ROXBURY — On Tuesday night — nearly six months to the day after 17 of 27 voters defeated a proposed flood plain management ordinance — Roxbury planners held a public hearing to potentially reverse that decision.

There were few questions.

Since that June 16 vote, the town has become the Maine State Planning Office’s example of what not to do when considering the federally mandated state proposal.

Roxbury is the only Oxford County town that has yet to approve the proposed ordinance, Sue Baker told town officials and a small crowd Tuesday night at the Town Office.

Baker is the State Planning Office’s state coordinator of the National Flood Insurance Program.

“They took the old flood plains and put them on the new aerial maps, which is much better,” said Baker, who arrived after the 7 p.m. meeting had adjourned, but fielded questions from homeowners who said their banks canceled their flood insurance after learning about the June 16 outcome.

Banks are federally regulated and must follow federal laws.

“The federal government is the major underwriter of flood insurance and they’re pushing the new ordinance,” Board of Selectmen Chairman John Sutton said during the hearing.

“I personally feel bad for the folks who have lost their flood insurance,” Sutton said.

At least one home sale through area Realtors fell through once buyers learned they couldn’t get flood insurance for the properties, Planning Board Chairman Matt Patneaude said.

Last month, selectmen accepted a twice-submitted petition that asked voters to reconsider that June 16 vote.

A special town meeting on the matter will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 29, at the Town Office.

The first petition erroneously called for a re-vote on the town’s shoreland zoning ordinance and was canceled.

On Tuesday night, Patneaude and Planner Cathy Mattson let Sutton explain the background behind the June 16 vote and the current situation.

Since June 16, Roxbury has relied on its flood plain management ordinance that voters approved on March 2, 1998. But that is based on old maps and not new aerial-photograph maps.

“There’s not a lot of changes in the new ordinance,” Sutton said.

Two homeowners said their banks revoked their flood insurance policies, although one man was working afterward with Baker and the new maps to determine whether his property is actually within the flood plain.

A parking area 50 feet from his house and at the same elevation is not in the flood plain, he said.

That’s when Baker said the state is having difficulties with the new maps in accurately delineating topographical contours.

In July, Roxbury officials realized a third problem that resulted from the new ordinance defeat.

“By not having a flood plain ordinance, we’re not eligible for FEMA reimbursement funds,” Sutton said.

“Byron just got $30,000 from FEMA for its roads, and Roxbury was also approached, but once FEMA found out that we defeated the ordinance, they said, ‘Sorry, we can’t help you.'”

“If we had had a flood that wiped out the Horseshoe Valley Road, we’d have to pay 100 percent to rebuild it,” he said.

Baker said Oxford County was Maine’s first county in which the state attempted to get towns to approve the new flood plain management ordinance.

Towns in Cumberland and York counties have been dealing with it since then, and Androscoggin County towns are beginning to get into it, she said.

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While Roxbury Planning Board Chairman Matt Patneaude, center, and planner Cathy Mattson listen at a public hearing Tuesday night, Board of Selectmen Chairman John Sutton answers a question on the upcoming petition-initiated re-vote of this summer’s proposed federal flood plain management ordinance changes.

At a public hearing Tuesday night on a petition-initiated re-vote on a proposed flood plain management ordinance, Rumford Selectmen Deborah DeRoche, left, and Chairman John Sutton examine one of the new maps to find the Town Office. The maps are aerial photographs overlain with old flood plain delineations.

Sue Baker, left, of the Maine State Planning Office, answers questions Tuesday at a Roxbury Planning Board public hearing on a petition-initiated re-vote on a proposed flood plain management ordinance. A vote of 17-10 on June 16 defeated the proposal, promptly causing some banks to cancel flood insurance policies for homeowners living in flood zones.