Cohasset Overview
Cohasset is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the South East part of the state. They have a population of 8,392 people and an area of 9.8 square miles. Climate hazards present in Cohasset include inland flooding, coastal flooding, severe winter storms and other severe weather, extreme temperatures, and drought.
Cohasset Core Team
The MVP 2.0 Core team is a group of municipal staff and Community Liaisons who work together to identify local climate resilience priorities and implement a project that supports those priorities.
Cohasset's Community Liaisons includes individuals with expertise in and connections to:
- Housing
- Transit
- St. Anthony Church Food Pantry
- Public health
Cohasset's Core Team includes municipal representation from:
- Regional Public Health Social Worker
- Sustainability & Grants Coordinator
- Town Planner
- Conservation Agency
Cohasset's Community Resilience Priorities
Community resilience priorities are actionable steps that were developed as part of the MVP 2.0 Planning Grant process. They are a result of dedicated community engagement, reflection on the evolving nature of community needs, and input from Environmental Justice and priority populations.
Cohasset, in partnership with their Core Team, identified the following priorities through the MVP 2.0 process.
| Priorities | Potential Actions | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Priority 1: Ecosystem management | 
| Potential Actions: Develop land management guides for existing green space (public and private) within Cohasset with places and emphasis on heat mitigation, stormwater management, and ecosystem services delivered by native pollinators. Have an aggressive tree management plan. | |
| Priority 2: Climate communications and community engagement | 
| Potential Actions: Develop a municipal climate communications and community engagement strategy that reaches the broader Cohasset community while continuing to strategically engage the voices of the priority populations identified through the social resilience roadmap for MVP 2.0. Develop a better positive connection between the local government and the community members. | |
| Priority 3: Food Access | 
| Potential Actions: All members of Cohasset will have food access including those who don’t have adequate transportation and energy burdened families. | |
| Priority 4: Transportation Alternatives | 
| Potential Actions: Transportation alternatives will be available for community members who do not have a car. Increased options for walking and biking with the co-benefit of emissions reductions due to transportation GHG emissions and idling. | |
| Priority 5: Climate Ready Affordable Housing | 
| Potential Actions: Work with the property owners, managers, and residents of affordable housing in Cohasset to prepare for climate impacts on the buildings and on the residents without passing along those costs to low income residents. This can include strategies to support residents safely aging in places like heat pumps which support heat resilience and the public health of these populations. This priority could apply to deeded affordable housing but can also include “missing middle” housing. | |
Cohasset's MVP 2.0 Seed Project: Cohasset Food Justice Pilot Program
Cohasset received funding to implement a Seed Project that addresses one or more of their climate resilience priorities.
Cohasset aims to establish collaborative governance amongst food justice stakeholders including local schools, farms, gardeners and the Cohasset Food Bank.
The activities of this project include:
- Invest in physical infrastructure including signage to create a welcoming storefront for the Cohasset Food Bank.
- Build new relationships and partnerships to establish sustainable collaborative governance.
- Assess policy changes to minimize regulatory barriers.
- Establish pop-up markets in underserved areas.
- Train and collaborate with home gardeners.
Cohasset's Action Grant Projects
The MVP Action Grant provides funding to communities that want to take important steps to prepare for climate change, such as dealing with extreme weather, flooding, rising sea levels, and extreme heat.
Cohasset Social Resilience Coalition & Hub (FY26)
The Town of Cohasset seeks to institutionalize the collaboration of social service providers that has been seeded and supported through the MVP 2.0 pilot program implementation over the past 1.5 years through the formation of a Social Resilience Coalition (the Coalition). If funded, the near-term priority of the Coalition will be to lead a community-based planning process to identify and assess potential sites for a Community Resilience Hub (Resilience Hub). The proposed Resilience Hub would serve as the physical space to co-locate local social service providers in Cohasset, all of whom, we've learned through MVP 2.0, are looking for physical space to meet the needs of priority populations in Cohasset. Through the work of the Coalition and selection of a priority location for a resilience hub, the Town of Cohasset will build climate resilience in a way that materially centers the voices and needs of priority populations who already experience a disproportionate burden from local climate impacts.