Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Building in a floodplain

[Bruce Shimizu (bruce]

There are a multitude of issues that come into play when developing in the
floodplain. It really all depends on how much flood potential does the site
have. 

I have built homes in areas that are within the 100 year floodplain and have
only had to raise the building pads a couple of feet. That is easy enough to
do if your existing soils can be used to build your elevated pads. But, if
you have to do more than that the cost can escalate quickly. 

For example: you may have to import engineered fill to raise building pads,
there will be additional engineering costs, are there wetlands that you will
have to mitigate, what regulatory agencies have jurisdiction over the
development in the flood zone and what special requirements do they have,
will your sanitary sewer system have to include a lift station, the list can
go on and on.

If you are thinking about a particular property, talk to a local civil
engineer about developing a residential project on the site and see what
issues come up. They might even give you a "rough" ballpark estimate of what
additional costs you might be looking at for developing on this site.

Good luck,

Bruce K. Shimizu
bruce [at] cw-homes.com  
  
 Clearwater Homes
P.O. Box 1874  .  Windsor  .  CA  .  95492
(707) 837-9922  voice  .  (208) 975-9617  fax  .  (707) 696-9008  cell

-----Original Message-----
From: Louis-H. Campagna [mailto:lhcampagna [at] hotmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 6:54 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Building in a floodplain


Hi,
 
Does anyone have ideas, opinions pro/con, advice, experiences, references,
etc., about establishing a cohousing development within a floodplain ?
 
All contributions welcome !
 
Louis-H. Campagna
Cohabitat Québec (forming)
Québec City, Canada
_________________________________________________________________

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