Drafter
Clerk 07/01/2011
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AN ORDINANCE relating to coastal high hazard areas regulations; adding a new section to K.C.C. chapter 21A.06 and adding a new section to K.C.C. chapter 21A.24.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. King County and nearly twenty-one thousand other communities across the United States and its territories participate in the National Flood Insurance Program by adopting and enforcing floodplain management regulations to reduce future flood damage.
2. King County floodplain management regulations are based on mapping of the one-hundred-year floodplain in accordance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's mapping standards.
3. The historic Federal Emergency Management Agency mapping of the coastal high hazard areas of Vashon-Maury Island is over thirty years old and did not use detailed hydraulic analyses to establish flood heights or depths of flooding from storm-induced velocity wave action.
4. The 2006 King County Flood Hazard Management Plan recommended remapping of the coastal high hazard area of Vashon-Maury Island using the most current models and data to more accurately identify the risk from coastal flooding based on storm-induced velocity wave action.
5. King County is currently preparing revised coastal high hazard area maps for Vashon-Maury Island, which were released to the public for review in April 2011.
6. Once draft maps are released to the public they are considered best available data and King County must regulate development to these maps.
7. King County's flood hazard regulations in K.C.C. 21A.24.230 through 21A.24.270 are not applicable to coastal high hazard areas because they are developed for riverine floodplains with designated floodways.
8. Coastal high hazard areas regulations must be adopted so King County can comply with the code of federal regulations (44 C.F.R. 60.3(b)(4) to regulate floodplain development using the best available data.
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
NEW SECTION. S...

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