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FMPC Minutes 02/02/2024 February 2, 2024 MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING Naples, Florida, February 2, 2024 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County Floodplain Management Planning Committee (FMPC) in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9 A.M. in REGULAR SESSION at the Collier County Growth Management Community Development Department, Conference Room #609/610, 2800 N. Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Eric Johnson, County LDC Planning Mgr. Kenneth Bills, public Stan Chrzanowski, public Deborah Curry, county staff(excused) Kelli DeFedericis, City of Marco Island (excused) Robert Dorta, City of Naples Amy Ernst, public Lisa Koehler, public Ned Miller, public Linda Orlich, public Terry Smallwood, Everglades City (excused) Jennifer Schmidt, County Emergency Management (excused) Paul Shea, public Duke Vasey, public ALSO PRESENT: William Lang, Community Planning & Resiliency (staff liaison) William Fowler GIS Team, Growth Management Department Derek Perry, Assistant County Attorney Pawel Brzeski, Project Manager, Public Utilities Division 1 February 2, 2024 Any persons in need of the verbatim record of the meeting may request a copy of the audio recording from the Collier County Growth Management Department. Call to Order- Chairman Chairman Johnson called the meeting to order at 9 a.m. and later conducted roll call.A quorum consisting of nine members was present. Mr. Vasey asked if they could take a moment to recognize that World Wetlands Day and Groundhog Day are today. Chairman Johnson said OK, good to know. Mr. Vasey moved to approve the minutes. Mr. Lang told the committee: • He was previously the co-chair representing Emergency Management and is now the staff liaison. • He's still awaiting guidance from the County Manager's Office about his position and is here today as the staff liaison, so he doesn't have the ability to vote until he gets further guidance. • He believes that under the resolution,the chair and co-chair must be county employees, so he's contacted Emergency Management and made some recommendations about a primary and alternate.Neither are here today. • Jennifer Schmidt is excused, and they'll probably recommend her as co-chair. She's the liaison for LMS and I'm the co-chair, so the roles will be flipped. Chairman Johnson noted that it's a sticky situation because he's (William Lang) serving as the liaison but is technically a committee member. Mr. Lang said that until further notice, he's the liaison and has no voting rights. We have a vacancy and he's waiting for guidance from the County Manager's Office. Chairman Johnson noted that there's a motion on the floor for approval of the minutes. [Roll call was taken.] 1. Approval of Minutes November 7,2024 [A discussion ensued over the minutes after Mr. Vasey objected to a sentence he didn't want included on page 5, "We want to bring ACUNE ... " because he didn't think it fit under what Mr. Lang was saying and shouldn't have been said at that point. He wanted to discuss items he'd like to see in the Vulnerability Assessment.] Mr. Vasey made a motion to amend the minutes. There was no second and it failed. [The committee opted to let Mr. Vasey's objection stand and not amend the minutes so the meeting was accurately reflected.] Mr. Shea made a motion to approve the November 7, 2024, meeting minutes. Second by Mr. Dorta. The motion passed unanimously, 8-1;Mr. Vasey voted nay. 2 February 2, 2024 Ms. Koehler said Mr. Vasey could detail his comments about what he'd like to see in the Vulnerability Assessment later in this meeting. Mr. Vasey noted that they'd never had verbatim minutes,just thoughts, so later in this meeting he will get his thoughts in. 2. CRS Program Status Update Mr. Lang reported that: • This deals with the County's annual CRS recertification. • In the context of the Community Rating System(CRS)program, as a classified community, we have a responsibility to reverify (not recertify), every three years as a Class 5 or lower community. We completed that in 2022. • The next reverification would be in 2025. In between those three-year verification cycles, we have annual certifications. That's what No. 2 on the agenda pertains to. • The annual recertification begins around March 15 every year and ends around May 1, depending on when we get notification from FEMA's auditor,the CRS auditor, ISO. • Most activities have already been reached and are three-quarters completed and then the three-year verification cycle will occur in May 2025. • What that recertification usually entails is Activity 300. That involves the amount we get audited on our elevation certificates for construction and some public outreach efforts within Activity 320. • We'll be waiting for that letter. We already do quarterly audits on the elevation certificates and we have mailers we send out to three parties—lenders, real estate agents and bankers—and repetitive-loss properties and repetitive-loss area properties. Mr. Vasey asked for clarification whether it was an annual requirement that's due before May. Mr. Lang said that's generally correct, but it depends on when we get the notification from ISO. 3. Upcoming Ordinance Changes (Chapter 38 and Chapter 62) Mr. Lang reported that: • The chairman is the expert on this