Title
Comprehensive Flood Management Plan
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FileID
File ID: 2024-00910
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Location
Location: Citywide
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Recommendation
Recommendation: Adopt a Resolution to update the Comprehensive Flood Management Plan.
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Contact
Contact: Rosa Millino, Project Manager, rmillino@cityofsacramento.org, (916) 808-1451; Neal Joyce, Supervising Engineer, njoyce@cityofsacramento.org, (916) 808-1912; Sherill Huun, Engineering & Water Resources Division Manager, shuun@cityofsacramento.org, (916) 808-1455; Pravani Vandeyar, Director, pvandeyar@cityofsacramento.org, (918) 808-3765; Department of Utilities
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Presenter
Presenter: None.
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Attachments
Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
2-Resolution
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Description/Analysis
IssueDetail
Issue Detail: Staff recommends Council adopt the updated Comprehensive Flood Management Plan (CFMP) for the City of Sacramento. The CFMP establishes a strategic, comprehensive management approach to reducing flood risk through the implementation of seven risk reduction tools. The tools include land use planning, emergency management, levee and other structural improvements, internal drainage improvements, a program for public information, National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and Community Rating System (CRS) Program, and levee security.
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PolicyConsiderations
Policy Considerations: This report’s recommendation is consistent with the City’s 2040 General Plan’s Public Health and Safety goal to promote public safety through planning, preparedness, and emergency response to natural and human-made disasters.
The CFMP is consistent with the 2040 General Plan including polices ERC 6.2, 6.4, and 6.5:
ERC-6.2 Flood Management Planning Coordination.The City shall work with local, regional, State, and federal agencies to do the following:
• Maintain an adequate information base; monitor long-term flood safety; and assess long-term flood event probabilities;
• Prepare risk assessments that account for urbanization and the effects of climate change;
• Identify strategies to mitigate flooding impacts; and
• Participate in regional planning efforts.
ERC-6.4 Floodplain Requirements. The City shall regulate development within floodplains in accordance with State and federal requirements and maintain the City’s eligibility under the National Flood Insurance Program.
ERC-6.5 Community Rating System. The City shall continue its participation in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) Community Rating System program, which gives property owners discounts on flood insurance.
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EconomicImpacts
Economic Impacts: None.
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EnvironmentalConsiderations
Environmental Considerations: The adoption of the Comprehensive Flood Management Plan (CFMP) identifies seven flood risk reduction tools, each supported by implementation strategies and action items.
CEQA Guidelines Section 15308 provides an exemption from CEQA review for actions taken by a regulatory agency to assure the maintenance, restoration, enhancement, or protection of the environment. The purpose of the CFMP is to reduce flood risk, a goal covered by the exemption. The exemption also requires a regulatory process that includes procedures for protection of the environment. To the extent implementation of the CFMP results in projects that may have an effect on the environment, appropriate CEQA review would be conducted.
None of the exceptions to categorical exemptions applies. The project is exempt from CEQA review pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15308.
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Sustainability
Sustainability: The CFMP is consistent with the 2040 General Plan and Climate Action and Adaptation Plan goals A-3 to reduce flood risk.
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Commission/Committee Action
Commission/Committee Action: Not applicable.
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RationaleforRecommendation
Rationale for Recommendation: The City is susceptible to various types of flood events: riverine, flash, and localized stormwater flooding; and levee and dam failure flooding. Flooding is the most significant natural hazard that the City faces. To address this complex hazard a comprehensive plan is necessary to quantify the flood risk reduction specific to each of the reduction tools. This Plan needs continual review and updates as planning and hazard mitigation practices evolve through the National Flood Insurance Program(NFIP) and Community Rating System (CRS). This CFMP update also contains new amendments to the A99 Flood zone area which include the added development requirements for new construction and substantial improvements. The City is required to review and revised this Plan every five years.
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FinancialConsiderations
Financial Considerations: None.
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LocalBusinessEnterprise
Local Business Enterprise (LBE): Not applicable.
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Background
Background: The Comprehensive Flood Management Plan (CFMP) has been updated to establish a strategic, comprehensive management approach to reducing flood risk through the implementation of seven risk reduction tools utilized by the City. It is the intent of the CFMP to communicate these tools to City staff, the community, and other key stakeholders to better facilitate an integrated, unified approach by the City to flood risk reduction. The CFMP will guide the City’s flood risk reduction and mitigation efforts from the current year to 2028, through implementation strategies and action items for each tool. The goal of the CFMP is not to quantify the flood risk reduction specific to each of the reduction tools, but to demonstrate that by using all of the tools, flood risk can be reduced for the City. The seven risk reduction tools are:
• Land Use Planning and Development Guidelines
• Emergency Management
• Levee and Other Structural Improvements
• Internal Drainage Improvements
• Risk Communication (Program for Public Information)
• National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)/Community Rating System (CRS)
• Levee Security
The CFMP was developed with input from the public, the City's Community Development Department, Office of Emergency Services, Police, Fire, and the Utilities Department. The last update of the CFMP was in 2016. The City updated the CFMP to improve its CRS program. The CRS program is a voluntary incentive-based program that recognizes and encourages communities to exceed the FEMA minimum floodplain management standards and rewards communities with discounted flood insurance premiums. The City is currently a Class 3 resulting in discounted flood insurance premiums of up to 35 percent for City residents, renters, and businesses, which is a savings of about $1.9 million annually. The CFMP may help provide the City with additional CRS credits enabling the City to retain or improve its current CRS rating.
