Highland Park council looks to drain its extra floodplains regulations

The Highland Park City Council is supporting a recommendation to discontinue its expanded floodplain regulations, citing outdated mapping, administrative inefficiencies and development restrictions impacting roughly 600 city properties.

Floodplains, or low areas that take on water from overflowing streams, rivers or lakes, are regulated by various public agencies.

The City of Highland Park, according to city documents, uses two sets of floodplain maps, “which is uncommon.”

Current “city-specific” expanded floodplain limits are outdated, cause administrative burden and spurn development related to 600 parcels in Highland Park, said Joey Abramson, with consulting firm CivilTech Engineering, during a committee of the whole meeting on Monday, April 13.

Also, Abramson said there is no known systemic flooding in those expanded areas.

As a result, Abramson recommended discontinuing the use of “city-specific” expanded floodplain limits, and councilmembers agreed.

The city of Highland Park is currently operating with the floodplain limits set by the Lake County Watershed Development in July 2023. The city’s floodplains are adjacent to the middle fork of the north branch of the Chicago River, the Skokie river and Lake Michigan.

Data presented Monday shows that the Skokie river floodplain affects more properties.

“Floodplains prepare for the 1% annual chance storm,” Abramson said. “With current ‘city specific’ expanded floodplains, properties are statistically at a higher risk of having water come up to their property.”

Mayor Nancy Rotering said she’s noticed that water levels are rising quicker with climate change and wondered if in the next few years the chances of a flood would increase, making the discontinuation of the current floodplain a bad idea.

In response, Abramson noted that “even in an uptick” in flooding, the city’s expansion is based off of an outdated model and suggested that the best thing to do is align with the best technology and updated information.

Even with homes that are not included in the floodplains, property owners are required to have Federal Emergency Management Agency insurance in the case of flooding.

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