VETO  

Bill No: SB 182

Author: Jackson (D), et al.

Amended: 8/25/20

Vote: 27

SENATE GOVERNANCE & FIN. COMMITTEE: 6-1, 4/10/19

AYES: McGuire, Beall, Hertzberg, Hurtado, Nielsen, Wiener

NOES: Moorlach

SENATE HOUSING COMMITTEE: 8-3, 4/22/19

AYES: Wiener, Caballero, Durazo, McGuire, Roth, Skinner, Umberg, Wieckowski

NOES: Morrell, Bates, Moorlach

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 4-2, 5/16/19

AYES: Portantino, Bradford, Hill, Wieckowski

NOES: Bates, Jones

SENATE FLOOR: 27-9, 5/29/19

AYES: Allen, Archuleta, Atkins, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Dodd, Durazo, Galgiani, Glazer, Hill, Hueso, Hurtado, Jackson, Leyva, McGuire, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Skinner, Stern, Umberg, Wieckowski

NOES: Bates, Borgeas, Grove, Jones, Moorlach, Morrell, Stone, Wiener, Wilk

NO VOTE RECORDED: Chang, Hertzberg

SENATE HOUSING COMMITTEE: 10-0, 9/13/19

AYES: Wiener, Bates, Caballero, Durazo, McGuire, Moorlach, Roth, Skinner, Umberg, Wieckowski

NO VOTE RECORDED: Morrell

SENATE FLOOR: 32-5, 8/31/20

AYES: Allen, Archuleta, Atkins, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Chang, Dodd, Durazo, Galgiani, Glazer, Lena Gonzalez, Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Hurtado, Jackson, Leyva, McGuire, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Skinner, Stern, Umberg, Wieckowski, Wiener, Wilk

NOES: Bates, Dahle, Grove, Melendez, Morrell

NO VOTE RECORDED: Borgeas, Jones, Moorlach

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 70-1, 8/31/20 - See last page for vote

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

SOURCE: Author

DIGEST:

This bill imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires cities and counties to make specified findings on fire standards prior to permitting development in the very high fire hazard severity zone (VHFHSZ).

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Requires every county and city to adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements, including the safety element.
2. Provides that the safety element's purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires.
3. Requires the Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) to designate areas of moderate, high, and VHFHSZs.
4. Requires landowners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) (AB 337, Bates, 1992). These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

This bill:

1. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
   1. Defines “very high fire risk areas” to be the VHFHSZ in both the SRA and the Local Responsibility Area.
   2. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or local hazard mitigation plan on or after June 1, 2022, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy that includes specified contents.
   3. Requires a city or county with VHFHSZ within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after June 1, 2022. This amendment of the land use element must include the locations of all VHFHSZ within the city or county, the data and analysis described in the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning–General Plan Technical Advice Series,” and other specified goals, objectives, and implementation measures.
   4. Requires, after that initial amendment to the land use element, a city or county to review upon each revision of the housing element the implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards, as defined below, within the jurisdiction, and the designation of VHFHSZ.
   5. Provides for review and comment on draft findings by the Board and local fire agencies on whether the city or county has implemented the standards or made adequate progress, defined to mean the city or county is taking concrete steps reasonably calculated to achieve funding and implementation of the applicable standard by December 31, 2025.
   6. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its Web site a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFHSZ, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
2. Requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop WUI overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan.
3. Prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFHSZ unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards” contained in this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards.
4. Defines three tiers of “wildfire risk reduction standards,” based on the size of the development, specifically:
   1. For a development of any size:
      1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and the Board;
      2. Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as defined;
      3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements; and
      4. Standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards.
   2. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. Reasonable site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, including defensible structure layout, structure clustering, and use of natural/engineered firebreaks;
      3. Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations;
      4. Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels;
      5. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements; and
      6. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire, with adequate ingress, egress, and capacity for evacuation and emergency response at the same time.
   3. For developments of 100 or more residential units, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments; and
      2. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal as provided in the bill. These standards must incorporate all applicable aspects of OPR’s “Fire Hazard Planning” series or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect.
5. Deems a development in compliance with the requirements for defensible space enforcement, response time, infrastructure sufficiency, and water supplies if the city or county has made adequate progress towards achieving those standards by December 31, 2025.
6. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
   1. Adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
      1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments.
      2. Include standards for organization and development of fire suppression operations, fire protection infrastructure, water supplies for fire fighting, and reducing structure ignition hazards from wildland fire.
      3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire.
      4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures.
      5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire a risk model that uses current wildfire hazard severity information known for the very high fire risk areas. The model must be able to quantify the risk for a community or parcel in a very high fire risk area through the input of mitigating factors into the model and must use the best available science and objective scientific methodologies.
      6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
   2. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space.
7. Requires the State Fire Marshal, by January 1, 2024, to update the maps of the VHFHSZ and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
8. Requires the standards, regulations, and rules to be reasonable, and to be feasible and achievable for the majority of developments in that size category.
9. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the Office of Planning and Research, in collaboration with cities and counties, to identify local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in very high fire risk areas, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, and to publish and update these resources as specified.
10. Directs CALFIRE to distribute grant funds, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to provide assistance to small jurisdictions in updating planning documents and complying with other provisions of the bill, as specified.
11. Amends the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plan as follows:
    1. Directs each regional housing needs allocation plan to include as a factor the amount of land in each member jurisdiction that is within a very high fire risk area by allocating a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a very high fire risk area as adequate sites to meet its housing need allocation, as specified.
    2. Requires the regional housing needs allocation plan to further the objective of promoting resilient communities. Furthering this objective must include reducing development pressure within very high fire risk areas.
    3. Provides that a) and b) only apply to the seventh and subsequent revisions of the housing element if a region has a scheduled revision of the housing element on or before June 1, 2022.
    4. For the sixth cycle only, if a region has published and distributed a proposed methodology prior to June 1, 2020, and if the council of governments does not request information regarding the fire-related factor added by the bill:
       1. The lack of inclusion of such a request in the survey shall not itself constitute the basis for an appeal of a regional housing needs allocation, and
       2. The council governments must consider that factor using other sources.
12. Clarifies that local governments may impose more stringent standards than those set out in the bill, and clarifies that a local government may issue a final subdivision map without making the findings in this bill if the tentative map or parcel map met the required standards when it was deemed complete.
13. Makes other technical and conforming changes.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard fire poses to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. SB 182 presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. SB 182 doesn’t say that locals can’t develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, SB 182 provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. SB 182 is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.
2. What’s the real problem? By their very nature, planning requirements and conditions on development are forward-looking. They apply only to new developments, not to existing structures. California has indeed seen significant increases in fire damages, but most of the losses have been of older homes in communities that were founded before today’s requirements for strong building codes—to prevent homes from catching fire in the first place—and subdivision design—to allow for safe firefighting and evacuations—were in place. Recent experience has shown that new homes built after 2008 are less likely to be destroyed than older homes. SB 182 focuses on new developments, when those developments are already safer. By doing so, it imposes new, unknown, and potentially costly requirements on homebuilding at a time when new homes are needed more than ever. Is the solution presented by SB 182 the right one, or would it simply exacerbate today’s housing crisis without meaningfully reducing fire losses?
3. March 13^th, 2019, oversight hearing. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee and the Natural Resources and Water Committee held an oversight hearing earlier this year, titled “Living Resiliently in the New Abnormal: The Future of Development in California’s Most Fire Prone Regions.” Among other topics, that hearing explored changes to land use approvals and permitting that may be needed to reduce the loss of life and property from wildfire. One conclusion from the hearing was that, while defensible space and building standards are incredibly important, community scale interventions, such as community layout and establishment of safe areas for the community to assemble during fires, can reduce the risk of wildfire losses. The hearing also discussed the need for more detailed information on the fire resilience of individual parcels and whether some parcels or areas should be identified as indefensible.

