CCPC Minutes 07/27/2009 S
July 27, 2009
TRANSCRIPT OF THE FLOOD DAMAGE
PREVENTION ORDINANCE MEETING
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION
Naples, Florida
July 27, 2009
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning
Commission, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted
business herein, met on this date at 5:05 p.m. in SPECIAL SESSION
in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
Mark Strain
Donna Reed-Caron
Karen Homiak
Tor Kolflat
Paul Midney (Absent)
Bob Murray (Absent)
Brad Schiffer
Robert Vigliotti (Absent)
David J . Wolfley
ALSO PRESENT:
Jeffrey Klatzkow, County Attorney
Joseph Schmitt, CDES Administrator
Ray Bellows, Zoning Manager
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CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everyone, welcome to a special
meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission, 5 :05 on July
27th, 2009.
This one is for the Collier County Flood Damage Prevention
Ordinance presentation. It will be a draft of the document for
discussion.
If everyone will please rise for pledge of allegiance.
(Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
And Ms. Caron, would you mind doing the roll call.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Kolflat?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Here.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm here.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Ms. Caron is here.
Mr. Strain?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Ms. Homiak?
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Here.
COMMISSIONER CARON: And good '01 Mr. Wolfley.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Here. Gosh, nobody can -- see,
that's why I sit --
COMMISSIONER CARON: We just do it now to get you.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: -- that's why I sit down here,
because no one knows who I am.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Jatropha, that would be the easy
way to do it.
COMMISSIONER CARON: We just do it now to make you
aggravated.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Addenda to the agenda. The only thing I
might want to suggest is that it would be a good time now to discuss
the next meeting date. I expect that we'll be here till a certain time
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tonight.
And then that's the other item we need to discuss, what time we
want to terminate. Normally on these evening meetings we stop at
8:00. That means we have a three-hour session with a break in the
middle. Is that okay with everyone?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, so we'll stop at 8:00.
There's some dates in August open, this room in particular. We
have one before, the August 6th meeting -- one before the 17th
meeting, I can't remember the exact dates, but one in the middle,
which is August 12th. If anybody -- if anybody knows if they can
make it on August 12th?
I assume then we could have that meeting then at 8:30 in the
morning. Because the room's open all day, so we don't have to meet at
night. I think we had an obligation to meet one time at night.
Does anybody have a problem with August 12th?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: In the evening, you say?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, it would be a morning, 8:30.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What day is it?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Pardon me?
COMMISSIONER CARON: It's a Wednesday.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, the room's open, they already
checked on that. So it wouldn't be a board day.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: At 8:30.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. So 8:30 on August 12th is--
when we finish today we'll ask for a continuance and we'll look to that
date.
Okay, the next meeting we have is our August 6th regular
meeting. Does anybody here today know if they're going to be here or
not going to be here on that day? Everybody going to be here?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I believe we're here.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The advertised public hearing is
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for the -- what we'll move right into then. It's Proposed
Repeal/Replacement of the Collier County Flood Damage Prevention
Ordinance.
Before we go too far, I know Robert is here to make a
presentation. I want to ask a couple of questions; one is of legal.
The advertising for this, has it been met for tonight; does
anybody know?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah, my understanding is it has been met.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. It was not posted on the planning
commission's website as a meeting for tonight. The only meeting on
the web site is the one for August 6th.
I also want you to know this wasn't posted anywhere on the
Internet that I could find, and I spent an extensive time going through
the floodplain section and the FEMA section of our homesite.
Now, that means the public may not have had knowledge of it in
relationship to the time that the notification in the paper came out.
And I don't know if that's a requirement. But I thought I'd make the
record clear and ask if there's anything missing in that record.
MR. KLATZKOW: My understanding, this was properly
advertised in the Naples Daily News. That's all we need.
MR. WILEY: Well, let me clarify that. I was directed by the
County Attorney's Office that we did not have to advertise it since it
was an ordinance in the Naples Daily News, simply to provide it to the
Public Information Officer, Mr. John Torre, which I did do that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, normally we try to tell the
public what our meeting agendas are ahead of time, and we also try to
make available to the public the documents involving our meetings.
Especially one that has such wide-sweeping impacts as this could
have.
I don't know why it wasn't posted on the county website
somewhere. It would seem logical to have done that. But if it's legal to
do it the way it has, I guess we'll live with it. I hope that before the
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next meeting this gets posted properly. It would be helpful so the
public could have access to it.
MR. WILEY: Do you want the entire document or just the
notification of the meeting?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I would think that the ordinance
that we're here to review tonight ought to be posted so the public can
review it. And that's what we usually do.
MR. WILEY: As Joe Schmitt was just talking about, we have
taken issue through the Floodplain Management Planning Committee,
we've taken it through DSAC, so there's been lots of notice out there.
But I can check with Mr. Torre to make sure that he does get
notification out. I thought he had.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Prior to the next meeting, is there any
problem of getting this posted on, say, the floodplain management
website or somewhere where they -- because you've got every other
kind of document on there, it would be nice to have this one here.
MR. WILEY: You can have it on there tomorrow. That's no
problem.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I think that would be a good
thing to do.
MR. WILEY: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Robert, I don't know how
you want to proceed and what your presentation involves, but I hope
you talk about what the costs are of implementation of this plan for the
citizens who would have to modify their building criteria, and also any
guaranteed savings that we've been accruing countywide for the flood
insurance that this was generated for in the first place.
So with that in mind, if you'd just go ahead and proceed and
we'll --
MR. WILEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: When we go through the ordinance,
when your presentation is over with, we'll take the ordinance page by
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page and do it that way like we usually do.
MR. WILEY: We can do whatever you so desire.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
MR. WILEY: The presentation I have tonight is mainly going to
be going through the higher regulatory standards. I did not really put
together a big presentation on the standard minimum requirement
ordinances, but we'll talk about that as we get in to it.
For the record, my name is Robert Wiley. I'm with the county's
Engineering and Environmental Services Department. We're located
up on North Horseshoe Drive, part of the Community Development
and Environmental Division. And we're talking about the Flood
Damage Prevention Ordinance tonight.
We have three objectives for today: It's to review the proposed
new Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance; discuss some of the higher
regulatory standards of the community rating system, and we will talk
about what the community rating system is momentarily; and then
we're trying to gain the support of the Planning Commission to make
Collier County a more flood-resistant community. And emphasizing to
make a more flood-resistant community; that is the whole purpose of
the CRS program.
Let's start off with the National Flood Insurance Program.
Collier County is a participating community . We are in the -- I guess
you could say the mandatory situation. When FEMA produces a flood
map, a community has an opportunity to decide if they're going to
participate or not. If you decide to participate, it allows property
owners to then purchase federal flood insurance. And sometimes that
flood insurance purchase can be voluntary, such as in a Zone X where
it's not required of a homeowner.
Sometimes it's mandatory. If you have federal funding
associated with your house, typically we think of that as a federally
backed mortgage. Flood insurance is mandatory. And that is part of
the congressional rules passed many, many years ago.
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It also, by participating in the flood insurance program, allows
the county to be eligible for various forms of state and federal funding
assistance. And that's a point that I wanted to make sure we all clearly
understand, that the national flood insurance program, you have an
opportunity as a community to participate or not. If you choose to not
participate, you do eliminate federal and state funding that's eligible to
be provided for purposes of whatever happens. Even in a declared
emergency. If you have deliberately chosen to not participate in the
flood insurance program as a community, you are not eligible for
federal funding.
But the county is participating in it. So I just wanted to bring it
up to help you understand, when some people sometimes say, well,
why are we even in the program? It carries a very heavy federal
hammer with it of being in the program.
As a participant in the flood insurance program we are required
to have a flood damage prevention ordinance. And that ordinance is
what is used to implement the flood insurance program in Collier
County.
To meet minimum flood insurance program requirements, the
State of Florida worked with FEMA to develop a model ordinance
document. I actually have a paper copy of it here. This is the
document that we started with. Well, for this version.
The current county ordinance is quite old. It was developed back
in 1986. There's been a few amendments to it. But FEMA informed us
a couple years ago and then again this past October that our ordinance
was very much out of date and would have to be updated to bring it
into compliance with the current FEMA standards and language. And
they recommended very strongly that we use the model ordinance. So
that's what we did with the documents you're going to be reviewing
tonight, starting with the model ordinance, filling in the blanks,
making it specific to Collier County, and then tweaking the language
to make it applicable to the way we do business in Collier County in
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certain situations, as we'll go through it page by page tonight.
So with that bit of information, we incorporated not only the
minimum requirements that are listed in the model ordinance, but we
wanted to go and begin to bring in some higher regulatory concepts
from the community rating system to again make the community more
resistant to flood damage.
And just what is that community rating system? That's a
voluntary program within the national flood insurance program.
Communities volunteer to get into it, and you basically say that you
are going to go beyond the bare minimum of the program. You're
going to do various things that they have identified in the CRS
program to earn credit points. And as you accumulate those credit
points by doing various activities and programs beyond the bare
minimum of the flood insurance program, you reach thresholds of
500-point intervals. And every time you earn 500 points of credit, you
advance in the CRS program to increase your rating. Every rate
increase means a five percent savings on the flood insurance policies
of your constituents.
Collier County right now is a Class 7 community . We advanced
three steps through. It started at Class 10 to 9, 8, 7. So we're three
steps into it, meaning we have a little over 1,500 credit points in the
CRS program.
With the regulatory standards we are proposing today, it gives us
an option as we submit to them to potentially even advance to the next
class. It would be a Class 6 community, which would result in the
policyholders getting a 20 percent discount.
Now, that would not be necessarily every single policyholder. It
would be policyholders within the flood zones where insurance is
mandatory.
In a Zone X or a Zone D where flood insurance is not
mandatory, their rate is only a five percent discount. And that's the
most you can ever get, no matter what class you are.
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So there's sort of a carrot and stick approach here. They want
you to do stuff, so if you would do certain steps then they reward you
by giving the potential for discounts to the policyholders.
To show you the extent of it, Collier County is the 11th highest
community in the nation with a dollar value of discounts given on
flood insurance program. And that says a whole lot of why we are in
the spotlight for FEMA. As they're looking at Collier County, our
ordinance is quite old, and yet here we are 11 th most highly rated
discount dollar-wise in the nation. So obviously we have their
attention.
Credit points are awarded, like I said, for the activities that we
actually implement. And we have to document that we are
implementing them. We have to document that every year. We have to
recertify.
There are 18 CRS activity categories. And within those
categories there are a lot of activities you can do. So they offer you up
to over 14,000 points available in the program. Now, certain
communities will be able to achieve point values in certain areas and
ones that can't.
A good example is they give a very high point value if you can
remove all structures from the floodplain. Well, for Collier County
being a flat coastal community, that one is not possible at all.
However, for a community somewhere interior of the nation, riverine
system, steep topography, just a little piece of the community down in
the floodplain, it's a good place for them to have a community park,
and they can score a lot of points. So you can begin to see the
applicability of some.
Our current point total is 1,692. So you can see we're slightly
over that 1,500 point threshold. And what we're proposing to do is to
show you here some of the different categories of those 18 -- you can
begin to see where they give really high point value for them, and you
can see where Collier County currently has points.
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Notice, if you would, in the area where it talks about higher
regulatory standards, flood data management, stormwater
management, all the 400 series. Those are unique in that they have the
potential for not only giving you a straight point, but you use your
bottom factor down there, the community growth adjustment, so that
for every point you earn in the 400 series, it's really a point and a half
credit. So again, it's more of this if you'll do this well, we'll give you
some reward back in the background.
However, let me caution you, and it's one thing that FEMA
emphasizes very strongly too. You do not go forward with a program
to see how many points you can score. You go forward with a
program that is applicable to your community for flood damage
prevention and safety to your people to allow them to safely build
within the floodplain. This is not designed to keep people from
building in the floodplain, but if you do build, build safely. And that's
what the whole background is behind the CRS program.
Staff obviously wants to improve the scoring in the CRS
program. And these are some areas where we think we have some
potential. And the 430 series, a hazard disclosure. In 430, higher
stormwater -- I mean higher regulatory standards. And in 450,
stormwater management.
Now, the stormwater management one deals not so much in a
regulatory process here but in more of a program implementation. And
we're working on that at the staff level to begin to get better
coordination on a lot of the stuff we are doing. It's a matter of
documenting and reporting. So those are some other ways that we can
earn points that would not necessarily appear in an ordinance.
And we talked about the growth adjustment factor.
Now, just to give you an illustration, this is the current Flood
Insurance Rate Map. You'll hear it called a FIRM. Sometimes they all
-- you know federal agencies, they're full of abbreviations. So Flood
Insurance Rate Map, F-I-R-M.
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Look at the areas that are in red, blue and gray. And on the
screen they did turn out gray fortunately this time.
Those are zones that start with the letter A or V. And in those
areas, those are called the special flood hazard area. Mandatory
purchase of flood insurance if you have federal funding attached to
your house. And again, the big example is a federally backed
mortgage.
So the red is the VE zone. That's the high velocity zone where
the wave actions come crashing in against the coastline. They have
their own set of construction standards.
The blue is the coastal AE. Now, that's for coastal surge coming
inland. And the distinction between VE and AE along that coastline is
the height of the anticipated wave. In a VE zone, the wave is three feet
or higher, and the AE zone it is less than three feet.
And again, this is for coastal surge flooding. This -- the map you
see here does not reflect flooding from rainfall. Up to this point
Collier County has never had a FIRM that included rainfall flooding.
So you see a large yellow area, Zone X. That is considered to be
outside the coastal surge. Flood insurance is not required. We have a
D zone, and that D simply means it is not determined. There is no
evaluation on the level of risk for flooding.
And then the gray area is an approximate A zone. And in those
areas -- and this is a negotiated map, by the way. It was put into effect
in 2005. The gray approximate A zone does mandate the purchase of
flood insurance. It also mandates certain development requirements if
you are on a piece of property five acres in size or larger or you're
going to subdivide it into 50 lots or greater, whichever criteria you hit
first, you are required, before you can get development approval from
your local government, which would be the county in this case, to do
the engineering analysis and determine what is the base flood
elevation on your property. That is a very onerous assignment. But
that is mandated through the Federal Flood Insurance Program.
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And so one of the things that we're wanting to do is as rapidly as
possible eliminate that approximate A Zone in areas subject to
development. And just as a side note, we are working towards that
goal.
Step aside from the ordinance for just a moment here just to brief
you. Weare working towards developing a new set of FIRMs that will
be digital. We have gotten the information to FEMA's contractor,
which is Michael Baker, Jr. Corporation. And we expect in January to
receive back from them the preliminary DFIRM. And that's when
we'll go public with that document to begin to show people what the
new flood insurance rate maps will look like.
It's going to take over a year just through the public process to
go through it. And they will be analyzed and mapped out for rainfall
flooding, concurrent with coastal surge.
