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A recommendation for compromise regarding the proposed 3-0 flood plain freeboard elevation

posted on Thursday, October 24th, 2013 at 4:36 pm

There is little doubt that the impact of immediately imposing a proposed 3-0 freeboard ordinance in Norfolk, Virginia Beach or Portsmouth, will stop homeowners from building additions to their existing homes in flood zones A and V. That is a serious problem for homeowners and their contractors in Hampton Roads.

This issue is teetering on the need for FEMA to reduce the premium it charges for flood insurance that is a mandated for these property owners. The insurance rate could otherwise be increased if FEMA was faced with having to cover the actual market rate risk. That would also be detrimental to homeowners living in homes built on properties in the 100-year flood plain.

FEMA is willing to use its allocated funds (at a financial loss to federal income taxpayers) to supplement the cost of flood insurance where communities make an effort to curtail development and/or improvements to structures on flood plain properties. Communities, including the cities of Hampton Roads, subscribe to the Community Rating System to accomplish this goal. The motives are well-placed. Why wouldn’t Norfolk want its citizens to benefit from lower flood insurance rates?

The problem is that the sudden enactment of a radically new elevation requirement is a bad business decision; bad for the individual homeowners of these properties, bad for builders and architects of residential additions and bad for the city that would lose property tax revenue by denying these projects. In one coastal state there is a directive to the localities that suggests a discretionary approach that allows one foot freeboard approval up to a maximum size for a residential addition. I think this is a saner approach.

The applicant for a residential addition would file an application for approval that demonstrates the project adds less than, say 500 SF, to the property. The same project could continue to be required to abide by the 50% improvements value maximum. This is already in effect in all of our Hampton Roads cities, whereby if the value of the improvements is 50% or more than the appraised value of existing house it would have to be elevated to new the 3-0 freeboard height.

Setting the maximum addition size at 500 SF covers virtually any garage conversion project, transforming an existing garage to living space. The new living space in such a project would have to comply with the one-foot freeboard rule, likely necessitating raising the ceiling and possibly the roof of a garage in order to construct new first floor living space above the concrete slab of the existing garage.

Five hundred square feet would cover a wide variety of lifestyle home improvement projects, such as: an elderly adult moving in with grown children; an enclosed sunroom; kitchen/breakfast rooms; even a modest media or recreation room. The value of such an addition would likely be less than $100,000 and under the 50% added value maximum, at least for waterfront homes.

A high-dollar waterfront home could be severely affected by the proposed 3-0 free board regulation. Imagine a home that is assessed at $ million wants to build a large sunroom on the existing house. The consequence of imposing the 3-0 free board regulation on such a property is to effectively forbid it from ever happening. The whole house would have to be elevated, an impractical idea for a large home, or torn down and construct a new house.

At the other extreme, say a modest home that is in an A or V elevation area wants to covert the existing garage into a bedroom suite for a parent-in-law to move into the home with the adult children and grandchildren. The 3-0 freeboard regulation will deny this project from happening. The aging parent cannot move into the house, the adult children would have to sell the house and move somewhere else. They could not afford to elevate the whole house and/or the house is not aged to the point that it is a tear down. In time that will happen.

I have listened to the arguments in favor of the 3-0 freeboard regulation proposal. My recommendations for allowing residential additions up to 500 SF is a reasonable approach. I remain skeptical of the 3-0 freeboard impact on commercial and multifamily projects. I imagine that enclosed ground floor level occupancy will be no longer be possible.

A small apartment project or condominium or an office will only be allowed to have parking under the building; occupancy could only be on the second floor. It will make such projects more expensive to construct, less desirable to habitate. That will be an added cost for the developer to ponder, in advance of making an investment in a project. Whereas, the individual homeowner has no investment option to postpone, the 3-0 freeboard minimum is either: (1) huge additional remodeling expense, or (2) move on.