as the LDC (land development code)manager in his day-to-day job and he's been very helpful, so he thanks him. • In November, we discussed the removal of duplicative language in the Land Development Code and placing those items exclusively in Chapter 62 of the Code of Laws and Ordinances. • On January 4,we presented that to the CCPC (Collier County Planning Commission) and that was approved. • We're presenting it to the BCC on February 27. • In the future, we will be addressing Chapter 38, Civil Emergencies. The intent of the ordinance change is to clarify what requirements must be met to apply for the temporary-housing provisions contained in Chapter 38 and 62 of the Code of Laws and Ordinances. Chairman Johnson said he's been helping (Community Planning&Resiliency Director) Chris Mason and his team, including Mr. Lang, with the changes to the Code of Laws and Ordinances and the Land Development Code. We're following through on what needs to be done. 3 February 2, 2024 4. Mitigation Action Items Update Mr. Lang detailed the Action Items: • Action Item 1.1 — Schedule an FMPC progress report each year and recommend FMPC activity to the Board of County Commissioners. • The 2022-23 FMPC progress reports are drafted, and we plan to present those to the board either on March 12th or March 26th, most likely March 26th. • Action Item 1.2—Review the Land Development Code and the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance to propose improvements regarding floodplain management. This involves removal of duplicative items from the LDC to include in Chapter 62 of the Code of Law and Ordinances. • That was approved by the CCPC on January 4th and we plan to present it to the Board of County Commissioners on February 23. • Prepare and schedule a Public Information Meeting for the FMPC. During the meeting on November 7, 2023, we established the schedule and sent it to the committee. • Meetings are scheduled for the first Friday of the month. That's what we changed during the last meeting and approved. The meeting calendar was approved on September 11th. 5. 2024 Collier County Coastal Flood Map Mr. Lang told the committee: • William Fowler, who is with our Geographical Information Systems (GIS) section within Operational & Regulatory Management in the Growth Management Department, will show us the future flood map. • This is the operating environment for ArcGIS. We received our Preliminary Coastal Flood Map product from FEMA, which has been working with us since 2014. • We got the Preliminary Flood Map and conducted flood map meetings at the beginning of 2020, at the last meeting before COVID hit. We conducted the map meetings on Marco Island, South Regional Library in unincorporated Collier County and the City of Naples. • We've continued to work with FEMA, and received our Letter of Final Determination, which includes our summary of map actions, Letters of Map Change and properties that have removed themselves from the Special Flood-Hazard Area by submitting data to FEMA. • The Letter of Final Determination listed the changes pertaining to Letters of Map Change. Some will continue forward, and some are rescinded. • We were advised that we have six months from the date we received that letter to adopt the new map in our Flood Ordinance, and we did that. • We wrote language in the model ordinance when we adopted it a few years ago that allows us to auto-adopt future flood maps. We don't have to take that to the BCC every time, so it's convenient. It's good they put that in the state model ordinance, so it's been approved by the board. • We took a presentation on the flood map history to the board recently and they didn't have questions. • After Mr. Fowler shows us some of the map features, I'll provide a timeline of our flood map history and can send that to committee members. • We've been working internally diligently. This map will go into effect next week, February 8. The City of Naples is adopting it at the same time and we're anticipating,just like in 2012,there won't be as many phone calls and visits to this office, but it will get busy. • It will probably be around the 45-day mark after the February 8 when residents start getting notifications from their lenders about flood-insurance requirements. 4 February 2, 2024 • We've experienced that here and know some different options for homeowners. [He offered to provide that information to Mr. Dorta.] • New features of the Coastal Flood Map product. The first is the limit of moderate wave action(LiMWA) in the Coastal A Zone in the Florida Building Code. This is a delineated zone, and the triangles/arrows point to the Coastal A Zone area. • The uniqueness of the Coastal A Zone, or the LiMWA, is moderate wave action past the high-velocity point in VE (coastal areas with a 1% or greater chance of flooding and an additional hazard associated with storm waves), where you still have damaging storm surge, maybe not to the heightened effect of what you'd see in the VE zone, but still very damaging. • Years ago, if you built in the VE Zone, the most restrictive zone along the coast, you would need to install breakaway walls for any portion below BFE and you couldn't connect anything to those walls, but flood openings were not required. • In the last couple of years,they've required that flood openings be installed in breakaway walls in the