FEMA remap could lift flood insurance burden from Mount Prospect, Prospect Heights property owners

Levee 37 has provided property owners along the Des Plaines River with much-needed flood control.

Now, an intergovernmental agreement between Mount Prospect and Prospect Heights could lead to flood insurance relief for hundreds of homes and businesses near the levee.

The villages recently agreed to split the $57,000 cost of hiring Christopher B. Burke Engineering Ltd.

Burke will do the work required to have the Federal Emergency Management Agency issue a Letter of Map Revision, which will erase the properties from the Special Flood Hazard Zone. That, in turn, will lift the requirement for flood insurance for those properties.

Mount Prospect Public Works Director Sean Dorsey said there are 183 properties impacted in Mount Prospect and hundreds more in Prospect Heights.

Construction of the levee, which was finished in 2024 with the completion of a supplemental pump station, has benefited owners in the area.

“We have been open for four years. There has not been one drop of a flood since they built that levee,” said Joe Fontana, owner of Fry the Coop in Prospect Heights. “And we have had some pretty significant rain.”

But he still has to pay $12,000 per year in flood insurance.

“It’s really enormous,” Prospect Heights City Administrator Joe Wade said. “And the sad part is it’s unnecessary.”

Jerry Simmons, president of the River Trails Condominium Association in Prospect Heights, said the flood insurance is money down the drain. He said the association paid a $160,000 premium last year to cover 361 units.

“Everything's taken care of,” he said. “We're never going to flood. But we're required to have the flood insurance. We’ve got to have FEMA knock that off.”