Tags: 100-year, BW12, community rating system, elevation, FEMA, flood, freeboard, NFIP, ordinance, plain

Proposed Flood regulations in Hampton Roads will likely prevent residential additions

posted on Monday, October 21st, 2013 at 9:46 am

There was another article (Inside Business October 7-10) about the _adopting of a 3’ flood plain “freeboard” ordinance in our Hampton Roads region. This time it was under discussion in Virginia Beach, at a celebrity panel discussion forum on September 30, 2013. Norfolk City Council is due to vote on the adoption of the same impediment to building and development on November 26, 2013. This issue has serious impacts on local homeowners and developers.

Planners and public servants frequently see themselves as the guardians of public safety and keeping the citizenry in line. A house that was built in accordance with applicable codes and ordinances 10 years ago would henceforth have to elevate an adjoining addition by three feet or more. That makes doors and stairs and windows and the convenience of walking between rooms a secondary consideration to imposition of this ordinance.

The impact of this proposed ordinance gets bigger as the project gets bigger. The cost of construction of a new house will go up significantly on a site in a floodplain designated A or V. (There are federal flood maps to identify which properties this pertains to.) “It’s going to get expensive,” says the residential developer in the IB article, expensive for homeowners and for builders. Figures like $10,000 to $15,000 per residence are in the range of cost increase.

What isn’t reported in the article is that existing properties could be precluded from any new development at all, because there isn’t enough land area to accommodate additional stairs, handicapped ramps, retaining walls, retention features, and back fill. It could amount to a taking of land from the owners, without compensation, making a property no longer buildable.

The public service point of view, searching for some citizen benefit to this proposal, claims that building owner’s flood insurance rates will go down on a designated property. According to the figures provided in the article it looks like an annual homeowner policy of $1,053 would get cheaper by $210.60. A comment by a city planner is quoted to say the extra freeboard development cost can “usually be recovered in a few years” through the insurance savings. If that doesn’t sound unconvincing, there’s more.

It will be virtually impossible to add something as insignificant as a sunroom onto an existing house unless the homeowner raises the entire foundation of the house to three feet higher. Raising the foundation of even a small house could start at a construction cost of $35,000. The potential increased property tax revenue from such an addition on a house will also be foregone.

This home in the Edgewater section of Norfolk has rushed permits this month, to avoid the possible adoption of the 3-0 freeboard regulation that would eliminate the planned addition for a kitchen and family room.

In Norfolk, with the current requisite 1-foot free-board minimum, a homeowner is already not allowed to put a second floor on a one-story house, if the cost of the addition is 50% or more or the value of the house, even though all of the construction is well above the flood plain. Similar regulations are in effect in Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.

The enforcement of a freeboard regulation can get ridiculous. A case in point: where a finished floor elevation was considered in compliance by building up the floor height of an existing apartment building by adding an additional layer of plywood to an existing floor that was ¾” short of meeting the current “one foot” rule. The code enforcement official was silent when asked whose public safety was served by adding a layer of plywood to the floor.

There is a fundamental unfairness about the institution of this regulation. The issue spins on who pays and who benefits. An isolated homeowner pays significantly more for the cost of a new home or an addition to an existing house. Who benefits? Not that homeowner, except for a pittance of savings on its flood insurance premium. The majority of the benefit goes other property owners, collectively enjoying a lower flood insurance rate that they did nothing to deserve. Is this not unconstitutional?

So what does a city get by adopting this three-foot-freeboard regulation? It’s hard to find any logical explanation. Politics defies logic everyday; maybe that is a clue. A municipality would get association with a kind of political correctness like global warming or carbon footprint mitigation. Actually this is exactly what is happening. It is not about public safety. It is all about earning points on the FEMA Community Rating System that was instituted 2012.

As the designer of residences and residential additions I see the adopting of a three-foot freeboard elevation minimum as arbitrary; at best, a case of misplaced good intentions for public safety that is probably never going to be factor in the lives of anyone it imagines protecting. It will adversely affect the opportunity of homeowners and developers to use their property to its best advantage. It will affect the value of property and discourage development. It will also result in diminished property tax revenue for the cities involved.

Tags: addition, elevation, FEMA, flood plans, freeboard