Dare County’s commissioners open the new year with an update on county flood insurance maps.

The Dare County Board of Commissioners meet Monday, Jan. 6, 2020, at 9 a.m. in the commissioner’s meeting room, Dare County Administration Building, 954 Marshall C. Collins Dr. in Manteo.

The new flood maps become effective June 19 in unincorporated areas of the county and incorporated towns in the county.

Planning director Donna Creef will update the board on changes. In the next six months, the commissioners will be called on to adopt the revised maps for unincorporated Dare County, revise the county’s flood ordinance and adopt zoning amendments for districts using base flood elevation as building height reference points.

The county’s Planning Board will consider ordinance changes, which may include suggested local elevation standards. Public hearings are required as part of the adoption process.

The Jan. 6 meeting opens with naming the county’s Employee of the Year and Month followed by public comments, which can be made in the Manteo meeting room or at the Fessenden Center Annex on Buxton Back Road in Buxton.

Public comment is followed by an equipment demonstration from Emergency Medical Services. The demonstration includes equipment purchased under this fiscal year’s capital improvement plan budget.

Consideration of two lease agreements are on agenda. The first is for 349 acres of farmland in Manns Harbor. The second is for the Monarch Beach Club for a portion of space at 715 N. Hwy. 64/264 in Manteo. The club previously leased space at the Roanoke Island College of The Albemarle campus, which must be vacated to make room for the new campus.

Dare’s Tourism Board is seeking the commissioners’ consent to grant $70,000 to the Chicamacomico Historical Association to purchase adjacent land.

The Economic Improvement Council will present its 2020-21 Community Services Block Grant Program application for funding. This federal grant is designed to help support a wide range of community-based activities to reduce poverty.

Brant Johnson, the county’s project manager, will update the board on status of three federal grants: Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, Flood Mitigation Assistance and Pre-Disaster Mitigation and ask to be tapped as Dare County primary designated applicant agent for FEMA grants.

In the commissioners’ Dec. 16, 2019 meeting, the board adopted an amendment to the Highway 345 zoning district for commercial storage yards to be a permitted use and accepted an application for a homestead exemption and granted a property tax exemption on 281 Bayview Dr. in Stumpy Point.

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