PA-DCED & General Code Team Up
(General Code Decoder, Winter/Spring 2010/2011)
Municipalities across the country are facing a similar challenge regarding the flood zones in their communities. In 2004, Congress ordered a re-evaluation of Flood Maps nationwide. The Flood Maps define those areas that have a 1% potential risk of flooding. The data on the Flood Maps is used to determine the premiums chargeable by the National Flood Insurance Program (a program that enables property owners in participating communities to purchase insurance protection from the government against losses from flooding).
Why this massive undertaking of reviewing and updating the Flood Map data? A primary reason is that most of the maps in effect are more than 20 years old, and have not been adjusted to allow for flood level changes due to development that has taken place over all those years. For instance, the addition of a shopping mall and its accompanying parking lot has the potential of raising levels significantly, making the map for that area essentially obsolete.
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), which manages the National Flood Insurance Program, was tasked with re-mapping floodplain areas throughout United States. Once FEMA completes its work for an area, and the public comment period has expired, the new maps take effect.
Most municipalities are facing significant changes to their Flood Maps, necessitating the review and revision of existing Floodplain Ordinances or the adoption of new ordinances.
Recently General Code was approached by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) to assist with preparing model Floodplain Ordinances for the commonwealth’s municipalities that are affected by FEMA’s remapping of the flood zones.
Teaming with the DCED, General Code has helped to develop four model ordinances that will be sent by the DCED to Pennsylvania municipalities. The type of ordinance a municipality receives will be dependent upon the type of flood hazard in that municipality. It is hoped that providing these model ordinances will alleviate some of the burden on the local governments to comply with the requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program. This compliance will in turn allow citizens to purchase, at lower cost, the flood insurance that is mandated in some instances.
Working with more than 650 local governments in Pennsylvania, General Code was pleased to be able to provide its support and resources to this project.
