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Borough staff detail floodplain permitting rules, map updates would remove 2,300 structures from flood zone
Summary
Community planning Director Kellen Spillman told the Assembly Committee of the Whole that most borough floodplain rules mirror FEMA’s 44 CFR, explained permitting differences for floodway/fringe properties, and said new modeling and lidar data could remove about 2,300 structures from the flood zone, saving homeowners an estimated $24 million in premiums.
Kellen Spillman, director of community planning for the Fairbanks North Star (Borough), told the Assembly Committee of the Whole on Jan. 8 that Fairbanks’ floodplain regulations are largely drawn from federal rules and that updated mapping based on improved lidar and modeling could reclassify roughly 2,300 structures out of the flood zone.
Spillman traced the borough’s flood history to mid-20th-century disasters and said the borough’s 1971 floodplain code implements the National Flood Insurance Program and FEMA regulations (44 CFR). “Fairbanks is built in a flood plain,” he said, noting the 1967 event drove early local flood-control efforts and later construction of the Moose Creek dam and a borough-owned levee system.
Why it matters: Local floodplain designation affects whether owners must carry federally backed flood insurance, and the borough’s…
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