To keep Wiscasset property owners eligible for a federal flood insurance program, the town needs a new flood plain ordinance, according to Town Planner Jamel Torres, a series of recent government letters, and a federal spokesman.

The ordinance should go to voters in June if the town is going to meet a July deadline, Torres said.

“I highly suggest that we amend the (existing) ordinance,” he told the Wiscasset Planning Board on Feb. 23.

The board reviewed a proposal Torres said was based on a model ordinance. Board members agreed to propose that it should call for project applications within the flood plain to carry a fee of no less than $40, as set by the town.

The board and Torres discussed plans to send the draft ordinance on to selectmen to set a public hearing that Torres said has to happen prior to the town vote.

Neither Torres nor Planning Board Chairman Karl Olson immediately knew the change in the number of properties that lie in the flood plain under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new maps. FEMA is calling on towns throughout the U.S. to adopt ordinances in connection with the maps, Dennis Pinkham, spokesman for FEMA’s New England region, said on Feb. 24.

Flooding is the most common disaster experienced in the U.S., Pinkham said in a telephone interview.

Towns that heed FEMA’s call to update their ordinances are preserving their property owners’ access to flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), he said. Congress started the program in 1968; FEMA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, manages it, according to FEMA materials that Pinkham provided.

If someone has a mortgage on property in a flood plain, their mortgage holder will require them to have flood insurance, Olson said following the planning board’s Feb. 23 meeting. During the meeting, members discussed the challenges homeowners can face regarding flood insurance.

“Some of it is, holy moly,” Olson said about flood insurance costs.

“A lot of insurance companies aren’t giving quotes right now because they’re scared of it,” member Larry Barnes said.

During the Tuesday, March 3 Wiscasset Selectmen meeting, the public hearing on the ordinance was set for April 7.

Should the town not enact a plan by July 16, there could be consequences including an immediate suspension of the National Flood Insurance Program, Torres said during the March 3 meeting.