NFIP background.docMassachusetts Model Floodplain Bylaws and Ordinances
After years of devastation from flooding across the nation, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 in an attempt to offer flood disaster relief in the form of insurance.
This insurance would be available to residents of communities that voluntarily adopt and enforce floodplain management ordinances that meet at least minimum National Flood Insurance
Program (NFIP or the Program) requirements.
For those NFIP minimum requirements that are not found in existing state law, additional articles must be adopted by a community as a part of their local bylaws or ordinances, if these
are not already adopted. The language included in the NFIP overlay ordinance was drafted by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency floodplain is compliant with federal requirements
for communities that choose to participate in the NFIP. The NFIP overlay ensures that Northampton residents may continue to participate in flood insurance.
According to FEMA’s Community Status Book, the first Massachusetts community to officially participate in the NFIP was the Town of Wareham, who joined the NFIP on May 28, 1971. Most
other MA communities quickly followed suit in the 1970s and early 1980s. The State NFIP Coordinating Office was created by Executive Order of the Governor in 1978 and is housed under
the Water Resources Commission in the Department of Conservation & Recreation’s Flood Hazard Management Program.
All development in the floodplain overlay district, including structural and non-structural activities, whether permitted by right or by special permit must be in compliance with the
Statewide Building Code and 310 CMR- Department of Environmental Protection (Wetlands) Regulations. The NFIP overlay will contain all NFIP requirements that must be adopted as local
regulations, since they are not found in the above listed regulations