Chapter 4 Generally Applicable Development Standards Appendix 4G Floodplain Management Page 1 of 3

Appendix 4G

FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT ORDINANCE

1. PURPOSE
   
   The purpose of this Ordinance is to maximize the wise and safe use of the flood prone areas of the County and to ensure that flood levels are not increased and to minimize public and private losses from flooding by
   1. restricting or prohibiting uses which are dangerous to health, safety and property due to water or erosion hazards or which result in damaging increases in erosion or in flood heights or velocities;
   2. requiring that uses vulnerable to floods, including facilities which serve such uses, be protected against flood damage at the time of initial construction;
   3. controlling the alteration of natural floodplains, stream channels, and natural protective barriers which are involved in the accommodation of flood waters;
   4. controlling filling, grading, dredging and other development which may increase flood damage or erosion; and
   5. preventing or regulating the construction of flood barriers which will unnaturally divert flood waters or which may increase flood hazards to other lands.
2. DEFINITIONS
   1. "Administering Agency" means the Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District.
   2. "Basement" means that portion of a building having its floor subgrade (below ground level) on all sides.
   3. "Breakaway wall" means a wall that is not Part of the structural support of the building and is intended through its design and construction to collapse under specific lateral loading forces without causing damage to the elevated portion of the building or the supporting foundation system.
   4. "Critical facility" means any facility which if unusable or unreachable because of flooding would seriously and adversely affect the health and safety of the public, to include (but without limiting effect) hospitals, nursing homes, and housing likely to contain occupants not sufficiently mobile to avoid injury or death unaided during a flood; police stations, fire stations, emergency vehicle and emergency equipment storage facilities, and emergency operations centers likely to be called upon before, during and after a flood; public and private utility facilities important to maintaining or restoring normal services before, during and after a flood; and those structures or facilities which produce, use, or store highly volatile, flammable, explosive, toxic, and/or water reactive materials.
   5. "Development" means any man-made change to improved or unimproved real estate, including, but not limited to, buildings or other structures, mining, dredging, filling, grading, paving, excavating, drilling operations, or permanent storage of materials or equipment.
   6. "Elevated building" means a non-basement building built to have the lowest floor elevated above the ground level by means of fill, solid foundation perimeter walls, pilings, columns (posts and piers), shear walls, or breakaway walls.
   7. "Existing development" means any development or structure for which permitted construction commenced before the effective date of this ordinance.
   8. "FEMA" means the U. S. Federal Emergency Management Agency or any successor agency.
   9. "Flood" or "flooding" means a general and temporary condition of partial or complete inundation of normally dry land areas from either the overflow of inland waters or the unusual and rapid accumulation or runoff of surface waters from any source.
   10. "Flood Plain Board" means the Board of the Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District.
   11. "Floodplain permit" means the approval required by Part C of this Article of the Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District for development.
   12. "Floodplain storage compensation" means an artificially excavated, hydraulically equivalent volume of floodplain storage sufficient to offset a reduction in floodplain storage resulting from filling or construction within the local regulatory floodplain. Such floodplain storage compensation shall be within the same watershed and shall be provided on the same property or at an alternate site if the administering agency so approves.
   13. "Floodproof' or "floodproofing" means any combination of structural and non-structural additions, changes or adjustments to structures which reduce or eliminate flood damage to real estate or improved real property, water and sanitary facilities, structures and their conten
   14. "Floor" means the top surface of an enclosed area in a building (including basement), such as the top of slab in concrete slab construction or top of wood flooring in wood frame construction. The term does not include the floor of a garage used solely for parking vehicles.
   15. "Fully developed watershed" means a condition of a watershed which most accurately reflects the ultimate land use of the watershed and its potential to cause runoff.
   16. "Functionally dependent facility" means a facility which in the judgment of the administering agency cannot perform its essential project purpose unless it is located or carried out in close proximity to water. The term does not include long-term storage, manufacture, sales, service or residential facilities.
   17. "Historic structure" means any structure which is
       1. listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places by the U. S. Department of Interior or preliminarily determined by the Secretary of the Interior as meeting the requirements for individual listing on the National Register;
       2. certified or preliminarily determined by the U. S. Secretary of the Interior as contributing to the historical significance of a registered historic district or a district preliminarily determined by the Secretary to qualify as a registered historic district;
       3. listed individually by the Commonwealth of Kentucky on its state inventory of historic structures or listed individually by the City of Louisville or Jefferson County in its inventory of historic structures.
