FEMA mandate hits San Bruno

Residents of the Belle Air neighborhood, in the eastern portion of the city abutting Highway 101, will be the only in San Bruno required to purchase the insurance despite the best efforts of local officials to oppose the maps.

Public Works Director Jimmy Tan said the meeting at Belle Air Elementary will grant residents an opportunity to meet with officials and share the questions or concerns they may have about the new hazard zones.

“FEMA is planning to finalize the maps so we are coordinating a meeting with FEMA for residents to offer feedback or to ask about insurance costs, mapping, engineering, methodologies or any other building improvements they may want to do,” he said.

The discussion comes after years of fighting against the maps, said Tan, as city officials have worked since roughly 2014 to propose alternatives to the alignments offered by the federal authority. The boundaries are determined by revisions from FEMA initiated in 2012 according to coastal hazard analyses.

“For us, we believe that we wanted to help our residents. That was the main intention of doing what we did on our end,” said Tan.

He said officials went as far as hiring a consultant who arrived at different findings than FEMA as it relates to potential flood hazards in San Bruno, and continuously appealed rejections issued by the federal agency.

Ultimately though, he said the appeals process ran its course and city officials completed the entire slate of options available to contest the government’s decision. Following a final appeal being overruled earlier this year, San Bruno officials resigned from the fight, clearing the way for establishment of the federal maps.

“We’ve exhausted the entire appeals process. We didn’t have to do this. We chose to. But we felt we need to speak, or do the best we can, for our residents,” he said.

Local governments in the Bay Area are frequently at the mercy of the federal agency that outlines flood maps and aims to increase insurance coverage for those who might be at risk of an extreme storm.

To that end, in San Mateo, officials have moved toward flood protections such as improvements to the city’s levee and two water pumps in an effort to address the concerns of those on the city’s Bayfront saddled with hefty insurance premiums following FEMA redrawing flood maps.

Foster City residents also recently passed a $90 million tax measure designed to enhance flood protections following the federal agency determining that the city’s existing levees were inadequate to protect residents.

South San Francisco officials also accepted recently revised maps, in which almost 200 new commercial and residential parcels along the Bayshore would be mandated to hold flood insurance, while another nearly 850 parcels currently in the plain would be removed.

Meanwhile, the circumstances in San Bruno are unique, said Tan, and as San Francisco International Airport consumes the city’s share of the waterfront, which poses the largest flooding threat. As a result, the previous set of maps excluded the city entirely from the flood zone.

But in the most recent map iterations, federal officials claimed water could rise so significantly that it would rush across Highway 101 and into homes in the Belle Air neighborhood, said Tan.

FEMA claims South San Francisco’s Navigable Slough also contributes to a portion of the risk, said Tan, as the tributary to Colma Creek which flows under Highway 101 and South Airport Boulevard could flood too.

The city’s geography also precludes officials from establishing a facilities district to fix Bayfront levees and reduce the flood zone, said Tan.

He further noted the city’s authority is limited in mitigating the risks posed by the slough and airport, since both threats exist on property owned by other agencies.

But he added San Bruno officials will not be deterred from trying to help push forward capital projects led by the airport, county and South San Francisco which could improve flood protections, and ultimately, help San Bruno residents.

“We are not stopping,” said Tan. “We will continue to coordinate with other agencies around San Bruno so that one day we could remove all the residents out of the flood maps.”

Tan suggested the airport’s improvement could be completed by about 2022, while the slough timeline is yet to be determined. Despite the uncertainty though, Tan said San Bruno officials are dedicated to working in the best interest of their community.

“We want to help our residents,” he said.

The community discussion will take place 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 27, at Belle Air Elementary School, 450 Third Ave.

austin@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 105