Related/Prior Legislation

In 2018, the Legislature took important actions to improve wildfire planning and safety, including:

• SB 1260 (Jackson, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2018) made various changes related to local fire planning, prescribed fire requirements, and broader fire prevention efforts, including to require that: (1) local safety elements reflect best practices contained in OPR’s technical guidance for fire hazard planning; (2) cities and counties meet with the Board on their draft safety elements at the request of the Board; and (3) cities and counties transmit any fire-related findings made under the Subdivision Map Act to the Board.
• AB 2911 (Friedman, Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018) made various changes to fire safety planning, including to: required local agencies to submit ordinances adopting VHFHSZ to the Board; directed OPR to update its technical guidance for fire and land use planning; and required the Board to identify at-risk subdivisions not less than every five years.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

• Estimated costs to CALFIRE, likely in the millions of dollars (GGRF)) annually, to fund grants to cities and counties that contain wildland-urban interface areas for programs and projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. This bill allocates an unspecified amount from CALFIRE’s $165 million GGRF allocation for this purpose. Depending on the amount shifted, CALFIRE could incur operational and fiscal impacts.
• CALFIRE estimates costs of $3.5 million (special fund) in the first year, and $3.1 million (special fund) annually thereafter, for 11 positions to review and update regulations per with the bill's requirements.
• The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates costs of $180,000 (GGRF) per year for one position to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system, consult with CALFIRE and update its annual report, website and outreach materials.
• The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates costs of $180,000 (GF) per year for one position to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements.
• The State Fire Marshal estimates costs of up to $2 million (GF) for staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs and administer a specified grant program.
• The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) estimates costs of up to $150,000 (GF) annually until 2023 to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas.
• The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates costs of $187,000 (GF) in the first year and $170,000 (GF) ongoing to work with the State Fire Marshal and OPR to develop wildfire risk reduction standards and provide information for the clearinghouse.
• The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Public Rights Division anticipates costs of $660,000 ($330,000 GF) in the first year and $1.15 million ($575,000 GF) ongoing for increased litigation workload. Enforcement actions on behalf of the Attorney General would impact the GF. Enforcement actions on behalf of other client agencies would be fully reimbursable through direct client billings.
• State-mandated local costs for local agencies to comply with the planning mandates in this bill are not reimbursable by the state because affected local agencies have the authority to charge fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates.

SUPPORT: (Verified 10/2/20)

American Planning Association, California Chapter

California State Association of Counties

County of Santa Barbara

Rural County Representatives of California

Southern California Edison

OPPOSITION: (Verified 10/2/20)

None received

GOVERNOR'S VETO MESSAGE:

I am returning Senate Bill 182 without my signature.

This bill would impose certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and would require cities and counties to make specified findings on fire standards prior to permitting development in the very high fire hazard severity zone.

I strongly support strengthening land use planning requirements in order to better protect our communities from wildfire. The importance of reducing the number and impact of fires in our communities cannot be overstated. However, this bill creates inconsistencies, duplicates existing requirements, creates a loophole for regions to not comply with their housing requirements, fails to account for consequences that could increase sprawl and places significant cost burdens on the state.

New state laws and policies are already directing housing to communities near transit, jobs and urban centers and away from fire risk areas, including integration into the current housing planning cycle. Additionally, the 2019-20 Budget requires the California Department of Housing and Community Development, in collaboration with the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, to develop recommendations to improve the regional housing need allocation process to promote and streamline housing development to address California's housing shortage.

