LELAND — One Cape Fear town is looking to be more responsive to the calls for more sustainable development that have been a constant fixture of planning conversations in the region.
READ MORE: Spooked by more flooding in Stoney Creek, Leland council broaches development ordinances
In the wake of damage imposed by recent storms in the state, the Leland Town Council is reviewing options to increase development requirements, mainly residential structures, in special flood hazard areas. Specifically, it asked staff to present more information on prohibiting home-building in floodplains.
The town has around 200 homes that reside in a AE flood zone, which FEMA designates as high flood risk with a 1% annual chance of flooding — in other words, a 100-year flood zone. Those properties also have a 26% chance of flooding over 30 years.
“Leland has been the leader in so many aspects of development throughout this region that this is an opportunity for us to grab a hold of that and say, ‘We’re not going to let that happen here,’ and hope that maybe everyone else follows suit,” council member Bill McHugh said at an agenda review meeting on Nov. 18.
The town recently partnered with the North Carolina Wildlife Commission on a green network master plan and has prioritized green building in its Leland 2045 plan, which guides development within the town.
Though possibly at the forefront, Leland is not alone in its examination of floodplain regulations, with Brunswick County commissioners opting to examine expanding its buffer requirements and creating a stormwater utility this week.
Areas of Brunswick and New Hanover counties received upward of 20 inches of rain in 24 hours from an unnamed September storm, now considered a 1,000-year storm event. A week later,Tropical Storm Helene’s devastation in western North Carolina demonstrates the vulnerability even of inland areas.
During the September storm, the Leland neighborhood Stoney Creek had residents in it stranded as floodwaters rose to window height on some homes. Approximately 27 residents and several pets were rescued by Leland and New Hanover County fire and rescue teams, and at least 19 homes sustained damage. This same neighborhood was heavily impacted by Hurricane Florence in 2018 as well.
Council showed proclivity toward one potential flooding ordinance change presented by Planning and Inspections Director Ben Andrea — prohibiting new residences in flood hazard areas. Council member Veronica Carter said she would like to see staff bring back more information on the feasibility of this option, to which her fellow council members concurred.
“If we take residential out of this completely, we’ve essentially solved the public safety issue without completely trampling on those issues that we’re going to run into,” McHugh said, referring to the probability of upsetting people over the limitation of their property rights.
Carter also wanted to explore ways to bring roads into higher compliance, essentially requiring town roads reach a certain elevation as homes are required to do. FEMA does not implement any flooding standards for roadways.
“It’s almost like we’re putting people in a position where we can’t get them out,” Carter said.
Andrea said he would like to see council focus on regulations for structures, as town staff are already considering grant options for resilient road strategies. He pointed out there is already precedent for these types of regulations in North Carolina.
The City of Raleigh enacted new regulations coinciding with FEMA’s release of updated floodplain maps in July 2022; it prohibits building new structures in the floodplain, requires new roads to provide dry access during a major rainstorm, and affirms vacant lots are impacted by floodplain regulations. The rules do not apply to properties already developed and parcels under half an acre.
After Leland Mayor Brenda Bozeman expressed concern about the legality of enacting some floodplain regulations, Carter pointed to leaders in Raleigh as appearing to have done their due diligence. She added her concern was with continuing under current norms, allowing more property damage, which comes at higher costs to government agencies and citizens whose insurance rates will be affected.
“We need to be legal and we need to be smart, and those two things are important, but so is not bankrupting ourselves because we’re worried about necessarily getting sued in the future,” Carter said. “Maybe there are things worth — I hate to say this — going to court over.”
The state and federal government set minimum standards for floodplain management, but the General Assembly gives explicit authority to local governments to impose stricter guidelines, even allowing them to differ from the State Building Code for floodplain management purposes.
The minimum guidelines are:
- Comply with the National Flood Insurance Program requirements
- Prohibit certain new uses such as landfills and chemical storage
- Ensure certain facilities mitigate potential flood damage
Leland’s current floodplain guidelines apply to properties in an A special flood hazard area, as determined by FEMA. It has a freeboard requirement — the distance between base flood elevation and where the town stipulates developers may build from — of 2 feet.
There are no density limitations, and developers are allowed to fill — essentially with material space between the properties’ elevation and the town’s required building elevation — in order to build a structure and potentially remove the property from its floodplain classification.
Any changes would apply only to new construction. Current structures could be considered “nonconforming” with the new code, but would only be required to update their property if disaster struck; the land code requires nonconforming structures 50% or more damage to rebuild, according to the most recent code requirements, as new structures do.
One the town’s less onerous options to mitigate flooding would be to tweak the current ordinance. It could expand the floodplain classifications to include more properties, though this could result in more fill of properties to meet the requirement.
There’s an option to increase the freeboard requirement from 2 to 4 feet (Andrea told council expansion beyond 4 feet wouldn’t yield much benefit). It’s also an option to prohibit the use of fill, which would reduce alteration of the floodplain and impact to adjacent properties.
Both of these options include potentially higher construction costs and do not limit actual construction, and thus property damage or public safety implications. Though, they have the potential of reducing insurance rates, increasing the threshold to withstand major flooding, and mitigating flooding onto adjacent properties.
Carter liked another option: limiting density in hazard areas, which could result in less alteration of the floodplain and fewer people to evacuate from these areas in emergencies. It also could concentrate density in other areas of the town and result in more infrastructure serving less people, essentially the getting less bang for your infrastructure buck.
Research shows that limiting impervious surface — material that doesn’t allow water to enter, such as concrete — rather than density can be more effective at flooding mitigation. For example, 3,000 square feet of building, whether one single-family home or several multi-family units, still presents 3,000 of impervious surface and thus runoff.
Though Carter wanted to direct council to explore the density limitation option as well, Andrea suggested it would be wise to pick that option or prohibiting new development, as it would not be necessary to enact both.
Town staff said they would return to council in February for more data on implementing ordinance changes, particularly implementing a prohibition on new floodplain homes.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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