If compliance with the elevation or floodproofing requirements of this chapter would result in an exceptional hardship for a prospective building developer, or landowner the Borough of Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, may, upon request, grant relief from the strict application of the requirement.
A. 
Requests for variances shall be considered by the Borough of Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, Pennsylvania in accordance with the procedures contained in § 240-17A and the following procedures:
(1) 
No variance shall be granted for any construction, development, use, or activity within any floodway area that would cause any increase in the one-hundred-year flood elevation.
(2) 
If granted, a variance shall involve only the least modification necessary to provide relief.
(3) 
In granting any variance, the Borough of Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, shall attach whatever reasonable conditions and safeguards it considers necessary in order to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, and to achieve the objectives of this chapter.
(4) 
Whenever a variance is granted, the Borough of Jim Thorpe shall notify the applicant in writing that:
(a) 
The granting of the variance may result in increased premium rates for flood insurance.
(b) 
Such variances may increase the risks to life and property.
(5) 
In reviewing any request for a variance, the Borough of Jim Thorpe shall consider, but not be limited to, the following:
(a) 
That there is good and sufficient cause.
(b) 
That failure to great the variance would result in exceptional hardship to the applicant.
(c) 
That the granting of the variance will not result in an unacceptable or prohibited increase in flood heights, additional threats to public safety, extraordinary public expense, create nuisances, cause fraud on, or victimization of the public, or conflict with any other applicable local or state ordinances and regulations.
(6) 
A complete record of all variance requests and related actions shall be maintained by the Borough of Jim Thorpe. In addition, a report of all variances granted during the year shall be included in the annual report to the Federal Insurance Administration.
B. 
Notwithstanding any of the above, however, all structures shall be designed and constructed so as to have the capability of resisting the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads and pressures, effects of buoyancy, and other forces associated with the one-hundred-year flood.