Tippecanoe County, IN Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

07(A), any subdivision proposal or other new development greater than 50 lots or five acres, whichever is the smaller threshold, must include base flood elevation data as part of the proposal. 07(B) directs the responsible person, the Board of Commissioners, to obtain, review, and use any base flood elevation data available from federal, state, or other sources, and to require that all new construction and substantial improvements of residential structures have the lowest floor, including any basement, elevated to or above the base flood level.

Nonresidential structures get an alternative: the lowest floor must either be elevated or floodproofed to or above the base flood level, giving builders of commercial or industrial buildings a floodproofing option residential builders do not have. 07(C) adds a recordkeeping duty tied to flood insurance: for structures within Zone A on the Flood Hazard Boundary Map, the responsible person must obtain, or require the applicant to furnish, the elevation in relation to mean sea level of the lowest habitable floor of every new or substantially improved structure, whether or not it has a basement, and, if floodproofed, the elevation to which it was floodproofed, maintaining a record of all of it.

02 defines the BASE FLOOD as the flood with a 1% chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year, the standard against which these elevations are measured.