Shreveport, LA Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Sec. 34-67 sets the elevation and construction standards that apply once a base flood elevation has been established for a Shreveport parcel under Sec. 34-30 or Sec. 34-49. For any new or substantially improved residential structure, the rule is direct: 'the lowest habitable floor including equipment or mechanical items elevated to a minimum of one foot above the base flood elevation.' The city's own definitions section, Sec. 34-28, defines 'freeboard' as 'the vertical distance between a surface or water level and the top of whatever contains or restrains it,' the safety margin the one-foot rule is built to provide.

Commercial, industrial and other nonresidential structures get the same one-foot elevation option, or an alternative: they may instead be built 'floodproof so that below the required flood protection level the structure is watertight with walls substantially impermeable to the passage of water,' with structural components able to resist hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads, certified by a registered professional engineer or architect.

Where a structure has fully enclosed space below the elevated floor, Sec. 34-67(1) requires that space to equalize hydrostatic pressure automatically, through a minimum of two openings with combined net area of at least one square inch per square foot of enclosed area, with the lowest opening no higher than one foot above grade, unless a professional engineer certifies an equivalent design.

Manufactured homes get their own version of the same one-foot standard: those set on Zone AE sites must have the bottom of the home's longitudinal I-beam elevated at least one foot above the base flood elevation and securely anchored. The section has been amended repeatedly since 2016, most recently by Ord. No. 64, 2021.