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Flood Issues It is important to determine whether or not your property lies within a Flood Zone. Your local Planning Department should be able to provide you with this information. For San Luis Obispo County this information is often part of the Parcel Report you can get free online from the San Luis Obispo County Prospector. Essentially, if you are in one of these zones, on whatever new building you do, the lowest floor level will generally need to be 1 foot above the 100 year flood level (a specific number of feet above sea level for your particular parcel) for your area or flood zone. For additions and/or remodels, this can be a very significant issue if your existing floor levels are currently below that level, as they often are in older neighborhoods in known flood areas. Sometimes they will allow you to add a certain amount of floor space at that lower level, other times they won't.
If you are in a flood zone, you may likely also have to provide for the handling of flood waters in and around the site as part of your design.
Also, you may have to do an analysis of the construction costs for an addition, as this may be used to determine how much floor space, if any, you can add at a level below the flood elevation. |
