The City of Milford plans to apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Program for the elevation and/or reconstruction of homes in the coastal flood zone.
The FMA is a grant program that provides funds to reduce or eliminate risk of flood damage to buildings insured under the National Flood Insurance Program.
Any resident who owns property — including second homes — covered by a current National Flood Insurance Program policy is eligible to apply for funding to elevate their structure.
While any National Flood Insurance Program insured property can apply to the program, FEMA has announced that priority will be given to structures listed as Severe Repetitive Loss and Repetitive Loss, respectively.
In addition, FEMA will not fund mitigation reconstruction in certain zones.
This is a competitive grant program, and is not Connecticut specific. Application is not a guarantee of funding, city officials said.
Although the final grant application must be submitted by the city, the homeowner will be responsible for providing much of the information required to complete the application.
Specifically, the homeowner will be required to provide a work schedule and cost estimate for the structure elevation project.
In order to assist in this process the Economic and Community Development Department will hold application assistance sessions on Tuesday, May 20, from 9 a.m. to noon and 5 to 8 p.m.
Completed Homeowner Applications are due at the Community Development Office at 70 West River Street on Tuesday, June 3, by 5 p.m.
Officials want to see how much interest there is in the program, and they ask homeowners who are interested to notify the Community Development Office at 203-783-3230 of their intention to apply as soon as possible.