Once the CFMP Update is adopted, the City will be responsible for ongoing implementation and maintenance. The status of implementation actions identified in the CFMP will be updated on an annual basis as part of the Annual Progress Report prepared in accordance with the implementation requirements of the Sacramento County Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP). The update schedule for the CFMP is aligned with future five-year updates of the LHMP. Thus, the CFMP will be formally reviewed and revised as a strategic plan at least every five years.
Significant highlights of the risk reduction tools in the CFMP include:
• The Levee use Planning and Development Guidelines tool focusing on federal, state, and local flood protection measures. The federal measures are required by FEMA. The state measures incorporate the new 200-year flood protection requirements starting July 2, 2016. The local flood protection measures continue to implement additional development requirements for rescue and evacuation areas based on the City’s 2016 Rescue and Evacuation Maps.
• The Emergency Management tool summarizing the City’s preparedness, training, emergency response, public education, and Department coordination with emergency management. The public education component focuses on the City’s Flood Response Preparations (FRP), which is part of the City’s CRS program. The FRP is a pre-flood plan for public information activities ready for the next flood.
• The Levee and Other Structural Improvements tool summarizes the history of structural flood control projects and the goals of future ones. The majority of these projects are led locally by the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.
• The Internal Drainage Improvements tool discusses the flood risk reduction that can be accomplished from improvements to the City’s internal storm drainage system since a considerable flood risk exists due to inadequate internal drainage infrastructure.
• The Risk Communication tool or Program for Public Information (PPI) is an ongoing effort to prepare, implement, and monitor a range of public information activities best suited for a community’s flood problems. The City has developed its PPI in accordance with the CRS program requirements. The PPI also includes the Flood Insurance Coverage Assessment (FIA) and Coverage Improvement Plan (CP) for flood insurance outreach.
• The NFIP/CRS chapter or tool focuses on compliance with FEMA’s NFIP and flood insurance within the City and implementation strategies and action items to improve the City’s rating in the CRS program.
• The Levee Security Plan was added as a flood risk reduction tool to address potential possibility of the failure of area levees from acts of terrorism and other malicious or negligent acts. This plan is required for a Levee Maintaining Agency (LMA) by California law in urban and urbanizing areas. The Levee Security Plan followed the California Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) May 2012 Urban Levee Design Criteria (ULDC).
New amendments to the A99 Flood zone area are included as part of this update. The CFMP amendments include the added development requirements for new construction and substantial improvements as prescribed below in paragraphs 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3:
1.1. The lowest floor (including basements) of structures must be at least 12 inches above the highest adjacent 100-year event HGL of the City’s drainage system and at least 18 inches above the Controlling Overland Release Point in the public right-of-way.
1.2. Project applicants must obtain the 100-year event HGL from a City drainage masterplan for the appropriate basin, or if none exists projects must use an assumed HGL of one foot above the most upstream adjacent City drainage inlet. If there is no adjacent City drainage system, projects must assume the 100-year event HGL is one foot above the highest adjacent street or alley surface elevation fronting the project site.
1.3. Project applicants must provide elevation or floodproofing certificates, or both as applicable. (Commercial properties have the option of floodproofing if elevation is not feasible).
Staff will make the same changes described above to the City’s Design and Procedures Manual (DPM) and Onsite Design Manual (ODM).
Additionally, in Appendix D, the City has created a Repetitive Loss Area Analysis (RLAA), which provides an opportunity to earn additional CRS credits by developing mitigation strategies for areas with structures that have two or more flood insurance claims of more than $1,000 paid by the NFIP over any ten-year period. According to FEMA, the City has 23 unmitigated repetitive loss properties. The RLAA was approved by the City Council as a standalone document on August 15, 2023; FEMA required local approval of the RLAA last year to obtain CRS credits. For consistency and ease of future CFMP updates, the previously approved RLAA is included as CFMP Appendix D.
A link to the Plan can be found here:<https://www.cityofsacramento.gov/content/dam/portal/dou/utilities/stormwater/flood-preparedness/documents/CFMP%202024%20with%20Appendix%20(1)_Final.pdf>
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