Updating the ordinance was "something that is not voluntary on our part," Planning and Development Director Rick Miller told the council during a Nov. 5 study session. "If we want to continue in the National Flood Insurance Program - which is very, very important in the event that we have a catastrophic flood - we have to have this ordinance in place."
Miller said the update basically incorporates language that state and federal programs require cities to put into their ordinances."But we have to have it in place if we want to continue, so there's not a whole lot of debate here unless you just don't want to participate in this flood insurance and put property owners in town at risk of no funding in the event that they have a catastrophic event."
Miller said the new Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps, effective this Tuesday, had arrived at City Hall last month and that city officials would have to study them to determine which residents must be notified about flood possibilities. "These maps are extremely important, because that's what we use to assess whether or not a property is in a plain or affected by a flood plain or not," Miller said. "These maps show floodway boundaries and flood plain boundaries and they have different zones.
"We're required on an annual basis to notify all property owners that are impacted by the flood plain to be sure that they know about the National Flood Insurance Program and that they are receiving flood insurance for their property."
There may be some surprises, Miller said.
"These new maps put people in the flood plain that weren't previously in the flood plain, so we have a job to do here to make sure people know of that, especially down here along the west side of the interstate near the Cox Road drain or the Arizola drain, where there are some properties that are now impacted that were never impacted before in terms of the new maps and the new rules.
"And, there may be properties that are not in the flood plain that were previously in the flood plain."
Miller told the Casa Grande Dispatch that his department would overlay the new maps onto plat maps, determining which properties may now be in the flood zones and which properties that were formerly impacted are no longer in the zones.
The new maps are important, Miller said, because laws prohibit building in a floodway and put restrictions on structures in a floodplain.
"Typically, your finished floor area has to be at an elevation that's at least one foot above the base flood elevation before you get a building permit on the properties. And we require an assessment, we require flood elevation certificates on all these new homes to make sure that they're in compliance with that."
Miller said the city's ordinance is more complete than the Arizona model ordinance.
Mayor Bob Jackson pointed out that flood insurance premiums are based on local ordinances and their effectiveness ratings.
"For every point you can gain, it reduces the premium on a typical homeowner 5 percent," he said. "And so while we have certain provisions within our existing ordinance that are more restrictive, it's to help us get a higher rating and therefore lower the flood insurance premium."
In other words, Miller said, "Our participating in this program is about the cost of insurance."
Residents will be notified of any change in their flood plain status, Miller said.
"But the good news here about this," he added, "is that the majority of the property owners that we're talking about here along the west side of the interstate has joined together to do a conditional letter of map revision. They're actually hiring the engineering firms to assess the current conditions" on the point that the new FEMA maps may be more restrictive than need be.
"This group is actually trying, through a special study, to show FEMA that it's not necessary to designate these areas, and that's hopefully going to happen," Miller said.
"But the burden of proof is on the cities and on the developers to show that these properties are not subject to inundation. And so they're working on that in some of these areas. And other property owners have that same opportunity, paying an engineering fee."
The base maps the city was using before the new FEMA issue this month were from 1987, Miller said, "and there's been all these letters of map revisions that have occurred since then.
"A good example of a map revision that occurred since 1987 was the Casa Grande Lakes subdivision. A significant floodplain went through there, they filled, they encroached, they showed that that encroachment wasn't a flood elevation by a certain amount, and an amendment was made." |
