City Releases Final Floodplain Ordinance / MUD Performance Report
April 2018
Source: GHBA
City Releases Final Floodplain Ordinance
On April 4, the Houston City Council voted to dramatically increase regulations on building within the 100 and 500 year floodplains.
The proposal to amend Chapter 19, the City's Floodplain Regulation Ordinance, was first introduced in late January and was
uncharacteristically fast-tracked through the ordinance revision process. In summary, the newly adopted ordnance will require all
new residential construction in the 100 year and 500 year floodplains to be built to the 500 year flood elevation, plus two feet
beginning Sept. 1. The City of Houston released a finalized copy of the ordinance just last week.
MUD Performance Report:
The Harvey Impact
Yesterday, Meyers Research released its final report on the extent of flooding in Houston-area MUDs as a result of Hurricane Harvey.
The findings, based on a review of the performance of 945 utility districts in the 9-county Houston MSA, showed that fewer than 8%
of houses in municipal utility districts flooded, and of the 37,000 houses which did experience flooding, less than 3% were located
in districts with subdivisions developed under the Tropical Storm Allison Recovery Project drainage and detention rules.