So you're going to see tremendous changes in the appearance of
the Flood Insurance Rate Map within a year. I should say about a year.
It would be late 2010 when that goes through the public process. But
by early 20 1 0 we'll be going public with it and begin to get comments
from people and appeals, all that kind of stuff.
Higher regulatory standards are applicable in the special flood
hazard area. That's the flood zones with A and V. And wherever else
the ordinance may include.
And I put this statement in here to help you understand there are
provisions in this proposed ordinance that stipulate some of the
regulations apply throughout the county, not just in the SFHA. And
we did that because of the overall impacts you can have on floodplains
that may not be necessarily designated by FEMA but does have local
impacts to us.
So requested regular higher standards, we're going forward as
foundation protection.
Foundation protection, freeboard, manufactured home parks.
We're talking about regulations proposed for them.
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Lower substantial improvements threshold; protection of critical
facilities; some other higher standards. And that other higher standard
is floodproofing, inspection and training. And we'll talk about that
one. That one is interesting when we get to it. And then flood hazard
disclosure.
What's not in the ordinance but what we do want to talk about as
we go through this process is something that staff would like to have
in. It has been discussed quite extensively by the Floodplain
Management Planning Committee and by DSAC. It's called
cumulative substantial improvements. And we're going to go through
it and then actually ask you to add that language into the proposed
ordinance.
And the protection of floodplain storage capacity. We're not
actually asking for this one right now. We're going to wait until we get
the new DFIRMs and they go effective, which will be in late 2010.
The reasoning for that is the issue's the same, but until we have a
FIRM or a DFIRM -- DFIRM is just a digital version, it's not paper.
But until we have a flood insurance rate map that is based upon
rainfall or riverine flooding, as FEMA calls it, floodplain storage
capacity is of no issue in the CRS program. It does not address coastal
surge flood zones. So since all we have are coastal surge flood zones,
it does not seem applicable to put that in the ordinance right now.
The Floodplain Management Planning Committee reviewed the
proposed ordinance. We went through several drafts, made changes to
it. They voted to support the draft you have before you dated March
23rd of 2009.
DSAC, Development Services Advisory Committee, they
reviewed it and voted to support the draft, but they had four conditions
in their motion. The first one was to eliminate all the freeboard
requirements. And they are scattered throughout the ordinance.
There's no real single place it's in there, it's scattered in various
sections.
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They also said that we were to leave the substantial
improvements threshold at the default value of 50 percent and not
reduce it down to the 49 percent that's proposed in the ordinance. And
just so you know, that reduction point is located in the actual
definition of the substantial improvements threshold. So that's where
you'll find that.
The other thing they asked us to do is provide a cost analysis for
each of the proposed higher regulatory standards, which we'll try to go
through that tonight. And then they want to identify all portions of the
ordinance that exceed the minimum requirements of the flood
Insurance program.
And those places where we exceed the minimum requirements
are those higher regulatory standards we will be talking about tonight.
So as we go through the various sections, you'll see which
sections are involved. Most of the ordinance is almost verbatim with
the draft, model document, whatever you want to call it, the model
ordinance from the state.
So with that, let's go into our first section called foundation
protection. That will be in Section 17. Section 1 7 has --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Wait.
MR. WILEY: -- a lot of issues.
Yes?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert, are you intending to go through
the entire document now on the screen in your presentation?
MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, if you want to do that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, we take it a little differently. We're
going to go through a page at a time.
MR. WILEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because your definitions need attention.
MR. WILEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I'd rather not just go right to a
section, I'd rather start focusing on what the definitions mean so we
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understand the sections better.
MR. WILEY: Very good.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And if you have a presentation that
corresponds to a section we get in, we ought to lead off then with your
presentation so that helps either answer or generate more questions
from our side.
MR. WILEY: Sounds good.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If that's okay with the Planning
Commission.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's great.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before we get into the document itself,
are there any general questions of Robert at this point?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because I've got some.
Let's start out with your discounts. You explained something
about a 20 percent discount and a five percent discount. And if you're
not in a zone that is mandatorily requiring flood insurance, you may
not get any discount? How does that -- can you explain that a little
more?
MR. WILEY: I will be glad to.
Currently Collier County is a Class 7 community. In a Class 7
community -- and this is within the community rating system program,
the CRS we're talking about. A Class 7 community is set up so that the
policyholders within the special flood hazard area, that's the zones that
start with the letter A and letter V.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Could you put that map back on here?
Because I looked for a map like you've just shown with all the
different velocity -- all the different zones on the Internet on our
homesite, and I couldn't find it. Well, it's nice that you've got one. And
I hope that between now and the next meeting you distribute that to
everybody on this commission.
But now that we have one to talk of, you're telling us that the 20
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-- why don't you explain right off this map then so we understand it.
MR. WILEY: Okay. What this is saying is on this particular
map, if you are a property holder who has a mortgage on your
property, or you might be a very unique person that has federal dollars
involved in the actual construction of your house. I'm not aware of any
in Collier County. Generally speaking, it's just the mortgage holder,
federally backed mortgage. If you are within any part of this map that
is red, blue or gray, those are -- the gray is the A zone, the blue is the
AE zone, the red is the VE zone -- your flood insurance premium
already has within it a 15 percent reduction in cost.
Now, you should be able to contact your insurance agent to
confirm that they do have you signed up for that discount. They may
not have when they quoted you the price. But you're supposed to be
receiving a 15 percent discount, because we're a Class 7 community.
If we are able to progress and become a Class 6 community, you
would then be receiving a 20 percent discount. And I use that number
because the City of Naples and the City of Marco are both Class 6
communities. But the county is a Class 7, so right now you're eligible
for 15 percent.
Now, if you are a property holder in the yellow zone, the X
zone, or within the D zone, which is the pink colored zone, neither of
those require you to have flood insurance. And since it's not
mandatory for you to have flood insurance, you only get up to a five
percent discount.
And the D zone is where it's really iffy if they give you the
discount or not, since it's undetermined. But in Zone X you only get a
five percent discount. And that is based upon a theory that Zone X is
already deeply discounted for you.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So we could pass -- if this were
to pass tonight or when the BCC actually passes it, would the people
in the X or D zone have any further benefit from this document?
MR. WILEY: No, sir.
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July 27,2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So they can't increase their five percent
no matter what happens in this document, but yet this document does
impact them in the way they build from here on out, even though they
have no benefit from the document itself.
MR. WILEY: There are some situations --
(At which time, Mr. Schmitt makes a comment off the record.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'm going to get to that in a
minute, Mr. Schmitt. I know they're going to change, and that's
another little --
MR. WILEY: There will be no D zone in the future.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right.
MR. WILEY: That's one of the purposes.
But the purpose of the discounts is for people who are mandated
to purchase flood insurance. And Zone X and Zone D you are not
mandated, so that's why they emphasize that.
Now, will they be facing situations to where this ordinance will
negatively impact them? When you are outside of the special flood
hazard area, which X and D will be outside of that, the vast majority
of this ordinance does not affect you. It is not applicable because you
have no elevation against which to measure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, in the X zone we all have
elevations that we have to build to. So how does it not impact us in the
X zone, let's say?
MR. WILEY: In the Zone X you do not have a FEMA elevation
to build against. You may have a South Florida Water Management
District permit which requires you to have an elevation, but for a
federal flood insurance program with FEMA, there is no elevation
attached to Zone X.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So does that mean then none of the
criteria in this document would apply to the building methodologies in
Zone X?
MR. WILEY: I did not say that. Remember --
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know. I'm trying to get you to--
MR. WILEY: Right. What I'm saying is --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- say something.
MR. WILEY: -- the higher regulatory standards by default are
applicable in the special flood hazard area.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right.
MR. WILEY: But this particular ordinance document also has
for certain portions of it where it applies to all of the county, not just
the SFHA.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But why does it apply to all of
the county if there's no benefit to people in sections F and D?
MR. WILEY: From a flood insurance program that is true, there
is no benefit to them. But from a county standpoint, remember, our
current map reflects only coastal surge. And we know that we have
other issues out there that are outside of this coastal surge zone. Other
portions of the county are impacted that we see as the county level.
And, for instance, let's use the illustration of foundation
protection. We want everyone to have a compaction test on their
foundation, no matter where they build in the county. So that's why
we say it's applicable everywhere in the county.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have -- the permanent
population of Collier County, do you know how many people are in
the X and D zones versus the A, AE and V zones?
MR. WILEY: I do not.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Is there some way that can be
determined? Because to me what we're doing in each of those zones in
the populations of those -- because I can tell you right now the yellow
zone is heavily populated. Most of our -- many of our PUDs are in that
zone.
MR. WILEY: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The pink zone is the future RLSA and
parts of existing subdivisions that are going to be intensely populated.
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July 27, 2009
And I'm wondering how much those people that move there
make decisions to be further from the coast than others for a number
of reasons; cost, who knows what. But I'm wondering how much we
should be imposing on that segment of the community for higher cost
in construction that isn't going to benefit them. And I'm wondering
what population ratio we have in those.
Is there a way that that can be plugged in off of this map? An
overlay of any kind?
MR. WILEY: I can ask our comprehensive planning people if
they can give me the demographics for that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think it would be--
MR. WILEY: I really don't know.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- interesting to know. I'd like to know
how many people in the county are going to be affected and not be
benefited by it. That would be an important I think conclusion.
The X area, that's the area that got into a rather disputed issue a
few years back, I believe, over flooding in Golden Gate Estates, where
some areas were getting inundated by water for probably the first time
in the 30 years I've been there.
Do we have a potential of having this passed referencing zones
A, AE and VE, then having those three zones expand into the yellow
or the D later on so that now we've had a different segment of the
population inadvertently being impacted by something that as it's
being impact tonight they may not be as greatly impacted?
MR. WILEY: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WILEY: Zone D, when we come out with the -- when
FEMA comes back to us in January with the preliminary DFIRMs,
there will be no Zone D. It is going to be completely eliminated,
because we will have done the analysis and have made a
determination.
Zone X being evaluated for rainfall -- whereas the current Zone
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July 27, 2009
X that you see now is only from coastal surge -- as proposed, will
have impacts spread off into it also.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because your answers certainly
have an impact on how we understand the questions we'll be asking
throughout the evening, so --
MR. WILEY: The DFIRMs that are going to be coming to us in
early January put everybody in the mix. Whereas right now the large
Zone X and the large Zone D could potentially be viewed as having
them outside the mix. But the Zone D will be a combination of three
zones as proposed right now. And they squirrel all over the place.
There is no block anymore, it follows the contours.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Most likely a Zone D or a Zone X is not
going to go to a Zone X or a Zone D, it's going to go to an A or an AE.
Is there another zone that's not on here that they could dream up?
MR. WILEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I love the definitiveness of this whole
thing.
MR. WILEY: Well, when you're dealing with FEMA, they have
lots of definitions that we don't even use here, by the way. But what is
proposed is coming up with a new zone. I guess we might as well talk
about it. Because we're totally leaving the ordinance now, let me just
briefly update everybody --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert?
MR. WILEY: -- as to where we're going.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let me tell you something.
MR. WILEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, we're not. Because what's going to
happen is if this ordinance gets passed, it isn't going to be as we're
visualizing it now, it isn't going to be that some of these apply to the
whole county. Virtually everything will apply to all of the county.
Because if they're all made into A, AE or VE, that's your SFHA areas.
And so we're going to be having a bigger impact on greater portions of
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July 27, 2009
the county than maybe this plan shows us right now. And that's what
I'm trying to understand.
MR. WILEY: I understand.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, did you have a question
before Robert goes further?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. I'm wondering ifin some
ways we're not putting the cart before the horse. Why wouldn't we
have the definitive map in front of us before we determine what we're
going to do?
MR. WILEY: You have the definitive map in front of you that is
effective today. It went into effect in November of2005. That one will
remain in effect until FEMA issues a letter of final determination on
any future map that they may come up with.
COMMISSIONER CARON: But we're talking early 2010.
MR. WILEY: That is what we are currently working on
providing them the analyses to produce the new map. But that's going
to be a cycle that we repeat every five years. You're never going to get
to the point you say the map will never change.
FEMA has started a new program, it's called map modernization.
And their goal is every five years to review, particularly along the
coastal areas, all of the FIRMs and update them. So we are right in the
middle of that. In fact we're sort of on the leading edge of it with the
new map that you'll begin to see the drafts of it, the preliminary map,
in January.
What Mr. Strain is talking about is right now it looks like where
there's large portions of the county developed areas that potentially
may not be impacted by this ordinance, but if that zone designation
changes, they could suddenly be impacted by it. If I understand what
the statements you were going from.
COMMISSIONER CARON: On the coast we're already
impacted by it.
MR. WILEY: Against the coastline, yes, you are. But as it goes
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July 27, 2009
further inland, the proposed mapping that includes coastal surge plus
rainfall flooding is analyzed all the way past State Route 29.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes, I understand that we're adding
-- or FEMA is adding another whole level to this map in that they are
-- it's going to be mandatory to have rainfall, not just coastal surge; is
that correct?
MR. WILEY: In the analysis for the new map, that's correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And what that means is then that the
entire county will be an SFHA.
MR. WILEY: Well, there are scattered all over the county
islands of Zone X.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, I've seen the map with the little
circle here and there.
MR. WILEY: No, no, no, it's --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's not going to benefit a lot of
people.
MR. WILEY: -- pretty impressive as far as -- generally what you
see is the higher elevations that have been filled by development,
create the X zone mound. If it's undeveloped land it's going to be in an
AE or an AH Zone. AH will be for riverine, induced flooding areas,
depths less than three feet.
That three-feet figure gets thrown around multiple different
ways. But for AH it's riverine flooding with depths less than three feet.
And you'll see it as proposed in some of the early draft stuff that we
are giving to FEMA for them to take and produce the map. It's pretty
extensive.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, it is.
MR. WILEY: It makes common sense, because if you get that
much rainfall, we know water temporarily stands on the undeveloped
land. We know that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Bob, isn't the bottom line
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July 27, 2009
the new map will more accurately represent those areas that are in
danger of flooding?
MR. WILEY: The new map identifies existing flood risk
already, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right. So that's --
MR. WILEY: It's not that it's putting somebody in a risk zone,
it's simply identifying what's there.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So as opposed to this map,
people may have had a false sense of security watching this, when in
fact they are subj ect to flooding.
MR. WILEY: We know there is that false sense out there, you're
right.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Can you get us a copy of the
other map, just to satisfy our --
MR. WILEY: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- curiosity?
No?
MR. WILEY: I cannot release that until we get the map coming
back in January, because what we have --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Whoa, wait a minute. It's a public
record. If you have it, you have to release it.
MR. WILEY: Well, I'll let the County Attorney advise me
otherwise, but since --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, no, the County Attorney's here right
now.
MR. WILEY: That's what I'm saying. But it's an incomplete
draft product in work. I don't think --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Your drafts I believe are subject to
public request.
