Recommend approval to procure floodplain management planning services from Wood Environment and Infrastructure, Inc. in the amount of $42,450. The Office of Development Services will use this service to revise the current Floodplain Management Plan (FMP), which is required for participation in FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS). As part of the FMP, the City must include either or both the Repetitive Loss Area Analyses (RLAA) or Natural Floodplain Functions Plan (NFP) elements.  The FMP is a critical element of the CRS, which is used to set National Flood Insurance premium discount rates for City Residents. 

CRS is a point system program that awards flood insurance premium discounts to communities that are aggressive in flood mitigation activities.  The City currently carries a class rating of 5, with 3,032 points, which provides a 25% discount of the NFIP insurance premiums paid by City residents, property owners, and business owners in the 100 year floodplain and 10% for policies outside the Special Flood Hazzard Area, which is a total community savings of $663,813.  Failure to produce the FMP and at least one accompanying element will result in loss of this discount. 

The purpose of the FMP is to assess current flood hazard conditions, including historically flooded areas and repetitively flooded properties, to develop appropriate mitigation strategies for the City to consider in reducing or eliminating future flood losses.  The RLAA is a more detailed, site-specific plan to reduce flood losses in repetitively flooded areas and the NFP addresses natural floodplain functions in the community.  Due to the complexity of the plan requirements, an outside consultant will need to develop the plan.              

Although the CRS program requires the City to complete the FMP and either the RLAA or the NFP, City staff recommends all three activities be completed. The completion of all three activities will provide enough points for the City to maintain its 25% discount.  Achieving the lowest class possible in the CRS program is one of the few options the City has to offset the increasing flood insurance premiums in our community due to the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014.

The method used for this procurement was the request for proposals (RFP), which evaluates criteria in addition to cost. The proposals were evaluated on the basis of qualifications and experience, technical capabilities, scheduled completion, references, local vendor participations, and fees.

Approval