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Flood Plain Ordinance
July 13, 2007. The Flood Plain Ordinance is DEAD.
We believe we have driven a silver stake through its heart, but it's like a vampire, and it may rise again, unless YOU stay involved.
Key Issues
The key issues with the Draft Flood Plain Management Ordinance were that it told existing property owners that they were on a ticking clock for when the county would take over their land. It said that any damage to a house, greater than 50% of assessed value, whether it be by fire, flood, vandalism, wind, termites, old age, or whatever, the house could NOT be repaired and would have to be left to rot. This is a terribly complicated and long story, which included refusing to allow septic systems to be repaired. Essentially, it was a plan to take the land along any waterway and make it a public wildlife preserve.
Click here for more Key Issues on the Flood Plain.
Background:
It's hard to figure out where this idea came from or how it started. It first came to the attention of many people when Jim Turner wrote a letter to the editor of the Page News. Donna Eames noticed the letter, and started calling everybody in the phone book trying to get them to show up at the Board of Supervisors meeting the week before Christmas, 2006. Democracy at work caused the Supervisors to send the plan back to the Planning Commission for a rework. After months passed and many letters were written by the citizens, the Commission voted on April 23 to end debate. They decided to tell the Board of Supervisors that the time was not right, as we don't even have a definition of where the flood plain exactly is. However, they did still leave a "new goal" in the Comprehensive Plan that says "pass ordinances that get the houses and businesses out of the 100-year flood plain." Until we figure out what that is all about, this issue won't end.
Documents:
A list of documents including a side by side comparison of the new plan vs the old ordinance, both the new and old ordinances, the FEMA rules, and the state model ordinances are posted in the Documents section of this site. There is also about an 8 inch high pile of citizen letters on file in the Page County Watch office, which could be posted if anybody wants to see them.
Click here for the Flood Plain documents.
Upcoming Meetings:
There are no upcoming meetings to discuss this. We hope that no person walking the face of the earth today will ever have to deal with it.
Blog:
This is our main and only Blog for now. Blog about this issue and post your comments at:
You can also Sign Up for our Email List to get notices of important meetings.
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