Daniel Oconnell's home in St. Augustine is flooded after Hurricane Irma in 2017. | Courtesy of Daniel Oconnell.
Published on February 20, 2025 at 4:30 pm
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St. Augustine has long-term projects in the works to mitigate flooding, but the city is looking at smaller ways to make flooding less of a problem for residents.
Some solutions are a ways off — things like the Florida Department of Transportation’s improvements to the seawall protecting downtown St. Augustine. Another is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study of how to keep water out of lowlying parts of the area.
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But changes to the city’s building regulations could come much sooner.
St. Augustine’s Planning and Zoning Board met this week to discuss solutions like limiting the amount of fill dirt homeowners and developers can bring onto a property and curbing individuals from building walls on their property to keep water out.
These solutions might provide short-term help to individual homeowners, but it can spell trouble for their neighbors.
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“What’s killing us right now in planning and zoning is people adding 4 feet and 5 feet of fill to a lot, which thereby makes that lot hold zero water,” Planning and Zoning Board Member Mike Davis said. “So you’re basically taking all of that and throwing it on your neighbor’s property.”
Local contractor Jon Benoit urged the city to not make blanket regulations when it comes to bringing in new dirt, though.
He wants the city to think of residents in communities like Davis Shores, where some people are still reckoning with flood damage from hurricanes in 2022. His hope is that St. Augustine makes any new regulations flexible enough to accommodate longtime homeowners and people on fixed incomes.
“You can’t just carte blanche limit fill, or you’re going to create a lot of problems,” Benoit said.
Still, both Benoit and the city’s Planning and Zoning Board want to see rules that align more with what the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends, and that’s not allowing massive amounts of dirt to be brought onto every new property.
Doing so could benefit many St. Augustine residents. By adhering to FEMA’s recommendations for better flood infrastructure, the city’s community rating system could increase, meaning cheaper flood insurance for residents who qualify for the National Flood Insurance Program.
Before any big changes are made to the city’s building codes, St. Augustine city officials plan to host public workshops in March. Those will culminate with a meeting in April when the Planning and Zoning Board will propose specific changes to the city’s development rules targeted at curbing flooding.
No specific dates have been set for any workshops, but a city spokesperson says notification will be posted on the city’s website ahead of time.
