Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness

Climate Resilient Carlisle - Final Report 6/30/25

MVP Core Committee

MVP Core Committee Charge

MVP Core Committee - Appointments


Background Information for the FY24-FY25 Grant-Funded 'Climate Resilient Carlisle' Project (in reverse chronological order):

Circle-Back Meetings!

Staff are coordinating "Circle Back" meetings between Horsley Witten Group (grant-funded consultant) and the boards, committees and commissions working on this effort. Click on the links to view the presentations from the meetings.

Thursday, October 10th: Conservation Commission

  • Another meeting with the Conservation Commission may be scheduled during the winter

Tuesday, November 19th: Housing Trust

Monday, January 6th: Local Emergency Planning Committee (1:00 PM) & Zoning Board of Appeals (7:30PM)

Monday, January 13th: Planning Board (7:00PM)

Tuesday, January 14th: Select Board (7:20PM)

Wednesday, January 15th: Historical Commission (7:00PM) & Board of Health (8:00PM)

Thursday, January 16th: MVP Core Committee (10:00AM)

Thursday, January 16th: Environmental Sustainability Committee (7:15PM)

To see the initial work and policy recommendations, check out the links below from the "Deep Dive" meetings this past spring. Consultant Horsley Witten Group is working to take the feedback from the Forum, Deep Dive meetings, and MVP Core Committee meetings, and distill it into categories of policy recommendations. The MVP Core Committee met in September 2024 to review and discuss the categories of policy ideas: (1) Healthy ecosystems and natural resources; (2) Resilient housing and household resource use; (3) Drought and wildfire resilience; (4) Flood resilience; (5) Resilient power and utilities.

Horsley Witten Group is working to refine the recommendations and organize them into a strategic road map for adoption. Many of the recommendations are integrated and will impact the work or workflow of more than one board or committee. Some of recommendations will be easier to adopt than others - for instance some are changes to regulations, which can be made by an individual board or committee during a standard open public meeting or duly advertised public hearing, but others require a vote of Town Meeting. Some of the recommendations should be adopted earlier than others. Moreover, the Horsley Witten deliverable to the Town of Carlisle will differ for each recommendation - some will take the form of actual recommended red-line changes to existing bylaws and regulations, some will be examples or models that are used in other communities, and some will be broader-level or regional efforts that the Town may wish to pursue in the future.


Spring 2024 - Deep Dive Meetings with Boards, Committees & Commissions


The Town held a Community Forum on Thursday, February 15th. 

Extensive outreach was conducted in the lead up to the Forum, which included a town-wide mailing to all households, posts on the Town's social media accounts, a notice in The Mosquito, a notice in The Buzz, a notice in the Principal's Weekly Email, a presentation to the Council on Aging & Human Services, and Posters displayed around Town and translated into the following languages: Spanish / Simplified Chinese / Hindi

The forum was attended by a small and engaged group of folks, and the discussion covered a wide range of climate resilience priorities.

Here are the presentation slides:

Watch the Forum! Click here.



Winter 2023/2024 - Where are we today?
The MVP Core Committee interviewed consultants in September 2023 and selected Horsley Witten Group to lead the 'Climate Resilient Carlisle' project funded by the grant, starting in January 2024. During the fall, staff gathered and compiled a "wish list" of climate resilience best practices, ideas, and initiatives, etc. to incorporate into local land use policies, regulations, and bylaws. The MVP Core Committee had their first official meeting with Horsley Witten on January 18, 2024.

For a deeper understanding of the project, here are the submitted grant materials:


Fall 2023 - Press Release of Grant Award
Town of Carlisle Awarded $93,740 in MVP Action Grant Funds from the Healey-Driscoll Administration to Build Climate Resilience 

Carlisle, MA  9/11/23 — The Town of Carlisle is thrilled to announce it has received a $93,740 municipal climate resilience grant for technical assistance to incorporate climate resilience best practices into local land use policies, bylaws, and regulations. Awarded by the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program, which is administered by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), these competitive grants support communities in identifying climate hazards, developing strategies to improve resilience, and implementing priority actions to adapt to climate change. The ‘Climate Resilient Carlisle’ project is one of 79 projects to have received action grant funding in the latest round of applications.

Julie Mercier, Town Planner, is hopeful that the process will bring volunteers together around a shared approach to climate adaptation and help establish a framework for other towns to follow in the future. 

