New maps to move hundreds of Boerne structures into floodplain
About 250 more Boerne businesses and homes will be moved into the 100-year floodplain when new federal guidelines are adopted sometime early in 2024.
Boerne City Council Sept. 26 heard a report on the expansion of the floodplain, as more and more impervious surface – concrete, asphalt, brick, and rooftops – spreads through the city and Hill Country.
Jeffrey Carroll, the city of Boerne’s engineering and mobility director, told of recommendations the council can expect to see including a requirement that new additions to structures within flood zones have a finished floor a minimum of 2 feet above the base flood elevation.
Carroll said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is reviewing, and is expected to adopt, new flood maps drawn by the San Antonio River Authority.
The San Antonio River Basin, under SARA management, covers 4,180 square miles and extends from Kerr and Medina counties in the Hill Country southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico.
“We were initially told they would be approved by the end of this year. We’re now being told it’ll probably be the beginning of next year,” Carroll said. “But we know the floodplain is going to get changed.”
The city passed floodplain ordinances in February 2020. In July 2021 those floodplain ordinances were incorporated into the city’s Unified Development Code.
FEMA floodplain maps -- commonly referred to as “the 100-year floodplain” -- for Boerne were first created in 1976, with updates in 1978, 1979, 1983 and, most recently, 2010.
Under that 2010 map, the city has 344 residential structures, 133 commercial structures and 36 vacant lots in the 100-year floodplain.
“When the new San Antonio River Authority maps are officially adopted by FEMA, we’re going to have 585 residential structures in the floodplain, 153 commercial structures and 61 vacant lots in the floodplain,” Carroll said.
The 2010 floodplain map contained different flood zones categories throughout the city. Carroll explained that the “floodway” and “flood fringe” are all within the floodplain floodway being the area of high-flow water, while flood fringe is the land on the left and right overbanks.
“That's one of the common errors. When people talk to us, they say, ‘Well, I don’t live in a flood zone.’ Every bit of Boerne is in a flood zone,” he said. “Most of it is Zone X, which is shallow flooding less than 1 foot. Most of what people think of ‘the floodplain’ are Zone A and Zone AE, and that’s the site where water could be.”
Carroll said the new maps are referred to as the “flood insurance rate map” -- an insurance tool “to see if you’re going to get charged a little bit, or a lot for your flood insurance. That’s what these tools were developed for. That was their original purpose, as insurance rate maps.”
FEMA provides a minimum floodplain standard, he said.
“If we want to be enrolled in the flood program where our citizens can have flood insurance, we have to adopt a minimum set of higher standards,” he said. “They actually want cities to go and adopt higher standards.”
Council members voiced concern that the maps not deter homeowners or business owners from improving their structures.
“If someone was to come in and they’ve had this property for 20 years and they want to build, I just want to give them an opportunity to do, it in a safe way,” Councilman Quinten Scott said.
Councilman Joseph Macaluso expressed a similar notion, with a caveat suggested by Carroll – a letter from the landowner professing knowledge of the risks of building in a flood zone.
“I don’t have any problem with someone wanting to build in the flood zone,” Macaluso said, “but I don’t want the city to be liable for permitting that, if there is a loss of property or a loss of life.
“I want to make sure a citizen knows, if you’re going to build on your vacant land in a flood zone and we allow that to happen, you accept the risks on yourself for doing that,” he added.
Carroll said staff would recommend allowing existing structures in the floodplain to construct new additions with limitations: New additions must have a finished floor a minimum of 2 feet above the base flood elevation (BFE), and the landowner will provide a letter acknowledging the risks of building in a floodplain.
Carroll said the two worst storm events in Boerne, flooding incidents in 1978 and 1997, “were both classified as 50-year storm events. So according to FEMA, in modern times we have not had a 100-year flood event.”
Carroll said in the past 24 years there have been six deaths in Kendall County due to flooding issues, two of those in Boerne. Figures show 20 injuries and $12.4 million in property damage from 81 reported incidents in those 24 years.
Macaluso said a trip to the coast, where new homes are built on stilts 20 feet above land, underscores the need to take the flooding threat seriously.
“If you want to go into a flood zone and tear a property down and build a new place, that’s great,” Macaluso said. “But it’s going to have to be two feet above. And that’s the way it’s going to be because that’s the FEMA rules.
“I want to try to find a way to work with the people in the downtown area to help them,” he added. “I don’t want to see people have to raise structures, that’s very onerous. But an addition could be raised, if it meets all the other criteria.”
Carroll anticipates going before the Planning and Zoning Commission in November with the floodplain recommendations before coming back to council.
Comment
Comments