Omaha, NE Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Omaha's flood fringe overlay district ordinance requires the lowest floor, including any basement, of new construction and substantially damaged or substantially improved residential structures to sit at least one foot above the highest available base flood elevation: a one-foot freeboard margin beyond FEMA's 100-year flood line. All furnaces, water heaters, electrical panels and other service equipment must be raised to that same elevation. Nonresidential buildings can instead be dry-floodproofed to that height. A licensed surveyor, engineer or architect must certify the finished elevation before the floodplain management coordinator signs off, and manufactured homes in A1-30, AH and AE zones get the same one-foot freeboard rule.