Florida Building Code because sometimes wave action that doesn't break those walls, but it does create pressure on the outside of the structure, and if it doesn't have anywhere to go to equalize that pressure, it's going to potentially damage the breakaway wall and potentially what it's connected to. • That's one example of the requirement for the installation of flood openings and breakaway walls. • Ultimately, what this Coastal A Zone requires is that you build to those VE standards, so no equipment can be attached below BFE, etc. Mr. Dorta asked if the county had to amend any ordinances for the Coastal A Zone or is it just going with Building Code language? Mr. Lang replied: • We did not, we went with FBC (Florida Building Code) language. • Whaf we plan on doing is a three- or four-tiered. We have floodplain reviewers in this building and have been able to increase that staff over the years. They use ArcMap, which we're looking at, and they're able to edit these layers. We're able to point it out virtually. • We're sending this to them first. We did that last week, with Mr. Fowler's assistance. • Our next step is there's another program part of ArcReader where plan reviewers cannot edit items in the map. It preloads and they use it. That's our next rollout for the remainder of all the plan reviewers. The final is the public map. • FEMA publishes the National Flood Hazard Layer, where you can look up any flood zone nationwide. FEMA will be updating that simultaneously and it should be live on February 8. • He has a meeting with AECOM,the consultant for the flood map, on February 6 for some clarification items, data he has, and he'll ensure he reverifies what will be posted for the public. • Mr. Fowler has been tasked with creating a public map as a backup, so he's busy. Mr. Shea asked how they could review this. He'd like to see the legend on what some terms mean. Where do we go for that? Mr. Lang said he has some screen shots and offered to hold a webinar within the next week if there's no public map available. Mr. Shea asked when it would be available to the public and what the link is. 5 February 2, 2024 Mr. Lang said the link is the National Flood Hazard Layer, https://www.fema.gov/flood- maps/national-flood-hazard-layer. Mr. Chrzanowski asked if they need GIS software to read it or can he read it on his home computer? Mr. Fowler said it will be available to the public on February 8. A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • There will be a public version that conveys the same data on February 8. • There's a link to CityView. • The current 2012 data will be updated and will look similar. • There is a legend, an Identify Tool to the left. • Mr. Lang offered to help anyone who needed it. He'll make time in his schedule. • We could offer a demonstration at the next meeting. • If someone wants to look up their address, they can do that. • There are delineation boundaries that are just lines. We want to enclose those as full- shape files. It will help our software program for building permits. It will ping that and load a manual condition with information on what it means. Mr. Dorta said the city purchased a map program, Forerunner,that has become an incredible tool for himself and the public. It's very user friendly. Several municipalities are buying it. If you have an address,you can plug it in or enter the data. Any elevation certificates we have, we're allowing people to pull them off that website. We detail what each of the flood zones mean in layman's terms. He encouraged everyone to check out the city's website or see him after the meeting, if interested. Mr. Lang said the county has had internal discussions about Forerunner, which has partnered • with several jurisdictions in the state. Their claim to fame is mapped elevation certificates for communities, and they can create a digital-elevation model based on that. That's one of the great features. In addition to LiDAR(light detection and ranging), it's another tool in the toolbox. Over the years, we've had discussions about reaching out to them for those services. Mr. Dorta said he'd encourage it. For Item 2,the CRS, as far as elevations, they have a tool with the audit,the EC (Elevation Certificate), and it's open. It's very user-friendly. He's had them put in erosion zones. It's a heck of a tool. Mr. Lang explained: • They're not endorsing anything here. It's a great tool. • Several years ago, ISO,the auditor for the CRS program, came out with an elevation- certificate auditing program and left us with nothing because every year they're taking about 200 out of a list of what you have and they'll audit you on that and give you a few chances, then if you don't pass,you're in trouble. • We've gotten a score of 100 for the last two years. We're doing over between 2,000 to 3,000 elevation certificates a year. • The reason the discussion started was that if we can have someone who specializes in that,they can audit that on the front end and save a lot of man hours because it's so much work due to the number of items on that document we have to have corrected. 