Elevation Certificates in Hayward, CA

Hayward's flood picture is mostly about the shoreline. The city participates in the National Flood Insurance Program and has a Flood Plain Management Ordinance that protects development to the 100-year event, including coastal flooding. Its 2022 technical memo on land development and sea level rise lays out the tidal numbers in NAVD88 from the San Leandro Marina tide station: average daily high tide around 7.0 feet, the annual king tide around 8.5 feet, and the 100-year tide plus storm surge around 10.3 feet, which FEMA's maps show as 11 feet. The memo also points out that FEMA flood maps do not account for sea level rise. Inland, the Alameda County Flood Control District notes that Sulphur Creek once flooded Hayward frequently, and it was diverted into San Lorenzo Creek in the 1960s to reduce flood risk downtown.

The same memo makes a point every Hayward owner near the bay should understand: the NFIP protects structures, not sites. Its example is an industrial building near the shoreline with the finished floor elevated above the 100-year flood while the surrounding parking is inundated in the same event. That is why the elevation certificate focuses on the building's floors, adjacent grades, and equipment. Looking further out, the Hayward Area Shoreline Planning Agency completed a Shoreline Adaptation Master Plan in 2021 centered on a perimeter levee, and used a target elevation of 14.3 feet NAVD88 to evaluate strategies. The city currently has no ordinance requiring new projects to design for sea level rise, but the memo recommends that applicants work with city planners on adaptation.

As the city's memo notes, NAVD88 is the datum surveyors and FEMA both use. Our field work ties a benchmark on that datum with GNSS, then measures the lowest adjacent grade, lowest floor, loading docks or garages, and machinery and utilities with a Trimble S3 total station. We photograph the building and deliver a signed FEMA elevation certificate. For a building that sits above the mapped 11-foot level but is drawn inside the flood zone, we can prepare the data for a letter of map amendment and submit through eLOMA when eligible. Hayward work is scheduled as a mobilization from Lotus. See our elevation certificate service, the San Leandro and Union City pages, and our Hayward area page.