Publication Date: Wednesday Oct 15, 1997

SAN FRANCISQUITO CREEK: Flood zone may be expanded

Flood insurance payments of $600 to $800 a year could spill over to an additional 800 homeowners in the Crescent Park and Green Gables neighborhoods if federal flood zone maps for San Francisquito Creek are redrawn as planned. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has released preliminary revised maps of the area in northeast Palo Alto that could be inundated by waters from San Francisquito Creek should a "100-year flood" occur.

A 100-year flood is one that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. But the fact that FEMA's proposal is coming in the midst of building worries over the punch El Nino will pack this winter is just coincidence.

"We've known for three-plus years that FEMA has had these studies under way, and we've informed the City Council about them periodically," said Palo Alto Public Works Director Glenn Roberts.

Most recently, FEMA gave the city a preliminary copy of the revised maps which are based on more than 100 years of rainfall and runoff data.

"I was somewhat surprised and disappointed as to the extent of the change," Roberts said. "This magnitude of change was unexpected."

Roberts had hoped that the zone might even shrink. Instead the number of affected properties would grow by 60 percent, bringing the total number of properties in the San Francisquito Creek flood zone to 2,150. Throughout Palo Alto a total of about 6,000 parcels are located in FEMA flood zones, he said.

The city has not yet officially received the revised maps and will not do so probably until sometime in mid-November when FEMA publishes an official notice in the Weekly to open a 90-day public comment period.

Public Works has developed a list of the new properties that would be affected by the revised maps. Residents can call 329-2151 to see if their property is on the list.

Menlo Park and East Palo Alto neighborhoods along San Francisquito Creek are also anticipated to be subject to expanded flood zones, but FEMA has not yet released revised maps for those communities.

The expanded flood zones would have two major implications for property owners, both of which are mandated by federal law.

First, properties in designated flood zones with federally guaranteed mortgages--which nearly all lenders are--would be required to have flood insurance for which premiums run about $600 to $800 a year, Roberts said.

"That is a burden for a lot of people," said Palo Alto real estate agent Elsie Begle. "There may be a 100-year-flood, but of course a lot of us are not true believers that it will happen in our lifetime."

Second, any new construction or major remodeling that increases a property's value by 50 percent or more would require that the entire structure be raised above the flood plain, which in most areas would mean about one to three feet.

Although the majority of renovations that homeowners contemplate would not trigger that requirement, having to jack up a home and build a taller foundation would make major remodels prohibitively expensive, Begle said.

"I think they're really overreacting, and it's to the detriment of the homeowner," she said. "It would seem to me they could do a lot to keep that channel clear" to improve the capacity of the creek.

Cathie Lehrberg, president of the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association, said she hopes that the city will once again take a look at the creek's man-made constrictions--the bridges at Middlefield Road and Chaucer Street. "My understanding is that the city could not even consider improving those bridges until much further study is done on how it would affect homes downstream," she said.

But the idea of lining the creek with concrete--which last surfaced in 1990 when FEMA began to restudy the flooding potential of San Francisquito Creek--is one that should not even be floated, she believes. "I think that would be a terrible thing to do to the last natural creek on the Peninsula."

There's a possibility that public comment might have an impact on FEMA's decision, but that hasn't been the case in the past, Roberts said. Comments would have to be based on arguments with specific analytical issues regarding the science of FEMA's projections, he said.

City staff has done some background work to see if there are some issues to pursue, he said. "We will go back to council and ask them to give us some policy direction on whether or not to pursue an appeal. I would anticipate that that would happen in late November or early December, once we have the facts available."

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