1. Reduce the risk to life and safety, public facilities, and public and private property that result from floods;

2. Avoid and minimize impacts to fish and wildlife habitats that occur within frequently flooded areas;

3. To assure that flood loss reduction measures protect and are consistent with retaining natural floodplain functions related to protecting riparian habitat and the natural processes that create and maintain habitat for fish;

4. To assure maintenance of hydraulic, geomorphic, and ecological functions of floodplains;

5. Controlling filling, grading, dredging, and other development activities which may increase flood damage and alter beneficial natural stream processes; and

6. Preventing or regulating the construction of flood barriers which may unnaturally divert floodwaters in such a way as to block natural channel migration, or may increase flood hazards in other areas.

1. Lands as defined in Chapter 17.76 BMC in which the floodplain is subject to a one percent or greater chance of flooding in any given year and those lands that provide important flood storage, conveyance, channel forming processes and attenuation functions, as determined by the city in accordance with WAC 365-190-080(3). Classifications of frequently flooded areas include, at a minimum, the 100-year floodplain designations of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Flood Insurance Program;

2. Areas Identified by the Public Works Director. Those areas of special flood hazard identified by the public works director based on review of base flood elevation, floodway data, historical data, high water marks, photographs of past flooding, or similar information available from federal, state, county, city or other valid sources when base flood elevation data from FEMA has not been provided or is not accurate;

3. The approximate location and extent of frequently flooded areas are shown on the city’s critical area maps. These maps are to be used as a guide and do not provide a definitive critical area designation. The city shall update the maps as new hazard areas are identified and as new information becomes available. This article does not imply that land outside mapped frequently flooded areas or uses permitted within such areas will be free from flooding or flood damages. This chapter shall not create liability on the part of the city of Bellingham, or any officer or employee thereof, for any flood damages that result from reliance on this chapter or any administrative decision lawfully made hereunder. [Ord. 2016-02-005 § 27; amended during 2013 codification; Ord. 2005-11-092].