6 February 2, 2024 • FEMA released a new version in July,then released another in November because of errors in the July version, so we've had to stay on top of surveyors to tell them to use this version now. • They don't care in the audit if we have something wrong, even though they've created a bit of a calamity for us. A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • All the flood elevations are coming from FEMA. • This is our community map, but it's based on FEMA's standards. • It can show the water elevation, the land elevation under different storm conditions. • They give us the potential for what's called the 1% event, the 100-year flood. • In the past, we had a consultant, Tomasello Consulting Engineers, TCE, and it was a constant back and forth with the FEMA consultants and our consultant, so that probably was the longest running purchase order we've ever had in the county. •' Collier County adopted the flood map. • Do you have a choice? The county could appeal the map, but we don't feel that that needs to occur. • During the 1998 fiasco, we were not able to come to an agreement. It took seven more years to get another map, the 2005 flood map update. • Kelli DeFedericis,with Marco Island, had a large appeal that delayed the maps. • Appeals happen, but Mr. Lang has never experienced a full map appeal. • We have a choice to appeal, but whether we win is another thing. • Kelli's map went through a lot of work to try to amend the flood zones via these particular areas and they were not successful. Mr. Lang continued his presentation: • In addition to the LiMWA or coastal boundaries, there also are boundaries between riverine and Coastal 1. • There's a profound black and color boundary there, the boundary between the coastal and riverine areas. • Anything to the west and south of that, that line is the coastal flooding that will go into effect next week. • Anything to the east and north of the line is the existing 2012 riverine areas that we volunteered to resubmit to FEMA after 2012,which we know as our Physical Map Revisions (PMR) 1 and 2. • We heard it's close to completion and will cover all the other stormwater basins apart from Golden Gate Main West and Golden Gate East. • Golden Gate Estates already was covered in 2012 with the newer LiDAR when we voluntarily resubmitted because we didn't have time to incorporate that. • We'd call this our Frankenstein map. We have different products and timelines. We wanted FEMA to incorporate all three, the two PMRs and the coastal product collectively, but that did not happen. • When we do get notification,possibly by the end of the year, we will have to reconduct map meetings with the public like we did with the coastal product in 2020. Mr. Chrzanowski asked if the coastal product is based on surge and the riverine is based on rainfall. 7 February 2, 2024 Mr. Lang said yes,that's a general way of saying it. Mr. Chrzanowski said he's asking because the surge product doesn't go as far as your surge maps. Mr. Lang said that's correct. Those are two different methodologies. This one is based on the 100-year event,the 1% event storm surge. What you're referring to is the SLOSH (sea, lake, overland surges from hurricanes) model. It's not a FEMA product, it's a NOAA product that looks at the worst of the worst for evacuation planning. Mr. Lang continued his presentation: • That's the delineation line. We wanted to make sure you understood the difference. • Rescinded letters of map change. We also have new symbology for that. • These are a unique category within this area. That white area is an X zone or X500 zone and we have a category for these. They're not rescinded, they are superseded, so when our plan reviewers see this symbology,they know it's not active. It's been superseded or rescinded. A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • We do have a flood fringe area between coastal and riverine. Mr. Lang has a combined probability analysis where he can get exact values where the coastal and the riverine start to intersect and we have to make a base-flood elevation contour call but that's not for the public. • We generally are conservative and round up to the next higher path of increment, so it's for internal purposes, if we need an exact value, and if you need that information, • This is an ArcMap and the public does not have access to this software through the county portal, but they do have access to information on our website. • At minimum, he will make a draft page live the day before. We have a preliminary flood map page for this map,but that will change to finalized instead of preliminary. We already have a link to this map in a different format showing the changes between the 2012 and the 2024 product,but we also will have links to the National Flood Hazard Layer, etc., from our page. • X and X500 are not in the special flood-hazard area and don't require the mandatory purchase of flood insurance from a mortgage lender. • If you are in an A Zone or a V zone, then you must get flood insurance and you have to build to certain standards. If you don't have a mortgage,you don't have to get flood insurance. The requirement is with an FDIC-backed mortgage. If you have a private mortgage,they may not require it, but it depends on the lender. • 97% of the county is in the Special Flood Area and we don't have floodways in Collier, as Lee County does. • "Regulatory Floodway" means the channel of a river or other watercourse and the adjacent land areas that must be reserved to discharge the base flood without cumulatively increasing the water surface elevation more than a designated