HUD Proposes Expanded Floodplain Rules for FHA-Financed Loans

HUD has proposed new floodplain development rules that threaten access to FHA financing for single- and multifamily builders and rely on floodplain maps that haven’t been drawn yet.

For nearly 40 years, federal floodplain requirements have been tied to the 100-year floodplain. A 2015 executive order greatly expanded the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, offering three new options to meet it:

• The best available climate-informed science
• The freeboard value approach (adding elevation above the 100-year floodplain)
• The 500-year floodplain
• HUD has proposed to expand the definition of the 2015 executive order, which applies to federally funded projects, by imposing costly requirements on the FHA multifamily and single-family mortgage insurance programs.

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