The City Council last week authorized the city manager to execute a contract with BKF Engineers to provide floodplain modeling for Avalon.
The maximum cost will be $30,000.
The vote was 3-0. Mayor Anni Marshall and Councilmember Yesenia De La Rosa were absent for the Feb. 3 meeting.
City Engineer Robert Greenlaw told the council that Avalon had done two flood insurance studies, the first in 1977 and the second in 2008.
He also told the council that Avalon’s floodplain boundaries could change.
Greenlaw said once the city gets the study done, Avalon will have some community meetings.
Background
BKF engineers recently performed a one-dimensional analysis of Avalon Canyon as part of a future development project, according to the staff report by Greenlaw and Senior Management Analyst Devin Hart.
During the meeting, Greenlaw said the Island Company was pursuing a housing project in the area of the Civic Center.
The analysis indicated a change in the floodplain compared to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Flood Insurance Rate Map for Avalon, the Greenlaw-Hart report said.
According to the report, the change was found because improved technology provides more accurate mapping.
“After discussions with the City Engineer, consultants and the City Manager, and in light of future potential workforce housing projects, City Staff believe the differences noted by BKF Engineers are substantive enough to require additional analysis,” the report said.
“BKF Engineers have submitted a proposal to contract engineering services to provide a two-dimensional floodplain model analysis from an area just north of Tremont Street downstream to the Pacific Ocean,” the report said.
“The results of the analysis will be provided to FEMA to revise the current map,” the report said.
“This opportunity to update the City’s Flood Insurance Rate Map is the most cost effective method to currently complete what the City must complete in order to be in compliance with the Flood Insurance Map Program,” the report said.
The city code requires a competative bid process for any contract of $25,000 or more, according to the report.
However, the code also allows the city to skip that process if a competitive market does not exist, according to the staff report.
“In this case, as BKF Engineering is already contracted and on Island performing services for the Catalina Island Company, the City anticipates contract cost savings on mobilization and travel expenses,” the report said.
