AGENDA #2b

MEMORANDUM

TO:	Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager
FROM:	George Small, P.E., Director of Engineering
	Sue Burke, P.E., Stormwater Management Engineer
SUBJECT:	Public Hearing: Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance Text Amendments
DATE:	December 4, 2006

PURPOSE

This Public Hearing has been called to receive comments on proposed amendments to the Town’s Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance.  The ordinance amendments are necessary following the issuance of revised Preliminary Flood Insurance Study and Flood Insurance Rate Maps for Chapel Hill.  These documents and maps are issued by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency and the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

The Town received its final revised maps and study on August 2, 2006.  This started a six-month compliance period during which the Town must adopt the new maps and update its Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance in order to maintain participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.

Attached to this memorandum are the current Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance and the proposed new Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. 

BACKGROUND

North Carolina faces extreme hazards and consequences from hurricanes and flooding.  Since 1989, there have been 14 federally declared disasters in North Carolina.  Damage from Hurricane Floyd alone reached $3.5 billion and destroyed 4,117 uninsured and under-insured homes.  The State’s vulnerability to hurricanes and flooding make it crucial that communities and property owners have accurate, up-to-date information about flood risk. As a result, the State of North Carolina initiated a project in 2000 with the objective of updating floodplain mapping statewide. The Cape Fear River basin (that includes most of the Chapel Hill planning jurisdiction) was included in the first phase of the State project.

Features of this project included:

• Acquisition of high-resolution topographic data used to develop more accurate flood hazard data and floodplain mapping.
• Use of the updated flood hazard data and floodplain mapping to produce seamless Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map (DFIRM) coverage statewide.
• Production of Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps on a countywide basis so that the county and its incorporated municipalities are shown on the same set of maps.
• Production of digital orthophotos that were used as base mapping.
• Conversion of Flood Insurance Rate Maps to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88).
• Implementation of a state-of-the-art, dynamic information technology infrastructure, allowing citizens to view the maps and study data via the Internet.

CURRENT ORDINANCE

The first flood hazard boundary maps for the Town of Chapel Hill were created in 1974.  Preparation of Flood Insurance Rate Maps and enactment of a Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance in 1978 made it possible for the Town of Chapel Hill to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. 

The Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance was revised in 1987 when the floodplain technical standards were moved into the Town’s Development Ordinance and subsequently into the current Land Use Management Ordinance.  The Development Ordinance and the Land Use Management Ordinance attempted to combine floodplain technical standards with the Town’s Resource Conservation District protection requirements.

DISCUSSION

The Town must update its Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance and adopt the revised study and maps in order to maintain its participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.  Without this participation by the Town, citizens would not be able to purchase flood insurance and, consequently, lending institutions could not extend financing for properties located within Special Flood Hazard Areas.

As our regulations and standards become more complex, we are finding that our current arrangement of combining the floodplain technical standards with the development requirements in the Land Use Management Ordinance is often confusing and ineffective.  The issuance of the revised flood insurance study and maps provides an opportunity to restore the floodplain technical standards to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance and to present the applicable floodplain management regulations in a single, cohesive document.

Highlights of the revised ordinance include:

• Designating the Town Manager or his/her designee as the Town’s Floodplain Administrator.
• Establishing the Regulatory Flood Protection Elevation as the Base Flood Elevation plus two feet of freeboard.
• Establishing the reference level at a minimum of two feet above the highest adjacent grade for areas without established Base Flood Elevations.
• Restricting any and all encroachments in floodways, non-encroachment areas, and/or stream setbacks that would result in any flood level increases, unless FEMA approves a Conditional Letter of Map Revision relative to the encroachment.

With the adoption of this ordinance, we anticipate the need to review and identify any redundancies and/or inconsistencies that may exist between the ordinance and the Town’s Land Use Management Ordinance.  Any necessary text amendments to the Land Use Management Ordinance will be drafted and presented to the Council for its consideration at a later date.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We recommend that the Council accept comments from citizens at this meeting and recess the Public Hearing until January 8, 2007.  Citizens may submit written comments until December 15, 2006.  Staff will prepare responses to all comments received, and will present those to the Council at its January 8, 2007, meeting along with the recommended Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance for adoption.

ATTACHMENTS

1. New Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance (p. 4).
2. Current Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance (p. 22).