'We need the facts': Flood insurance concerns lead county to hold line on building regs

A controversial proposal to scale back the building regulations in some Horry County flood zones won't move forward until county leaders find out what impact, if any, the change would have on flood insurance rates.

County council members had been scheduled to vote Tuesday night on a policy change that would reduce the height requirements for construction in the recently approved supplemental flood zones. These zones extend beyond the areas outlined in federal flood maps to include land that saw flooding during Hurricane Florence in 2018.

"We need to get FEMA down here to answer these questions for us to where we can fix this ordinance once and for all and quit playing ping pong," Horry County Councilman Al Allen said. "We need the facts. We need to hear from them before we do something else to convolute this issue."

The proposed amendment called for reducing the building height requirement in the supplemental flood zones from 3 feet above the Florence floodwater level to 2 feet. However, the proposal frustrated some flood victim advocates who oppose changing the policy without a data-based justification.

"Horry County Rising would like the council to invite the researchers who designed the supplemental flood zone to present to the council and public that a 2ft freeboard in a 1,000 year flood will be enough protection for Horry residents," said April O'Leary, a flood victim who leads the advocacy group Horry County Rising, in a text message.

The supplemental flood zones were drawn by the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. The county hired the program as a consultant. The zones are considered a safeguard to ensure that new construction remains well above the worst flood level on record. Florence caused at least $40 million in local damage, according to county records.

County officials pointed out that in some hard-hit areas, particularly in northern Horry, the flood levels far exceeded what was expected.

"Polo Farms comes to mind," said David Gilreath, the county's assistant administrator over infrastructure and regulation. "Things that were outside of the flood plain that flooded more than they should have. That was kind of the impetus, I think, for going above and beyond the FEMA proposal."

But the idea of a supplemental flood zone has long faced pushback from some engineers and developers, who consider the policy to be overkill. They maintain that the regulation increases the cost of building homes and makes established neighborhoods look awkward because the houses are built at different elevations from the buildings already there. They also question the wisdom of basing a policy on a storm that was a historical outlier.

Yet the main reason this issue has come up in recent months is because of a decision by an obscure county board.

On Aug. 31, the Horry County Construction Board of Appeals voted to allow a developer to build dozens of homes at levels below the height required by the county's flood ordinance.

This board is made up of construction industry professionals and it was established to hear challenges to the decisions of county building officials. The panel has also considered requests for exceptions to the county flood ordinance.

When the appeals board agreed that builder Great Southern Homes should be able to construct 46 houses along the Waccamaw River at a lower elevation than required by the county's flood ordinance, the move raised red flags for both state officials and environmentalists.

A representative from the state Department of Natural Resources also expressed concerns about what would happen if FEMA found out the county wasn't upholding its own rules.

Horry County participates in FEMA's Community Ratings System (CRS), an incentive program that rewards communities for adopting stronger floodplain management rules than the minimum federal standards.

Communities with stronger standards are awarded a CRS rating, which determines how much money homeowners can save on federally-subsidized flood insurance premiums.

A FEMA bulletin presented during a public meeting last year noted that any variances in the flood zone should be decided "only on a structure-by-structure basis," and should not be reviewed or granted "for multiple lots, phases of subdivisions or entire subdivisions."

The bulletin said when determining if an applicant has a sufficient hardship to justify a variance, an appeals board "must weigh the applicants' hardship against the community-wide flood damage prevention requirements."

According to the bulletin, "inconvenience, aesthetic considerations, physical handicaps, personal preferences, the disapproval of one's neighbors, or homeowners association restrictions do not qualify as exceptional hardships. This applies even if the alternative means of construction are more expensive or complicated than building the structure with a variance, or if they require the property owner to use the parcel differently than originally intended or build the home elsewhere."

Critics have said a developer's profit needs shouldn't justify the appeals board granting a variance.

Before the county passed its new flood ordinance, it had a rating of CRS7, which earned them an estimated savings of $869,426 in annual flood insurance premiums for the county's flood insurance holders, according to a presentation made to the appeals board. The county projected their new ordinance would get them a rating of CRS6 or CRS5, which would have saved policy-holders $1,180,206 or $1.5 million in annual premiums, respectively.

After county staff raised concerns about the appeals board granting the homebuilder a variance, the board sought more information before finalizing its decision. That led to the builder going to court. Then county officials and the builder reached a compromise: if the council lowered the elevation height in the supplemental flood zones from 3 feet to 2 feet, the dispute would end.

"This would pretty much make everybody happy … and not harm us as far as any insurance points within the county," Allen said.

Not every council member, however, supported this idea.

"We raised this to 3 feet to protect people, but now we're just going to throw out protecting people," said councilman Michael Masciarelli, speaking to the council's infrastructure and regulation committee last week. "We'll go ahead and lower it, for what? A builder saves $1,000 a house?"

The appeals board ultimately did finalize its approval of the variance this month, but county council then filed a petition on Friday asking the court to rule that the appeals board erred in granting the variance and acted beyond the scope of its authority.

"The cost of flood insurance for all citizens of Horry County could escalate, and the County could be subject to suspension from the National Flood Insurance Program," the county's filing stated. "The Board's actions could result in a determination by FEMA that the County's ordinances are unenforceable and the community is noncompliant with FEMA requirements."

A representative for Great Southern Homes has said changing the building requirements from 3 feet to 2 feet would not impact residents' access to flood insurance, but some council members insist that they don't want to resolve a lawsuit via policy.

Flood victim advocates have also pointed out that there hasn't been any clear guidance from FEMA about the impact of changing the elevation requirements. That led to Tuesday's decision, which means that the proposed change would go back to the council's infrastructure and regulation committee until council members can get answers to their insurance questions.

"Sometimes we get the cart ahead of the horse," Allen said last week. "It's up to us to come back and fix the problems we have created."