Cheektowaga, NY Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Chapter 125's structural standards, applying Town-wide in mapped special flood hazard areas outside the Villages of Sloan and Depew, go beyond simply raising living space. Section 125-16C requires new and replacement electrical, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and plumbing service equipment to be located at least two feet above the base flood elevation, or three feet above the highest adjacent grade in an unstudied Zone A, unless it is instead designed to keep floodwater from entering and accumulating during a flood and to resist hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads.

Sanitary sewer and storm drainage lines serving buildings with openings below the base flood elevation must carry automatic backflow valves at each point they pass through an exterior wall (§ 125-16C(3)). Section 125-16D applies the same two-foot freeboard logic to storage tanks: underground tanks must be anchored against flotation and lateral movement, and above-ground tanks must either be anchored the same way or installed at or above the base flood elevation plus two feet. Nonresidential structures get an equivalent standard under § 125-18A: the lowest floor, including any basement or cellar, must be elevated to or above two feet above the base flood elevation, or the building must be floodproofed watertight to that same two-foot-above-BFE line, with a licensed engineer or architect certifying the floodproofing design to the local administrator (§ 125-18C). These freeboard figures come directly from the Town's FEMA-based Flood Insurance Rate Maps adopted at § 125-6, effective June 7, 2019.