West Hartford, CT Environmental Rules: Flood Zones (2026)

Town Code § 177-8 regulates floodplain development in every special flood hazard area (SFHA) in West Hartford, plus any other land in a floodplain, including land beneath the one-hundred-year storm event mapped in the 1986 West Hartford Flood Plain Management Study, land within state-established stream channel encroachment lines along the Park River and Trout Brook, and the Bugbee, Talcott Mountain, Burnt Hill and South Flood Retention Reservoirs. The SFHA itself is defined by FEMA's September 26, 2008 Flood Insurance Study and accompanying Flood Insurance Rate Maps, covering Zones A, A1-30, AE, AO and AH.

Before any structure is erected, expanded or structurally altered, or any land is filled, excavated, paved or graded within a floodplain, the applicant must submit a development application, including a certified plot plan and a drainage study by a Connecticut-registered professional engineer, to the Director of Community Development, who has 30 days to review it for compliance and advise the approving authority. No building permit may issue for work that does not conform to the approved plan. Compensatory storage and equal-conveyance rules also apply: any reduction in floodplain water-holding capacity caused by new construction must be offset on-site (or off-site with the Director's approval), and encroachments in the floodplain are barred unless a registered engineer certifies no increase in base flood elevation.