Wildfire resilience must become a more consistent part of land use and development decisions. However, it must be done while meeting our housing needs.

For these reasons, I am returning Senate Bill 182 without my signature.

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 70-1, 8/31/20

AYES: Aguiar-Curry, Arambula, Bauer-Kahan, Berman, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Bonta, Burke, Calderon, Carrillo, Cervantes, Chau, Chen, Chiu, Choi, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Cunningham, Megan Dahle, Daly, Diep, Flora, Friedman, Gabriel, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Gloria, Gonzalez, Gray, Grayson, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kamlager, Kiley, Lackey, Levine, Limón, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Smith, Mark Stone, Ting, Waldron, Weber, Wicks, Wood, Rendon

NOES: Brough

NO VOTE RECORDED: Bigelow, Eggman, Fong, Frazier, Mayes, Obernolte, Patterson, Voepel

Prepared by: Anton Favorini-Csorba / GOV. & F. / (916) 651-4119

10/14/20 11:24:09

**** END ****

 UNFINISHED BUSINESS  

Bill No: SB 182

Author: Jackson (D), et al.

Amended: 8/25/20

Vote: 21

SENATE GOVERNANCE & FIN. COMMITTEE: 6-1, 4/10/19

AYES: McGuire, Beall, Hertzberg, Hurtado, Nielsen, Wiener

NOES: Moorlach

SENATE HOUSING COMMITTEE: 8-3, 4/22/19

AYES: Wiener, Caballero, Durazo, McGuire, Roth, Skinner, Umberg, Wieckowski

NOES: Morrell, Bates, Moorlach

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 4-2, 5/16/19

AYES: Portantino, Bradford, Hill, Wieckowski

NOES: Bates, Jones

SENATE FLOOR: 27-9, 5/29/19

AYES: Allen, Archuleta, Atkins, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Dodd, Durazo, Galgiani, Glazer, Hill, Hueso, Hurtado, Jackson, Leyva, McGuire, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Skinner, Stern, Umberg, Wieckowski

NOES: Bates, Borgeas, Grove, Jones, Moorlach, Morrell, Stone, Wiener, Wilk

NO VOTE RECORDED: Chang, Hertzberg

SENATE HOUSING COMMITTEE: 10-0, 9/13/19 (Pursuant to Senate Rule 29.10)

AYES: Wiener, Bates, Caballero, Durazo, McGuire, Moorlach, Roth, Skinner, Umberg, Wieckowski

NO VOTE RECORDED: Morrell

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: Not available

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

SOURCE: Author

DIGEST:

This bill imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires cities and counties to make specified findings on fire standards prior to permitting development in the very high fire hazard severity zone (VHFHSZ).

Assembly Amendments

remove references to specific fire regulations; delay various dates in the bill; revise the manner in which councils of governments must consider housing allocations in very high fire risk areas; broaden the requirement to promote resilient communities through the regional housing needs allocation process, and make other changes.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Requires every county and city to adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements, including the safety element.
2. Provides that the safety element's purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires.
3. Requires the Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) to designate areas of moderate, high, and VHFHSZs.
4. Requires landowners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) (AB 337, Bates, 1992). These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

This bill:

1. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
   1. Defines “very high fire risk areas” to be the VHFHSZ in both the SRA and the Local Responsibility Area.
   2. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or local hazard mitigation plan on or after June 1, 2022, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy that includes specified contents.
   3. Requires a city or county with VHFHSZ within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after June 1, 2022. This amendment of the land use element must include the locations of all VHFHSZ within the city or county, the data and analysis described in the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning–General Plan Technical Advice Series,” and other specified goals, objectives, and implementation measures.
   4. Requires, after that initial amendment to the land use element, a city or county to review upon each revision of the housing element the implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards, as defined below, within the jurisdiction, and the designation of VHFHSZ.
   5. Provides for review and comment on draft findings by the Board and local fire agencies on whether the city or county has implemented the standards or made adequate progress, defined to mean the city or county is taking concrete steps reasonably calculated to achieve funding and implementation of the applicable standard by December 31, 2025.
   6. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its Web site a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFHSZ, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
2. Requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop WUI overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan.
3. Prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFHSZ unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards” contained in this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards.
4. Defines three tiers of “wildfire risk reduction standards,” based on the size of the development, specifically:
   1. For a development of any size:
      1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and the Board;
      2. Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as defined;
      3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements; and
      4. Standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards.
   2. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. Reasonable site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, including defensible structure layout, structure clustering, and use of natural/engineered firebreaks;
      3. Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations;
      4. Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels;
      5. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements; and
      6. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire, with adequate ingress, egress, and capacity for evacuation and emergency response at the same time.
   3. For developments of 100 or more residential units, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments; and
      2. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal as provided in the bill. These standards must incorporate all applicable aspects of OPR’s “Fire Hazard Planning” series or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect.
5. Deems a development in compliance with the requirements for defensible space enforcement, response time, infrastructure sufficiency, and water supplies if the city or county has made adequate progress towards achieving those standards by December 31, 2025.
6. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
   1. Adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
      1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments.
      2. Include standards for organization and development of fire suppression operations, fire protection infrastructure, water supplies for fire fighting, and reducing structure ignition hazards from wildland fire.
      3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire.
      4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures.
      5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire a risk model that uses current wildfire hazard severity information known for the very high fire risk areas. The model must be able to quantify the risk for a community or parcel in a very high fire risk area through the input of mitigating factors into the model and must use the best available science and objective scientific methodologies.
      6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
   2. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space.
7. Requires the State Fire Marshal, by January 1, 2024, to update the maps of the VHFHSZ and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
8. Requires the standards, regulations, and rules to be reasonable, and to be feasible and achievable for the majority of developments in that size category.
9. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the Office of Planning and Research, in collaboration with cities and counties, to identify local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in very high fire risk areas, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, and to publish and update these resources as specified.
10. Directs CALFIRE to distribute grant funds, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to provide assistance to small jurisdictions in updating planning documents and complying with other provisions of the bill, as specified.
11. Amends the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plan as follows:
    1. Directs each regional housing needs allocation plan to include as a factor the amount of land in each member jurisdiction that is within a very high fire risk area by allocating a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a very high fire risk area as adequate sites to meet its housing need allocation, as specified.
    2. Requires the regional housing needs allocation plan to further the objective of promoting resilient communities. Furthering this objective must include reducing development pressure within very high fire risk areas.
    3. Provides that a) and b) only apply to the seventh and subsequent revisions of the housing element if a region has a scheduled revision of the housing element on or before June 1, 2022.
    4. For the sixth cycle only, if a region has published and distributed a proposed methodology prior to June 1, 2020, and if the council of governments does not request information regarding the fire-related factor added by the bill:
       1. The lack of inclusion of such a request in the survey shall not itself constitute the basis for an appeal of a regional housing needs allocation, and
       2. The council governments must consider that factor using other sources.
12. Clarifies that local governments may impose more stringent standards than those set out in the bill, and clarifies that a local government may issue a final subdivision map without making the findings in this bill if the tentative map or parcel map met the required standards when it was deemed complete.
13. Makes other technical and conforming changes.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard fire poses to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. SB 182 presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. SB 182 doesn’t say that locals can’t develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, SB 182 provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. SB 182 is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.
2. What’s the real problem? By their very nature, planning requirements and conditions on development are forward-looking. They apply only to new developments, not to existing structures. California has indeed seen significant increases in fire damages, but most of the losses have been of older homes in communities that were founded before today’s requirements for strong building codes—to prevent homes from catching fire in the first place—and subdivision design—to allow for safe firefighting and evacuations—were in place. Recent experience has shown that new homes built after 2008 are less likely to be destroyed than older homes. SB 182 focuses on new developments, when those developments are already safer. By doing so, it imposes new, unknown, and potentially costly requirements on homebuilding at a time when new homes are needed more than ever. Is the solution presented by SB 182 the right one, or would it simply exacerbate today’s housing crisis without meaningfully reducing fire losses?
3. March 13^th, 2019, oversight hearing. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee and the Natural Resources and Water Committee held an oversight hearing earlier this year, titled “Living Resiliently in the New Abnormal: The Future of Development in California’s Most Fire Prone Regions.” Among other topics, that hearing explored changes to land use approvals and permitting that may be needed to reduce the loss of life and property from wildfire. One conclusion from the hearing was that, while defensible space and building standards are incredibly important, community scale interventions, such as community layout and establishment of safe areas for the community to assemble during fires, can reduce the risk of wildfire losses. The hearing also discussed the need for more detailed information on the fire resilience of individual parcels and whether some parcels or areas should be identified as indefensible.

Related/Prior Legislation

In 2018, the Legislature took important actions to improve wildfire planning and safety, including:

• SB 1260 (Jackson, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2018) made various changes related to local fire planning, prescribed fire requirements, and broader fire prevention efforts, including to require that: (1) local safety elements reflect best practices contained in OPR’s technical guidance for fire hazard planning; (2) cities and counties meet with the Board on their draft safety elements at the request of the Board; and (3) cities and counties transmit any fire-related findings made under the Subdivision Map Act to the Board.
• AB 2911 (Friedman, Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018) made various changes to fire safety planning, including to: required local agencies to submit ordinances adopting VHFHSZ to the Board; directed OPR to update its technical guidance for fire and land use planning; and required the Board to identify at-risk subdivisions not less than every five years.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

• Estimated costs to CALFIRE, likely in the millions of dollars (GGRF)) annually, to fund grants to cities and counties that contain wildland-urban interface areas for programs and projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. This bill allocates an unspecified amount from CALFIRE’s $165 million GGRF allocation for this purpose. Depending on the amount shifted, CALFIRE could incur operational and fiscal impacts.
• CALFIRE estimates costs of $3.5 million (special fund) in the first year, and $3.1 million (special fund) annually thereafter, for 11 positions to review and update regulations per with the bill's requirements.
• The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates costs of $180,000 (GGRF) per year for one position to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system, consult with CALFIRE and update its annual report, website and outreach materials.
• The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates costs of $180,000 (GF) per year for one position to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements.
• The State Fire Marshal estimates costs of up to $2 million (GF) for staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs and administer a specified grant program.
• The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) estimates costs of up to $150,000 (GF) annually until 2023 to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas.
• The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates costs of $187,000 (GF) in the first year and $170,000 (GF) ongoing to work with the State Fire Marshal and OPR to develop wildfire risk reduction standards and provide information for the clearinghouse.
• The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Public Rights Division anticipates costs of $660,000 ($330,000 GF) in the first year and $1.15 million ($575,000 GF) ongoing for increased litigation workload. Enforcement actions on behalf of the Attorney General would impact the GF. Enforcement actions on behalf of other client agencies would be fully reimbursable through direct client billings.
• State-mandated local costs for local agencies to comply with the planning mandates in this bill are not reimbursable by the state because affected local agencies have the authority to charge fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates.