height. • The county dictates the floor elevation for new construction in the A Zone or AE Flood Zone. An AE zone has a static base-flood elevation associated with it, an AH zone has BFE (base- flood elevation) contours, lines on the map in half-foot increments. We would determine that base-flood elevation based on two variables. The only time it gets more complicated is in the Approximate A Zone,the eastern portions of the county where there's not a lot of density. • As a result, during our LiDAR efforts, we didn't invest in establishing control points. It wasn't worth it, so in areas of Approximate A, our county flood ordinance provides guidance and says the finished floor at the highest adjacent grade, the top of the hill where the front door is, that's an area where the HAG (highest adjacent grade) would be established. 8 February 2, 2024 • As you jump off the hill and you're by your exit for a walkout basement, that would be the LAG (lowest adjacent grade). • In Approximate A Zones,the surveyor establishes the highest adjacent grade and then goes up four feet for the finished floor,per our flood ordinance. That can vary depending on the jurisdiction but that's our guidance. • AO is another flood zone, but if we don't have a Base Flood Elevation to advise the applicant, then we use the guidance for Approximate A in our Flood Ordinance. • For residential, the Florida Building Code says base-flood elevation plus 1 foot. For commercial, it depends; it gets more complicated. • BFE plus 1 foot is called freeboarding. • We sometimes have to calculate the 500-year elevation and that's in a separate map. What accompanies the map is the flood insurance study, a document that goes into the details of how the map was created. Depending on coastal or riverine,there are differences in how that's accomplished. • Riverine is like non-storm surge inundation,rainfall induced. We don't really have riverine systems here. There are Community Rating System categories. • If the natural flow from rainwater by Lake Okeechobee is changed from going east and going west, and more historically coming south, will FEMA have to redo all the maps?There are legislative provisions. FEMA does have some requirements that they're probably not able to keep up with, evaluating the status of flood maps in a community every five years. • It's taken us 12 years and we're still not done with this map, so we're talking about the totality of the map. Will they need to redo the maps, potentially? Yes, if there are new flooding sources, things that could increase base-flood elevation, but depending on where you are in the county, it will drive how that changes. If you're in an Approximate A Zone, it won't change much because we don't have established base-flood elevations in those areas. • If those areas that are affected are in a large majority of the watersheds in the eastern portion of the county, such as the far eastern portion, even if you update the map, it's still Approximate A, unless we make the decision to invest in establishing control points so we can establish base- level elevations in those areas. • The City of Naples historically had five basins in it, and the county has many basins, which are technically sub-basins. • Is FEMA updating data to reflect that a 100-year storm 10 years ago is not the same as a 100- year storm now? In theory, yes, but they're tackling it reactively. We would engage with them and establish a new set of LiDAR. Prior to the 2012 flood map update, we had to go out and pay for an existing LiDAR project that was occurring, which saved us a lot of money. But we would need to engage with FEMA. • FEMA showed up here in 2014 and advised us that they had better mapping technology and methodologies for the coast, and this would be a non-regulatory product for Collier County because we were voluntarily updating our flood maps with the PMRs. They told us it would be regulatory for Monroe County and Lee County and they were just going to analyze how it merged at the boundaries with the adjacent counties. • About 11/2 years later, FEMA showed up with a team and said we need to look at your beach structures. We asked why and they said you didn't get the letter, but the map's going to be regulatory and effective. We did not receive a letter from FEMA. That was a FEMA-initiated project and it's referred to a RiskMAP. It's an initiative to map the coastal flooding for the continental United States. 9 February 2, 2024 • FEMA has been going all over the U.S., starting in the northeast, and reached southwest Florida, so this is the final product, 10 years later. • The 100-year flood map from 20 years ago is not the same as the one now. • They're not doing that on the back end voluntarily. They're doing that when they either initiate with a community or the community initiates with them. They've got so many communities across the United States,that it takes a long time. There's a lot of legislation that incorporates these or makes recommendations for them for their mapping program about what they should do to update mapping, but it is a long process. • Decades ago,the Soil Conservation Service issued design storms based on statistics, originally not done by computer,just by hand, that would tell you that the 100-year storm was 16 inches of rain dropped over 72 hours, 90% of which happened in the last 