MALIBU—The city of Malibu announced on Friday, July 31 they are in the continued process of appealing the revised FEMA preliminary flood maps potentially impacting beachside estates.
The issue the city has contested with FEMA’s revised flood maps is the base flood elevations along Malibu’s coastline. The base flood elevation is the anticipated elevation that a base flood, a flood with a one percent annual chance will reach.
According to the city of Malibu, the revised flood maps base flood elevation could potentially impact beachside properties.
“The proposed changes could have an impact to all existing properties and any new development along the beach,” the city wrote in a statement online from Friday, July 31.
The city of Malibu participates in FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program which provides subsidized flood insurance to all property owners. One of the requirements to be eligible for flood insurance is that all properties and development projects within the local floodplain comply with FEMA’s standards.
After FEMA’s potential revised flood maps were released, Malibu submitted an appeal to FEMA describing challenges to the proposed flood maps on November 6, 2017, the last day of the public appeal period. After submission of additional data and analysis and extensions for additional comments, Malibu submitted additional documents to FEMA on April 8, 2019.
Malibu’s consultant, Moffat & Nichol completed land surveys and re-calculated the depth of flooding along Malibu’s coastline. The consultants had many conference calls with FEMA regarding the method Malibu would use to determine the base flood elevation and have since found in their analysis that, “The majority of the sections analyzed showed a lower base flood elevation.”
Earlier in June, the revised calculations and analysis was submitted to FEMA for review, the review is expected to be completed around November 2020. After FEMA’s review is released, Malibu will conduct additional public outreach.
For additional information regarding the flood maps, visit Malibu’s Floodplain Management page here.
