Lee County, AL Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Lee County's Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, effective January 14, 2025, sets the freeboard standard for every Special Flood Hazard Area mapped as Zone A, AE or AH with base flood elevation (BFE) data. Article 4, Section B(1) requires that new construction and substantial improvement of any residential or non-residential structure, or manufactured home, have the lowest floor, including the basement, elevated no lower than one foot above the BFE (also called the design flood elevation). If solid perimeter foundation walls are used to elevate the structure, the walls must carry flood openings sized under Section B(3): a minimum of two openings per enclosed area, totaling at least one square inch of net opening for every square foot of enclosed floor area subject to flooding, located in at least two exterior walls, with the bottom of each opening no higher than one foot above grade.

Non-residential structures in AE or AH zones may be dry-floodproofed to one foot above the BFE instead of elevated, but only under a design certified by an Alabama-licensed professional engineer or architect to ASCE-24 standards, with the certification and floodproofed elevation kept on permanent file with the county. Where BFE data has not been mapped (Approximate A-Zones), Article 4, Section D(4) instead requires the lowest floor to sit at least three feet above the highest adjacent grade, rising to four feet where a floodway determination applies the standard Section B(1) offset.

The Floodplain Administrator certifies and records the as-built lowest floor elevation of every permitted structure, and that record becomes a permanent part of the Floodplain Development Permit file open to public inspection.