Final Floodplain Rule Disregards Industry Recommendations

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Environment and Energy (OEE) published a final rule revising HUD’s regulations governing floodplain management. The rule also revises HUD’s Minimum Property Standards for one-to-four-unit housing under HUD’s mortgage insurance and low-rent public housing programs to require that the lowest floor in newly constructed structures located within the 1-percent-annual-chance (100-year) floodplain be built at least 2 feet above the base flood elevation (BFE) as determined by best available information. HUD will host two webinars on the final rule in the coming weeks.

MHI previously submitted a comment letter when the rule was proposed and urged HUD to reconsider the BFE requirements so that the standards aligned with standards for site-built homes. But HUD did not adopt this recommendation and instead upheld the requirement that manufactured homes be measured from the bottom of the I-beam as opposed to the bottom of the lowest floor like in site-built homes.