Mr. Klatzkow, is there any public protection to Mr. Wiley's
work?
MR. KLATZKOW: Not that I'm aware of. I'll look into this and
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July 27, 2009
double check, but I'm not aware of it, Robert.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Would you mind doing that before our
next meeting so you can advise him to have that paperwork for us by
the next meeting?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
MR. WILEY: Do you understand, Mr. Strain, why I do not want
to release it?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, the
public needs full disclosure. And if we have potentials of having
problems that people out there don't know about, they need to know
about it early. And if it means there's going to be an uproar over it,
good.
MR. WILEY: My concern is when it comes back in January and
it does not look the same.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'd like to see your work -- I'd like
to see your drafting record, and I don't see -- if it's a public record,
then I think we're entitled to it.
MR. SCHMITT: It's a work in progress, Robert.
MR. WILEY: Yeah, it's a work in progress. It's a draft. It's not
complete.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You can put any caveat you
want.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Stamp it.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, it should be stamped, for
sure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: While we're on the discussion of
additional documentation, in reading this document there was a series
of other documents referred to that -- or other things referred to that I
would like to know if there's backup documentation we can have by
the 12th at the next meeting.
There was a reference to SAR Title 3, hazardous materials as
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July 27, 2009
defined in SAR Title 3. Could we have a listing of those materials?
Because I'd like to know if they're things commonly kept in someone's
garage. If there is, it has a different impact in the way you read this
new ordinance.
The FEMA zone map that we have here in your draft in progress
that we just found out about. Any potential riverine location. Riverines
are referred to many times throughout the documents. It sure would be
nice to know where those locations are, if there are any in Collier
County. If not, then we can strike the language.
MR. WILEY: By riverine locations, we're talking about rainfall
induced flooding. FEMA's definition calls it riverine. That doesn't
mean that we are identifying rivers throughout the county. They have
coastal flooding and riverine flooding. And so we're not saying
anything other than that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, would that be similar to a flow
way?
MR. WILEY: No. Entirely different concept of--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The flow ways are another source of
water.
MR. WILEY: A flow way is defined as that boundary within the
riverine flood zone where encroachment further into it will create that
rise in elevation of the flood elevations. And so Collier County does
not have any floodways in its current map.
And the proposed map that FEMA is coming out with in January
will likewise have no floodways in it. So therefore the floodway issue
is not something that we need to really be concerned about.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So as far as riverine locations
then, that's not an issue. And regulatory floodway maps are not an
issue for Collier County?
MR. WILEY: They will not be an issue.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good.
MR. WILEY: We addressed that very seriously and FEMA says
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July 27, 2009
no, we do not want to produce them for Collier County.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then where those occur in this
document, can they be stricken?
MR. WILEY: Since that's part of the basic model ordinance, I
would rather not strike them. But I'm not saying that it cannot be, but
I'm just copying stuff out of the model ordinance to meet FEMA's
definition at that point.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But you said you took the model
ordinance and you modified it to tailor it to Collier County.
MR. WILEY: The way we do business, correct. As far as our
variance, we have a certain board that was here of variance, things of
that nature, so --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But we don't do business with riverines
or floodway -- regulatory floodway maps. And if we don't, then why
would we leave it in the ordinance? I don't want to leave an opening in
an ordinance that the federal government uses to exercise any more
control over our local people than we already have put on ourselves, if
that's even possible.
But at the same -- so if we don't have it, I can't see why we want
to reference it. Someone then is going to come up with an example of
it that we never anticipated.
MR. WILEY: Well, the riverine issue will come up in your
definition of types of flooding.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right.
MR. WILEY: It's not a location, it's a type of flooding.
The flood way, I can say we can strike it. If they want it put back
in, it's a simple matter to put the definition back in.
Because at the time we put this draft together, we still thought
FEMA was going to be coming up with flood ways for us. I mean,
they did for Lee County. But it's a recent revelation that they're not
going to. So I can try to strike it and see if we survive with flood
ways. But riverine is a term that we do need to have in there.
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July 27, 2009
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Mark?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You have a lot -- go ahead, Mr.
Wolfley.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: You said we have no riverines
here in Collier County? Even though the definition has canal as one of
-- streams, brook, canal.
MR. WILEY: We do not have riverine flooding identified. We
do have canals, various features that act to convey water. But we do
not have -- the current FIRM does not analyze for riverine or rainfall
induced flooding.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Which the canals are our only
source of relieving any flood.
MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. And that is one of the problems with the
current flood insurance rate map. It does not address that issue. That's
why we are being forced to address it now with the new maps. We'll
have the drafts in January.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: And just to kind of go just one
step here from Commissioner Caron and Strain (sic) comment how
frustrating it was to go through this document without such maps. I
just -- very difficult. Because you refer to them all through here. So I
just wanted to add that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, also, could I have a copy
of the sample ordinance?
MR. WILEY: Of the model ordinance?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. If you have an extra one.
MR. WILEY: Who else would like a copy of it?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All of us, please. Actually, the entire
nine members. Those that aren't here, anything we receive they need
to receive as well. Because hopefully they'll be here on the 12th.
In the documents that you sent us, since you referred to in here
the coastal construction -- Collier County coastal setback line, I forgot
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July 27, 2009
the exact terminology. Could you provide us with one of the maps that
shows where that line falls in Collier County?
MR. WILEY: I hope so. I don't even know where it is.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I know, but it's referred to
multiple times --
MR. WILEY: Yes, I see it on the GIS. I'm hoping I can get it out
of there for you. You go into the GIS system, you can see this line
squirreling up through. I know it has a legal definition from the state.
So I hope there is a map. But I don't know if there is a map or not. I'll
check into it, though.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you.
Also, when you use a defined term, it's real hard to track when
you're trying to refer to a defined term or when you're referring --
trying to refer to plain language. We've learned that if you bold the
defined term whenever it occurs, we know then it's a defined term and
we can flip back and rereview its definition, versus what in common
language it would mean. Similar to our Land Development Code.
Is there a way that we could get this document to have its
defined terms bolded?
MR. WILEY: That should be easy, find and search and replace.
That ought to be able to do it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We're going to be talking about
pointed examples of that as we go through tonight. So it would be
handy to have that.
MR. WILEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the last thing: In these percentages
-- well, first of all, in -- revolving the percentages, are any of the
requirements that we're asking for in this new regulatory document
mandatorily required?
MR. WILEY: Okay, ask it again. Are there any--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Of the new requirements between the
old ordinance and this one that we're now asking for to gain more
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July 27,2009
points, are any of those mandatory?
MR. WILEY: No, sir. None of your issues wherein you're
seeking CRS points are mandatory. The mand -- the CRS is strictly a
voluntary program.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Do you know what a -- the
average home in Collier County is $200,000. The average insured
home is probably a lot more than that, because they bought them back
in '05.
Do you know what the insurance savings would be on just the
flood insurance for an average priced home in -- I don't care what
number we pick as an example. Say $350,000 or $400,000. You're
looking at a five percent savings or a 15 percent savings, and maybe a
five percent and a 20 percent savings.
MR. WILEY: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do we know as an example what that
amount is? I mean, I know what I pay for flood insurance; it's not that
expensive, because I'm living in an X zone, it turns out.
MR. WILEY: Your--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I won't be maybe for long, but--
MR. WILEY: And you probably have what's called a preferred
risk policy, which is a drastic discount, even to the Zone X price.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So I have no way of
understanding what's going to happen to possibly me and others that
live outside the blue area but in the yellow and pink when this map
changes and we have then to expose ourselves to these higher rates.
Can we, by the next meeting, have some examples of what the
rates would be without this regulatory language as it stands today, or
with it, so we know what the savings is versus what the cost is to
perform all the actions that this new language takes?
MR. WILEY: As we go through the presentation, there's only
one spot where I even address an actual price of the basic rate that
applies to a $200,000 house, and that's in our discussions we get into
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July 27, 2009
on freeboard. But that doesn't discuss the issue of the five percent
savings that you would have. I mean, it's just whatever your policy is,
you want to save five more percent off of it if we go to the next class.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We've got people on this panel from
different segments of the -- Donna, do you know what you
approximately pay, or would you mind --
COMMISSIONER CARON: No, but I can certainly go look it
up.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad, you're in a little different area
than Donna, so you might --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm an X-er, so -- second floor
X-er so--
,
MR. WILEY: Then that's not going to affect you at all. Zone X
will not be impacted.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Tor would be an X. So would I, and
David. And I'm not sure Karen.
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I'm blue.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're blue.
When we come back on the 12th, would you mind checking
your insurance policy and letting us know approximately what you
pay, if you don't mind?
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: It's not that much. I think that's --
for 250,000, 635 or something.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So five percent. You might save an
additional five percent on top of what you already get as a discount,
because you automatically feel it. You might end up picking up 30 or
40 bucks.
MR. WILEY: Correct.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, that's important to understand in
relationship to the cost that this program's going to put in to everybody
county-wide. And that's why the number, I think we need to know
what that is. If we're only going to be saving 30 or 40 bucks but we're
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July 27, 2009
going to cost thousands in construction costs, what does that tell us as
far as who we're going to be pushing out of this county and who's
going to be living here with those new costs. So I think that's
something we need to understand.
MR. WILEY: So am I still supposed to try to determine that?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you have a -- your information would
be helpful. We're going to bring our own in, but if you have a source
for it, Robert, these are things -- we've got to build a case why this is
reasonable. And I'm asking you, if you think it's reasonable, you seem
to believe in it, I need you to help build a case as to why it's
reasonable. Otherwise --
MR. WILEY: The only document I've been given from FEMA is
just the total dollar value for the whole county. They don't break it
down by policy. I have no clue what people pay individually.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What a guy saves in a million dollar
home along the beach is a lot different than what we -- the majority of
us don't live in million dollar homes, so --
MR. WILEY: Which is why I'm asking, because I have no clue
what people pay for flood insurance. I really don't. On individual
policies. Because everyone's so different.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Klatzkow?
MR. KLATZKOW: When this goes to the board, there's going to
have to be a fiscal impact. I mean, this analysis is going to need to get
done at some point in time or the other. I mean, if staff can do it, that's
fine. If the Productivity Committee can do it, that's fine. But this is
going to have to get done as part of the executive summary.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Ms. Caron.
COMMISSIONER CARON: I think that gets back to my talking
about putting the cart before the horse here on some of this. I'm not
sure we have all the information that we need.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I mean, before we can
recommend approval, I think we'll need all the information. And if we
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July 27, 2009
can start through tonight by providing Mr. Wiley with every question
we start with, and hopefully as these meetings roll on we'll get the
information. If not, then maybe the recommendation won't be so
positive to go forward, or it won't be a recommendation until we get
the information.
Mr. Wolfley?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Yes. Mr. Wiley, we -- Mr.
Strain asked something, are any of these things mandatory, and you
said no. And I'm looking at the statement of purpose. And I hope I'm
not jumping to a specific item. But in looking at the old ordinance and
the new one, the old one is words like protect, minimize, soft words
like maintain and so on. Whereas in this new one we're talking about
words like restrict, prohibit, require, control, regulate, prevent. That's
just in the statement of purpose. I mean, so when Mr. Strain asks a
question, be very careful on that answer.
MR. WILEY: Well, yes, sir. And his question was for the places
where we earn points.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Right.
MR. WILEY: And those are not mandatory. If you choose to
implement them, then they become mandatory policy for you to fulfill
within your county. But within the National Flood Insurance Program
your beyond the bare minimum to participate in the CRS is not
mandatory. You do not have to be a participant in the CRS.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: This document is certainly a lot
more onerous than the last.
MR. WILEY: The document you're looking at addresses some of
the changes in total language even coming out of the model ordinance.
As I said, FEMA told us we had to update.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Was that that stack that you
were trying to give out earlier?
MR. WILEY: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Oh, okay.
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, what I think we'll do then is
move into the paperwork we received.
Before we get into the actual document, there was a four-page
memorandum provided to us by Mr. Wiley, and it was some of it
discussing the DSAC position.
Is there any questions involving that document before we go into
the main document?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, hearing none, we'll go into the
main document.
First couple of pages, first one is the title page and the second
one is the first page of whereas clauses.
And Mr. Wiley, when you get to a point that you have a
presentation slide that dovetails with the section that we're at, just
speak up and we'll --
MR. WILEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- get yours first.
So let's just look at Pages 1 and 2. Are there any questions on the
first two?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's turn to Page 3. Are there any
questions on Page 3?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wiley, on number two, findings of
fact, these flood losses are caused by the cumulative effect of
obstructions in floodplains, causing increases in flood heights and
velocities.
Wouldn't we want to say these flood losses may be caused by?
Unless you're absolutely sure those are the sole causes.
MR. WILEY: Well, I think the purpose here is identifying the
whole listing of issues. And the "are" versus the "maybe", I'm just
going from the model ordinance which said "are". I did not write that
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July 27, 2009
particular section.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who wrote the model ordinance?
MR. WILEY: This comes out of an effort between the -- and I'm
sure I'm going to get the agency wrong, but it's through the emergency
management people at the State of Florida and FEMA.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So FEMA's a federal?
MR. WILEY: FEMA's the federal that oversees to the state
program. The state then oversees down to the local to make sure
everybody complies with it. And then we directly respond right back
to FEMA any time there's changes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, if the federal government was
involved, then my assumption's going to have to be it's all wrong. And
we'll probably have to go through and make sure we help them with
better language.
So unless -- and if you look at number two, it talks about the
losses. And then yet the whereas on the prior page number three it lists
different reasons why there might be losses: Inadequately elevated,
floodproofed or otherwise unprotected from flood damages.
So I'm not sure that all that -- there are other -- there could be a
variety of reasons that may not be listed here. I just don't like the word
are. I'm just wondering if there's a problem just saying the flood losses
may be caused by. I don't think it substantially changes anything, it
just leaves the door open for not being as broad.
MR. WILEY: I don't have a problem if the attorney doesn't. He's
the one that's going to critique my final English here.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'm not going to look to Mr.
Klatzkow for every approval. We're going to make that
recommendation, if he doesn't have any comment. I'm assuming there
won't be any.
We've moved further down --
MR. WILEY: So you want it can be or may be?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: These flood losses may be caused by.
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July 27, 2009
Section 3, number three. And this says control the alteration of
natural floodplains.
Wouldn't you mean control or provide for the alteration of
national floodplains? Because isn't part of this when you build
something in a floodplain you have to provide compensating area? So
wouldn't that be an alteration of a natural floodplain?
MR. WILEY: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So maybe it's control or provide
for the alteration of natural floodplains.
Number four, this talks about controlling filling, grading,
dredging and other development which increase erosion or flood
damage.
