We analyzed the extent the regulatory framework of coastal towns in southern Chile put emphasis in generating a governance or governability approach that is flexible and redundant in order to assure community resilience. We used a case study approach, and content and spatial analyses of emergency and planning instruments to obtain semantic networks and community, instrumental and resilience capacity maps. Findings show that the regulatory framework has a more positive than a negative orientation to resilience. However, instruments do not assure flexibility and redundancy due to the lack of binding regulations and of an active community in a disaster scenario. Overall, the study revealed a trend toward a governance over a governability approach, meaning that the resilience capacity of the territory is highly dependent on the capabilities and decisions taken by formal institutions, while the community capacity and expertise to adapt in case of disaster receives lesser attention.