What About Flood Insurance?

By Jason Hadick

FEMA says many residents will have to pay big bucks for Flood Insurance if they have a mortgage

There is a way to eliminate the risk, by eliminating the flood zone. The way to do this is by constructing a Flood Retention Basin capable of holding up to 125 acre-feet (one acre 125 ft. deep to 125 acres one foot deep) of water run-off for several days.

So far, the only reasonable site identified for construction of such a basin is on the old Oak Park School site. The Basin would essentially be an open field with embankments around it, empty most of the year, theoretically full of water only once every 25 years or so. It could be used simultaneously for playing fields, parking for the Library, even for overhead construction of a library on piers set deep in the ground on piles.

It could not be used for housing. The City Council Majority (Messrs Durant & Escover and Ms. Angeli) voted to put 96 houses on that property as part of the Housing Element of the General Plan . . . and if they are built, the land cound never be used for Flood Control.

I believe there are several things that must be done:

1. First, we must do everything possible to ensure that the 100-year Flood Zone is correctly defined. City engineers believe it would be smaller than FEMA has preswented. We need to have an accurate estimate, as the size of the problem will determine the needed size of the Flood Retention BAsin.

2. We need to do everything in our power, as a community and as a City, to lobby FEMA to suspend the requirement for Flood Insurance on all existing mortgages until we have set in place the necessary federal, state and local approvals for funding and construction of a Flood Control Basin on the Oak Park School site, with a reasonable delay for actual construction. This is essential, as the bureaucracy of government will add years to the approval process, and it is unfair to penalize residents for a condition that the Federal Government only recently determined to exist.

3. Any plans to build on the Oak Park School site must be cancelled, through whatever means necessary, to protect the ability of the City to build the Flood Basin. I believe we can work with the County, the Flood Control District and the State to ensure that a reasonable solution is found. There is, for example, a large but inadequate lot on Beatrice which could be swapped - along with some cash or other consideration - with the property owner. The owner? Contra Costa County, which can surely not politically justify putting out City at risk of serious flooding by insisting on their "right" to build 96 houses on the site.