24 hours. They would give you a graph that you would plug into your computer and design. • The Water Management District had a 100-year storm and a 25-year storm, and they made everybody put roads to the 100-year to 25-year storm and buildings to the 100-year storm and it was all statistically based. • When FEMA came, there was a big worry that the 100-year storm that the Water Management District had everybody adhere to was not the same as the 100-year storm FEMA was designing to for their surge and for floods. • Mr. Chrzanowski said he doesn't think anybody goes every year and redoes the statistics that the storms are based on. He doesn't think that number has changed in the 40 years he's been here and he's been retired for 13 years. The design storm never changed, no matter what was happening. Mr. Lang said we can calculate other events. FEMA does provide a Advisory Base Flood Elevations (ABFEs) after a disaster. Communities can put a moratorium on building permits. That occurred in Mexico Beach after Hurricane Michael,when one home was left standing. They put a pause on building permits to establish the higher regulatory freeboard requirement. They implemented that and it was successful for quite a while. About two years later, due to political pressure,they reversed those decisions. That's a data set that's produced post-event. Mr. Vasey told the FMPC: • A statement in your recent water management document said that rain does not fall the same in the entire county, so it's possible that a 100-year storm where you live is nowhere near what it is where I live, so you have to be careful and watch NOAA. • www.noaa.gov shows us exactly what's happening to the water environment. When you look at the coastal map that we're planning on the coastal zone,there is a change over the last 10 years. The only way we know that is because the channels and buoy markers are changing, and they're putting out more data-reporting points. • Instead of going out there periodically,they're out there 24 hours a day taking active measurements. • We've asked the county for stilling wells, so we know exactly what the surge does. And we think there are about 10 spots in Collier County where if we had stilling wells, we could tell someone correctly what the surge was at any point. These are things that aren't being thought about much. • The map we would generate today doesn't look like the map it was yesterday. Maps need to change and what we're doing here is remarkable. He doesn't think we would have seen a chart like this two years ago. The amount of information the public now has is overwhelming. We're 10 February 2, 2024 at a point where the public has to come back and ask us to interpret it. It's becoming more of a science. Mr. Chrzanowski said a stilling well is used when you're trying to measure a tide coming in. You have to have it in a place that's still so the wave action doesn't affect the tide gauge. It's a hollow pipe stuck upward, and water comes in from the bottom and doesn't vary that much with the waves. It spills the water and is the only way to get a good measurement. Ms. Koehler said if you want to see one, she has stilling wells on all the flood-control structures on her canals, so if you're ever driving by and you can pull off safely, you can see one. A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • Go to https://coast.noaa.gov to see the levels of various water bodies. • The Coast Guard is constantly out in those waters and is refreshing the signs. The county is doing a great job inland on all of our interior waterways. There probably are some areas where staff gauges were out. • There are new criteria for sending staff gauges. They don't use NAVD anymore, or NGVD. It's all satellite now, so there are a lot of changes taking place. • With the flood planning, in an undeveloped area, is there any time that the county would say a developer cannot go into an area that's sensitive to floodplain management, such as a marsh, and say you can't build here because it's a sensitive area for the areas around it? That question is answered by the LDC. Those are called Coastal Barrier Resource Systems and they're based on the Coastal Barrier Resource Act(CBRA) of 1983. There also are otherwise protected areas (OPAs)that are listed in a similar 1990 act and you can build there, but you cannot get flood insurance in the National Flood Insurance Program. • In CBRAZones, you cannot receive disaster assistance. • There are some areas along the coast, Keewaydin Island, and the new subdivision of Artesia, and the western portions of Isle of Capri. There are probably other environmentally sensitive areas, and you can develop on them,but it's highly discouraged by the federal government because of how they changed and their environmental sensitivity. • Beck Road is a wetland. The property owners along Beck Road on the north end attempted to get permits for building on the lots they purchased. The permit couldn't be approved, because after you go through all the environmental requirements,you could have a stick on a stick and that's about it. There's no way in or out of it, so when permitting activities are usually where you see sensitivities come in for a building or structure. • Ms. Ernst said her community has an issue with a very big developmental builder who can get away with whatever he wants to. We've been working with county commissioners on it. • FEMA offers courses, such as Managing Development in the Floodplain, 480, a weeklong course that's very helpful. It's a resource to study if you want to become a certified floodplain manager. It's a very comprehensive manual, and is a little outdated, but provides a lot of good information. 