Elevate homes in flood zones

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-house-of-the-future-is-elevated/ar-BBGp9Wj?li=BBnb7Kz

I have built three homes which are eight feet higher than surrounding homes. It cost about three thousand dollars to haul the clay and fill dirt, and use a compactor, and pay for a compaction test. When you sit on the porch of one house and see homes which had five feet of water after Ivan, you realize you are still three feet higher. Building on slabs are so much cheaper than having to elevate, but if we keep paying out after a flood on these homes on slabs, we are bankrupting America. Elevating after disasters would create jobs, and in the long run save trillions of dollars as entire areas can transition to global climate change and still have homes protected and will only have superficial flood damage to landscaping in flood conditions.

I wish congress would put their foot down on the fema blank checks. It has to stop, and elevating creates jobs and saves infrastructure.

It's a barrier island? Run your own risk. Humans used to be good at recognizing patterns.

The article talks most about the Houston area. I do not think that any home on a barrier island which experiences over 50% damage should be rebuilt. The owner should be paid, and the property should be left vacant. Sand migration would improve, and over time the most at risk properties would quit being a federal rabbit hole where billions continue to be thrown down the hole.

Conversely, the Houston area has huge infrastructure investments in the platted subdivsions, and simple elevation on all new homes and destroyed homes makes sense.

Rebuilding a flooded home on a slab or below new FEMA code levels should automatically be vetoed.

My family's house on Pensacola Beach was one of the last of the old-school ground-levels. I think it was Ivan that finally took it out. We were in the midst of selling it when it got sacked... and, since the guy was planning to tear it down and build another on it, anyway, he went ahead and bought the lot for a stupid amount of money. But he'd apparently been speculating and bought more land than he could handle, so he didn't build on it within the required time and lost the land. Just threw over half a million away. It's probably still a vacant lot...

I do not think that any home on a barrier island which experiences over 50% damage should be rebuilt.

This rule has been in effect on PB for a long time now and is used to thin out, one storm at a time, properties not in compliance.

The problem I have seen with that rule is lax enforcement. I saw property which was clearly 70% destroyed where they argued it was not, and every property was rebuilt. They were rebuilt three feet higher under the new Santa Rosa regulations, but a Cat 3 or 4 will destroy this property, and taxpayers will pay again. On NB every inch is being built. It is insane. There are plenty of high rises which will survive and allow the tourist dollars to still flow, but ground level single family residences.....see ya.

zsomething wrote:My family's house on Pensacola Beach was one of the last of the old-school ground-levels.   I think it was Ivan that finally took it out.  We were in the midst of selling it when it got sacked... and, since the guy was planning to tear it down and build another on it, anyway, he went ahead and bought the lot for a stupid amount of money.   But he'd apparently been speculating and bought more land than he could handle, so he didn't build on it within the required time and lost the land.  Just threw over half a million away.   It's probably still a vacant lot...

I'm very surprised to hear this, because the Santa Rosa Island Authority has suspended its "required time" to rebuild ever since Ivan, extending it via letter to lot holders every couple of years. Even before that, they rarely enforced the lease provision that allows cancellation if the leaseholder doesn't build or rebuild soon enough. Heck, my lease was originally dated 1981, but the builder/leaseholder didn't put a house on it until 1992, even though he was supposed to do so within two years.

Could it be the land was instead lost due to a mortgage default?

knothead wrote: I do not think that any home on a barrier island which experiences over 50% damage should be rebuilt.

This rule has been in effect on PB for a long time now and is used to thin out, one storm at a time, properties not in compliance.    

Just to clarify, if I may: the 50% rule on Pensacola Beach doesn't say you can't rebuild, only that you have to rebuild to current codes -- and that includes the then-current elevation requirement.

So yes, knot's right that non-compliant properties are eventually "thinned out," but not by forbidding any new structures on the lots, only by bringing them into compliance.

As an aside: Either 8 or 16 (I forget which) slab-on-grade houses on PBeach that have suffered "severe repetitive [flood] losses" (SRL's) over time, were elevated or rebuilt in the past couple of years under FEMA grants. The best incentive was the huge increase in flood insurance premiums these people were facing. The only mystery to me is why everyone who was eligible (and they were notified) did not apply. Well, OK, one elderly woman said she couldn't deal with stairs, but still.....

RealLindaL wrote:

knothead wrote: I do not think that any home on a barrier island which experiences over 50% damage should be rebuilt.

This rule has been in effect on PB for a long time now and is used to thin out, one storm at a time, properties not in compliance.    

Just to clarify, if I may:  the 50% rule on Pensacola Beach doesn't say you can't rebuild, only that you have to rebuild to current codes -- and that includes the then-current elevation requirement.  

So yes, knot's right that non-compliant properties are eventually "thinned out," but not by forbidding any new structures on the lots, only by bringing them into compliance.

As an aside: Either 8 or 16 (I forget which) slab-on-grade houses on PBeach that have suffered "severe repetitive [flood] losses" (SRL's) over time, were elevated or rebuilt in the past couple of years under FEMA grants.   The best incentive was the huge increase in flood insurance premiums these people were facing.  The only mystery to me is why everyone who was eligible (and they were notified) did not apply.   Well, OK, one elderly woman said she couldn't deal with stairs, but still.....

Linda do you know if a leasehold is subject to renegotiation of the 'lease fee' as part of the SRIA imposing/invoking the 50% rule? My recollection is foggy ont his topic but something in my old brain tells me that this, if true, would certainly be an incentive for the SRIA to squeeze out older non compliant properties?