Darien to buy flood-ravaged property
Officials: $669K deal will convert site into open space
DARIEN — The town will be using a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to buy a Crimmins Road property that has been ravaged by flood damage at least nine times over the past four decades.
The boards of selectmen and finance recently approved the deal, which will cost an estimated $669,100 for 27 Crimmins Road, on which sits two structures, both
which will be removed and the site returned to its natural state in the near future. The town would spend $167,275 on the purchase, while the remaining $501,825 would be covered by the FEMA grant.
In helping cover the cost, both boards decided to allocate the $39,066 balance in the town’s land acquisition fund be put towards the 25 percent local match under the FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant program.
Spending the funds now requires Representative Town Meeting approval.
The $167,275 balance, town officials said, would be used to cover the closing costs, appraisal, other fees associated with the real estate transaction, and finally the rest of the money necessary to return the property back to dedicated open space.
Emergency Management Director Marc McEwan said town records show the house was built in 1951. He added that the home has flooded nine times since the records for the site were available, since 1979.
In recent years, McEwan said the structure has flooded three times — 2007, 2014 and 2018. McEwan said the home was “inundated with flood waters resulting from the July 9 storm.”
This grant application was started in November 2019, and there were a few grant applications prior to this one, McEwan said.
“The homeowners were originally looking to elevate the home,” McEwan said, “however FEMA and the state were not convinced that the elevation would really mitigate the future losses as the garage would still be located in the flood waters.
“We received positive feedback on the grant to acquire the property and return it to pre-built as-is condition,” McEwan added.
This is the second time the town has been awarded hazard mitigation grants, the most recent from the presidential disaster declaration in 2018 for the tornadoes upstate.
“The first time was after the severe flooding in 2007, and we received two grant awards — one house elevation on Cherry Street and one property acquisition at 33 Cherry St.,” McEwan
said. “That property purchase and subsequent house demolition was completed around 2010.”
The property at 27 Crimmins Road is adjacent to the Stony Brook watershed. This area repetitively experiences severe flooding during severe storms. On July 9, the home had water and sewage infiltration on the first floor living area.
Records show this latest flood claim is the ninth for that address. Prior to this July, the claims totaled
$329,303, with another loss of between $250,000 to $300,000 being written up for the July storm.
The National Flood Insurance Program defines a severe repetitive loss property as a single-family property (consisting of one to four residences) that is covered under flood insurance by the NFIP, and that has incurred flood-related damage for which four or more flood claims have been paid by the NFIP.
“We were advised by
FEMA and the state that the grant application for acquisition was feasible on July 13, and that there were more hurdles in the request to elevate the structure than in the request for acquisition,” McEwan stated.
One of the hurdles was that, while the house could be elevated, it would still have the two-car detached garage below the base flood elevation. Elevation of the house would potentially lessen the impact, but not eliminate future losses. This left only the alternative of utilizing the HMGP to acquire the property, eliminating future losses to this severe repetitive loss property.
McEwan said 27 Crimmins Road, from available town records, appears to be one of the last dozen SRL properties in town.
“We do have another dozen that fit the definition of repetitive loss properties,” McEwan said. “Since the last storm, about half of those SRL and RL properties are now looking to ask the town to submit applications for them for the upcoming grant cycle.”