I think it is beyond time that FEMA implements a ban on fill and bill in the 100 year floodplain, to include pluvial and fluvial floodplains as well as coastal floodplains.
It is beyond any doubt that fill dirt reduces the carrying capacity of floodplains. It provides minimal protection to the home built on the fill but actively makes existing homes more flood prone.
FEMA should ban fill and bill, which is effectively a ban on slab on grade construction, in the 100 year floodplain.
Overall development in the 100 year floodplain should be strictly limited and any residences built should be built on a raised crawlspace foundation. Effectively, the ground floor of the home is lifted well above the maximum flood stage and only the crawlspace itself is subject to flooding.
Mass builders won’t like it, but it is irresponsible to authorize new construction that only exacerbates existing flooding issues. A limited amount of raised crawlspace will have a minimum effect on flooding.
Additionally, the government should continue its policy of buying out at risk homeowners in the 100 year floodplain.
This policy will also tremendously reduce FEMA’s disaster payouts, as well as normal insurance payouts.
Charleston, South Carolina just banned fill and build in the 100 year floodplain of their own accord. Other jurisdictions are considering doing the same thing.
Off the floodplain, builders would still be able to do as they like.
On the floodplain, they will have to show some more consideration, both for the people already living there and the people that will live in the new homes.
If you must build on a floodplain, elevated crawlspace is just about as common sense a choice as you could make.
Add to that the fact that slab on grade is generally faster and cheaper to build than crawl space and you have a recipe for disaster.
Crawl space is a bit more time consuming and a bit more expensive, but it automatically raises the ground floor of the house above high flood level, so the extra time and money in construction would pay for itself come the very first flood.
If you go with a four foot crawl space, measured from the top of the mud slab in the crawl space which would be at or just below grade, to the bottom of the beams, you can get a fairly decent elevation on the first floor.
The average flood level varies from 1 to 3 feet depending on area. You want your first floor to be at least one foot above that and preferably more.
With a modern, fully encapsulated crawl space, you can run the bottom of that crawl space below grade to avoid an inconveniently high first floor, if the average flood level does not demand it.
Now in Florida or coastal South Carolina, going down into the ground is not possible, so it might be necessary to compress the crawl space as low as 2 feet to avoid an over height first floor.
But there is clearly plenty of flexibility with the basic crawl space foundation to use it in any situation.
I am watching them build a neighborhood near me in the flood plain of a river here in the Houston area. This flood plane fills every time we get a tropical storm in the area. My neighborhood is about 20 feet above the highest point the water has reached. The neighborhood was built on a hill line/ridge line above and back from the flood plane. The very first thing they did was fill the area to elevate it. God help the folks on the other bank now and down stream.
I live on a barrier island. (NJ’s equivalent of the Outer Banks.)
NO amount f fill and build will ever increase flooding here, and the marshes that it would sometimes destroy are completely unnatural, the result of slowing war flows when 40mile long causeways were built to these islands a century ago.
It sounds to me like ideologically-driven non-scientist bureaucrats at the gov’t,
came up with an idea that sometimes makes sense in some places,
and decided “well if it attacks capitalism then we should force it on everyone everywhere.”
Instead of doing away with fill and build we should do away with the ability of unelected unaccountable bureaucrats to right regulations that are de facto laws.
I think it is a great idea depending on the area lived in.
I had 6’ of water in my house after Ian. FEMA is paying a portion to have homes elevated with some taking advantage of it.
We also have a lot of flooding during storms because the homes displace water that should be absorbed by the ground.
My flood insurance is now $6,200.00 per year. If a home is raised and the extra cost to raise it during new construction is say, 20K and FEMA lowers their rate to say, a 1K premium, it would only take about 4 years to break even and then realize a savings.
While there are “attacks on capitalism”, this is not one of them.
This good policy.
Even in the case of New Jersey’s islands, the new policy would not effect flooding.
BUT.
It would MITIGATE the effects of flooding on new homes, by raising them up on crawl spaces. That represents millions of dollars in savings each flood event, for damage that is NOT incurred.
In turn, that takes pressure off of flood insurance premiums.
People with flood insurance clearly would appreciate that.
The policy would also effect the way new bridges and roads are built and older bridges and roads if they are reconstructed, to provide for less fill in construction and more waterway passage, which would alievate the very situation you describe in New Jersey.
Not at all like that around here.
Not even remotely.
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And that is identical to what happens when never-elected central plannerswith iton tice nowl jobs start making one-size fits all policies (de facto laws) for pkaces they have never been to and know nothing about.
Crawl space is encouraged under the proposed guidelines, particularly elevated crawl space.
It is slab that would be banned.
Now I imagine that slab is not currently a common building method in most of New Jersey due to frost concerns. Typically northern States skew heavily to basement and crawl space.
So New Jersey is not gong to be greatly effected in terms of construction methods, though it might be limited in housing quantities in the 100 year floodplain.
We build houses like this on an overgrown sandbar (we call it an island) 4 miles out to sea.
If we “fill-in” the lot so the garage is a few feet higher we do bot make the Atlantic Ocean rise.
We do not create flooding anywhere else.
We do not destroy fragile wetlands that are filtering out upstream factory pollution.
The de facto laws that are written by ideologically-riven bureaucrats make as much sense as if the King of Nigeria were appointing people to write de facto laws for Alaska.
Ya wanna write de facto laws for us?
Either
a,) Get rid of the iron rice bowl and stand for election so we can unemploy you and leave your family without an income
or (better still)
b.) Write it and then let the residents of each locality vote on it (the whole democracy thing.)
They are functionally no different than the homes built on stilts and pilings
Neither one of these methods make the Atlantic Ocean rise.
Neither one of these methods contributes to flooding someone else’s house.
Still central planners who have lots of politcal fervor and zero knowledge about local conditions often dictate senseless (de facto) laws without the people’s consent. It is as if King George were simply dictating policies for Boston or something.