Don't we already do that? I know Stan's here, but our LDC talks
-- I mean, we can't fill anything without going through all kinds of
analysis on what that filling's doing. So I'm just -- and we just got into
a lot of issues in the LDC that addressed compensating storage and
other things like that by the diameter of the fill around the house and
where we could clear out and put it -- make other areas where we
could have compensated storage.
So what does four do to us that we don't already have in our
Land Development Code?
MR. WILEY: Nothing. It puts it into the ordinance so that it
meets the minimum requirements ofFEMA.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Does this then match the
language in the LDC?
MR. WILEY: To match it verbatim, I can't say. But in effect of
operation, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Control, filling, grading,
dredging and other development which may increase. Wouldn't it be
which increases erosion or flood damage? Whose decision is it
whether it mayor may not increase it?
MR. WILEY: That comes into play when we get in situations
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July 27, 2009
where we require an engineer to perform kind of a special evaluation.
You see that around coastal structures for us. Primarily where you
have the velocity wave. Further inland you don't really see that drastic
of an erosion situation.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Just so you know, this is the exact
language that's in the current ordinance. I just want everybody to be
aware.
MR. WILEY: Some things didn't change from current, but --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, here's -- you didn't give us a
strike-through version.
COMMISSIONER CARON: That was going to be my next line.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you don't give us a strike-through
verSIon --
COMMISSIONER CARON: It's really hard.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- then as far as I'm concerned the entire
document is open for replay.
MR. WILEY: Right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, if you don't feel that's the case,
then tell us. But at this point without a strike-through version, this
whole -- every word of this whole entire document is going to be
subj ect to review.
MR. WILEY: I did start the effort for the underline and
strike-through. But it is so separate in order from the current ordinance
to the model ordinance that we're going to be graded against that -- I
showed it to the County Attorney, he looked at it and says, forget that.
Delete the old and create a new document. So that's how you have the
concept to delete the old ordinance and replace it with this document.
And while I can appreciate the underline and strike-through he
felt like that would be more readable, because it was really getting to
be cumbersome of having to go from one page to the next and not
even know when you had to jump.
Page 36
July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you know, and this is my opinion,
and if other -- I'm going to keep focusing on mincing these words.
I'm concerned over past approvals that this board has done,
including myself sitting here, where we haven't minced the words and
the interpretations and impacts have come out differently than what
we expect and even maybe staff at the time it was presented to us. Or
maybe we didn't ask the right questions. So unfortunately I'm going to
be very careful in the way this one's approached just for my side of it.
MR. WILEY: I appreciate your care, sir. That's what I look
forward to. That's how we work to get a better product.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the word "may" in that sentence
doesn't make sense if you read it to the intent paragraph in which
begins it. If you're doing this to promote health, safety and welfare and
to minimize losses, you wouldn't be doing it for things that may
increase, you would be doing it for things that would increase, so it
would be more definitive. Otherwise we'd be -- I mean, we're doing
everything on a hypothetical throughout the entire document. So
wouldn't we want to strike the word may and pluralize the word
increase?
MR. WILEY: Well, in some respects here may is a better word
for you from the standpoint that when you're doing with an individual
house pad, for example, you really cannot definitively say that that is
causing something. Whereas when you look from the cumulative
impact of maybe two or 300 of them, or once you begin to see an
impact. So which one is the can, which is the may? It appears to me
that the may is the better one. It gives the potential but it's not
definitively saying that that is the one. So it lets you regulate every
one equally without having to prove that they are the one that caused
the impact.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But if the regulation's based on a fact
that it's going to promote public health, safety and welfare, how is it
doing that if we don't even know if it does because it may? How do
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July 27, 2009
we justify imposing more regulation when we don't know if it's
needed?
MR. WILEY: When you look at the big picture, you can see the
need. When you look at the individual grain of sand, you really can't
see what part of the mountain that really affected.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're not going to get there on this one
so we'll just --
MR. WILEY: I know, we--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'll circle it and continue.
MR. WILEY: There you go.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number five, prevent or regulate the
construction of flood barriers that will unnaturally divert floodwaters
or which may increase flood hazards to other lands.
Again, it's this ambiguous statement that it may increase, and
because it may, we're going to regulate it to death. I'm wondering,
why wouldn't we simply say that will unnaturally divert floodwaters
and which increase flood hazards to other lands. If it's known to do
that, then we certainly have a consideration to regulate it. But if it's
not, what are we going there for?
It's going to be the same answer you already gave me in the
previous one, isn't it?
MR. WILEY: Same answer as the previous one, right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 4. Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: One thing, just a quick
suggestion. You know, the acronyms become very important. Would
it be a good idea to put them before the definitions? Just a quick
thought. Because you do find yourself as you get halfway through the
definitions flipping around looking for acronyms.
MR. WILEY: I can put them anywhere you want to. That was a
recommendation of the floodplain committee to have a listing of
acronyms, so they can go anywhere you want in the document.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think they're good, but I think
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July 27, 2009
what happened was is I made a note for acronyms and obviously I
found them at the end. So maybe it's good to let everybody know.
That's not important, I guess.
On Page 4 you have accessory structures. And the intent there, it
says for human habitation, is that nobody can live in the accessory
structure, it's not a residential.
I think the overall intent is that these are inexpensive. Essentially
frangible structures and stuff. But somebody could go out, and
habitation is an occupation, could build a very expensive let's say
artist studio or something. So is that still an accessory structure or
what -- is that what you want it to mean?
MR. WILEY: I don't define accessory structures. That would be
through our planning people. I'm just using the term.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And the term came from their
sample ordinance or our LDC?
MR. WILEY: Let me see if it's even in here.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And while you're looking at that, Mr.
Klatzkow, I'd like to ask a question. Has your documentary reviewed
this document, these 48 pages we're trying to review now?
MR. KLATZKOW: No, we're still in the process of reviewing.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you anticipate your department is
going to make any changes?
MR. KLATZKOW: I anticipate this document is going to be
changed, yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Again, as Ms. Caron aptly stated earlier,
the cart is before the horse.
So we will move on. Answer Mr. Schiffer's question if you can,
Robert.
MR. WILEY: No, I'll have to look that one up myself.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. The concern is habitation
means, you know, you sleep in it. The subset of occupied. So it still
leaves occupied additions out there -- I mean, accessory buildings.
Page 39
July 27, 2009
Up at the top, additions. First off, standard building code hasn't
been our code for quite a while. So maybe instead of the words
standard building code we should say something like governing
building codes.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Where were you?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, where are you, Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm on addition. I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Top of Page 5.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Five.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, we're still on Page 4.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Oh, never mind.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Let's finish the questions on Page 4
before we go to 5, if we could.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: And Mark, I think it would be
helpful if they identify the line that they're referring to.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, yeah, they've got numbers on the
left. That's a good idea. Okay. I didn't even see that, Tor, thank you.
And we got your acronyms taking care of on this one, Tor.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: You're going to move them.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah.
Any other questions on Page 4?
(N 0 response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I've got a couple.
Mr. Wiley, and we're on -- let's look at lines 31 and 32. I'll read
30. Unless specifically defined below, words or phrases used in this
ordinance shall be interpreted so as to give them they meaning they
have in common usage and to give this ordinance its most reasonable
application.
All the definitions I would understand one way, and I'm kind of
glad we got definitions, but I'm not sure any of them are in our
common usage. But you have 15 pages of definitions out of 48. Is that
-- did you get those from this template that you used from the
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July 27, 2009
government?
MR. WILEY: I got most of them from the model ordinance. But
then as we start talking about some of these specific higher regulatory
standards, some of those definitions came directly from FEMA's
portion of regulations for those higher standards.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Now, it's -- I would envision that this
document, if it's approved, then has to be implemented into our Land
Development Code with changes to the code. Is that the scenario that
you'd most likely expect?
MR. WILEY: In some situations, yes. But generally speaking it
will remain in the Code of Laws and Ordinances but not in the Land
Development Code.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if someone goes in for a site division
-- subdivision improvement or an improvement to an accessory
structure for their home, they wouldn't be looking for the Land
Development Code to know the regulations, they'd have to be looking
in -- they have to look in the Code of Ordinances to find this
document?
MR. WILEY: No, what I'm saying is it goes into the Code of
Laws and Ordinances, and then as we look at it those applicable
sections which do directly affect the building permit applications
you're describing, we would go through the process to then put those
into amendments in the Land Development Code. But initially the
whole ordinance goes into the Code of Laws and Ordinances and does
come into effect.
And we do have the situation that we have portions of the
development rules that are not in the Land Development Code but are
in the Code of Laws and Ordinances even today, outside of this
document.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, concerning the definitions, the
Land Development Code has an extensive list in many, many pages of
definition. If these definitions don't match those in the Land
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July 27,2009
Development Code, how are we going to correlate the two?
MR. WILEY : Yeah, we've talked about that. Since these are
FEMA's definitions and they don't take kindly to us changing their
definitions, we have to utilize their definition for the flood insurance
related portions of the application.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So now we have multiple sections of
definitions in our Land Development Code that apply to certain
portions of it.
MR. WILEY: It has that potential, yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: For $30 in savings to insurance. I'm not
sure we're getting there with this, Robert, but we'll keep moving.
Line 36, accessory structures should constitute a minimal
investment, may not be used for human habitation, and should be
designed to have minimal flood damage potential.
What is the design that is minimal flood damage potential? What
do we mean by the word minimal flood damage potential?
MR. WILEY: In looking from the standpoint ofFEMA, you get
insurance on your residence. And you can get it on accessory
buildings, but they have to meet likewise the requirements for the
flood insurance program. If you're going to propose putting in a
structure that is a very expensive structure and you're putting it below
the base flood elevation, that's not going to settle well with your
insurance policy. And FEMA's trying to get everyone's program set up
so that if you want to put an unfinished shed, if it gets wet, so what,
you hose it off. That kind of situation is what they're looking at here.
Minimal. So if you wash the mud off of it, you go back there in fine
business. But don't put something up that's going to be real expensive
to replace when it gets damaged from flooding.
And that's what their goal is for an accessory structure, to
comply with the flood insurance portion of it. So when you'd have an
application wants to come in and builds a super expensive, super
damage prone shed and they give us an elevation below the BFE,
Page 42
July 27, 2009
we're going to really have issues when that permit tries to go forward
for approval with the county. We're going to try to make them build it
at the base flood elevation.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So now as we discussed earlier, this
document's going to be somehow moved into the Land Development
Code where necessary.
MR. WILEY: The applicable portions would, right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. Well, I mean, if you can't change
the accessory structure definition and that's implemented into the Land
Development Code, Joe Schmitt's shop now has to decide ifminimal
flood damage potential designs were incorporated into the document
that they received to review for building permit.
MR. WILEY: Right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm just curious as to what the standards
are that they're going to review towards. Because that becomes an
issue of contention with them and many applicants on a regular basis
if we don't have regulations saying in order to do this on accessory
structure the minimum design standards are such, and we start listing
those. We don't have anything here telling us what those are.
MR. WILEY: We do not at this time, that's correct. I suspect you
are correct that it will build into that as we begin to implement it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. But we just don't know what they
are today.
Okay, let's move to Page 5. Does anybody have any questions on
Page 5?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do, Mark.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And one thing. Let me just --
getting that word to mean something is extremely important. Look at
on the sign ordinance, it's the word exterior was taken all over the
place.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you know what--
Page 43
July 27, 2009
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So what is the word -- minimal
is a good example, a word used throughout this code.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's why I asked if the County
Attorney's Office had reviewed it. Because there are so many
ambiguous words. And I've circled every one of them. And this is
going to be a long process, because each one has to be discussed.
I'm worried just like you are. And I know you as a professional
you have to design to a word. And if you can't know what the
definition of the word is or the criteria for the word, your design is
going to be subject to problems every time you submit.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's subject to one staff
member's opinion. Which means it's, you know, no longer a republic,
it's a dictatorship if somebody's telling you the word means that. But
let's move on.
I'm up on the top of 5, line four. The standard building code
hasn't existed for a while. So wouldn't it be better to say by the
governing building codes? Or you could use Collier building code,
because essentially that's the word we use to adopt the governing
building codes.
MR. WILEY: Right. We've harangued with this one back and
forth several times as to what the right word is. I'm going to go with
whatever I'm told. I just want everybody to know that's the code that
we're using. Whatever is the standard, is the Florida -- I don't even
know what the definition --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, it hasn't been published
for almost 10 years, so pick a live one, you know.
MR. WILEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But we do have governing
building codes.
And the other question is why do you want the fire wall to be
required? Because in the design of a building, the placement of a fire
wall is usually the judgment of the designer. It means what you want it
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July 27, 2009
to mean here. But would you have a problem if you killed the word
required? It said essentially, is connected by a load -- other than a fire
wall. In other words, the design would require a fire wall and the fire
wall will give certain privileges and abilities due to the building code.
The building code will never require the fire wall.
So my suggestion here, just to keep it going fast, is kill the word
required and use governing building codes instead of the standard
building code.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So it would say other than a fire wall by
the governing building codes.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WILEY: I don't care.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Or you could say as per the
governing building codes or something.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other issues on Page 5?
MR. WILEY: So you want it just stricken or replaced with as
per?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: As per sounds better.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else on Page 5?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, let's move to Page 6.
Any questions on Page 6?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Under number 11, the chief
administrative official wherever used shall mean the county manager.
Why don't we just say county manager.
MR. WILEY: That's nice, except that officially under FEMA's
other laws through acts of congress they use chief administrative
official, so that's why we're keeping the term in there. We all know it's
county manager, but they in their program language, use that term. So
we're trying to identify who that is.
Page 45
July 27,2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else?
(N 0 response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ifnot, on Page 7, anybody have any
questions on Page 7?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number --line number 10, the word
development, it talks about improved or unimproved real estate,
including but not limited to buildings or other structures. Mining,
dredging, filling, grading, paving, excavation, drilling operations or
storage of equipment and materials.
I don't know if all those require permits. And that kind of gets
me to number 14, development permits means any county permits
which must be approved by county prior to proceeding with any
development.
All the things listed under 10, line 10, don't require -- you don't
need a permit for storage of material and equipment in some cases,
unless it's housed. We have special permits for some of the other stuff.
But do you mean anything that's done to a site, including
clearing? Because you've got to clear to do the excavation. I'm trying
to understand your extent of development. Is that any change to the
natural configuration of a site?
MR. WILEY: Right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because that plays out in the rest of this
document.
MR. WILEY: Now, clearing of vegetation would appear to be
not applicable. But in FEMA's definition it can have an impact
because of increased runoff. Suddenly you've removed the vegetation.
So this definition is one that is written actually by congress at
this point in the Code of Federal Regulations.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you know, that's scary.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: That is scary.
MR. WILEY: Since we're all in the public, I'm not going to
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July 27,2009
comment there.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, man.
MR. WILEY: Yeah, this one has created a lot of heartburn from
what all it includes. But that is their official definition.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think as we go into the
document, when it pops up as a word that's being used, and we go
back to this definition, I think that's where we'll see we may have
some concerns, that's why I wanted to point it out.
