Pender County, NC Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Code § 18-5 defines freeboard as the height added to the base flood elevation (BFE) to cover unknown factors, like wave action, bridge openings, and the hydrological effect of urbanization, that could push actual flood heights above the calculated BFE, and states plainly that the BFE plus the freeboard establishes the regulatory flood protection elevation. The same section then fixes the freeboard amount at two feet: where a special flood hazard area already has a determined BFE, the regulatory flood protection elevation is the BFE plus two feet; where no BFE has been established, it is at least two feet above the highest adjacent grade; and in future conditions flood hazard areas it is the future conditions flood elevation plus two feet.

That two-foot figure is the number builders actually have to hit under §§ 18-72 and 18-73: residential and nonresidential structures must have their reference level elevated to, or above, this regulatory flood protection elevation, and elevation or floodproofing certificates confirming the number must go to the floodplain administrator both when the reference level is set and again as an as-built certification after construction under § 18-46(c). Getting the freeboard calculation wrong therefore does not just risk a paperwork problem, it can mean the structure fails the county's substantive elevation standard.