2017 Spencer Comprehensive Land Use Plan

Spencer, Iowa  2017  Comprehensive Plan

• Installing larger culverts and increasing the capacity of current culverts. • Improving and inspecting drainage. • Construction of a public tornado safe room. • Construction of tornado safe rooms in schools and other critical facilities. • Utilizing the media in announcing weather advisories. • Introducing a good neighbor policy. • Enforcement of burn bans. • Purchase of additional and specialized fire equipment. • Mutual aid between fire departments. • Determine level of fire suppression needed to respond to incidents and determine alternatives. • Utilize the national weather service when inclement weather occurs. • Enforce and/or create building codes and reinforce existing buildings as needed. • Enforcement of water restrictions for residents when necessary. • Inspection of pump wells. • Make sure levees are certified and have preventative maintenance performed. • Identify and inventory weaknesses in the levee system. • Enforce and/or create zoning codes. • Continue HAZMAT and other fire department training. • Enforce a snow removal policy. • Construct sewer lift station. • Purchase paramedic and emergency response equipment. • Having markers that clearly identify where fire hydrants are. • Encourage buyouts (acquisition) of properties located in floodplains and/or are repetitive losses. • Monitor river levels and reevaluate if protection from river waters is inadequate. • Complete FIRM (Flood Insurance Rate Map). • Construct floodwalls and/or elevate structures in the identified floodplain. • Study flood prone areas within city limits. • Flood protection for critical facilities. Once the plan was completed, approved, and adopted, the local governments became eligible for funding assistance from FEMA for mitigation strategies put forth in the plan. Potential funding resources include the FEMA Pre‐Disaster Mitigation Program (PDM) and FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). No timeframe was identified in implementing these mitigation actions and will be acted upon as funding become available. It was discussed that additional mitigation actions would be examined during the update process. The mitigation actions that were discussed were what the Spencer Planning Team wanted to have included in the Hazard Mitigation Plan. For a complete list of the Mitigation Actions for Clay County, refer to the Clay County Mitigation Actions Table. PLAN MAINTENANCE Plan maintenance involves acting to ensure that the plan stays current with information, priorities are still in order, and goals and objectives are maintained and updated. To accomplish this, the plan will be reviewed by the planning team annually and be incorporated into other city plans. • Replace sewer lines. • Install dry hydrants. • Retrofit and increase capacity of storm sewer systems. • Retrofit and increase capacity of sanitary sewer systems. • Upgrades to the Clay County Emergency Communications Center.

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NW Iowa Planning & Development