SUPPORT: (Verified 8/30/20)

American Planning Association, California Chapter

California State Association of Counties

County of Santa Barbara

Rural County Representatives of California

Southern California Edison

OPPOSITION: (Verified 8/30/20)

None received

Prepared by: Anton Favorini-Csorba / GOV. & F. / (916) 651-4119

8/31/20 18:02:00

**** END ****

SENATE THIRD READING

STR Bill Id:SB 182

Author:(Jackson)

As Amended Ver:August 25, 2020

Majority vote

SUMMARY:

Imposes additional fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments, requires counties and cities to make specified findings before taking certain development actions in very high fire risk areas (VHFRAs), requires related fire planning and review by multiple state agencies, and creates a grant program for small jurisdictions to implement this bill's requirements.

Major Provisions

1. Require, by January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal to adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet specified requirements, and standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space, as specified.
2. Require, by January 1, 2024, the State Fire Marshal to update maps of very high fire hazard severity zones (VHFHSZs) and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to public safety personnel who must access the development during a wildfire, as specified.
3. Require the Office of Planning and Research (OPR), by January 1, 2023, to identify local ordinances, policies and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFRAs, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, and publish those resources on its clearinghouse for climate adaptation information, as specified.
4. Require counties and cities, upon the next revision of the housing element or the hazard mitigation plan, after June 1, 2022, whichever occurs first, to review and update the safety element of their general plans as necessary to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy for existing structures, as specified.
5. Require, upon each revision of the housing element on or after June 1, 2022, each county or city that contains a VHFRA to amend the land use element of its general plan to include specified goals, objectives, information, policies, and implementation measures related to fire hazard planning, as specified. Counties and cities must adopt corresponding zoning changes, and are subject to specified restrictions on development actions in VHFRAs unless they make findings that the project and all structures in it are protected from wildfire risk, as specified.
6. Require counties and cities to make findings regarding their progress in implementing wildfire risk reduction standards and designating lands as VHFHSZs, and submit those findings to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) and local agencies that provide fire protection in the area, as specified. The Board must review these findings and recommend changes, as specified. The Board must notify the county or city, and may notify the Attorney General (AG), that the county or city is violating state law if the Board determines that the county's or city's findings do not substantially comply with the requirements of this bill, as specified.
7. Require regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plans to further the objective of promoting resilient communities, and specify that furthering this objective shall include reducing development pressure within VHFRAs. If a region has a scheduled revision during the sixth housing element revision cycle on or before June 1, 2022, this requirement shall apply only to the RHNA plan for the seventh and subsequent revisions of the housing element.
8. Require the factors used to develop the RHNA methodology to include the amount of land in each jurisdiction that includes a VHFRA, and whether suitable alternative sites exist outside the jurisdiction, but within the region, to accommodate the remaining regional housing need. Any determination to establish, or not establish, a lower allocation pursuant to these provisions must be supported by a data-driven analysis demonstrating that the reduced allocation is, or is not, appropriate, as specified. If a region has a scheduled revision of the housing element during the sixth housing element revision cycle on or before June 1, 2022, this requirement shall apply only to the development methodologies for the seventh and subsequent revisions of the housing element. Additional provisions are specified for a region for which the sixth revision of the housing element is due after June 1, 2022, and the council of governments for that region has published and distributed a proposed methodology pursuant to existing law prior to June 1, 2020.
9. Create a grant program administered by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to distribute grant funds to small jurisdictions to fund local planning activities necessary to meet the requirements of this bill, as specified. "Small jurisdiction" is defined as a county with a population of less than 250,000 as of January 1, 2019, or a city located in such a county.

COMMENTS:

CAL FIRE provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. The Board designates the State Responsibility Area (SRA) every five years. Within SRA lands, CAL FIRE designates VHFHSZs in which CAL FIRE has primary firefighting responsibility. After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CAL FIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA). These maps must be updated every five years.

Property owners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow State Fire Marshal and Board fire prevention standards. These standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures and meeting specific building standards that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. AB 2911 (Friedman), Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018, required the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

If a county or a city has territory in a VHFHSZ, its general plan safety element must include certain information regarding fire hazards, and must articulate goals to reduce fire risk. Before such a county or city approves its safety element, the county or city must submit it to the Board for review and comment. While a county or city is not required to implement the Board's comments, it must explain its rationale for not doing so.

Existing law requires counties and cities to approve subdivision maps before approving new housing developments in their jurisdictions. Before a county or city can approve a subdivision map in an SRA or a VHFHSZ, it must find the map conforms with Board fire safety regulations, and it must provide for fire protection through CAL FIRE or a local fire department.

This bill contains a number of primarily preventive requirements in the local government planning process to protect against future wildfire damage.

According to the Author:

"California's persistent threat of wildfire poses a significant risk to homes and businesses throughout the state. While much is being done to better manage our forests, more must be done to 'harden' existing homes to make them more resistant to wildfire, as well as to improve local land use decisions to minimize this threat, particularly to new communities built in wildland areas. A 2019 Senate informational hearing on development in fire risk areas recommended legislation to 'bolster local planning efforts to design more resilient communities; condition development approvals to ensure that structures and communities are adequately protected from fire; or encourage development out of harm's way.' This bill aims to do precisely that."

Arguments in Support:

The Rural County Representatives of California, in support, write, "SB 182 is a comprehensive measure that recognizes the continued need to build in the VHFRA, and therefore, the obligation of the state and local governments to ensure new communities are planned and built to best mitigate for uncontrollable fire. Specifically, SB 182 prohibits local governments from approving permits for housing developments unless the project is in compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards outlined in the bill. SB 182 also requires increased wildfire risk mitigation planning by local governments through updated local safety and land use elements of that jurisdiction's general plan…SB 182 is a bold, yet reasonable solution to allowing much needed housing production to continue in the most fire prone areas of the state in a manner that aids future developments withstand devastating wildfires."