Building on the Town of Carlisle’s climate resilience planning process completed in 2021, and on environmental sustainability recommendations in the 2022 Master Plan, these funds will allow Carlisle to review local regulations holistically through a climate resilience lens, and to make smart choices about land use practices going forward. 

Community members interested in getting involved can join by emailing Julie Mercier, Town Planner at jmercier@carlislema.gov.

The MVP program, created in 2017, provides funding for community-driven climate resilience planning and action. Ninety-nine percent, or 349 out of 351 of the Commonwealth’s cities and towns, are participating in the program and over $131.5 million has been awarded for local climate resilience planning and projects. Communities originally enrolled in the program by completing the MVP Planning Grant process (MVP 1.0), which then opened up access to apply for an MVP Action Grant, or implementation funding. EEA has recently launched the MVP 2.0 update to the original MVP planning grant, and after this pilot round intends to require communities to undergo MVP 2.0 to maintain eligibility in applying for MVP Action Grants.


Spring 2023
The FY24 MVP Action Grant Round is open! Grant applications are due May 4th, 2023. 
In February, Town planning staff submitted an Expression of Interest to the MVP Program for technical assistance with incorporating climate resilience best practices into land use policies, regulations and bylaws. Among other benefits, this will help the Town lead by example and be an important team building effort among land use staff and within the community. The Town received favorable feedback on the Expression of Interest from our MVP regional coordinator. Town planning staff - in collaboration with conservation, health, sustainability, and public safety staff - are preparing to submit a full grant application for the project for this funding round. One critical component of the grant application will be demonstrating local support for the project - from boards, committees, and other stakeholders. As a start, on April 10, 2023, the Planning Board voted unanimously to support the grant application. 

Grant awards will be announced in late summer. If we are awarded, staff will work with the MVP Core Team, volunteers, and other stakeholders to initiate the process, find a subject matter consultant, and manage the project from start to finish. 

If you would like to be involved, please email Julie Mercier, Town Planner: jmercier@carlislema.gov

hazard photos

A little background...
In 2017, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts inaugurated the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program to assist municipalities in planning for and implementing strategies to adapt to predicted changes in our warming climate. The predicted changes include both increased flooding from large rain events and a greater likelihood of drought, increased extreme heat days and heat waves, and increased flooding from sea level rise. 

The Town of Carlisle, in continuing its proactive efforts to address climate threats, received a state MVP Planning Grant to conduct a Community Resilience Building (CRB) Workshop. The Town also needed to update its FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan, which was completed in 2012, so this was also included in its MVP Planning Grant. Upon completion of the MVP program, Carlisle will be eligible to apply for MVP Action Grants state grants to address identified climate risks, as well as FEMA hazard mitigation grants to implement projects that reduce the community’s vulnerability to natural hazards. As a companion volume to this Carlisle MVP Report, a Carlisle Hazard Mitigation Plans 2021 Update has been completed and will be submitted to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and FEMA for review and approval. 

The Town of Carlisle partnered with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to complete the MVP program and the Hazard Mitigation Plan. The Town designated an MVP/HMP Core Team, coordinated by Madeleine Blake, Co-Chair of the Carlisle Planning Board (see Core Team members listed in Section 8). The Core Team identified and recruited community stakeholders to participate in the CRB Workshop. Thirty-four people representing Carlisle Town staff, Town Boards and Commissions, community organizations, and regional partners participated in a virtual CRB workshop via Zoom on March 27, 2021 (see Workshop Participants, page 19). The Workshop’s central objectives were to: • Understand extreme weather and climate related hazards • Identify existing and future strengths and vulnerabilities • Develop and prioritize opportunities to take action to reduce risk and build resilience Materials provided for the CRB Workshop included local and regional data on changes in temperature, precipitation, and drought, as well as future projections to the end of the 21st century. Maps and infographics provided data and mapping specific to Carlisle’s infrastructure, demographics, and natural resources (see Appendix A). The Workshop participants considered Carlisle’s strengths and vulnerabilities, focusing on three categories: infrastructure, society, and the environment. Working in four small group and then together as a large group, the workshop participants identified, and prioritized actions designed to increase Carlisle’s resilience to future extreme weather events. 

Carlisle MVP Report 2021

Carlisle Hazard Mitigation Report 2021