6. Other Items/Committee Correspondence Mr. Vasey expanded upon his questions about ACUNE, which was mentioned in last month's minutes: • Data application for local mitigation. How will the ACUNE data and modeling specifically inform our local mitigation strategy decision makers, and what specific aspects of ACUNE would be most relevant to us? 11 February 2, 2024 • Data compatibility and integration. Are there any potential challenges or limitations in integrating ACUNE data with flood hazard and mitigation data?Are any adjustments or conversions needed? • Engagement. Aside from(University of Florida's) Dr. Peter Sheng, who else is involved in the ACUNE integration and discussion?He thought a county employee was working on ACUNE. If so, can that be part of any discussion we have about the Vulnerability Assessment at an upcoming meeting? • He doesn't like people using the word"stakeholder"because the term is too broad and is a cop- out. Mr. Lang responded: • He and Mr. Vasey discussed this before the meeting, and he emailed me these questions. • I provided him with my answer,to the best of my knowledge. • We're looking at utilizing ACUNE in the Vulnerability Assessments we're required to complete for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to qualify for any future grant dollars associated with the Florida Resiliency Program, which falls under FDEP's purview. That's the primary area we want to use ACUNE in. • It was supported through an ordinance. It's taken us a while because we applied for a grant. We finally got the notice to proceed with our consultant, WSP, which we've worked with in the past. They did our Floodplain Management Plan. • We'll also be updating our Repetitive Loss Area Analysis with them. • He'll pass Mr. Vasey's questions on to WSP so they have a heads up and can think about how to incorporate this. • We also can contact Dr. Sheng. Chairman Johnson thanked everyone for attending, noting that the committee is a requirement of the CRS and operations are public under the state Sunshine Act and committee members can't discuss agenda items with each other under the law. Mr. Lang is serving as the FMPC liaison and is still waiting for feedback from the County Manager's Office to relieve him of his duties as a voting member. The last time we met, Mr. Lang served as the co-chair, which is an inappropriate role for him now. He'd like to discuss naming someone else as a co-chair. A discussion ensued and the following points were made: • The chair and co-chair must be county employees;which could be amended in the future. • Mr. Lang recommends Jennifer Schmidt and also noted that the FMPC hasn't had a representative from the Public Utilities Department since Craig Pajer served. • He'll be engaging with the County Manager's Office to obtain a representative. • The reason that's very important is that as we potentially utilize members from this committee for a subcommittee for the Vulnerability Assessment as a steering committee, he'd like someone from Public Utilities to participate because they'll be able to provide us with a bigger picture of the critical infrastructure, we may need to include in the Vulnerability Assessment. • His recommendation is Jennifer Schmidt and if that doesn't work out, or if it does, regardless, we want to also have a representative from the Public Utilities Department, and we might be able to utilize them in the future for one of those two positions. • Mr. Vasey said the Stormwater Department has a lot more area. His favorite stormwater employee is Pawel Brzeski, who is here today. 12 February 2, 2024 • Chairman Johnson noted that this is a product of the CRS and we like to discuss CRS matters, but we can deviate from that, so any discipline that would be helpful in that endeavor has my vote. • Jim Mudd had stormwater, public utilities, emergency management and transportation and those people had to show up. Mr. Lang said he appreciates everyone attending and participating. Chairman Johnson asked if there was anyone from the public who wanted to speak. Public Speaker Pawel Brzeski, of Collier County Stormwater ???told the FMPC: • Collier County also has some monitoring stations for water level at their structures. • We're hoping to expand that program a bit, but subject to the direction provided, and certainly not to the extent that was earlier discussed for the uses of flood banks. • That data is being collected and is available to various public portals that we've shared it with in the past. Hopefully,that will be helpful. 7. Adjourn—Future Meeting Dates 9 a.m. May 3,2024 Mr. Vasey moved to adjourn the meeting. Second by Mr. Miller. The motion passed unanimously- 9-0. There being no further business for the good of the county,the meeting was adjourned by order of the chair at 10:16 a.m. COLLIER COUNTY FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE i liam Lang, Co-Chairman These minutes were approved by the board/co-chairman on 05/03/2024,(select one) as presented X , or as amended 13