Madison County, AL Environmental Rules: Flood Zones (2026)

Madison County adopted its Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance to regulate development in Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs) identified on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps, based on the county's Flood Insurance Study dated October 2, 2014. Under Article 2, Section C, a Floodplain Development Permit is required before any development, as the ordinance defines that term, begins in an identified SFHA or Community Flood Hazard Area; the county's Floodplain Administrator issues and tracks these permits under Article 3. Article 4, Section B(1) sets the core technical standard: new construction and substantial improvements to any structure or manufactured home must have the lowest floor, including any basement, elevated no lower than one foot above the base flood elevation (the design flood elevation).

Non-residential structures may instead be dry floodproofed to that same one-foot-above-BFE watertight standard under Section B(2), but only with plans certified by an Alabama-licensed professional engineer or architect, and that certification record must be kept permanently with the county's permitting file. Accessory and agricultural structures built below the design flood elevation may be wet-floodproofed instead of elevated if they meet the anchoring and flood-resistant-materials conditions in Article 4, Section B(7). In Zones A and AE where no regulatory floodway has been designated, no fill, new construction, or other development may be permitted if its cumulative effect, combined with existing and anticipated development, would raise the base flood water surface elevation more than one foot anywhere in the community.

Article 2, Section D requires full compliance before any structure or land use is located, extended, converted, or altered, and Section E makes the more restrictive of this ordinance or any conflicting local rule control.