Number 17, the elevated building, it has no structure. It's lowest
elevated floor raised above ground level by foundation walls, sheer
walls, posts, piers, columns, or pilings.
What about fill?
MR. WILEY: That's not an elevated structure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WILEY: Elevated structure is where water can pass under it
or be stored under it. That's what they're getting at. In an elevated
structure -- for example, on the coastline an elevated structure, you
build it up so the wave can physically pass under the house.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if you have foundation walls, like
your stem walls, that's not considered an elevated building when it
goes on stem walls?
MR. WILEY: There's two ways to do it. If you fill inside the
stem wall and make it solid through there, it's not an elevated
structure.
If you leave inside your wall hollow, you're required to put flood
vents in, and then it is an elevated structure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Inside the wall, you mean between the
block, not inside the cells of the block.
MR. WILEY: For instance, if you wanted to put your foundation
below grade and just building your concrete wall up --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right.
MR. WILEY: -- then you put your floor joists across it.
Page 47
July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. That's an elevated structure?
MR. WILEY: That's an elevated structure. And you have to put
flood vents in to let the water equalize inside and outside the block
wall.
But if you build the same block wall up but you fill it and you
call it a stem wall, then it's not an elevated structure because the water
cannot pass underneath the structure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Retaining walls. Are they
considered contributing to an elevated structure? A property retaining
wall distant from the building, that wouldn't count then, would it?
MR. WILEY: The retaining wall and the soil behind it, no, that's
not elevated structure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WILEY: Keep in mind also, when you're talking about the
structure, it's just that. It's not something that's 10 feet away from it, it
is the structure.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I understand.
Number 29, encroachments means the advance or infringement
of uses, plant growth, fill, excavation, buildings, and it goes on.
I'm just -- plant growth. What kind of plant growth?
Encroachment of plant growth? I mean, nature puts plants in there.
MR. WILEY: Yes, it did.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So encroachment into a floodplain can
be plant growth naturally generated?
MR. WILEY: It can be, yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Or development. Instead--
MR. WILEY: Or development induced.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- of saying development reiterate
everything that development is.
MR. WILEY: Well, the situation they're looking there is where
people deliberately plant vegetation in channels to disguise them. And
then they don't control it and it overtakes. And what's supposed to
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July 27, 2009
have been a design channel suddenly is greatly restricted.
That's what they include it in this way, to help you understand
that you can't deliberately go reducing capacity or even allow it to
happen after it's been approved. You're suppose to maintain it.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, the next one is this new construc
-- I mean this existing construction.
MR. WILEY: Okay, Line 33.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Line 33. And it's for the purposes of
floodplain management structures which the start of construction
commenced before September 4th, 1979.
Now, then you have on new construction, further in the
document, which is for construction started after September 14th,
1979. On or after.
How -- new construction? That's almost 30 years old.
MR. WILEY: Okay. The definition here relates to when Collier
County was issued its first Flood Insurance Rate Map. And that's how
FEMA, through the federal regulations again, defines new and
existing. It's any community that had development prior to FEMA's
implementation of their first flood map, you know, the FIRM. We call
them a flood map. That is considered to be existing, okay? So these
new regulations you can be grandfathered without having to change
everything. And that's where this comes in to play with that key date,
the first FIRM. And just so you know, the county has a date, the City
of Naples has a separate date. They had a Flood Insurance Rate Map
prior to the county.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if you have a structure permitted
prior to '79, September 14th, '79, you don't apply -- none of the FEMA
rules apply? Or how --
MR. WILEY: There are grandfathered provisions that take care
of you until you have the situation that you go to remedy a problem or
make an improvement to it that hits that 50 percent threshold, and then
your grandfather goes away. At that point you've done more than half
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July 27, 2009
of the structure's value, so you erase your grandfather and you must
then comply with current regulations.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you.
Anybody else on Page 7?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, you know what, before we go to
Page 8 -- we're moving so fast here, we're one-sixth of the way
through this thing -- let's take a break and come back at 6:45.
(Brief recess.)
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, welcome, everybody, back from
the break.
During the break I tried to figure out a way maybe to make this
process a little more efficient, because the word-for-word analysis
that's going to continue here is going to take a lot of time. We're on
Page 7 or 8 of 48.
I talked to the County Attorney, Mr. Klatzkow. One item I'd like
to suggest is that we might want to defer this review until such time
that the County Attorney's Office can get together with staff and
collaborate on a document that meets all the needs and is more, say,
legally reviewed. And at the same time that would give us time to
remand this to the Productivity Committee, if they would so take it, to
provide the fiscal analysis that's needed both from the cost of
construction and from the potential savings on the homeowners
Insurance.
And there's two forms of homeowners insurance that I've now
been told about. And one is single-family and the other is
condominium. They're done in quite different ways. One, condos do
them for the whole building and individual units. So we don't have
any of that information. And I sure would like to know if we're
looking at regulations that's going to require us to spend $10,000 for a
savings of 30. And if that's the case, it's going to have a complete
different bearing on this.
Page 50
July 27, 2009
So I'm suggesting for conversation right now from this panel and
then from Mr. Wiley, is if this might be better served to the public and
to us, as far as analysis goes, by following a different process, by
having the County Attorney's Office review this carefully with staff in
advance and asking the Productivity Committee to take a look at it
from a cost perspective.
Does anybody on the Planning Commission have a comment?
Mr. Wolfley?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, yeah, and it would maybe
give an opportunity to get us some maps and the model, the FEMA
model in which you worked. It would be a great opportunity to do
that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: And also, Robert, you have done
some of the cost analysis for the higher standards, and we haven't seen
any of that. It would be good to review that as well ahead of time. So
it would give you a chance to provide us with that information as well.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer, did you have something?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I don't know where I'm
missing this. I know we need a fiscal thing. But the objectives of this
is not to save people insurance money. That's a by-product.
MR. WILEY: That's a by-product, that's right.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But the objectives of it is, you
know, Section 4 listed -- all of those are excellent, none of which is to
save money. Obviously these things will save money, all of these
objectives. So I'm not sure why an analysis of insurance -- it doesn't
even enter into my thoughts when I'm thinking about these options.
MR. KLATZKOW: Because the whole point of this is for the
insurance. It's a voluntary program. If -- and when you participate in
the program, there are cost savings. If there are no cost savings, there's
no point in our doing this.
If the object is simply flood protection, we don't have to do this
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July 27, 2009
format, we can do something else.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I mean, look at Section 4,
we went over the objectives. I mean, are you saying that maybe ours is
good enough now, we don't need to raise it just to -- I mean, Bob, is
the intent of all this to save insurance money or to enhance the
obj ectives of Section 4?
MR. WILEY: The purpose of this is to make the community
more resistant to flood damage. If in the process we're able to provide
opportunities for people to save, that's a good thing. But if we do not
have that opportunity for people to save, still we have made the
community more resistant to flood damage.
Flooding is based on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Map which
uses the one percent annual chance storm event. It means every year
you have a one percent chance of flooding elevations, as depicted on
the map.
Now, each hurricane is its own separate event. It doesn't know
what FEMA's one percent chance is. And so fortunately we have not
seen this type of flooding very often. The closest you will come to
seeing a similar flooding event, which really does not depict the
current Flood Insurance Rate Map, but it was rainfall induced flooding
from Tropical Storm Jerry. And East Naples bore the brunt of that,
which is where that volume of rain fell. Now, as you got further north
in the county the volume of rain was less.
But that gives you an illustration from our current practices of
development. And I was right out in the midst of Jerry when I sawall
of this happening. And it was somewhat disheartening. In particular,
the houses were built at the supposed one percent annual chance storm
event. And people were out in front of their homes with signs begging
people, don't drive down my street. Because the water was just right
up to the lip of that threshold for that door. And then here comes
somebody driving down the street, whoop, water would go in and they
got flooded.
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July 27, 2009
That's in particular -- in this ordinance, that issue of freeboard
comes in from my personal observations of watching home after home
have that happen to them. It was all fine on paper. It actually matched
up surprisingly well to the rainfall.
And so these are situations that we see to help make our
community more resistant to flood damage. If again they -- remember
what I said when we started our presentation, there are thousands and
thousands of points out there that if all you wanted to try to do was to
achieve a cost savings on flood insurance, you could put them in your
program.
But FEMA strongly urges, and I don't support doing something
for that point value, but doing things that have a potential to make this
community more resistant to flood damage. That's why I have gone
through, as well as our committee, and selected issues that appear
applicable to us. We didn't do it for the savings, but if we can generate
the savings, then why not go forward where it doesn't appear to be any
onerous cost to go for a particular savings.
So there are a couple of spots where we did just that. In
particular, the issue of lowering the threshold from 50 percent to 49
percent. You can't even get two appraisers to come together within
one percent of the same value of a structure. So lowering it one
percent, he could pick up 10 points. Yeah, we went that one for the
points. Because it really was a moot issue that we didn't see the
difference between one percent, 49 to 50 percent of the value of a
structure having an appreciable impact on somebody's ability to keep
remodeling, remodeling, remodeling a home every year.
So it's not designed for the cost savings, it is designed for flood
safety purposes.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Hence the reason I brought that
up. I mean, I'm not going to sit and say that saves 30 cents, that saves
$5.00 on an insurance policy. That has nothing to do with my thoughts
on this.
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does the cost of the implementation to
the individual homeowner have anything to do with your thoughts on
that?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it does. And, you know,
when I -- I design buildings. And in the beginning I would always
stick them right at the FIRM level; you know, for some reason code
minimum seems the right place. And houses were getting flooded.
They were getting wave action. So it doesn't take long to get the
wisdom to raise that. I mean, that's just some insurance program, that
has nothing to do with where a smart person puts his floor.
So to me, you know, the concepts of freeboard and all that, it
could be considered good design. Now, does it cost more to raise it
up? There's different ways of doing it. You know, that's up to the
designer to figure out how to achieve it.
But I would never think of the insurance. The guy -- for the
insurance the guy can go build it tall now, Bob, isn't that right, and he
would get better insurance if he raised his own elevation?
MR. WILEY: Up to where you reach four feet.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Right.
MR. WILEY: And between the three and four-foot level, FEMA
says go higher if you want to, but we're not going to offer you any
benefit. At that point you are so high above the elevation that they
don't offer discounts. But you can go eight feet above, if you want to.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No, my point is, though, that if
you raised your own building above the FIRM level, you would be
receiving benefits in insurance along the way.
MR. WILEY: Your individual policy -- and it's based upon the
one- foot difference now. I mean, a fraction of a foot doesn't cut it.
FEMA works in one-foot intervals.
But if you voluntarily raised your building for additional
freeboard, you cut your flood insurance policy premium basic rate
cost in half or more. And that's just your own option. You can do that
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July 27, 2009
at any time.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do we stop people from doing that?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No.
MR. WILEY: The only issue that comes in from stopping people
is when you're looking at a zoning which has a maximum structure
height. And that structure height is based upon those starting at the
FEMA elevation. So if they choose to go higher than the FEMA
minimum, then effectively they are volunteering to reduce down on
the height of the structure where that restriction applies.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, there's a myriad of possibilities to
improve housing. We can -- I mean, every form of design can say we
could do it better than the minimum code.
Take the fire departments, for example. They love solid concrete
walls and sprinklers in every niche so that the house gets flooded with
water from the inside that we're trying to protect from the outside.
But it's impractical to impose that kind of cost on an individual
home without driving the market rate of that home right through the
roof.
And part of what's happening in this county, it's very expensive
to build here, just because of the overhead to build here, the taxes and
whatever else happens, cost of land.
I'm concerned that if these costs to make these improvements
aren't analyzed and evaluated in the manner of how it's going to effect
the total cost of an average priced home, we may end up pricing more
and more people out of this marketplace. At the same time, we could
offset that by a savings in insurance, if there was one. And that's why
the insurance savings does play in.
But if that insurance savings isn't enough to offset huge increases
in construction costs, whatever they may be, I'm not sure that we have
a balance there. And that's what I'm trying to understand. I can't
understand it without a fiscal analysis. I don't know how to get there
without having to come back and do this all over again, once that
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July 27, 2009
analysis is obtained and once this County Attorney's Office reviews
that.
However, I'm very willing to continue forward with this review,
if that's what this panel wants. I'm looking for a comprehensive
approach to it, one that we haven't got to rereview multiple times. And
that's why I suggested it. But I'm certainly going to go with what the
wishes of this board is.
And so based on that, does anybody have any comments on what
you'd like to see?
Mr. Kolflat?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: No, I suggest we follow what
was suggested earlier about having legal department look at it, go
through with the staff, provide us additional information, and then to
continue this.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What about having the Productivity
Committee, ask them to review it for cost analysis?
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: That would be helpful also.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think we should go for it. I
mean, the insurance cost actually never entered into my thoughts at all
on this.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, as I said, there's other costs
involved.
Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I think we should wait for
the County Attorney to have looked at this. I think there is information
currently available through Mr. Wiley's office that we should have in
order to make some judgments. And we've asked them for those
things, he can provide those things, and we can review it on -- what
was our next date, the 12th?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 12th.
What about the Productivity Committee's review of cost?
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July 27,2009
COMMISSIONER CARON: I think it's always helpful to have
the Productivity Committee analyze cost. I would certainly be in favor
of that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everybody knows where I
already stand.
And Ms. Homiak?
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I'd like to see the Productivity
Committee look at it, too, if they're willing to do that. And I don't
know if that would be -- would they be showing maybe an -- it's just
the insurance cost or an actual reconstruction of a building that's been
damaged?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I'd like to see them--
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Say in East Naples.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- evaluate the construction cost that this
ordinance would bring into play.
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If they feel they can take on that job. I
don't know if they can. And if they can't, we'll have to go on without
them and do the best we can. Because Mr. Wiley's going to have to
produce a fiscal analysis for the BCC, regardless.
MR. WILEY: Right.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So next time we meet it ought to be
when we have a fiscal analysis of some type. And if the Productivity
Committee agrees to do it, theirs would be very helpful. And I will
certainly contact them to find that out.
Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: I'm not sure, but I believe that the
Productivity Committee does not even have a meeting in August.
MR. WILEY: I think they are down for the summer.
COMMISSIONER CARON: I believe so.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wolfley?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Well, I'm in line with what you
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July 27, 2009
said. I felt in reading through this, getting through -- well, when I got
up to Section 8, I felt like I was deserving of Section 8. Not to be too
funny here. But I felt that there was a lot of gaps here. And I just knew
there was some information.
And like you, Commissioner Strain, I was on the Internet for a
day and a half looking for the information and couldn't find it. And I
felt totally empty reading this document.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Wiley, is there any way that you
could have some fiscal impact review? And I don't mean with just
your input. Your working within the county system. I certainly would
like to have your input, though, with outside assistance. If the
Productivity Committee can't do it, are there stakeholders that could
be involved that could provide you with values that you could utilize
in an analysis that by the 12th we could have something to look at so
we don't waste that time frame that we've already established.
