An informational meeting for contractors and home builders to help understand a proposed change in Gloucester County’s building elevation requirements will be held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 31, in the Community Room of the Gloucester Library, Main Street Center.

On Aug. 11, the county’s Floodplain Management Committee approved a recommendation to the board of supervisors to increase the county’s minimum freeboard requirement from two feet to three feet.

Freeboard is the elevation of a building’s lowest floor above the Base Flood Elevation (BFE). If the building is in a Coastal A or V Zone, then freeboard is defined as the distance between the BFE and the lowest horizontal structural member of the first floor.

According to Brent Payne, Gloucester’s Floodplain Administrator, the additional foot of elevation will increase flood resilience, decrease insurance rates for the individual home, and broadly contribute toward decreased insurance rates throughout the county...