Almost 15,000 properties removed from high-risk flood zones in the county

Revised maps available for review on the county’s website

Property owners may check their addresses on the interactive map provided by Sarasota County. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Property owners may check their addresses on the interactive map provided by Sarasota County. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Nearly 15,000 properties have been removed from high-risk zones on the revised draft of Sarasota County’s Special Flood Hazard Area maps following a review by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the county has announced.

“Sarasota County and its partners at the cities of North Port, Sarasota and Venice, the Town of Longboat Key and the Southwest Florida Water Management District worked as a team to submit more than 800 comments and eight separate technical appeals to FEMA in April in an effort to improve the accuracy of the flood risk maps,” a county news release says. The submission resulted in adjustments and a revised flood hazard map that was sent to Sarasota County communities on Oct. 14, the release adds. Those revised maps are available for the public to review online at www.scgov.net/floodmaps. For assistance, call the Sarasota County Contact Center at 861-5000, the release notes.

“Special thanks should be given to the public for their participation in seven public workshops held last January through April,” said Molly Williams, stormwater manager with Sarasota County Public Utilities, in the release.

The submission of the appeals and comments resulted in the removal of more than 14,000 properties that had been mapped into high-risk zones before the preliminary update was made available in December 2014, the news release notes. An additional 658 properties have been removed from high-risk zones, the release says.

These changes are part of a multi-year project to update the maps, the release points out. Three more steps remain:

  • Sarasota County; the Cities of North Port, Sarasota and Venice; and the Town of Longboat Key will respond to the revised draft maps by mid-November.
  • FEMA again will conduct its final reviews, resulting in issuance of a Letter of Final Determination (LFD), which is anticipated sometime in January.
  • The LFD will specify a six-month compliance period during which communities can make the necessary adjustments to their ordinances to adopt the new maps.

Sarasota County staff anticipates the compliance period deadline to be come in June or July 2016.

For more information, call the Sarasota County Contact Center at 861-5000 or visit the county website.