'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
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
The supplemental flood zones were drawn by the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at
County officials pointed out that in some hard-hit areas, particularly in northern Horry, the flood levels far exceeded what was expected.
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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
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
A representative from the state
Horry County participates in
Communities with stronger standards are awarded a CRS rating, which determines how much money homeowners can save on federally-subsidized flood insurance premiums.
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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
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
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
A representative for
Flood victim advocates have also pointed out that there hasn't been any clear guidance from
"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."
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