Quincy unfolds its own flood map and issues challenge to federal agency
The city filed an appeal Thursday with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, calling on the agency to revise Quincy's newly drawn flood zones and make new assessments of the risks faced by more than 4,000 properties in the city.
QUINCY – City officials are hopeful their newest challenge to revised federal flood-area maps could spare thousands of homeowners from paying sky-high insurance premiums. The city filed an appeal Thursday with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, calling on the agency to revise Quincy’s newly drawn flood zones and make new assessments of the flood risks faced by more than 4,000 properties in the city. “We believe there are a number of flaws and issues in how they determined flood zones and elevated risks,” Mayor Thomas Koch said. It will take FEMA six months to a year to review the city’s appeal. The city is ready for the challenge of convincing FEMA officials they should adopt a different vision of the city’s flood risks, Koch said, adding that Quincy has already invested $300,000 in new engineering and surveys of areas identified by FEMA’s new maps as having elevated flood risks. In addition to supplying FEMA with new surveys, Koch said the city’s appeal also stresses its defenses against floods and rising sea levels. “FEMA does an aerial survey that doesn’t take into account the other mitigating devices. We have tide gates and sea walls,” he said. “We’re not just open to the ocean, and we’ve got some real infrastructure.” The revised map from the Federal Emergency Management Agency added 1,400 Quincy properties to the flood plain and raised risk rates for about 2,700 properties already in the plain. Homes and businesses in the plain are required to buy flood insurance if they have federally backed mortgages. The appeal comes a week after the city council reluctantly voted 9-0 to adopt the federal flood maps and cleared the way for insurance costs to soar. The city’s engineering consultant, Woodard & Curran, said rejecting the map would have devastating consequences, including city residents not being eligible for publicly subsidized flood insurance. Also, the firm said the city and its residents would no longer qualify for FEMA reimbursements after a disaster or grant funding for flood-relief projects. Joseph Shea, senior vice president at Woodard & Curran and son of City Clerk Joseph Shea, last week advised property owners who think they may be affected by the new map to request an elevation certificate through the city’s engineering office at 55 Sea St. Based on the certificate, Shea said the city will recommend whether the owner should seek an individual appeal with FEMA, called a letter of map amendment, which typically get a response within two months. Shea said the city will pay for the certificates, which require a land survey, for individual properties. He said the certificates cost about $400 per property. Koch also faulted the federal agency that required the new flood maps. “It’s clearly a money grab for the federal government to pay for costly disasters,” he said. “This is truly an overreach.” But Koch also stressed that owners of waterfront homes previously damaged by floods and storm surges should be paying higher insurance costs. Data from the National Flood Insurance Program show that even a few years of price hikes of flood insurance could leave many affected owners unable to afford their properties. FEMA’s records also show why there is pressure to raise rates. Some communities with a large proportion of subsidized properties have been tremendously costly for the flood program. But there are many places where those policy discounts have cost taxpayers almost nothing. Last year, some homeowners in the U.S. felt the effects of the 2012 reform of the National Flood Insurance Program when their rates rose dramatically. Congress rolled back parts of the 2012 law, but more than 800,000 homeowners will still get hit with rate increases of up to 18 percent each year until the program is collecting enough revenue to cover a $24 billion shortfall created by the long-running discounts and a series of catastrophic storms. Owners of another quarter-million businesses or second homes will see their rates rise 25 percent each year, until their premiums reach rates that match what building elevation surveys indicate is the true risk of flooding. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Chris Burrell may be reached at cburrell@ledger.com or follow on Twitter @Burrell_Ledger.
