The Kenai City Council passed a resolution expressing intent to participate in the National Flood Insurance program. Certain areas of the city could be subject to periodic flooding, mudslide, or flood-related erosion, causing serious damages to properties within these areas. Relief is made available in the form of federally subsidized flood insurance as authorized by the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, which enables property owners in participating communities to purchase insurance as a protection against flood losses in exchange for state and community floodplain management regulations that reduce future flood damages.
City Manager Paul Ostrander said:
“So, the NFIP would apply over the entire boundary of the city, however, the only place where any regulations would apply within the city are either mapped floodplain or mapped floodway, which is always associated with some type of waterway. While it does cover the entire city boundary, the majority of the city would be unaffected.”
Ostrander said this resolution is the first in a three-step process for participation in the NFIP:
“The Administration then would fill out an application and Mr. Bloom would start working on an ordinance, a floodplain ordinance that would outline the requirements for how we would regulate activities within the floodplain or the floodway of the city. That ordinance would come to council sometime in the next couple of months, assuming we go down this path. To answer your question, yes, the city would then, we would be responsible for administering that code once it was adopted by the council.”
In a memo documents sent to the mayor and council members, Ostrander writes that the city of Kenai considered participating in the program in the past and this requirement for moving the bluff stabilization project forward provides the impetus to do so.
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