Wood Privacy Fence in Flood Zone AE

[Kyle Westbrook]

Has anyone had experience building a wood privacy fence in a flood zone AE area?

Back story - Recently had a to pull a permit for a garage conversion for a flip that I am currently working on. When the city came out to check on the garage, they noticed work had been done on the fence. Due to city regulations I did not have to pull a permit on the fence since less than 50% of the fence was being worked on. However, the city official still decided he wanted to further investigate the work. He determined that the backside of the property is in a flood plain and will more than likely need to remove one side of the wood privacy fence and replace with chain link.

The thing is that the house is not technically in a flood zone. It is near a flood zone AE area, and a piece of the back part of the fence does look to slightly touch the flood zone AE area on FEMA's map. It is far away enough though that neither my insurance nor the previous owner's insurance required flood insurance. In addition, I have sifted through the city's website and cannot find anything that said a wood privacy fence cannot be erected in a flood zone (giving him the benefit of the doubt here).

My question is if they come back and say that it must be taken down what should I do? Is there anything I could possibly do to prevent this? Obviously this would be a large blow to my rehab budget and profit overall.