BOARD01914

• Board Meeting Date: 12/4/1974
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

I

I

the members of our staff on many of these things. But we did reach a
consensus that we though was workable. We incorporated to the best of
our ability and judgment some of these suggested changes in the model
regulation. That was only done late last week. On Monday we mailed
out the revised regulation to all people who had responded to our origi-
nal request for comments. They have had very little opportunity to
look it over at this point.

In the wording of the statute. there are several things that are some-
what inconsistent. We are not certain at this time as to how to
interpret the statute. The statute in one section states that after
the promulgation of these guidelines they shall be administered (and
this is an exact quote now) "shall be administered by local government
in a manner which is consistent with the guidelines for land use in
each of the natural hazard areas." Then there is further language in
the statute stating that local governments shall develop guidelines for
administration of the designated matters of state interest. Floodplains
are included. The contents of such guidelines must be such as to
facilitate administration of matters of state interest. And then it
says further. '~ local government may adopt regulations interpreting
and applying its adopted guidelines in relation to specific developments
in this area." And then it has the provision which provides that
nothing in the article shall be construed as prohibiting a local govern-
ment from adopting guidelines or regulations containing requirements
which are more stringent than the criteria which we might issue.

There is some confusion in the statute concerning the effect of this
bill in connection with statutes which were enacted in 1966. following
the 1965 flood. In 1966, the legislature specifically authorized
cities and counties to zone for flood hazards. It provides in that
statute that they can do this only after designation of the flood hazard
areas by this board. The reason for that is obvious. Unless some
uniform standard is set up defining flood hazard areas. then we would
have a great variety of differing flood hazard areas within the state.
At the same time. the statutes setting forth the duties of this board.
that is in 1966. were amended to specifically set forth that this board
should designate and make available to local jurisdictions the iden-
tification and designation of floodplains.

However. House Bill 1041 enacted this year, does not cross reference to
these other statutes. Just how this fits in with the existing statutes
we are not sure. We do know that there was a great deal of controversy
surrounding the enactment of House Bill 1041. There were many com-
promises and in many cases the statute is poorly drawn. There is
inadequate cross reference to other statutes. Nevertheless. we are
assuming that it is our responsibility to designate flood hazard areas.
This we will continue to do until the Attorney General or someone from
the legislature rules otherwise. It is our specific responsibility to
promulgate a model regulation.

We want to emphasize at the outset that we consider it an impossibility
to write a regulation or ordinance which would be equally applicable
to every jurisdiction of this state. There are some things such as
the intermediate regional flood which can be delineated and is common

-46-