Whitfield County, GA Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Sec. 5-58 of the Whitfield County Flood Damage Control Ordinance sets the county's freeboard standard: in all areas of special flood hazard where base flood elevation (BFE) data has been provided, new construction or substantial improvement of any residential dwelling, including a manufactured home, must have its lowest floor, including any basement, elevated no lower than two feet above the base flood elevation. Electrical, heating, ventilation, plumbing, air conditioning equipment and other service facilities count as part of that lowest floor and must sit above the same two-foot freeboard line.

For nonresidential buildings the same two-foot minimum applies, but Sec. 5-58(2) lets an owner floodproof instead of elevate in an 'A' zone provided the building below the required elevation is watertight with substantially impermeable walls capable of resisting hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads; where floodproofing is chosen, the minimum standard doubles to four feet above base flood elevation, and a registered professional engineer or architect must certify the design meets that standard. Where a structure is elevated on solid perimeter walls, Sec. 5-58(3) requires openings sized to let floodwaters move through automatically, at a minimum of one square inch of net opening for every square foot of enclosed area subject to flooding, with the bottom of any opening no higher than one foot above grade, and the enclosed space below the elevated floor cannot be finished into living space or partitioned into separate rooms.

Manufactured homes get an added anchoring standard under Sec. 5-59, and the county engineer verifies and records the as-built elevation of every new or substantially improved building's lowest floor under Sec. 5-55.