Lynn council asks city lawyers to challenge flood zone maps

LYNN – City councilors worried about higher flood insurance rates for local residents want a legal challenge leveled against federal maps stretching flood zones across the city’s waterfront and into West Lynn and downtown.Ward 1 Councilor Wayne Lozzi said recently prepared Federal Emergency Management Agency maps cover a “much greater inclusive area” for flood zones. He said homeowners fearing flood insurance rate hikes based on the maps must potentially spend hundreds of dollars to hire surveyors to challenge flood boundaries.”It’s kind of crummy,” Lozzi said.U.S. Rep. John Tierney said Congress is working to temper the FEMA maps’ effect on flood insurance rates set by the agency by spreading rate hikes over five years and limiting annual premiums to a fraction of a homeowner’s mortgage.”Rates are going to go up. The question is: it can’t go up all at once or to the point where it makes homes unaffordable,” Tierney said.Two local insurance agents are worried about flood insurance rates. Rick Wood and David Zeller said FEMA subsidized flood insurance rates for years with tax dollars. That policy has been hit hard by the financial obligations the agency has shouldered in the wake of large storms, like Hurricane Katrina.”Rates are so subsidized by tax dollars that it is almost unsustainable any longer,” Zeller said.Zeller said communities in other parts of the state have challenged FEMA maps in a bid to keep insurance rates in check for local property owners. Tierney said Rockport mounted this type of challenge by pointing out that a FEMA map for the coastal community contained wave motion information based on the Pacific Ocean.FEMA maps for Lynn and Swampscott mostly designate an area exposed to a 1 percent chance annually of a flood occurring.This flood zone designation covers lowland areas like Surfside Road and Beach Circle in Lynn as well as side streets like Nirvana Drive in Swampscott. But Lynn maps also stretch the flood zone to Neptune Street in West Lynn and Market and Munroe streets downtown.”They’re enlarging the footprint,” Wood said.He said higher flood insurance rates affect homeowners living along the Saugus River in what he called “blue collar” homes.”It hurts them,” Wood said.Tierney said Congress is demanding accountability from FEMA, and it wants the agency to work with local communities on flood map disagreements.”We’re trying as quickly as possible to put people into a position of certainty,” he said.