Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency led a webinar on floodplain ordinance updates they will require of governments participating in their flood insurance program on August 13.
In the webinar, John Graves, branch chief for flood plain management and insurance in the northwest region, led the webinar and provided background on the required updates and a more detailed timeline for ordinance updates.
Originally triggered by a 2009 Audubon Society lawsuit, updates to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood insurance plan and its recommended flood plain development ordinances are expected to be finalized by 2026. The updates will follow recommendations laid out in a biological opinion from the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2016 that called for new development in floodplains to meet a “no net loss” standard to the floodplains functionality to preserve habitat for endangered coho salmon.
After the biological opinion was issued in 2016, the process was paused by then-Congressman Peter DeFazio in 2018 for three years, but progress towards the update resumed in 2021.
Following the pause, FEMA officials determined that waiting until the flood insurance plan updates were complete for partner governments to update their ordinances would cause further harm to coho and decided to require those governments to implement interim measures. Partnering governments received a letter in mid-July informing them of the change and laying out three options to comply, as well as a December 1 deadline to inform FEMA of which option they would pursue.
The ordinance update requirement will affect 31 of Oregon’s 36 counties, covering 86% of flood insurance policies in the state, which pay $24 million annually and cover $6 billion in potential losses, according to Graves.
The three options for pre-implementation compliance are prohibiting all new development in the floodplain, adopting a model ordinance provided by FEMA or reviewing development permits in the floodplain on a case-by-case basis.
Graves said that the prohibition would require partnering governments to consult with legal counsel and that the methodology for the permit-by-permit approach was available in the biological opinion’s habitat assessment guidance.
Work is still ongoing to develop the model ordinance, but Graves said that he expected it to be available by August 16. Graves said the ordinance was being based on Oregon’s model floodplain ordinance to ensure compliance with the state’s land use laws and ease the adoption process.
The timeline for the updates was a major subject of discussion at the webinar, with a slide shared by Graves showing both December 1, 2024, and July 31, 2025, as deadlines for implementation.
In response to audience questions, Graves clarified that counties would be required to indicate which of the three options they would pursue by December 1 and, at a minimum, implement permit-by-permit reviews, but that governments choosing to adopt the model ordinance would have until July 31, 2025, to do so.
Graves also said that the extent of mitigation required under the new regime would be determined by a project’s proximity to water as well as to the mitigating efforts.
Two more webinars were scheduled for the week following the first and Graves said that FEMA was asking government partners to take a questionnaire in the next month to inform the content of workshops the agency is planning in the fall.
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