Pickens County, SC Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Chapter 24, Division 3 of the Pickens County Code sets the specific elevation standards that apply once base flood elevation data exists for a tract, under § 24-82. New construction or a substantial improvement to a residential structure, including a manufactured home, must have its lowest floor elevated no lower than one foot above the base flood elevation, and no basements are permitted at all. The same one-foot-above-BFE floor elevation applies to new or substantially improved commercial, industrial or other non-residential structures, though those buildings may be floodproofed instead of elevated if a registered professional engineer or architect certifies that the space below the required elevation is watertight and can resist hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads.

Manufactured homes placed on new sites, in a new or expanded manufactured home park, or replacing a home that suffered substantial flood damage, must sit on a permanent foundation with the lowest floor at least one foot above base flood elevation and be anchored to resist flotation, collapse and lateral movement. Where solid foundation perimeter walls are used to reach the required elevation, § 24-82(4) requires at least two flood vents on different walls, sized to one square inch of opening per square foot of enclosed area, with the bottom of each opening no higher than one foot above grade, so floodwaters can pass through automatically.

The code's own definitions section, § 24-34, describes freeboard as the safety margin in feet added above the base flood level to compensate for wave action, bridge openings and increased runoff from watershed development, which is the purpose the one-foot elevation add-on serves throughout the article.