Arguments in Opposition:

None on file.

FISCAL COMMENTS:

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

1. Estimated costs to CAL FIRE, likely in the low millions of dollars, to fund grants to small jurisdictions for local planning activities necessary to meet the requirements of the bill. This bill specifies funding the grants is contingent upon appropriation by the Legislature.
2. CAL FIRE estimates costs of $3.5 million (special fund) in the first year, and $3.1 million (special fund) annually thereafter, for 11 positions to review and update regulations per the bill's requirements.
3. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates costs of $180,000 (GGRF) per year for one position to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system, consult with CAL FIRE and update its annual report, website and outreach materials.
4. The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates costs of $180,000 (General Fund (GF)) per year for one position to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements.
5. The State Fire Marshal estimates costs of up to $2 million (GF) for staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs.
6. The Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) estimates costs of up to $150,000 (GF) annually until 2022 to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas.
7. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates costs of $187,000 (GF) in the first year and $170,000 (GF) ongoing to work with the State Fire Marshal and OPR to develop wildfire risk reduction standards and provide information for the clearinghouse.
8. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Public Rights Division anticipates costs of $660,000 ($330,000 GF) in the first year and $1.15 million ($575,000 GF) ongoing for increased litigation workload. Enforcement actions on behalf of the Attorney General would impact the GF. Enforcement actions on behalf of other client agencies would be fully reimbursable through direct client billings.
9. State-mandated local costs for local agencies to comply with the planning mandates in the bill are not reimbursable by the state because affected local agencies have the authority to charge fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates.

VOTES:

SENATE FLOOR: 27-9-2

YES: Allen, Archuleta, Atkins, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Dodd, Durazo, Galgiani, Glazer, Hill, Hueso, Hurtado, Jackson, Leyva, McGuire, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Skinner, Stern, Umberg, Wieckowski

NO: Bates, Borgeas, Grove, Jones, Moorlach, Morrell, Stone, Wiener, Wilk

ABS, ABST OR NV: Chang, Hertzberg

ASM HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: 7-0-1

YES: Chiu, Gabriel, Gloria, Kiley, Limón, Maienschein, Quirk-Silva

ABS, ABST OR NV: Diep

ASM LOCAL GOVERNMENT: 6-1-1

YES: Aguiar-Curry, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Ramos, Gonzalez, Robert Rivas

NO: Lackey

ABS, ABST OR NV: Voepel

ASM APPROPRIATIONS: 13-5-0

YES: Gonzalez, Bloom, Bonta, Calderon, Carrillo, Chau, Eggman, Gabriel, Eduardo Garcia, Maienschein, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Robert Rivas

NO: Bigelow, Brough, Diep, Fong, Obernolte

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 66-10-3

YES: Aguiar-Curry, Arambula, Bauer-Kahan, Berman, Bigelow, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Bonta, Burke, Calderon, Carrillo, Cervantes, Chau, Chen, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Daly, Eggman, Friedman, Gabriel, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Gloria, Gonzalez, Gray, Grayson, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kamlager-Dove, Kiley, Levine, Limón, Low, Maienschein, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Smith, Mark Stone, Ting, Voepel, Waldron, Weber, Wicks, Wood, Rendon

NO: Brough, Cunningham, Diep, Fong, Gallagher, Lackey, Mathis, Melendez, Obernolte, Patterson

ABS, ABST OR NV: Choi, Flora, Frazier

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 53-13-13

YES: Aguiar-Curry, Arambula, Berman, Boerner Horvath, Bonta, Burke, Carrillo, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Daly, Eggman, Frazier, Friedman, Gabriel, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Gloria, Gonzalez, Grayson, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kamlager-Dove, Levine, Low, Maienschein, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Mark Stone, Ting, Weber, Wicks, Wood, Rendon

NO: Bigelow, Chen, Diep, Flora, Fong, Gallagher, Kiley, Lackey, Mathis, Melendez, Obernolte, Patterson, Voepel

ABS, ABST OR NV: Bauer-Kahan, Bloom, Brough, Calderon, Cervantes, Choi, Cooper, Cunningham, Gray, Limón, Mayes, Smith, Waldron

UPDATED:

VERSION: August 25, 2020

CONSULTANT: Angela Mapp / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958 FN: 0003458

SENATE COMMITTEE ON HOUSING

Senator Scott Wiener, Chair

2019 - 2020 Regular

Bill No: SB 182 Hearing Date: 9/12/2019

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

DIGEST: This bill imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments; requires a city’s or county’s regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plan to further the objective of reducing development pressure within very high fire risk areas; and requires councils of government (COGs) to incorporate lower housing allocations to cities and counties in very high fire risk areas, into their RHNA methodology.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Requires every city and county to prepare and adopt a general plan, including at minimum a land use element, circulation element, housing element, conservation element, open space element, noise element, and safety element, to guide the future growth of a community.
2. Requires the housing element to identify and analyze existing and projected housing needs, identify adequate sites with appropriate zoning to meet the housing needs of all income segments of the community.
3. Provides that each community’s fair share of housing be determined through the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) process, which is composed of three main stages: (a) the Department of Finance and Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) develop regional housing needs estimates; (b) councils of government (COGs) allocate housing within each region based on these estimates (where a COG does not exist, HCD makes the determinations); and (c) cities and counties incorporate their allocations into their housing elements.
4. Requires the housing element to contain an assessment of housing needs and an inventory of resources and constraints relevant to meeting those needs. Requires a locality’s inventory of land suitable for residential development to be used to identify sites that can be developed for housing within the planning period and that are sufficient to provide for the locality’s share of the regional housing need for all income levels.
5. Requires, where the inventory of sites does not identify adequate sites to accommodate the need for groups of all household income levels, rezoning of those sites to be completed in a specified time period, as specified.
6. Prohibits a local jurisdiction from reducing or permitting the reduction of the residential density, or from allowing development at a lower residential density for any parcel, unless the jurisdiction makes specified written findings.
7. Requires each jurisdiction’s RHNA plan to further five statutory objectives, such as increasing the housing supply and the mix of housing types, tenure, and affordability; promoting infill development and socioeconomic equity, protection of environmental and agricultural resources, encouraging efficient development patterns, and achieving the state’s greenhouse gas reduction targets; promoting an improved intraregional relationship between jobs and housing; allocating a lower proportion of housing need to an income category when a jurisdiction already has a disproportionately high share of households in that income category; and affirmatively furthering fair housing.
8. Requires each jurisdiction to submit an annual progress report to HCD regarding its progress in meeting its RHNA allocation and authorizes HCD to notify the Attorney General if it at any time finds a jurisdiction out of compliance with its housing element.

