FEMA: NO
Enclosure inspection program will stay in place until end

It came as no surprise last week that Federal Emergency Management Agency officials turned thumbs down on a county request to end the pilot flood insurance inspection program for below-base-flood-elevation enclosures.

FEMA had mandated the program, after a few years of wrangling with county officials to start bringing a high number of non-conforming downstairs enclosures into compliance.

As the county tried several times to wriggle out from under the mandates of the program, former leaders had to keep promising tougher inspection procedures to attempt to eradicate properties that wouldn’t be encompassed by the flood insurance renewal program.

Two weeks ago, however, the Monroe Board of County Commissioners approved a resolution asking FEMA to terminate the pilot program. It was that resolution to which FEMA said no.

And the reason it said no is because there are still a considerable number of homes in the inspection pipeline, as well as more than 400 that haven’t even yet been identified to flood insurers.

A couple of years ago, former Growth Management Director Drew Trivette told the Board of County Commissioners that the flood insurance inspection program was about 85 percent completed, with more than 75 percent compliance.

That isn’t the case, according to county staff emails.

The county had estimated as little as 2,000 non-conforming downstairs enclosures and possibly as many as 4,000. Thus far, just over 5,000 have been submitted to the inspection program, and more than 3,000 of those are still in the pipeline.

The pilot program was to have run seven years, and begin in 2001. The actual program didn’t start until mid-2002, however, and is past its original cut off date.

According to county documents, however, that need to extend the cut off date was anticipated in the original FEMA mandate because staff was guessing at how long it would take to process enforcement of downstairs enclosures.

So FEMA says it will not allow the county to terminate the flood insurance renewal inspection portion of the downstairs enclosure inspection program.

During last Thursday’s conference call with FEMA, county staffers also learned that FEMA officials weren’t entirely sold on the idea of allowing the county to cancel its building permit application inspection program.

That is the second of three phases of the inspection program, with flood insurance renewal and sale of the property being the other two.

The permit application phase has been called Draconian by most seated commissioners and has given birth to the most unintended consequences.

The permit application phase of the program has resulted in property owners, even those with conforming downstairs enclosures, declining to do needed work rather than have code enforcement personnel poring over their property. Still others are doing the work themselves without benefit of a permit, or hiring unlicensed contractors who will do the work without benefit of a permit.

“The construction industry is suffering, and our people aren’t doing what they need to do to maintain their homes properly,” said Commissioner Mario DiGennaro, who has been the most vocal proponent of ending the inspection programs.

Part of FEMA’s reticence toward eliminating or even greatly amending the building permit application inspection program stems for a letter sent to the Commissioner Jack London in which FEMA lauds the county for its actions, but points out that the bulk of non-compliant enclosures are discovered during the permit-application process, thus its unwillingness to allow eradication of that program.

John November, a law fellow with the grass roots organization Citizens Not Serfs which has urged an end to the downstairs enclosure inspections, said he expected FEMA not to approve termination of the pilot program, but that the stance taken by the county commission opened doors for the group to lobby in Washington for high-level pressure to get FEMA to change its stance.

Christine Hurley, the county’s new Growth Management Director, said that as a result of the call last week, “FEMA is sensitive to the county’s challenges with permitting, and is open to considering alternatives to the county’s inspection-upon-permit and point-of-sale programs they might present.”

“The county will research options and review what other communities in Florida and across the country are doing to prevent downstairs enclosures being converted to living space,” she wrote in a memo to commissioners.

Hurley said staff will discuss the call from last week and present possible options at the next county commission meeting on March 17.

Her memo states that Monroe County is in no danger of having higher-than-normal flood insurance premiums as a result of the pilot program because rates are set on a national level, with every flood-prone area in the same classification having the same actuarial multiplier.

She also wrote that no increase is being anticipated this year, although policy fees will increase by $5.

Citizens Not Serfs leaders and other community members, had been concerned that Monroe County’s status as a non-compliant community would result in higher flood insurance premiums as FEMA phases out flood insurance subsidies to make up for a $17 billion shortfall in the National Flood Insurance Program.

Hurley said any increase is Congressionally capped at 10 percent per year.

County Commissioner George Neugent has been advocating elimination of the inspection-upon-permit program and replacing it with a stricter point-of-sale inspection program whereby any non-conforming downstairs enclosure would have to be brought into compliance with current code before new buyers cold receive approval from the county to occupy the home.

Assistant County Attorney Bob Shillinger has been working on an ordinance to that effect for a couple of months.

The upside would be that property owners could continue to maintain their homes and enclosures while they still own it, and would then have to negotiate with the eventual buyer for who pays for compliance.

“At the very least, everyone would know if they were buying a property with a non-conforming downstairs enclosure and that it would have to be brought into compliance before they could occupy the structure,” said Neugent. “By attrition, we would eventually bring every home into compliance.”

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