Destin council asks staff to return with options on two‑foot freeboard and FEMA insurance tradeoffs

Chatham Morgan, a Calhoun Avenue property owner, told the City Council that the City of Destin's locally required two‑foot freeboard (one foot above Florida building code plus one foot the city added) is an excessive limit that is harming property rights and adding substantial build costs for new houses. "I'm asking you to change those codes tonight," Morgan said, explaining his house sits at about 9.5 feet and that the extra elevation requirement would force new construction to build several feet higher.

City staff explained the trade-offs the requirement produces for the community. Staff said the two‑foot freeboard was adopted in March 2018 and helped the city earn a Class 6 rating in FEMA's Community Rating System. "We have been a class 6 CRS community," a city floodplain/engineering staff member told the council, and dropping the freeboard to the Florida building code minimum would cost roughly 100 CRS points and would likely downgrade the city to a Class 7 rating. Staff said losing that class could increase flood insurance premiums for city policyholders by about 5 percent.

Staff also described an owner-specific option: a process they identified in the meeting as "section 13 16," under which a property can be made ineligible for coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). That option attaches a notice to the property's deed and would prevent the owner and future buyers from receiving subsidized NFIP coverage, staff said.

Council members pressed staff on ways to preserve CRS points other than keeping the freeboard, and asked whether a limited opt‑out could be used for specific lots. After discussion Council Member Kevin (last name as in meeting record) moved and the council seconded a request that staff bring back a report at a future meeting outlining: (1) the CRS point impacts of changing freeboard; (2) alternatives the city could pursue to recoup roughly 100 points; (3) the mechanics and consequences of the property‑level opt‑out ("section 13 16" as described by staff); and (4) whether the 50 percent substantial improvement threshold could be revised to reduce the burden on owners of older houses. The motion passed unanimously.

Why it matters: the freeboard policy affects owners in flood‑prone neighborhoods and ties into the city's FEMA insurance discounts for all policyholders, while the homeowner opt‑out would permanently remove NFIP eligibility for affected properties. Council directed staff and the city's CRS representative to return with an options paper that would quantify fiscal and regulatory consequences.