This bill:

1. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
   1. Defines “very high fire risk areas” to be the very high fire hazard severity zone (VHFHSZ) in both the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and the Local Responsibility Area.
   2. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or local hazard mitigation plan on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy that includes specified contents.
   3. Requires a city or county with VHFHSZ within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after January 1, 2021. This amendment of the land use element must include the locations of all VHFHSZ within the city or county, the data and analysis described in the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning–General Plan Technical Advice Series,” and other specified goals, objectives, and implementation measures.
   4. Requires, after that initial amendment to the land use element, a city or county to review upon each revision of the housing element the implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards, as defined below, within the jurisdiction, and the designation of VHFHSZ.
   5. Provides for review and comment on draft findings by the Board and local fire agencies on whether the city or county has implemented the standards or made adequate progress, defined to mean the city or county is taking concrete steps reasonably calculated to achieve funding and implementation of the applicable standard by December 31, 2025.
   6. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its Web site a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFHSZ, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
2. Requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop wildlife-urban interface (WUI) overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan.
3. Prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFHSZ unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards” contained in this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards.
4. Defines three tiers of “wildfire risk reduction standards,” based on the size of the development, specifically:
   1. For a development of any size:
      1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and the Board;
      2. Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as defined;
      3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements; and
      4. Standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards.
   2. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. Reasonable site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, including defensible structure layout, structure clustering, and use of natural/engineered firebreaks;
      3. Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations;
      4. Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels;
      5. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements; and
      6. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire, with adequate ingress, egress, and capacity for evacuation and emergency response at the same time.
   3. For developments of 100 or more residential units, defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. All applicable aspects of OPR’s “Fire Hazard Planning” series or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect; and
      3. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal as provided in the bill.
5. Deems a development in compliance with the requirements for defensible space enforcement, response time, infrastructure sufficiency, and water supplies if the city or county has made adequate progress towards achieving those standards by December 31, 2025.
6. Requires, on or before January 1, 2022, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
   1. Adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
      1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments.
      2. Include standards for organization and development of fire suppression operations, fire protection infrastructure, water supplies for fire fighting, and reducing structure ignition hazards from wildland fire.
      3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire.
      4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures.
      5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire a risk model that uses current wildfire hazard severity information known for the very high fire risk areas. The model must be able to quantify the risk for a community or parcel in a very high fire risk area through the input of mitigating factors into the model and must use the best available science and objective scientific methodologies.
      6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
   2. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space.
7. Requires the State Fire Marshal, by January 1, 2023, to update the maps of the VHFHSZ and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
8. Requires the standards, regulations, and rules to be reasonable, and to be feasible and achievable for the majority of developments in that size category.
9. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the Office of Planning and Research, in collaboration with cities and counties, to identify local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in very high fire risk areas, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, and to publish and update these resources as specified.
10. Directs CALFIRE to distribute $3 million annually, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to provide assistance to small jurisdictions in updating planning documents and complying with other provisions of the bill, as specified.
11. Directs each regional housing needs allocation plan to include as a factor the amount of land in each member jurisdiction that is within a very high fire risk area by allocating a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a very high fire risk area as adequate sites to meet its housing need allocation, as specified.
12. Requires the regional housing needs allocation plan to further the objective of reducing development pressure within very high fire risk areas.
13. Clarifies that local governments may impose more stringent standards than those set out in the bill, and clarifies that a local government may issue a final subdivision map without making the findings in the bill if the tentative map or parcel map met the required standards when it was deemed complete.
14. Makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forestlands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.

