attainable for many people.

The median listing price for a resilient Babcock Ranch home is $415,000, while a conventional built home in nearby Fort Myers is listing for a median of $380,000.

“There was little evidence that Babcock had just spent eight hours under a hurricane.

Some newer trees had fallen over, some signs were damaged, and a few roof tiles had been dislodged, but the town was not flooded, native vegetation remained intact, and the electricity and water never went out,” McGown’s NAR report stated.

She encouraged communities to incorporate green building standards and to search for ways of funding part of that cost.

PROUD TO SPEAK ABOUT UNIVERSAL DESIGN AND INCLUSIVE MOBILITY

IN FRONT OF THE NATION’S TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY THOUGHT LEADERS AT THE 2025 JOINT ITE INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL MEETING

I was gratified to speak to the transportation, transit and mobility industry’s leaders – from the private, public, nonprofit and academic sectors – at the ITE International meeting this week in Orlando.

I spoke on: Creating Accessible, Healthy, and Smart Multimodal Communities Through Transportation.

I underscored design fails that make sidewalks, curbramps and crosswalks dangerous or impossible to use by people who use assistive mobility devices.

At the end of my presentation to a full ballroom, I implored those in attendance to get at the root of disability inclusion.

I challenged the nation’s leading mobility designers, builders and regulators to aggressively recruit, hire and retain people with various disabilities.

Without those personal insights, the most brilliant engineers and planners in the world are doomed to creating barriers that strip people with disabilities of independence, dignity and safety.

HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

As the first solar-powered community in the United States, Babcock Ranch uses more than 650,000 solar panels to power homes through underground power lines that are not susceptible to windstorm damage.

On-site water and wastewater utility facilities are elevated above the 100-year flood plain and underground fiber optic lines provide data connectivity during extreme weather events.

Heather McGowan, manager of Association Archives for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), wrote about Babcock’s nature-based resilience in the report “A Case Study on Building Communities with Sustainability and Resiliency at the Forefront.”

Babcock Ranch was successful because it was designed and developed to work with the environment.

“Babcock Ranch was successful because they designed and developed to work with the environment.

They worked with canals, lakes and marshlands to absorb water when it could flood,” she said.

“It’s cool that they never brought in artificial fill.

That was environmentally sensitive and sustainable.”

HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

“We carefully selected a team of homebuilders with a shared commitment to creating an innovative, responsibly developed hometown that exists in harmony with the environment," said Syd Kitson, former NFL player and leader of Florida real estate development firm Kitson & Partners.

Focusing on both resilience and sustainability, all homes in Babcock Ranch are built to minimum of Bronze level Certification by the Florida Green Building Coalition’s Green Home standards, meaning homes are not only more energy efficient, they are also designed to withstand 160-mph wind loads,” said Kitson.

Many things contributed to Babcock Ranch’s resilience. 

When Kitson negotiated for the massive site, it planned to sell 74,000 of its 91,000 acres to the state of Florida.

The sale created the largest conservation buy in state history. 

Stone quarries were tailored to blend with natural water features to create extensive water retaining ponds to handle storm surge.

It is located 30 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico and natural fill built it up to 30 feet above sea level to reduce the risk of flooding.

HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

Florida’s Gulf Coast has been battered by multiple hurricanes. Babcock Ranch, in Charlotte and Lee Counties near Fort Myers, was designed to be a sustainable, environmentally friendly planned community hardened against crushing windstorms and floods.

Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 150 mph, made a direct hit on Babcock’s 5,000 residents in September 2022.

It was the supreme test of a 27-square-mile community with a huge nature preserve, nature-based stormwater controls, buried electrical lines and solar electricity.

By the time Ian left Southwest Florida, 149 lives were lost and $112 billion in property damage was done.

Babcock Ranch, surrounded by disaster, was virtually unscathed.

HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

An Urban Land Institute report notes that the single-family rental and build-to-rent sectors are among the fastest growing segments of residential real estate.

They accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic and show continuing signs of growth and demand.

Resilient buildings are more valuable buildings.

“This will be a big driver of real estate. Resilient buildings are more valuable buildings,” Augie Williams-Eynon, a manager with Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate, said.

“Resilient homes make securing financing easier; they attract a high-quality tenant and when a disaster strikes, they reduce losses.”