Development in Warrenton could face restrictions under changes to federal flood plain measures.

1. Draft maps show new flood risk modeling

Changes could be coming to local flood plain development policies in Clatsop County — and sooner than community leaders expected.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced new rules for development in special flood hazard areas along the Oregon Coast and the Columbia River drainage basin. While the measures are intended to ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act, many leaders see them as a major roadblock for growth.

The announcement includes three options for regulating development, which communities will have until December to choose from.

Long process

The proposed changes stem from a yearslong process seeking to address endangered species-related concerns with FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.

The program provides standards for flood plain development, flood risk mapping and policy enforcement. In 2009, the Portland Audubon Society brought a lawsuit against FEMA, eventually resulting in a biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The opinion found that continuing with the program would likely jeopardize 16 species of fish and southern resident killer whales, and would also impact critical habitat.

That was in 2016. Five years later, FEMA released a draft implementation plan outlining recommendations in response to the issues raised. The goal was to achieve no net loss for three key habitat functions: flood storage, water quality and riparian habitat. In other words, the impacts of development would need to be balanced or outweighed by efforts to avoid, minimize or mitigate those impacts.

“None of these are exactly cheap or easy when it comes to implementation and to property owners who are having to work with them,” Gail Henrikson, Clatsop County’s community development director, said in a presentation to elected officials on July 11.

FEMA still has a ways to go before the implementation plan is complete — it’s working through a National Environmental Policy Act process to assess impacts, and likely won’t put the final plan into action until early 2027. But under the new announcement, communities will have to put compliance measures in place before the plan is done.

The new rules, called pre-implementation compliance measures, would halt or limit new development in the flood plain, including adding fill and impervious surfaces and removing vegetation from areas near rivers and streams.

Communities have three options: prohibiting all new development in the flood plain, adopting a model flood plain ordinance requiring no net loss, or requiring individual permit applicants to conduct a habitat assessment and mitigation plan to show development will achieve no net loss. They’ll also need to report all new permits to FEMA once they decide on an option. If jurisdictions haven’t made a decision by December, they’ll default to option three.

‘This affects everyone’

The compliance measures will impact more than 230 communities, including Astoria, Warrenton and unincorporated Clatsop County. John Graves, a FEMA branch chief for flood plain management and insurance, said the idea is to give communities a runway ahead of the final plan.

“That’s kind of our goal,” he said. “We’re gonna have some bumps along the road, but at the end of the day, we’re gonna stick the landing. We’re gonna get these communities ready to be implementing the full implementation plan when that finally comes out.”

While the measures will only affect areas currently in the flood plain, local leaders have expressed concerns over how those areas could change. In April, FEMA released new draft flood maps that would add more than 1,000 new structures to the flood plain in Warrenton. A preliminary map and additional review is expected in 2025.

FEMA will also stop reviewing letters of map revision based on fill on Aug. 1. The pause is meant to minimize environmental impacts by removing the incentive to fill, but it also means people who have recently raised their properties likely won’t see the changes on the new maps unless they’re approved before the end of the month.

At the same time, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is rolling out its own new federal flood risk management standards, requiring all HUD-funded projects — including public housing — to be raised at least 2 feet above base flood elevation.

Warrenton Mayor Henry Balensifer has described the changes as an “existential threat” to development.

“I know a lot of people that have relied upon or looked at Warrenton as the developer, you know, we can develop things, so that maybe that pressure was off from your jurisdictions for commercial, industrial and housing,” Balensifer said at the July 11 meeting of elected officials. “That’s going to shut down real soon.”

Other community leaders have echoed those concerns.

“This affects everyone,” said Mark Kujala, the chair of the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, who represents Warrenton. “This is economic development for our county. This is housing for our county — all the work we’ve been doing. The idea that these precompliance measures are going into effect prior to even having the maps established is insane.”

Astoria City Councilor Andy Davis and City Councilor Tom Brownson also shared worries at a recent council meeting.

“If a bunch of Warrenton comes out of usable land stock because of these changes with the FEMA BiOp, that’ll change the dynamic for Astoria as well,” Davis said. “So we may just have to get even more creative about how we approach housing issues and how we treat commercial.”

A path forward

Balensifer said he only sees three paths forward. If FEMA delays its compliance measure requirements until after the National Environmental Policy Act process is complete, it would at least buy communities more time. Otherwise, the only other fixes that come to mind are a lawsuit or direction from Congress for FEMA to consider alternatives.

Balensifer has already been involved in conversations with other coastal mayors, and hopes to continue to gather partners. He also hopes the state will get involved in litigation. In the meantime, FEMA is working to provide more information and connect communities with technical assistance.

“We feel like we need to ensure that we’re doing our part under the Endangered Species Act to minimize the take that is going to occur in this interim time period,” Graves said. “But really, it is more about providing the technical assistance and trying to help the communities kind of get a head start on what we believe is going to be the final implementation based on comments that we’ve received so far, and other conversations.”

Graves said the agency has assembled a team to help answer questions about the pre-implementation compliance measures and will be hosting a series of informational webinars in the coming months.

While communities have a Dec. 1 deadline to choose a compliance measure, that isn’t the date set for implementing it, Graves said. He hopes the webinars will help give FEMA a better sense of which options communities are leaning toward and inform their decision-making for a reasonable implementation timeline. FEMA has also been working with communities to identify resources and grant opportunities ahead of changes on the new draft flood maps.

“That’s kind of the conversation that we’re trying to have in Clatsop County and the city of Warrenton right now, is, ‘This is what your risk is, let’s have conversations about ways that we can help find funding, whether it’s FEMA dollars, or some other federal agency or the state or universities.’ Whatever the case may be, we’re having those conversations about how do we think about risk reduction in that community,” Graves said. “In the meantime, we’ve got to move forward with our biological opinion implementation.”

Informational webinars on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s pre-implementation compliance measures will be held via Zoom. Each webinar will have the same information, so jurisdictions only need to attend one.

• July 31 at 3-5 p.m.: https://kearnswest.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkc-murjstGdPJiFioethjRk-id8N-k0hj

• Aug. 13 at 9:30-11:30 a.m.: https://kearnswest.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAod-isrTsqGN0KqckRLPPeaZuu4rv96lcR

• Aug. 15 at 2-4 p.m.: https://kearnswest.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqcOGpqDojHtTXaa946aI9dMpCTcJlH_zt

• Aug. 21 at 12:30-2:30 p.m.: https://kearnswest.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqcuGsrD8rH9DZO22vG0v9KrNzVeUZA9gy