And from the County Attorney's perspective, I hope that they
could have something looked at by then as well. What do you think,
Robert?
MR. WILEY : Well, by the 12th, my deadline to you is a week
before that.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right.
MR. WILEY: So that's not going to happen. I can't get it done
between now and this Friday with everything else that I'm hit up with
right now. Tomorrow night I've got another presentation on the
Floodplain Management Plan. So, you know, I'm sort of booked out
between now and the end of this month.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, Bob, when you went
before the DSAC, did they focus on -- did they give you any idea of
costs? Obviously the costs everybody seems to be looking for is what
is the cost? Freeboard is going to be the big example.
MR. WILEY: Right.
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July 27,2009
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What is the cost of raising the
building a foot? I mean, there are requirements that aren't freeboard
that require that. But in the freeboard case, did they ever -- anybody
allude to any kind of an analysis like that?
MR. WILEY: What we did, we presented to them with
information that I had received. And this was 2006 I think it was when
I was actually getting information when the building industry was
going well and we had prices that were up there. I called around
through the Yellow Pages various builders. I asked them what was
their typical home they were building, assuming 3,000 square feet,
what would it cost you to elevate that one additional foot. I got that
information. The ranges varied widely, typical on how favorable they
were towards the idea or how opposed they were to it. The more
opposed, the higher the price went. And we're talking big differences.
I took that information, though, threw out the low, threw out the
high, took the ones in the middle, averaged them out. And that's in my
presentation to go over with you tonight. And it worked out about
$5,500 to raise it one foot.
FEMA is of the opinion differently than me, that the recovery
cost is much quicker than what I calculated. Based upon current rates
-- now just the basic building rate. I'm not talking about the policy
issuance fee and -- you know, insurance agents have all kinds of fees
they add on just to provide the paperwork for you.
But the basic premium insurance rate upon which you base a
structure, and I took a 3,000 square foot house. Thought okay, if it's
going to cost me $5,500 just for the freeboard, assuming that house
sells for $200,000, just the structure and not the land, I mean, it's a
$200,000 structure on the house, and I've got flood insurance for it.
My cost savings says just from me getting an individual policy
reduction for having a foot of freeboard, I recoup that in about 13
years. Yet all that time I've got the benefit of having a safer house.
That's not including if we're able to as a community to get a class
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July 27, 2009
reduc -- class advancement from a Class 7 to a Class 6 community
where that's an additional five percent thrown on top of that.
So the freeboard issue was the one that DSAC had the biggest
problem with on initial construction cost. And they felt that the
analysis I had done by simply calling up various builders was just
totally wrong, that it definitely would cost a lot more than that.
But I couldn't get builders to confirm it. I went through the
Yellow Pages calling and getting ahold of anybody who would answer
the phone from those listings. And so that's where I looked at it.
And then the one position that DSAC took was that well, if you
can't recover the cost, and I hope I quote this correctly, but I thought
the fellow said in five years or less they did not consider that to be a
recoverable cost.
Well, that's interesting, because FEMA, in their evaluation --
now they're basing this nationwide, though, they're not basing it upon
Collier County costs. To raise freeboard by one foot, their estimate is
it takes you three years to recover that cost. But they're including in
the value of the extra protection you have against it.
I didn't do that. I just took a straight construction cost, figuring
that was a much more conservative position to take, not determining
current value of a service that you're getting for your flood insurance.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert, if you've got a $5,500 cost that
someone told you could be recovered in 13 years, let's say, we'll use
that scenario, and it wasn't the insurance that was causing the
recovery, what is causing the recovery? How do you recover that
money over a 13-year time? How does the payback come to you?
MR. WILEY : Well, the payback is -- what I'm talking about is
just in the reduction in your personal flood insurance policy.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I thought you said it wasn't.
MR. WILEY: No, no. That would be just your individual
personal policy, not including any additional discount that the county
may be able to come up with for a broad program.
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if you have an extra foot of
freeboard and your insurance for flood was, say, $300 a year, and I
think we have another -- say you save another five percent on that by
going with the one foot of freeboard on top of all your other discounts
that exist already, that's $15 a year times 13 years doesn't come out to
the cost of the footers. I don't understand how you got there.
MR. WILEY: You want me to go through my slides real quickly
and pull --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Sure.
MR. WILEY: -- that up?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Because this is going to be an issue and
we need to resolve it.
MR. WILEY: What I did was I took this typical cost, as you can
see here, 3,000 square foot house. The insurance premium, based upon
the rates that were in effect a year ago -- I have not updated my rate
book. Every May they come out with new rates and they choose to
increase or not.
Just your basic flood insurance building rate, which is based
upon a rate for the first $50,000 of insurance, was $14.41 per 1,000.
And then I believe -- I can pull the book up here, but it's like $1.10 for
every 1,000 for the next $200,000. So if it's at 150,000 of the $1.l0--
but it worked out -- without the freeboard, my basic rate was $885 a
year. With the freeboard it would be 490.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, how is that five percent of 885?
MR. WILEY: No, no, no, no, no. That is my individual policy
savings I'd get for having the freeboard. That does not include any
kind of five percent additional savings you would get if the county's
entire flood insurance program was able to advance a class, from Class
7 to Class 6.
This is just -- right now if you chose to build a house a foot
higher than you had to, you could cut your policy roughly, roughly, in
half.
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron?
COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I think you're mixing two
different things. You're mixing the voluntary program that we'll get
some additional savings on with what you would save by just adding
freeboard.
MR. WILEY: If you the homeowner chose, I want to build it
higher, you can cut your flood insurance basic premium rate by about
half.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But now that's a substantial issue. That
makes a difference.
MR. WILEY: If you go two feet, it's even more savings.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WILEY: This is an annual savings that you get.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I would like us to meet on the 12th, and
I would like to get as much additional information as we can and have
as much legal review as we can. But at the same time, I'd rather not
see us ask a lot of questions tonight that could be answered with that
additional information.
What I would suggest is we go back to where you left off in your
presentation. Let's just walk through your presentation tonight, and
then after you get done with that, we'll have all the information from
you to better understand a reread of this, we'll have the County
Attorney's Office to be able to give us some kind of review in a short
time the best they can, and then any cost information that we can get
between now and then that you can find, Robert, we would ask that
you provide the supporting entities that you got the information from.
That would be helpful too.
And I understand without the Productivity Committee in place it
would be kind of hard to get that information from them over the
summertime. And so let's just proceed in that manner, if nobody
objects to it.
Mr. Schiffer?
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July 27, 2009
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: One other thing, too, is it's not
just residential. I mean, this has an impact on commercial structures
too. So I don't know how you'd ever come up with that data. But good
luck.
MR. WILEY: Commercial structures -- well, let's say it this
way: Nonresidential. FEMA defines it as residential and
nonresidential. I don't follow their logic in what they sometimes
consider as nonresidential since people are living there. But again,
that's federal definition.
I would think a nursing home would be residential, but they
consider it nonresidential.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's a business.
MR. WILEY: Go figure. I don't know.
But anyway, in using the nonresidential, because you can
provide compliance with the FEMA flood insurance program
regulation without elevation of the whole structure but simply by
providing floodproofing to keep water from physically entering the
structure, it gets a little bit more complicated in how you do your
costing out. Because different techniques obviously are drastically
different in cost, and the architect designs the building to meet those
requirements.
And we do have quite a few buildings in the county that are
designed below the base flood elevation using floodproofing.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert, let's go back to where you left
off on your presentation. Let's get through your presentation this
evening and we'll end at that point, whatever that is, and we'll continue
until the 12th and get as much inf -- more information between now
and the 12th as you can provide and the County Attorney's Office can
reVIew.
MR. WILEY: Will do so, sir, thank you.
Going with our presentation tonight in talking about these are the
standards that we wanted to add into the ordinance that provide for an
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July 27,2009
increased level of protection against flooding. There's foundation
protection; freeboard; manufactured home parks, and we'll talk about
that in -- it doesn't mean that we're regulating -- we're regulating the
elevation of a structure in a manufactured home park. Lower
substantial improvements threshold; protection of critical facilities;
other higher standards. And we have created one here that's called
floodproofing, inspection and training. And it was an interesting
comment I got from FEMA on that one. And then flood hazard
disclosure.
And then outside of your document and in that four-page memo
that I submitted to you, there was some additional language that staff
would like to have in the ordinance. It was in the ordinance originally
in a draft. The Floodplain Management Planning Committee voted to
have it removed; likewise DSAC insisted that it be removed. So it
was. But it's still there. It's called cumulative substantial
improvements. We will talk about that as we get through the
presentation here.
And then as we mentioned before, one that we're not ready to
add yet but I want you to see it for consideration coming up about a
year from now is called protection of floodplain storage capacity. And
that is strictly because it deals with a riverine flood zone, and we only
have coastal in effect right now . We won't have riverine flooding until
the new maps come in to play later in 2010.
As I said, these comments were from the Floodplain
Management Planning Committee. They did vote to approve the draft
you have before you. And their draft as you know does not include
cumulative. That's in the memo, so keep that in mind.
DSAC did have these four stipulations with their vote for
recommendation of approval. And eliminating the freeboard. Leave
that FEMA NFIP default value of 50 percent for substantial
improvements threshold. They were concerned about the cost analysis
for each of the proposed higher regulatory standards. And they wanted
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July 27, 2009
to make sure I identified all portions that exceeded, which we talked
about that. We'll go through them.
Foundation protection is in Section 17. Section 17 is a listing of
some general standards. And so within that Section 17, paragraph
number 14, sub items A and B, this talks about building on fill. If you
choose to place fill on your property, what we're saying is add in a
requirement for a compaction test. Now, years ago we had a
compaction test. But with the Florida Building Code, when it came
about, they removed the requirement for a specific test, and
compaction is whatever the engineer or architect it is satisfied we're
using. Which could mean good or bad. It does not anymore have the
stipulation for the compaction test.
And you're shaking your head, Mr. Schiffer.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, because I'm not sure of
that. But I'll look it up.
MR. WILEY: I was surprised at it. I did not know that. But I
wanted to see how closely our current code already complied with this
so I could show FEMA we complied. And it had removed the
compaction test.
So we decided, staff, that it would be a good idea to put that test
back in that we always have used in the past. That's what this is for. It
gives you the opportunity to decide how far outside of the building
envelope to put that. So having asked DSAC for some specific
direction how far outside do you guys compact, no one would give an
answer, they just sat there, looked at me, wouldn't speak a word, so I
picked three feet. If you want to go five feet, 10 feet, I mean, I want
some advice from people in the industry, what is the correct -- the
purposes being so that you've got a stable foundation for that house so
that should there be a coastal surge come in, you've got a little bit of
room there before you start scouring out from underneath your house
or your commercial building.
I did the typical cost for a house, again taking the typical square
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July 27, 2009
footage, the price of fill at that time, added in some dollars for what it
would take to actually run the compaction testing, came up with a
little bit less than 1,200 bucks to restore back to what we're already
doing.
But the irony of it is you're already doing that. At least I could
not find a builder that I talked to who wasn't still using a compaction
test. So it really isn't necessarily an additional cost, it's already being
put into the building program. But assuming someone was out there
not testing for compaction, it could lead to something along this line.
And by the way, everybody supported that, getting the
compaction test back in as a minimum requirement. And the comment
I got from several people was, well they did not even know it was
missing. And I just found it on a fluke. Just one of those things reading
the new code. And it was missing, so I went and talked to our building
department and they confirmed yes, it had been taken out and was left
to the discretion of the designer. I thought that was not a good thing to
do.
The next item I want to talk about for an additional regulation, a
higher regulatory criteria, is that issue of freeboard, which has been
part of our discussion already this evening. And we're suggesting we
go to a one-foot freeboard in FEMA's program. And they base
everything on the one-foot intervals, and so they have one-foot, two
feet, three feet. And at that point above that they don't offer any
additional credits for above three feet. It's applied to the lowest floor
elevation. And this is a key difference here in the way we consider it.
If the lowest floor elevation, including a basement -- which there's not
many of those, there's only what, a couple of them in Collier County?
I know of one, I've been told there's another one.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's one in Pelican Bay where that
Sun Bank building is, if I'm not mistaken.
MR. WILEY: Is there? Okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. You've got to go below the
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July 27,2009
building to park.
MR. WILEY: I know of one. And now I know of two, that's in
Pelican Bay. And I was told that there is one in the city, but I don't
know its location.
So with that said, though, it's not a common thing to have
basements in Collier County. But it would include the electrical,
heating, ventilation, plumbing and air conditioning equipment and
other service facilities, including the ductwork. And that comes into
play on elevated structures in particular where they choose to just
hang stuff down low. And this was said, you would be bringing that
up to meet freeboard too. Because those are things you really don't
want to have flooded and fail anyway as part of the structure.
This is a picture to show you what a freeboard --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer had a question.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, in the reading we did
before, especially in the definition of floodproofing and stuff like that,
you sometimes say the base flood elevation plus one foot plus
freeboard.
MR. WILEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Why are you saying that?
MR. WILEY: When you are talking about floodproofing, the
FEMA definition says for you to qualify for flood insurance you have
to floodproof to the base flood elevation plus one foot. That's the
default value. So then if we add freeboard on to it is where that
definition then throws in plus any freeboard, if applicable. That's
assuming that our freeboard definition was approved in the ordinance.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. But couldn't we also say
something that base flood elevation plus one foot or freeboard,
whichever is greater?
MR. WILEY: No, because the default value for you to qualify
for flood insurance in a floodproofing nonresidential structure is the
basement elevation plus the one foot. Well, if we have a freeboard
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July 27, 2009
requirement, that basically we're saying everything has to increase to
one foot.
You could say the base flood elevation plus two feet. The
difficulty runs into there though is if you change sometime in the
future of freeboard to require two feet of freeboard. Well, then you've
got to remember to go back and change that one. So I was trying to
leave it the minimum requirement is base flood elevation plus the one
foot. And then if there's any freeboard we would add that onto it,
should choose to adopt the freeboard.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Or if we have a freeboard, we
wouldn't do anything less than one foot anyway. So wouldn't our
freeboard automatically give us that one foot? You wouldn't have to
worry about it then.
MR. WILEY: You would, but you would not meet the ordinance
requirements for any freeboard.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: All right, we won't focus on
that.
MR. WILEY: Okay, okay. It's just the way that they define
floodproofing. You have to go to the base flood plus one foot; that is
your basic floodproofing installation. And there's a good chance a lot
of people don't know that and they're trying to floodproof just to the
base floodproof elevation.
But in FEMA you take the base flood -- since you're choosing to
floodproof and not elevate, they want you to be able -- and the
purpose is twofold. But primarily it's to make sure you've designed for
more stress on that floodproofing than just simply the base flood
elevation. They don't want the walls and stuff to start collapsing. Once
you get up with more than two feet of water you've got some serious
horizontal force to contend with out of that --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Correct.
