In 20 Years For Every NC Home In A Floodplain That Was Bought Out, 10 More Were Built In Floodplains

[hatrack]

Extreme storms and rising seas put a growing number of homes at risk of flooding. In North Carolina, people in some of the most vulnerable areas have been offered buyouts.

“So that’s when the local and the state government approach a homeowner that has flooded badly and say, ‘You know, if you’re interested, we will buy your house from you for the market value. And we’ll tear that house down and restore it to open space so people don’t live in this place again,’” says Miyuki Hino of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Her research finds that more than 5,000 North Carolina properties were bought out over a roughly 20-year period. But for every one of those buyouts, more than 10 new houses were built in a flood plain.

“So as we were trying to get people out and investing in helping people move to safer places, we were also allowing more people to move in and more lives and property, ultimately, to be at risk when those storms hit,” Hino says.

EDIT

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/07/for-every-flood-buyout-10-new-homes-were-built-in-flood-plains-in-north-carolina/

[Irish_Dem]

1. Builders build homes in a floodplain and the cities allow it.

Then the taxpayer has to buy back the homes when they flood.

Builders made a nice profit, cities got increased tax base but the taxpayer pays the out the nose.

[FBaggins]

2. That's simple enough to understand

“Buyout zones” are not synonymous with “flood plains”

[lark]

3. REal estate rules a lot of these places, they certainly do in NE FL.

It's ridiculous. Congress needs to pass a law disallowing this to happen. Stop all new construction on flood plains - like yesterday! This is just stupid and despicable greed on the part of the sellers and the state officials that allow this = are bribed well to allow this.

[Delphinus]

4. Jake Bittle

wrote about this in The Great Displacement - good book.