City must complete flood buyout analysis

Completion of a property survey and cost-benefit analysis must be completed by the city before a residential flood buyout program can move forward, according to Hannibal City Manager Jeff LaGarce. A meeting for potential buyout program participants took place last week.
The survey will take the form of a questionnaire, which will be sent to owners of property who have expressed an interest in participating in the buyout program. The cost-benefit analysis will be generated by a computer program set up by the state.
“We need to obtain different property variables for each property so when we plug them into the formula we can determine what the cost-benefit ratio is,” said LaGarce.
LaGarce is uncertain when the next flood buyout meeting will be scheduled.
“I’ve got to get that little property survey back from them and run the cost-benefit analysis. At that point we will probably have another meeting,” said the city manager.
Until the next meeting occurs, LaGarce plans to keep citizens up to speed on where the city is in the buyout program process.
“We’ll probably send out an update letter every two or three weeks to keep everybody in the loop and updated,” he said.
Last week’s meeting was profitable, according to LaGarce, who had a pair of representatives from the State Emergency Management Agency in attendance.
“It was really kind of a kickoff meeting so we could all walk through the process, step by step,” said LaGarce.
Approximately 30 residential property owners attended the meeting.
“It’s a very nice group of people,” said LaGarce. “We were able to hear some of the views that people have on timing. It also was interesting hearing some of the residents’ different ideas for how to set priority levels.”
Priority levels, according to LaGarce, would come into play if funding for Hannibal’s portion of the buyout program turns out being less than the total number of properties on the buyout list. LaGarce estimates the value of residential property in the flood buyout zone at $1.1 million.
A flood buyout kickoff meeting for those who own commercial property has yet to be scheduled.
“I do want to have a kickoff meeting with commercial property owners very soon. The commercial program is run very differently. SEMA does not participate in it,” said LaGarce. “I wanted to get the residential component kicked off first.”
Under the residential program the government will pay 75 percent of the buyout cost. The city is hopeful of obtaining a Community Development Block Grant to cover both its match for residential properties and supply funds for commercial buyouts.