I built my current house in a flood plain. Since I didn’t want to buy flood insurance I applied for a Letter of Map Revision (LOMR) with FEMA.
I had to elevate the site of the house to take it out of the flood plain.
What was annoying was the process I had to go through to get the LOMR. The house has a basement. My surveyor calculated that I would have to only dig down 30" in order to get the house high enough to be out of the flood plain. I wanted to put the basement in and then backfill/terrace the dirt out around it. That wasn’t allowed by FEMA. I had to pile the dirt up, approximately 5’ high, and the surveyor then had to stake out the house foundation marking each sides coordinates. They submitted this drawing to FEMA showing that the proposed house was now sitting out of the flood plain.
After I received the approval, I had my concrete contactor shove the dirt mound out of the way and we proceeded like I had intended at the beginning. The local building inspector did inquire how I was going to be sure I located the house exactly where the surveyor had mapped it. I had measured the distance of two corner points of the house to two property pins located at the front of the property. He was satisfied with that response.
The terracing worked out well. It all looks natural except for the southeast corner closest to the creek. There was a large hedge tree there I wanted to keep. I was also close to the flood way which has different rules than a flood plain.