   18. "Local regulatory conveyance zone" means the channel of a river or solid blue line stream and the land adjacent to that river or stream which if unobstructed will discharge a local regulatory flood without cumulatively increasing the water surface elevation more than one tenth of one foot. The conveyance zone is determined by an equal loss of conveyance (at higher elevation) occurring on each side of the channel.
   19. "Local regulatory flood" means the flood having a one-percent (1%) likelihood of being equaled or exceeded in any given year based on a fully developed watershed.
   20. "Local regulatory base flood elevation" means height of the local regulatory flood expressed as feet above mean sea level (National Geodetic Vertical Datum 1929). This is determined by hydraulic calculations using the runoff from a fully developed watershed using as the basis for calculation a methodology approved by the administering agency which includes storm duration estimates and using zoning maps current as of the time of the calculation, provided that in calculating runoff potential for publicly owned property dedicated to public open space, for existing cemeteries, for existing 18 hole or larger regulation golf courses and for land prohibited from development by ordinance of Jefferson County or one of the municipalities within its boundaries, the actual use rather than the designated zoning category on the zoning maps shall be used.
   21. "Local regulatory floodplain" means any stream course or normally dry land area susceptible to being partially or completely inundated by the overflow of water from sources of public water or by the unusual and rapid accumulation or runoff of public surface waters and subject to a local regulatory flood.
   22. "Lowest adjacent grade" means the lowest natural elevation of the ground surface, prior to construction, next to the proposed walls of a building.
   23. "Manufactured home" means a building, transportable hi one or more sections, which is built on a permanent chassis and designed to be used with or without a permanent foundation when connected to the required utilities. The term also includes park trailers, travel trailers, and similar transportable structures placed on a site for 180 consecutive days or longer and intended to be improved property but does not include road ready vehicles not permanently attached to utilities.
   24. "Manufactured home park" means a parcel (or contiguous parcels) of land divided into two or more manufactured home lots for rent or sale.
   25. "National Flood Insurance Program" or "NFIP" means the Federal program authorized by 42 United States Code 4001 et seq. making available flood insurance protection to property owners in flood prone areas, which availability is conditioned on the community's adoption and enforcement of flood plain management regulations meeting the minimum criteria set forth in the statute and the regulations.
   26. "New construction" means any development which had not begun construction on the effective date of this ordinance. The first placement of permanent features of the development such as pouring of slabs or footings and installation of piles constitute beginning of construction but land preparation, grading and filling or construction of accessory structures do not.
   27. "Public water" means water that flows from more than one property or from public lands or rights-of-way.
   28. "Structure" means a walled and roofed building built for occupancy, storage, support, shelter, or enclosure that is principally above ground, including but not limited to a manufactured home, a gas or liquid storage tank, or other man-made facility or infrastructure.
   29. "Solid blue line stream" means a stream defined and designated as such on 7 minute quadrangle topographic maps published by the U.S. Geologic Survey.
   30. "Substantial improvement" means any combination of repairs, reconstruction, alteration, additions to or improvements to existing development, taking place during the life of the structure and begun after the effective date of this ordinance in which the cumulative cost equals or exceeds fifty percent (50%) of the market value of the structure. The market value of the structure for purposes of this ordinance is (a) the appraised value of the structure determined by a certified general real property appraiser licensed and certified by the Kentucky Real Estate Appraisers Board or lacking that, the current assessment of the structure shown by the Property Valuation Administrator of Jefferson County, prior to the start of the initial addition, repair or improvement, or (b) in the case of damage, prior to the damage's occurrence. The term includes repairs made to structures which have incurred damage equal to or in excess of fifty percent (50%) of the pre-damage value of the structure, regardless of the cumulative cost of the actual repair work performed. The cost of alteration, additions, or improvements shall reflect the value in the marketplace of the labor and materials to be used in the improvements. The first alteration of any wall, ceiling, floor or other structural Part of the structure whether or not that alteration affects the external dimensions of the structure constitutes beginning of construction of the substantial improvement. The term does not include the cost of floodproofing or elevating a structure or any portion thereof above the local regulatory base flood elevation plus one foot.
   31. "Watershed" means all the area within a geographic boundary from which water, sediments and other transportable materials, and dissolved materials drain or are carried by water to a common outlet, such as a point on a larger stream, lake, or underlying aquifer.
   32. "Watershed master plan" means the plan adopted by the Board of the administering agency which depicts the critical hydrologic and flood management elements of a watershed such as local regulatory floodplain and local regulatory conveyance zones and is supported by maps, graphics, text, models, and capital improvements planned by the administering agency.

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