By Thia James

Flood regs frustrate residents, property owners

Mar 27, 2015 | 7:01 AM

The Hazeldell home that Carol Yeo and her husband live in has been around for at least 60 years.

Yeo’s husband has lived in the home since he was a child. The couple was well aware they lived in the one-in-100 year flood plain, which is an area that has a one per cent chance of experiencing a flood in any given year.

What they weren’t expecting was to have the City of Prince Albert deny them a building permit for the garage they planned to build. The denial was based on the fact the house is in the one-in-100 year flood plain.

“And, then further to that, even beyond a garage, we couldn’t put up an addition on our home, we couldn’t build a new home, we couldn’t even put a shed on our property,” she said.

“And, we still can’t, because this is the restriction of the one-[in]-100 year floodway.”

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The Yeos didn’t know that because they live in the floodway, their plans for their home would be severely restricted.

They were among the homeowners in attendance at Thursday evening’s flood plain issues meeting at East End Community Hall. It was standing room only, with hundreds of concerned residents there to hear representatives from the provincial ministry of government relations and the City explain the impacts of adopting the one-in-500 year flood plain policy.

The one-in-500 year flood plain covers an area from the riverbank outward into the East and West Flats, and the Hazeldell area. About 2,000 homes are situated in the flood plain.

The one-in-500 year flood line is a provincial regulation. One key piece of the flood plain regulation is that development in the floodway of the flood plain be prohibited, and development in the flood fringe be “flood proofed” to 0.5 metres above the one-in-500 year flood elevation.

For years, the City of Prince Albert had resisted the one-in-500 year policy, but now it’s melding it into its Official Community Plan (OCP). The plan is in the draft stages, and the City has included the provincial flood regulations in the document.

The province requires cities to include flood risk regulations in their OCP, zoning and subdivision bylaws. These planning documents require the approval of the ministry of government relations approval in order to be updated.

The City is working on its OCP, which it plans to have council approve this summer. The plan will contain a section referring to the flood plain – which includes the floodway and the flood fringe.

Yeo would like to see the City grandfather the existing homeowners into the policy so their properties are not affected.

“Or else, build a berm and protect our properties,” she said. “Because, as I stated before, if our house burned accidentally through the night, we would not be able to rebuild on our lot. So, it’s basically worthless.”

She made that point during the question answer session with the City’s director of planning and development services John Guenther and the executive director for the community planning branch of the ministry of government relations Ralph Leibel.

Yeo asked Leibel what he would do if it were his home that burned to the ground. How would he proceed, she asked. Her question was met with a round of applause from the audience.

Leibel responded by telling her that if she’s denied a development permit, she can appeal the decision with the province.

She plans to meet with Guenther again to discuss her situation.

“The City’s tried to help us as much as they could with it. This is coming from the province. This is the province’s rules. So I think it’s at the provincial level where they do have to do some of the adjusting. The City is complying to what the province has asked. Before they didn’t comply to it, but now, I get the feeling that they are complying.”

Yeo was one of a number of homeowners who put Leibel and Guenther on the spot.

Jason Nelson too addressed the officials at the microphone set up for the question and answer session.

The East Flat resident has owned his home since 2000, and when he bought it initially, he wasn’t informed it was subject to the flood regulations.

He said he would have expected that the City would have warned him about that – considering they knew about the flood line since the 1970s.

“So, why did they not tell people that were in these different areas? You know, if it’s been in the works for this long a time and the City’s been resisting it, from what I read from the City’s documentation, why haven’t we been warned?”

He’s concerned about the lack of answers provided.

“I just want straight answers as to what’s going on. I think there’s obviously a reluctance to give straight answers here.”

Nelson is also concerned about the elevation-related data that the City’s flood plain maps have been prepared from. He questioned why the public meeting was held before the LiDAR data was used to create maps. LiDAR is a technology that uses lasers and reflected light to create precise maps, among its other uses.

“They’re raising the concerns without having all the data right at their fingertips.”

He plans to continue attending the meetings – the next flood plain meeting is scheduled for May 7 – but he said he’s coming away with more questions than answers. He added that he didn’t think the issue of the effect of the flood plain regulations on property values “wasn’t addressed adequately” at this meeting.  

Affordable housing project feeling effects of flood policy

When Prince Albert Community Housing first pitched the idea of its new River Street West development, it was meant to house older residents.

But when it was informed that the project had to adhere to the one-in-500 year flood plain guidelines, it had to change its plans.

And that change of plans is only one of the complications that arose as a result of the flood plain. The building, expected to be open this August or September, is currently under construction.

Linda Boyer, manager of P.A. Community Housing, said they were looking to house older, mature couples or seniors that were either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Now, the new housing will be for younger people and younger families.

“It increased our cost, and anything that increases our cost of construction … it affects the rent we charge, so it probably will have an impact on the rent.”

P.A. Community Housing had to change its plans because, in order to build within the one-in-500 year flood plain, it had to have six-foot concrete walls constructed under the main building. This means the building is essentially sitting on a riser, which is dead space that cannot be used as a garage or as crawlspace. There’s also no electricity or plumbing in this area either, Boyer said.

The walls take the building six feet above ground level and had to be completed before construction on the unit could begin.

It’s added anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 to the construction costs.

“That could probably build one unit,” Boyer said, when asked what P.A. Community Housing could do with that amount of money. “In a multi-unit, it would help build another unit. It could help out in the rents, it could help keep the rents low – any number of things it could do.”

P.A. Community Housing found out about the elevation requirement between last spring and fall. This is the first time it’s encountered this kind of requirement.

And the flood plain requirements may have an impact on P.A. Community Housing’s future decisions about where to locate developments.

“Especially seniors or people with disabilities. We can’t build [at] ground level. So no accessible units for wheelchairs, people that have trouble walking, etcetera.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames