Flood Zoned Land Mitigation Strategy with Trees and Plants

Flood Zoned Land in general is worth about 1/10th of the equivalent land not zoned as flood land or at least some similar magnitude value difference. Investors will avoid such land and flood zoned land truly has limited use.

About the only way to resolve the flood zone classification is by raising the elevation of the land and having a surveyor’s measurements to prove that re-classification is warranted. Reclassification of flood zoned land is really tough.

One of the biggest challenges is that any elevation change to the property may cause damages to lower neighboring properties or even downstream.

Also, changing the course of a creek is illegal without a permit and getting a permit would be an Act of God.

Our intent is not to give legal advice, but simply to expose an important step to mitigate flooding and also to mitigate the likelihood of a neighbor making a claim.

We are preparing to plant 200 Weeping Willows and 2000 Dappled Willows to give a low lying flood zoned land much needed privacy from 11 neighbors and 2 busy roads, all which are at much higher elevation than our customer.

The objective of the tree planting is to create privacy for the land, prevent any potential erosion of the creek embankments and shorten the flooding period if it does happen. The shrubs and trees will receive generous mulching twice a year to assure their healthy growth on the embankment.

Dappled Willow will grow to about 12” height by 6’ wide. It grows about 3x faster than the Weeping Willow which is one of the fastest growing trees we know. It can mature from a seedling to a fully grown plant in just about one season. Both Weeping Willow and Dappled Willows are beautiful and will add significant organic mass to any creek embankment and will obstruct the view of curious neighbors into the property within a year or two. (The root growth of Dappled Willow is so aggressive, that we use it

We are not lawyers or had no intention to give any legal advice in this post. But based on our experience, it is unlikely that in any small group of average Americans there is not at least one tree hugger. We sell our nursery trees to land owners of rural America who love their land, love trees and nature.

We encourage tree loving flood zoned property owners of the Midwest to contact us for a consultation.