Time to Batten Down the Hatches: How Financial Institutions are Thinking about Investing in Coastal Property

October 2, 2022

Will rising seas dampen coastal property investment?

On this episode, hosts Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham speak with Kevin Augustyn about the changing dynamics of commercial property risk evaluation in a time of sea level rise and climate change. Kevin is the Senior Vice President of Credit Ratings at DBRS Morningstar and recently a co-authored a new report, As Seas Rise, Coastal Commercial Properties Will Need to Batten Down the Hatches, seeking to broadly summarize the growing risks assumed by commercial properties in the coastal zone.

DBRS Morningstar is a credit rating agency and investment research firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. In his role at DBRS Morningstar, Mr. Augustyn covers several esoteric finance instruments and leads Morningstar’s effort to provide credit ratings for CPACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) loans on a national basis. He also serves on the firm’s ESG methodology subcommittee.

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Show Transcription
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Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.