Ocala, FL Hurricane Preparedness: Flood Elevation (2026)

Section 82-33 is the city's local amendment to the Florida Building Code's flood-resistance provisions, adopted under the authority the state grants municipalities in F.S. § 553.73(5) to implement or add incentives under the National Flood Insurance Program. The amendment rewrites Building Code Section 1612.4.2: the minimum elevation for a new building or structure is whichever is higher of the base flood elevation plus 1 foot (305 mm) or the elevation required by the referenced engineering standard, ASCE 24. New critical facilities, defined by reference to Chapter 90 and covering uses like schools, hospitals, police and fire stations, and hazardous-material sites, get a stricter floor: base flood elevation plus 2 feet (610 mm) or the ASCE 24 elevation, whichever is higher.

Section 82-33(b) also amends Section 1612.4.3 so that enclosed areas below the design flood elevation cannot be partitioned or finished into separate rooms, aside from stairwells, ramps and elevators, keeping those spaces limited to parking, storage or building access rather than livable space. The parallel amendment to the Florida Building Code, Residential, Section R322.2.1, sets the same plus-1-foot floor for the lowest floor of houses and other residential structures in flood hazard areas outside Coastal A Zones, with Coastal A Zone structures held to the same base-flood-plus-1-foot or design-flood-elevation standard.

Shallow-flooding AO Zones instead use the depth number on the FIRM plus 1 foot, or at least 3 feet if no depth number is specified. These elevation floors work alongside, not instead of, the floodplain permit process in Chapter 90, since a floodplain development permit is still required before any elevated construction can begin.