diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 3a7f833..170bcae 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ ENV POETRY_HOME="/etc/poetry"
 # required for postgres ssl: the crt file doesn't exist
 # but the path must point to a visible directory otherwise we
 # get a permissions error
-ENV PGSSLCERT /tmp/postgresql.crt
+ENV PGSSLCERT=/tmp/postgresql.crt
 
 RUN set -x \
     && addgroup -g 101 -S nginx \
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c87a06e..d3edd70 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ will be served from the linked package, rather than the CDN.
 
 To install the registry locally, you'll need the following:
 
-- PostgreSQL 12+
+- PostgreSQL 16+
 - PostGIS 3
 - Python 3.8+ (3.9 is the build target for the Docker install)
 - Appropriate system dependencies to build the Python dependencies, which may include:
@@ -159,6 +159,12 @@ CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
 \c simplified_registry_test
 CREATE EXTENSION fuzzystrmatch;
 CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
+
+\c simplified_registry_dev postgres
+GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO simplified;
+
+\c simplified_registry_test postgres
+GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO simplified;
 ```
 
 The database configuration is exposed to the application via environment variables.
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 6a7ce54..953152f 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@ services:
       - "80:80"
     environment:
       - SIMPLIFIED_TEST_DATABASE=postgresql://simplified_test:simplified_test@libreg_local_db:5433/simplified_registry_test
+      # AWS RDS Postgres 16+ enables SSL by default so we require ssl here in order to mirror the production environment
+      # as closely as possible for our dev instance.
       - SIMPLIFIED_PRODUCTION_DATABASE=postgresql://simplified:simplified@libreg_local_db:5433/simplified_registry_dev?sslmode=require
       - FLASK_ENV=development
       - AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=TEST
diff --git a/poetry.lock b/poetry.lock
index a398729..b308556 100644
--- a/poetry.lock
+++ b/poetry.lock
@@ -2360,4 +2360,4 @@ pg-binary = []
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "2.0"
 python-versions = ">=3.8,<4"
-content-hash = "e6d1c8bab4c1740b60bbea77949e02c94ddbeb8133ddaeb93969ff18c65b0d83"
+content-hash = "fbe65fbe26d8d9754d6e17f9bdbd77df4cd0a8938d55bc5cde2b1331a3c8bdf4"
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index db7a3d3..4c66565 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -36,7 +36,6 @@ Pillow = "*"
 pycryptodome = "*"
 PyJWT = "*"
 python = ">=3.8,<4"
-pyyaml = ">=6.0.2"
 requests = "2.31.0"
 SQLAlchemy = "^1.4"
 uszipcode = "==1.0.1"
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index eb810b8..219421a 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ docker =
 allowlist_externals = poetry
 
 [docker:db-registry]
-image = postgis/postgis:12-3.1
+image = postgis/postgis:16-3.5
 environment =
     POSTGRES_USER=simplified_test
     POSTGRES_PASSWORD=test