Do you live near the bay in San Mateo?  Do you live in the Village, Fiesta Gardens or Sunnybrae?  Are you paying for Flood Insurance right now?  It’s expensive, isn’t it?  There is an opportunity to save some real money if you are willing to pass an annual assessment on your property for a new South Bayside Levee Improvement Assessment District.  By passing this assessment, and you have a few weeks left to do this, you’ll be assessed an annual cost between $28.28 and $76.42 on your property tax bill.  The price depends on where your property is, but that is one huge savings over paying for Flood Insurance.  FEMA updated their flood maps and San Mateo has a levee issue.  I’ve written about it before.

I’m sure if you live in the Shoreview areas, Parkside or Los Prados areas you are very familiar with Flood Insurance as you have been paying for it for several years now.  The rest of San Mateo figures they’re off the hook, but no so.  Should we have a major storm and see flooding from the 16th Avenue and 19th Avenue Channels or Laurel Creek, many more homes will be affected by flooding.

FEMA redid their maps after Hurricane Katrina and now more and more people in areas of San Mateo are being notified that they are in a flood zone, or potential flood zone.

You have until June 15th to return your ballot.  In my book, this is a no-brainer.  Flood insurance runs a minimun of $300 annually right now, before a flood zone is formalized, but once it is formalized, the price rises – a lot.  Adding this small amount to your property tax bill bill hardly be seen in each payment.  Don’t forget to do this, and by all means vote yes!

FEMA Has New Methodology

They have determined that a section of levee within the City of San Mateo does not meet FEMA’s requirements for adequate flood protection.  Because of these changes in their methodology being used to generate flood plain data, the revised maps show all of Foster City to be in a Special Flood Hazard Zone, or Zone A.

Once upon a time, Foster City would have told San Mateo to go fix their own levees, but that was then and this is now, and Foster City is working hard to help San Mateo get their levees fixed.  If this is done by the Spring of 2010, we will be saved from being placed into the flood zone.  Foster City’s website has a great deal of information about this now.

The Man to Contact

Ray Towne, Foster City’s Public Work Director is the man to contact if you want more information.  He can be reached at rtwone@fostercity.org or 650-286-3288.

If you are thinking about buying flood insurance now, there is a deep discount for you that will stay in effect should FEMA maintain that Foster City is in a flood zone, a subject I wrote about here. It’s worth consideration, just in case.

Flood Zone

Some time in early 2008, FEMA is going to release new flood maps for San Mateo County.  So what, you say?  Well, if you live in certain areas of San Mateo and Redwood Shores you should worry because if, as expected, FEMA says you are in a flood plain, you will be required to have flood insurance.  And yes, I did say required.  No options here, you will have to purchase it and baby, it’s expensive.

Part of San Mateo, North Shoreview to be exact, is already considered to be within a flood zone.  What’s expected is that the rest of San Mateo east of 101 will be added.  Foster City, according to Planning Manager Leslie Carmichael will be unaffected.  The levies that surround Foster City were raised during the mid-1990′s and meet the Army Corps of Engineers requirements.  This is not the case for either San Mateo or Redwood Shores.  John Lynch with the Redwood City Planning Department told me that if the new maps were to come out today, Redwood
Shores would be in trouble.  Lucky for them these maps aren’t due out for a few months because they are getting a reprieve to certify their levies by consulting engineers.  It is anticipated that this reprieve will be for no more than four years; two years for certification, two years for planning.

What do you do if you end up in a flood zone?  You will receive a letter from FEMA telling you to buy flood insurance through them.  Don’t do it.  Call your insurance agent first and see how they can help you.  FEMA sets the rates for this insurance according the Marie Wood, a Farmer’s Insurance Agent in San Mateo.  She also says that the flood zone defines your need for this insurance.  The amount of insurance is required by the Federal government.  Your lender will require that you not only have flood insurance but also include
additional insurance for personal property if you don’t already have this.  The last requirement isn’t a bad one in my mind, since too many people are under-insured right now because they don’t update their
personal insurance annually when their insurance premiums renew.  Keep in mind, if you’ve purchased anything of high value it may need to be included in my insurance plan.

You can go onto the FEMA website now and input your address to see where your house sits.  There are a
much of letters designating flood zones.  Go to FloodSmart.com for an explanation.  The current maps aren’t going to tell you much though, as I tried it for my home in Foster City and really didn’t find out anything.  Keep your eyes open for news reports about these maps.  San Mateo County isn’t likely to be the only county affected around our bay.  A lot of people are going to get hit with very high insurance costs for the future.  It’s never too early to put a little money aside to off-set this increase.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.