The County is now requiring maps showing the distance to the FIRM flood area boundary. I created an image using Google Earth and the Stay Dry App. and inserting that image into my CAD program. Has anybody come up with a less tedious method?
Exactly when and why are they asking for this?
In my area the County GIS has the 100 & 500 year limits available in SHP and DXF format that can be imported to CAD.
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Last week. The Planning Department requires it now to get a building conformance permit. Pretty silly since the Firm Flood maps were drawn free hand with a crayon.
Yeah they are scanned here and available in .tiff format, but they scanned original FIRM maps which are very poor quality. The Google Earth images are far superior and the Stay Dry App is a FEMA product so it should be acceptable. What's a joke is the flood plain boundaries don't follow a contour or any logical topography.
None of the counties or cities where I work require a building conformance permit.?ÿ When they do, I will stop working there.?ÿ The closest thing to that requirement that I can think of is a requirement only for those who want to take advantage of a big tax break provided by a Neighborhood Revitalization Plan.?ÿ The landowner must jump through some hoops if the building site falls within the shaded area on the FIRM.?ÿ If it doesn't, no problem.?ÿ If it does, then it's time to bring in someone to do an elevation certificate for an existing house showing it is not really in the flood plain and then do a LOMA.?ÿ If it's for all new construction, bring in someone to define the extent of an area where the house may be constructed and then do a LOMA.?ÿ So, structures, new or existing, that are not shown in the flood plain on the FIRM are a go immediately and the others are subject to being able to successfully be blessed with an accepted LOMA.
So far I have only done one requiring a LOMA.?ÿ The major hangup with the NRP requirement is that absolutely no work can begin on building new or renovating existing until the NRP application is approved by the County Commission if in the County and by the City Commission and the?ÿ County Commission if inside City Limits.?ÿ For new construction this is worth the wait as the property tax savings are very large.
Sounds like the county GIS folks are just lazy.
Agreed.?ÿ And, as mentioned above, the boundaries shown are frequently proven to be incorrect.?ÿ Knowing a horizontal distance to the apparent nearest point of said boundary is worthless data.
Amen Brother! Our new Planning Director is the former Assistant County Attorney. She reads all the County Zoning and Code requirements and is now enforcing them as she interprets them, which obviously have no logic.
I would be very careful saying anything about Zone A if the building location is anywhere near it. Like you say drawn with a crayon.?ÿ
I had a site that seemed very iffy. I advised the engineer to do a Flood plain study, get the BFE. He said they had a study and I thought great. We were talking about two different things as the building site was under water in the spring. Seems the flood plain study was the Zone A maps which turned out to be more or less 200' wrong horizontally.?ÿ
There were truckloads of fill hauled in for that building. They were so lucky it hadn't been built.?ÿ
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I just insert the FIRM.prn. I usually have coords for the map grid ticks, if not I will use ground truth and give the distance to the "center of polyline used to denote the hazard boundary'.
@mightymo
Another example of why the County relying on FIRM map boundaries is stupid.
Sounds to me you're trying to refine "bullshit".
I hope the quotes keep me from getting banned.
@skeeter1996?ÿ The FIRM Maps are the official map whether you like them or not, whether they are accurate vertically or not and whether the line is drawn correctly or not. I learned along time ago to not worry about what I can't control and to not fight what I can't change. Fortunately, the maps we have now ARE fairly accurate and pretty close define the 100-year flood. The are what they are, redefinition is not necessary.
Go to?ÿNational Flood Hazard Layer/FEMA.gov
pick NFHL viewer
enter address
When your property comes up on the aerial, pick on the map and you should get a link to download county GIS Data.
Within the downloaded data should be .shp files for the flood hazard lines, cross sections, baselines and whatever else you might need for the flood maps.?ÿ?ÿ
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@mike-laceyThanks for the link. I'm not sure if my CAD program will handle .shop files, but I'll give it a try