Volusia officials outline buyout, property-acquisition rules under Transform386 recovery program

Donna Butler, director of the Office of Recovery and Resiliency (Transform386), outlined Aug. 29 the county’s approach to homeowner buyouts and property acquisition under federal disaster-recovery funds, stressing eligibility limits, local partnership requirements and limited funding. "Buyout is a pathway to purchase eligible homeowner property," Butler said, adding that eligible parcels generally must be in a 100-year floodplain or a designated disaster risk reduction area.

Butler told the Volusia Forever committee that Volusia County received Community Development Block Grant — Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds following recent storms and hurricanes and has allocated those dollars across homeowner recovery and infrastructure/mitigation programs. "We initially after Hurricane Ian... got $328,900,000. $145,000,000 of that was set aside for homeowner recovery, and an additional $92,000,000 was set aside for infrastructure and mitigation," Butler said. She said a portion of those funds are specifically required for mitigation projects and that the county has been moving additional dollars between program buckets as projects are proposed.

Why it matters: Butler emphasized the practical limits of the programs. Homeowner buyouts require homeowners to be low- to moderate-income (0–80% of area median income), to have been…