Can You Build an ICF House on Ono Harbour?

A first-person note from Meredith, who lives on Ono Island, on raising an insulated concrete form house over the marsh—with grace, and with the rules in hand.

I have always thought Harbour Drive looks like a secret the island kept for people who love water more than a street address.

The spelling matters. It is Ono Harbour, with the U. When I walk those lots, I am not thinking about a house sitting hard on the ground. I am thinking about a raised beach house: living rooms up in the light, open air to the left and the right, marsh grass moving underneath, and a simple middle room for rods, life jackets, and the things a Gulf family actually uses.

I live on Ono Island. I have spent twenty years in luxury real estate, first in the mountains and now here, and I have learned this: the most beautiful plan in the world is only as good as the covenants that govern the dirt. So I sat down with the recorded Harbour documents, the island ACC rules, and the Baldwin County flood sheets, and I read them the way I would read them for a client I care about.

This is not a permit, and it is not legal advice. It is how I would start the conversation if you asked me, over coffee, whether an ICF house belongs on Ono Harbour.

ICF is not banned on Ono Harbour.

The island ACC actually lists a new ICF single-family dwelling as its own house type.

They charge more for it, because concrete trucks are hard on island roads: $3.00 a square foot, $9,000 minimum, against $1.50 and $3,000 for a standard new house. That is recognition, not a refusal. Harbour’s own recorded covenants never mention ICF, masonry, or concrete. They do not forbid the wall I would choose if I were building here.

Can you build an ICF house on Ono Harbour?

Yes—on the written rules I have in hand. I would still walk into Harbour ACC with humility, because both Harbour and the island committee may refuse a look on aesthetics alone.

Insulated concrete form is the wall I recommend on this coast. Foam forms, steel, a concrete core, insulation that stays. The house finishes like any other custom home: stucco, siding, stone. What you feel is quiet. What you own is mass. I have written the longer library here: ICF home building on Ono Island, ICF foundations, and the professionals I keep for this work.

My own house is not ICF. If I were building a house of my own on this island, it would be. That is not a slogan. That is the conclusion I have reached after walking rooms that stay composed when the weather is not.

Why would I raise the house over the marsh?

Because Harbour is not a dry, interior street. It is water, wetland edge, and a view that wants air underneath it.

I like a raised beach house here. Living floor up. Nothing finished as a downstairs apartment. Open air to the left and the right, so light and breeze can still belong to the neighbors. In the middle, a rod room—unfinished, honest, useful. That is how Gulf families actually live: you come in from the boat sandy, you put the rods away, and you go upstairs to the rooms that stay dry.

County flood rules already agree with that instinct. On Ono Island you are in unincorporated Baldwin County, not inside the City of Orange Beach. Habitable space does not belong below base flood elevation plus one foot. Parking, access, and limited storage do. A finished living room on the ground is the one idea I would talk you out of before we ever chose a paint color.

If the current flood map is Coastal A or VE, I would keep the ICF up in the living level and make any enclosed rod room breakaway, not a solid concrete room at grade. Old surveys still show AE at elevation 8. That map is outdated. Confirm the current FIRM before you fall in love with a foundation drawing. I keep the wider flood conversation here: flood zones and insurance on Ono Island.

How tall can a Harbour house be?

Harbour is stricter than the rest of the island, and that is the number I would design to first.

Unit Two's 1994 amendment is the local height rule. Maximum two habitable stories. Maximum average roof thirty-five feet above grade or flood elevation, whichever is higher. First floor at least fourteen feet above sea level. The island ACC still allows forty feet to the building and forty-five to the ridge, with no story cap. When those two documents disagree, the stricter one wins. On Harbour, that is thirty-five feet and two stories.

A two-story Harbour house also has a size floor: 2,800 square feet under roof, with 2,000 on the lower living floor (1,600 enclosed) and 800 enclosed up top. A one-story is 2,400 under roof and 2,000 enclosed. Open decks do not count as porches.

And this is the Harbour catch that surprises people: the covenants ask for enclosed parking for two vehicles. Open air left and right is still the house I like. The middle, in my opinion, should work as a two-car garage that can also hold a rod room, not a rod room that forgot the cars.

What is allowed under the first floor?

Harbour used to say no habitable space below the first floor. In 1994 they changed that.

The recorded amendment allows space below the first floor if it is not the main living level, if it meets flood rules, and if Harbour ACC approves it in writing. That is why a raised house with an unfinished middle room is not a rebellion. It is a reading of the document.

The island ACC even lists outdoor enclosures underneath as a fifty-dollar permit item. Required yards, though, stay open from the ground to the sky. The enclosed middle has to sit inside the building setbacks.

My taste, if anyone is asking: keep the sides truly open. Let the marsh breathe. Put the useful room in the center, unfinished, flood-vented, and quiet about itself. A bulky box under a beautiful house is the one thing a committee will see from the street before they see your kitchen.

Do you need two associations to approve the plans?

Yes. On Harbour you go local first, then island-wide.

The island ACC permit form is plain about it: any permit for property in Ono Harbour must first be approved by Ono Harbour ACC. Then it goes to Ono House for the island committee. I would never reverse that order. Harbour is a smaller room. They know the marsh, the common dock, and the lots that simply will not take a footprint.

Work over water or wetland grasses needs island ACC sign-off before anyone files with the Corps or ADEM. Harbour covenants also require written approval to cut, fill, or alter shoreline, woodlands, marsh, or lagoon edges. Some of this ground is protected or limited. A wetland delineation is not a courtesy. It is the first honest drawing.

The island construction path is here: ACC permits and erosion control. A raised-house design conversation lives here: designing a modern raised beach house on Ono Island.

What should you do before you fall in love with a lot?

I would slow down on purpose. Harbour rewards patience more than a pretty rendering.

Quick answers, in my own words

A neighborly note: This is how I read the recorded Harbour Unit Two covenants (1993 restatement and 1994 height amendment), the Ono Island ACC rules of March 2022, and Baldwin County flood handouts dated February 20, 2024. Harbour design guidelines and the Unit Two plat drawing were not in the public file I used. Rules change. Confirm current documents with Harbour ACC, Ono House, and Baldwin County before you design or buy. This is a research conversation, not a permit or a legal opinion.