MR. WILEY: -- hydrostatic head.
So anyway, that's where this comes in. I want everybody to
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realize that we're talking about more than just the floor for an elevated
structure. The stuff you hang under that floor we want it also to be
elevated up that freeboard so you don't have the potential for massive
damage.
And these are just some pictures showing freeboard, how it can
be applied and showing top of floor, two feet above freeboard down
on the bottom right corner. They give you 100 points credit for every
foot of freeboard. Well, we're asking for one foot of freeboard. So that
would line us up with 100-point credit, not a 200.
But you can see all the ductwork and stuff, how that works out.
And you can see also how some things -- you get partial credits in
some situations where you, well, you're there for part of it and not for
part of it. That's why if you'll notice when I go through the point value
I'll say up to and up to. Because once you start down the FEMA
scoring path, they have their little pro rata figures they use in there
too.
The potential for one foot of freeboard is up to 100 points. It's
for the structure, not the property. And this is where we talked about
that slide ahead up there just a little bit ago, 3,000 square foot house in
the range of about $5,500, based upon what I was told from various
contractors. And we talk about round numbers of $2.00 a square foot
to elevate that one foot. And here's the savings I was talking about just
a few moments ago.
And it does pay for the freeboard in less than the life of the
mortgage, even for a 15-year mortgage. It works out to be just a shade
over 13 years. And that's just this one example. Obviously every
policy is going to be different, so it figures up differently.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But the 885, based on a $200,000 house,
I mean, Ms. Homiak provided a price earlier, she has a $250,000 value
that she -- I thought you said was around 300?
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Six --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 600.
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July 27,2009
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: -- ninety-five.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: 600. Because it was $30.
So how does that fit your example then?
MR. WILEY: The situation comes in as you have your
individual policy evaluated, they take a lot of factors in. This is just
the straight base rate before you start taking off any discounts. You
know, insurance, you have good customer discounts. It's an insurance
program, and they have discounts apply. Which in her particular case
there, she is already receiving a 15 percent discount too.
And this is not even the full price of the policy. This is just the
basic premium rate, not counting all the issuance fees and everything
else they throw on to you. So this is the current value.
And I don't know when you renewed your policy, but they did
go up.
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: June.
MR. WILEY: So you just renewed. So that's your current
pncIng.
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: I think. Well, no, I don't
remember now.
MR. WILEY: Because things did go up. And this is my highest
rate that I've -- I'm not even sure it's actually the highest right now.
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Actually, I used to pay five
something. So it's not working.
MR. WILEY: Freeboard, as we talk about here, to give an
indication, the FEMA one percent annual chance storm event is
roughly a mid to lower level Category 3 hurricane set up to come
ashore at a certain direction. Of course they can come from any
direction. So this gives you a little bit of indication. Though it can
always be much worse than the FEMA flood zone designation
indicates.
Case in point are the people in the Panhandle when Ivan came
through, a lot of people were in Zone X, they did not purchase flood
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July 27, 2009
insurance, it was not mandatory. Lots of flooding damage. They
started screaming at FEMA, your maps are too low. Well, that's the
reverse of what you'd expect to have people tell you. But they told
FEMA their maps weren't high enough. That sort of has an impact
upon us too for why we we're evaluated as we are right now.
But anyway, they quickly add up in value, damages from
flooding do. So you can have people with massive reconstruction
projects on their hands.
DSAC did not recommend approval for this, as you see on the
bottom slide there. The Floodplain Management Planning Committee
did. They understood the need to have a little bit of extra safety factor
on this.
Y '?
es, sIr.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I must have missed the slosh
model somewhere.
MR. WILEY: My fault, my fault. I thought you had--
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: No, I didn't.
MR. WILEY: I deal with lingo all the time. Slosh is a modeling
situation that is done -- right now for our region it's done by the
Regional Planning Council. It's where they take a series of hurricane
events and the parameters that those create, they force the model to --
it's a computer modeling system for coastal surge. They force it to put
a Category One hurricane up against the coastline in all kinds of
directions. And they take the maximum of maximums for inland
penetration of that surge. They do that for each category, one, two,
three, four and five. And so this is just an indication to help you.
If you look, a lot of people have called my office and say, well,
I'm in slosh zone such and such, do I need flood insurance? They're
two entirely different issues. But I was trying to give you how they are
somewhat related to strength to give you a perspective of what a
FEMA flood would be similar to.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert, that's just one page out of the
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July 27, 2009
slosh. There is -- I know, I've got the slosh book, or the manual. But
we could -- if you could photocopy that one page. The one I've got's
11 by 17. I mean, I could probably PDF it. I can get it put into a PDF
and sent to you.
MR. WILEY: You can look at your phone book, it's right in
there.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because I was going to say, it is
available. We might want to see that with some of the other
documentation.
MR. WILEY: When you look in the phonebook and you'll see
slosh zones all laid out in the various colors, it's -- okay.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: All right. I missed it.
MR. WILEY: Manufactured home parks. The issue we have
here is trying to make everybody on an even playing field. Current
law -- and this is where it comes into play with the definition of an
existing structure. The current situation allows for if it's an existing
mobile home park, which means stuff goes in the ground prior to
September 14th of 1979 and you've got mobile homes that are in
there, the requirement is that they have to have that floor three feet off
the ground. It does not take into consideration what the flood zone
elevation is. The minimum it says is three feet off the ground.
We did an evaluation in Collier County, trying to see what are
the ground elevations compared to the flood zone elevations along the
coastal area where we have various mobile home parks, the existing
ones. And we found situations to where a homeowner who owns one
of the units could replace a unit, put it back in that existing mobile
home park three feet above the ground and that new unit is now below
the base flood elevation. Well, that's not good. You want to be
correcting problems as things get replaced.
So this set of regulations would basically put everybody on an
even playing field so that those who are in existing mobile home parks
have to come back and comply with the base flood elevation when
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July 27, 2009
they replace that structure, the same as a new mobile home park would
have to. And that's all this was intended to do was to put everybody on
equal footing there.
As I said, there's about 50 parks that could be affected in the
county. Most of them are only going to be affected one to two feet.
There's a few in that three to four feet range. That's how low some of
those existing mobile home parks are.
And so as units are replaced, they would have to be elevated.
Are they going to look different than the older existing ones? Yeah,
they're going to be standing up in the air, they're going to be higher
than that. But the theory is through the years eventually we'll get
everybody up to where they need to at least meet the minimum
requirements for flood insurance program. And this one got
everybody's support too, both the Flood Planning Committee as well
as DSAC.
Lower substantial improvements threshold. The default value for
FEMA is at 50 percent of the value of the structure. Now, we're
talking about a noncompliant structure here, a structure that has the
lowest floor below the base flood elevation on the FEMA map. And
FEMA's default is 50 percent of the value of the structure. If you are
making improvements to your structure, you want to renovate, replace
a roof, whatever, if it takes a building permit, other than for an item
that is mandatory due to safety issues for code, such as defective
electrical wiring. You've got a house that's 50 years old, a two-wire
system, doesn't meet anywhere near the current standards. So if you're
going to go in and make major modifications of that house, they're
going to tell you bring your wiring up to code too.
That kind of situation does not apply in that threshold factor. But
other things do. So what we're saying is instead of it being 50 percent,
go for 49 percent. And that was that one that I told you where we went
this one just for the points. I know FEMA says don't do that unless
you're willing to live with the results. But one percent and the value
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July 27, 2009
determination of the structure, we didn't see that as being an issue.
And it allowed us to get some point value of 10 points.
Now, we could get a lot more points. But to do so -- we could
get 90 points. We could apply for 90 points. But to do so, our
threshold had been down to 20 percent of the value structure. We said
that's not reasonable. We only went to lower it one percent, because
they have these in point ranges, and it went from 45 to 49 percent, you
got 10 points. If you want more points, you had to -- we just said drop
it one percent and no one will know the difference.
However, DSAC saw a difference from a standpoint they said,
well, that means when we do value of structure some issues within the
code we have to address it from 50 percent of the value and some now
would have to be 49 percent of the value. And they did not want to
throw that in the mix, they wanted for a consistent 50 percent to
remain where it is. And that was their objection to it.
The floodplain committee did vote for approval for it. We did
not see any additional cost for construction. It's a very low potential
impact. So that one was one that we did go strictly for the points only.
Protection of critical facilities is where you really have to look --
oh, yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, let me ask you, does that
have to be a whole number? I mean, you couldn't do 49.9 or
something? Or does it say less than 50 percent or does it actually --
MR. WILEY: It's 50 percent or less.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So why don't you do 49.9?
MR. WILEY: When you apply to FEMA you had to go to be--
yeah, that's your one percent value. It was from 45 to 49 percent. It
wasn't 49.999.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay.
MR. WILEY: So we went to the 49 percent.
Right now you can go up to 49.99999 percent of the value of the
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July 27, 2009
structure and still do that much repair work to a house every calendar
year. And we're saying -- well, that's another issue, we'll get to that in
just a moment, though. But they do have the 49, and to them 49 means
49, it doesn't mean 49.1.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, thanks.
MR. WILEY: We've been around that horn with them too.
Protection of critical facilities. You would look in the definition
section of the proposed ordinance critical facilities ordinance for what
is defined as critical facilities. And all this says is you go through and
if you are one of those, you're going to provide protection up to the .2
percent annual chance or we commonly call it a 500-year storm event.
In the situation where you do not have an elevation identified in
your Flood Insurance Rate Map study for the 500-year event, the
default value for FEMA is one foot above the 100-year event. And for
Collier County, that doesn't quite equate out because we're so flat, but
that's the default value.
So I say that to help everybody see what we're talking about
here.
Fire stations -- I mean, these are situations that you do not want
to have flooded. When everything else is flooded, you still want these
to be functioning at full capacity.
It was quite interesting when I called up the sheriffs office and I
asked them their input on it, they said put everything we have on that
list. So as we got to talking about it, I says, now, you mean really
everything? And I brought up the issue of the gun range and, oh, yeah,
you can leave that off. I said what about your maintenance facilities?
Want them on there. Because we want to be able to maintain. During a
flood we have lots of breakdowns. We want to be able to maintain
stuff, so they wanted it.
The other people I got ahold of, I did get ahold ofFP&L. Their
thought was yes, we want that. At the time it was Sprint, it's now
Embarq, they said yes, we want that.
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July 27, 2009
I didn't really call the hospitals. And as far as the water treatment
plants and wastewater plants and all other associated facilities, the
utilities division did not want to do this. But the county manager
looked at them and says, yes, you will want to do this. So they says
yes, we want to do this. And that was an interesting staff meeting we
had.
The emergency evacuation centers. The purpose there comes
about from what people have seen in the past when they would
evacuate to a center. And understanding FEMA's emergency
management, all these people, the definition of an evacuation center,
their purpose is to keep you alive, it's not to keep you comfortable.
And the irony of it is, to keep you alive means you can have water up
to your neck and it's still okay because you can stand. I thought that
was a bit strange, but that's what they still consider as acceptable for
locating evacuation centers.
Well, we thought that through and we said, okay, let's make it a
little bit higher, just for safety purposes. Because somebody's going to
eventually put in an evacuation center to meet bare minimum
standards. So we says let's make it just at least a foot or so higher, a
little bit more protection level there. We don't want our people being
put in a situation where it meets the minimum standard and then get in
trouble with it.
So with that being said, the county's EOC -- of course that's
almost a no-brainer right now. The new one has been constructed and
it is constructed able to withstand a Category Five slosh zone
hurricane elevation. So they're way higher than this would even have
any implications on them. But we just want to include them so we're
consistent across the board.
This is the listing of what's roughly out there. I'm sure that things
change as new things are built. I haven't updated this in a couple
years. But costs vary widely again. Everything is so different for the
water treatment plants, since they would have the ability to be wet
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July 27,2009
floodproofed, meaning water could flow into them. It's simply a
matter of raising the motors up above the flood elevation. You don't
even have to raise the pump. It can be submerged and doesn't hurt it,
as long as your electrical connections are above it. So different people
can do different things for it.
The Floodplain Committee and DSAC both recommended
approval for these critical facilities. We do never want them to fail
from flooding.
The other higher standards that we -- we made this up, quite
frankly. And this came about from a crazy situation that I personally
got involved in where a gentleman was purchasing property. He came
to my office wanting to know about flood insurance, and we started
talking about it, it being a nonresidential structure. I said well, it
would be floodproofed. He pulled out his old construction plans. The
owner had the original plans still there. So he pulled them out, and the
building years ago was designed for floodproofing. And you looked at
it and it lined up beautifully. The windows, instead of being vertical
were laid horizontal. And the bottom of the window was above BFE,
with these building plans. It was a block wall structure, but it was
reinforced concrete block up to above the BFE. The plans even
showed his panels to bolt over his door openings.
But he asked me a question, he said, where can I get these
panels? Because they're not there. They're not around. And of course I
told him you can get it from various manufacturers, have them come
in and look at it. Instead he was able to go back and find the original
contractor. I mean, this guy, he did his searching to find out people are
still in business here in the county and had that contractor make him a
new set of panels.
But that triggered a thought in my head. How many people have
been approved in their building permit utilizing floodproofing 10, 15
years ago and now that stuffs not even around. Somebody's probably
seen it and says, what's this stuff taken up here, let's just throw it
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July 27, 2009
away.
So this is a program that's designed to have people make sure
that their building has the floodproofing components with which it
was approved. And it was set up so that it's pretty much their system,
they enforce it themselves. The county does have the ability to call for
submittal of reports to demonstrate you are doing this stuff. But it's to
check it out every year, make sure if you have to have any special
caulking, wrenches, whatever it takes, everything's ready before they
get into flood season. And train the people who are into building how
to put it up. Because floodproofing is approved with the ability to have
it fully installed within four hours. We want to make sure people know
how to do that.
This one surprisingly got everybody else's approval too, because
it's pretty much self-enforced.
The issue really came up when DSAC asked the question, is the
county going to come out and enforce this? And we don't really have
intentions of sending code officers out to enforce this.
But if you come up and you want to file a flood insurance claim
and FEMA says well, why did you flood, it wasn't quite up to the BFE
yet, you should not have flooded. We don't want them to be able to
say well, I didn't have my stuff. We want them to be able to defend
themselves. Because that's what their building was approved by. If
they weren't going to floodproof it, they were supposed to have
elevated it.
So this was sort of one of those issues. We made it up to correct
what we see is a problem out there, make people live up to their
original approval. After all, we are required to keep our program
current. And so that was going to help the county maintain currency of
what it had approved in the past.
But again, this is one that we don't know how many points it will
get. I said up to 10. It may get great reviews. When I did talk to
FEMA about it, they were ecstatic. They had -- nowhere in the nation
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July 27, 2009
had they had anyone propose something like this, because they said
that's a problem they have all over is people throw this stuff away.
They were really impressed with it. I says, okay, I hope we can get
lots of points for it.
Flood hazard disclosure is an issue that gets pushed by a lot of
people whenever they go to close on a piece of property and all at
once out of the blue about a week before closing the lender calls up
and says, by the way, I need a copy of your flood insurance policy.
And they go what flood insurance policy? I didn't even know I need
one. Because they've never been informed. And here they are, they
applied for the mortgage.
And this is a big factor with insurance people. This is one that
was raised at their national insurance seminar they had down on
Marco Island a few years back. This was one of the big issues.
Because it's a horrific surprise when suddenly someone's maxed out
on their down payment and everything else and within a week's time
they've got to come up with a few hundred dollars for a flood
insurance policy, or a few thousand in some cases.
This just gives you an illustration of when things were really
booming back in '05. The property appraiser, they said they recorded
about 20,000 sales. Those are properties within the special flood
hazard area. That's not countywide, that's just in the SFHA where
flood insurance policies would be required.
The policy setup applies to all sellers, whether it's a realtor,
seller by owner, whether it's a landlord. Anybody who's invoking a
transaction of real estate would have to have this disclosure. The
information is provided by the seller. And this is where we worked
with the real estate agencies, NABOR and also Marco Island. We got
their input into it and they generally support it. And I say generally
because we were getting their support up to the point where suddenly I
said that -- oh, and by the way, if it's a realtor involved, we want them
to check and verify the information provided by the owner. And then
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July 27, 2009
we suddenly began to lose their support, because they really wanted
no responsibility for it. But when you look to see what FEMA
regulations for their CRS programs say they want the realtors involved
in this. They don't want them to pass it on only, take a piece of paper
provided by an owner. They want the realtor to have some
applications here.
So with that bit of information, you can go to the county website
within seconds. You can know your flood zone. It's available right off
the bat.
So we were proposing it. A typical -- this is just a generic right
out of the CRS manual you can see. Got a few check boxes, you check
off which is applicable, you write your flood zone numbers in, your
letters. And it's a very simple piece of paper.
As I said, the realty industry was supportive of it. They want
people to know ahead of time. They just didn't want to be responsible
to verify stuff.
So with that very minimal cost, it's a piece of paper you fill out.
And we got everybody's approval from the committee and DSAC on
that one. They understood we need to let people know what they're
buying ahead of time.
We now leave what's in the ordinance document. This is the one
that was in the document and both the floodplain committee and
DSAC has removed it. They did not like it. And this one has some
teeth to it.
Cumulative substantial improvements. Under the default
program you are allowed to do up to 50 percent of the value of a
structure in improvements or repair of damage each calendar year for
a structure that is noncompliant with the base flood elevation. If you
do 50.1 percent of the value of the structure, it requires you to bring
the structure into compliance.
Well, if you've got an old house that was built years ago and the
flood zone now is determined to be a foot and a half, two feet above
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July 27, 2009
your floor, before you can spend 51 percent on values and
improvements -- even if it's a fire, if it's a hurricane, if it's anything --
in a year's time you have to elevate that house to bring it in -- you
can't floodproof a residence, you have to physically elevate it or move
it, tear it down and rebuild it. But that's a minimum FEMA
requirements.
But you can do that every calendar year up to that 50 percent
value. And cumulative substantial improvements says you take those
improvements over a five-year window. Well, obviously the people
who don't like that are your remodelers. Their building industry is
built upon remodeling. So if they've got a five-year window that
decreases how much money you can put into a noncompliant house
every year.
It also has a little bit more teeth into it from what can happen.
Let's say you have a $200,000 house, since that's the general value
we're using tonight, and you've opted to tear out all the interior walls
and put them in and you've now replaced it with a very expensive
flooring, you've got cabinets galore, you have the granite countertops,
I mean you've really overhauled this house. And you spent $95,000 in
this effort. And then two years later here comes a hurricane, it blows
your roof off. It takes a building permit to replace that roof. You don't
get your building permit until you also elevate your house. That got
people in strong disagreement with this.
But staff wants it from the standpoint it helps to self-correct the
deficient housing that's out there. If you're already in compliance with
the base flood elevation, it does not affect you one iota. It's where
your house is noncompliant with the current flood elevation is the only
one this applies to.
As I said, it can be from any source of improvement or damage,
if it takes a building permit. And that is to the structure. Discounting
out the code safety mandated improvements. So this one is the one
that we did not get the support for, but staff even had the building
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July 27, 2009
department come back and ask me to make sure I still pushed for this
one.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert?
MR. WILEY: And they see a need for it.
Y .?
es, SIr.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you -- if we institute one foot of
freeboard above the base flood elevation and that starts next year, any
home built prior to that initiation then is below this argument here.
Then they would --
MR. WILEY: No, it would not be. The freeboard issue is when
you build to compliance you have to put the freeboard in. But if we
have freeboard in our ordinance still to comply with this, it is the base
flood elevation. The freeboard is when you are building up. But it
doesn't affect you on your compliance with the FEMA elevation.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the cumulative substantial
improvements are only against -- I'm trying to figure this out, because
-- and let's take Ms. Caron's property, because she lives in probably
the closest to the coast of anybody. And your property, do you know
what -- you probably don't know what height it's at. How long ago
was it built?
COMMISSIONER CARON: We're about 12 or 13 years old,
and we are -- we're at 13. And I think base is 11.
MR. WILEY: Well, I thought you earlier said you were in Zone
x.
COMMISSIONER CARON: No, not me. I wish.
MR. WILEY: Somebody was in Zone X.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, let's take that for -- say Ms.
Caron's house was built 13 years ago. Has the flood base elevation
changed in the last 13 years?
MR. WILEY: Yes, it has. In some places it's gone up, in some
places it's gone down. And again, what we're talking about is come a
year from now we've got the potential for that to happen again.
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July 27,2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So if someone comes along and
improves their home and they're currently below whatever the current
base flood elevation is, they put the $95,000 into it because they
wanted to stay below the threshold. Then unanticipated by them,
unknown by them an act of nature destroys a portion of their home
that would kick them above the $5,000 more than they needed to stay
below the 50 percent. So now they've got a $10,000 damage on top of
a $95,000 remodel. So now they're at 105. So without any fault of
theirs they now have a $lO,OOO kicker that really makes them bulldoze
down their house and rebuild the whole thing from scratch.
MR. WILEY: Or physically raise it up.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, okay. Well, that's bulldoze the
house and start over from scratch.
MR. WILEY: No, no.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How are you going to physically raise a
house that's built on --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You can. You can.
MR. WILEY: Slab on grade.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm not going to--
MR. WILEY: I can take and show you one. The woman is happy
with it. But that -- this is where I want to follow up with this. Because
what you see below the next line, it says it allows property owners to
gain the benefit of their flood insurance policy's increased cost of
compliance coverage.
Now, every flood insurance policy out there has a rider attached
to it called ICC. If you have cumulative substantial improvements in
your ordinance, your ICC coverage kick in to help pay the cost to
elevate that structure. Even to your freeboard. It pays up to $30,000
per house.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert--
MR. WILEY: You're still out some money.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- you may believe you can raise a
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July 27, 2009
house efficiently. I don't know of any way you can. And I've probably
been actually building in the business for 40, 50 years, so 40 years at
least. So I don't know how you would effectively and productive -- in
a manner that's let's say fiscally sound do what you're suggesting here.
You'd end up tearing the house down and building it over.
MR. WILEY: If I was in the situation that you described where
she's already spent $95,000, I think I'd try to raise the house instead of
tearing it down. But if I hadn't spent that, but my improvements --
yeah, I would not want to go through the hassle to raise my house if it
was not --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, we're running -- we're getting
close to our bewitching hour there, so let's move through the rest of
your presentation, Robert.
MR. WILEY: So with that -- and again, an emphasis to bring the
noncompliant structures into compliance. We got no support for this
one, as you can see in my slide here.
But new construction, it doesn't apply because you're always
building to the base flood elevation.
Protection of floodplain storage capacity. This one will come
into play in the future. But basically it's what we already have in the
LDC under the interim watershed regulations, we just do not have it in
our flood damage prevention ordinance to comply with FEMA. So it's
not like we're adding an onerous task. It would just simply be
replicating what we're already doing but putting it in. And that would
come into play whenever we got a riverine base flooding situation.
But it's a big point maker, if you wanted to see that.
And again, a typical cost we're talking about there, less than
$1,000. That's assuming you're taking property, scraping down to help
build your fill pad you're putting up in the first place, so -- and that
was a highly subjective number. Everybody disagreed with it. They
thought I was high, they thought I was low . You can never get people
to agree, so --
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer?
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, Bob, this does not count
for area that's taken up by septic tank mounds and the septic tank?
MR. WILEY: That's correct, since that's a safety issue.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But it's only the building.
MR. WILEY: Just the building.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it does also not include the
roadway.
MR. WILEY: The single driveway going in. Because again, that
was safety to get to your house. But the building itself can be on an
elevated stem wall type construction.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So if you built stem wall, you
would never have this issue.
MR. WILEY: If you build stem wall you would have the issue
for the area of the house. If you build elevated structure with the flood
vents to let the water flow underneath your house, you would never
have the --
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: There is a stem wall with or
without fill. The without fill you'd be fine.
MR. WILEY: Without fill, and allowing the vents to let the
water pass underneath your house you'd be fine, this would never
touch you, that's correct.
And one of the big reasons is -- and we can go through this fairly
quickly. But the gist of it is, we know what's getting ready to happen
in the Estates. And the Picayune Strand restoration project, as Golden
Gate Estates continues to build, people putting more and more fill
pads. You're simply displacing water onto unoccupied land or already
occupied land that wasn't filled that much. And if you displace the
water it begins to have impacts to your neighbors.
Picayune Strand has been approved so that they say they will not
have an increase in water levels above the June of 2000 year level up
to the 100-year storm event. The pump stations are that big a capacity.
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July 27, 2009
But when I did ask the district about it and their calculations,
they accounted for the change in impervious area for full Estates
build-out but not for displacement from fill. I said, uh-oh, the --
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Where is there in this ordinance any
provisions to prohibit government from doing things that cause
interruptions in the floodplain or properties being flooded more?
MR. WILEY: We have to comply with it, same as the individual
does.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because I've lived in Golden
Gate Estates for 30 years, and until the weirs were put in by Big
Cypress Basin I didn't have flooding. When they started putting the
weirs in and holding the water table higher and the water couldn't perk
to that table, couldn't get down faster, we ended up starting having
flooding out there. Now, they won't admit that, but I'm just wondering
how it fits in -- it looks like the citizens are responsible to fix the
floodplain problems, not the government that causes them.
MR. WILEY: It's across the board both ways.
And quickly, in summary, we're just asking you for your
support, obviously, on this ordinance, plus adding in the cumulative
substantial improvements.
And with that, here's the recap of it for the point value so you
can see how they look. Potential, I should say.
What was that? Somebody's phone?
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It doesn't matter, just go on.
MR. WILEY: A possible -- what we're requesting here, if you
include the cumulative substantial improvements, it's up to 38l points,
just so you'll know.
Ifwe were able to get full point credits as we would hope to get
by submitting a revised ordinance to FEMA, that would be able to
throw us up to a Class 6 community.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What does that mean, Robert, full point
credits? You need 381 points to get to this six point community?
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July 27, 2009
MR. WILEY: I need to get to 2,000 points. I'm at 1,652 right
now. So this would give me about 73 points fudge factor if I got
maxed out with everything.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay.
MR. WILEY: Which is--
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So it's all or nothing, basically. Except
73 points. You've got to have the full amount of points you need to get
there or you -- you can't get close to it, you've got to have right at that,
right, 1,700 --
MR. WILEY: Yeah, you have to at least equal 2,000 in sum
total, right. And with our current number, it would -- if we got to
4,381, that would throw us at 2,073, which is close.
And with that, that was the end of my presentation.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And we're going to defer our
discussions and questions until the 12th, provided we get the
additional information that -- unless there's some general questions
anybody has at this time.
Mr. Wolfley?
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Just a general one.
When I was looking for things to try to get my mind wrapped
around this document, I looked at the Collier County hazard
mitigation plan and the floodplain management plan. And realizing
this is an ordinance, I was just wondering quickly, very quickly, or
you could save it for the l2th, the differences, why there are so -- we
have two of those and then we have an ordinance. And they didn't
really look anything alike.
MR. WILEY: I'll try to answer this as quickly as I can.
In the county's situation we face, we have to have a hazard
mitigation plan. And that addresses all kinds of hazards. One of the
hazards that has to be addressed is flooding.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Right.
MR. WILEY: So as we were developing our first floodplain
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July 27, 2009
management plan back in 2005, we were allowed to bring our
floodplain management plan into the hazard mitigation plan and
combine the two documents interrelated there.
Now, the document you're looking at is being updated right now.
It will then reflect the updated floodplain management plan that was
just approved a year ago.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: I'm with you now, okay.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Klatzkow, will you be able to look
at this before the 12th to let us know if there's any major legal issues
with it?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And Mr. Wiley, you can get us
the additional documentation. If you could send us this slide show,
that would be helpful. As we track through this, we might want to go
back and reference your slides. And that may either decrease or
increase the amount of questions we'll have next time we get together.
Is that something you can get us?
MR. WILEY: In fact, for the slide presentation, I can give it to
you tonight.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think that would be very good. Thank
you.
MR. WILEY: I think I had 10 or 11 copies, so there should be
enough to pass out. But there still will be some people I will have to
mail it to.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. That would be great. If you could
do that, that would be fine. And especially the people that aren't here. I
know Mr. Murray and others may be watching us tonight. At least
they can have that to refer to when they look more at the document.
And Robert, thank you. As usual, your -- everything was very
thorough.
MR. WILEY: Well, I thought I messed up definitions by the
way you were tearing me up there.
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July 27, 2009
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, we only started. When we get done
on the 12th, I think you still -- it's not that you messed them up, it's
that the federal government did. And that's the focus of my concern. I
really -- I still have an awful lot of questions. And I know the rest of
this panel does too. So we'll deal with them on the 12th.
And I need a motion to continue to the 12th --
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: So moved.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- at 8:30 in these chambers. Mr.
W olfely, seconded --
COMMISSIONER CARON: Second.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- by Ms. Caron.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye.
COMMISSIONER KOLFLAT: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye.
COMMISSIONER WOLFLEY: Aye.
COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye.
CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we are hereby adjourned and
continued until that date, August 12th.
*****
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 7:57 p.m.
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July 27, 2009
COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING
COMMISSION
MARK STRAIN, Chairman
These minutes approved by the board on
presented or as corrected
as
Transcript prepared on behalf of Gregory Reporting Service, Inc., by
Cherie' R. Nottingham.
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