COMMENTS

1. Purpose of the bill. The author states that the 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, causing the deaths of 86 people and destroying nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard that fires pose to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. This bill presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. The author further states that this does not say that locals cannot develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, this bill provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. This is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.
2. Living with wildfires and other hazards. More than three million Californians (about 7%) currently live in high-risk wildfire areas, and a 2018 study estimates a 77% increase in mean area burned by the end of the century, compared to 1961-1990. Thus, even if the state immediately stops building homes in existing wildfire areas, millions of Californians will remain at risk in existing and expanding wildfire areas. Furthermore, as California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment: Statewide Summary Report (OPR, Energy Commission, Natural Resources Agency, August 2018) points out, the state also faces risk from additional events such as sea-level rise. According to the report, “California must continue to evaluate climate impacts as well as to plan for adaptation and resilience.”
3. Where can we build? California is currently experiencing a serious housing crisis and it is essential to expedite construction of critically needed housing units. In order to make this happen, it is important for every jurisdiction to meet its full RHNA obligation and create an environment where housing is available to Californians of all income levels. Toward this end, the 2017 housing package, as well as additional bills last year, provided both increased funding and incentives to help increase compliance with housing element law. One of these measures, AB 1397 (Low, Chapter 375, Statutes of 2017) significantly strengthened the definition of what a local government may designate as an “adequate site” for housing, to address concerns about designation of sites that were not realistic or available for residential development. By the same token, however, AB 1397 made it more difficult for localities to identify adequate sites. While well intentioned, this bill, by additionally requiring local governments to make findings of adequate wildfire prevention and protection measures before approving construction in a WUI, potentially adds to the difficulty of identifying adequate sites for housing. The state faces a difficult policy question in that it must balance protection of its residents from wildfires, sea level rise, floods, earthquakes, and other risks, against meeting the need for more housing.
4. Allocation of RHNA shares. Existing law requires each city and county in the state to meet its fair share of the total housing need in its region. This bill requires a COG to allocate a lower proportion of housing to localities within its jurisdiction that would otherwise have to identify sites in very high fire hazard areas to meet their allocation, in order to “reduce development pressure” in these areas. This raises a concern that localities in very high fire hazard areas will be granted permission to escape their RHNA obligations, thereby shifting the burden to other localities within the region. To address this concern, this bill was amended in the Senate Housing Committee to reiterate that this bill does not waive or reduce a city’s or county’s obligation to meet its RHNA share.
5. Fulfilling RHNA obligations. Existing law (SB 166, Skinner, Chapter 367, Statutes of 2017) modified the No Net Loss Zoning Law to require local governments to maintain adequate housing sites at all times throughout the planning period for all levels of income. This is intended to help ensure that a locality continues to maintain a supply of available land to accommodate the remaining unmet housing need throughout the eight-year life of the housing element, rather than only identifying adequate sites at the beginning of the cycle. Under this bill, a local government may not approve a development of 11 units or more than is located in a WUI unless it makes a finding that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of a wildfire. This raises a concern that a city or county may use a WUI as an excuse to avoid approving housing permits. To clarify that failure to approve a permit in a WUI does not reduce a locality’s RHNA obligation, this bill was amended in the Senate Housing Committee to reiterate that this bill does not waive or reduce a city’s or county’s obligation to ensure that its housing element inventory
6. Bottom line. When this bill was heard by the Senate Housing Committee in April, it included a RHNA objective to reduce development pressure in WUIs by allocating a lower proportion of housing to cities and counties in WUIs. In response to committee concerns about providing a blanket RHNA exemption to these areas, given the state’s severe housing shortage, the author accepted placeholder language to allow time for further discussion. The bill was amended on the Senate Floor to add a RHNA objective of reducing development pressure in very high fire risk areas by allocating a lower RHNA share to areas if they would otherwise have to identify sites in very high fire risk areas in order to meet their allocation. The bill was further amended in the Assembly to reduce the RHNA objective to reducing development pressure in very high risk areas. It was also amended to require a city’s or county’s RHNA methodology to allocate a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if it would otherwise have to identify sites in a very high fire risk area in order to meet its allocation.

In sum, when this bill left the Senate, it required cities and counties to consider, in furthering a RHNA objective to reduce development pressure in wildfire areas, making lower RHNA allocations to these jurisdictions. It also required COGs to consider the amount of land in each member jurisdiction that is within a very high fire risk area, when developing its methodology.

The current version of this bill instead requires cities and counties to further the RHNA objective of reducing development pressure in wildfire areas and additionally requires COGs to incorporate into their RHNA methodology, lower RHNA allocations for cities and counties in very high fire risk areas.

By requiring each COG to develop a RHNA methodology that allocates less housing to very high risk fire areas, this bill will effectively shift development out of cities and counties that have wildfire areas, even if the wildfire area only constitutes a small portion of the jurisdiction – likely resulting in significant increases in density in cities and counties outside fire areas.

1. 29.10(d) referral. This bill was referred to the Housing Committee under Senate Rule 29.10. Under this rule, the Committee can hold the bill or return it to the Senate Floor for consideration.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Fiscal Com.: Local:

POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on Wednesday,

September 11, 2019.)

SUPPORT:

American Planning Association, California Chapter
Sierra Club

OPPOSITION:

None received.

-- END --

SENATE THIRD READING

STR Bill Id:SB 182

Author:(Jackson)

As Amended Ver:September 6, 2019

Majority vote

SUMMARY:

Imposes additional fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments, requires counties and cities to make specified findings before taking certain development actions in very high fire risk areas (VHFRAs), requires related fire planning and review by multiple state agencies, and creates a grant program for small jurisdictions to implement this bill's requirements.

Major Provisions

Require, by January 1, 2022, the State Fire Marshal to adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet specified requirements, and standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space, as specified.

Require, by January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal to update maps of very high fire hazard severity zones (VHFHSZs) and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to public safety personnel who must access the development during a wildfire, as specified.

Require the Office of Planning and Research (OPR), by January 1, 2023, to identify local ordinances, policies and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFRAs, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, and publish those resources on its clearinghouse for climate adaptation information, as specified.

Require counties and cities to amend the safety element of their general plans to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy for existing structures, and amend the land use element of their general plans to include specified goals, objectives, information, policies, and implementation measures related to fire hazard planning, as specified. Counties and cities and must adopt corresponding zoning changes, and are subject to specified restrictions on development actions in VHFRAs unless they make findings that the project and all structures in it are protected from wildfire risk, as specified.

Require counties and cities to make findings regarding their progress in implementing wildfire risk reduction standards and designating lands as VHFHSZs, and submit those findings to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) and local agencies that provide fire protection in the area, as specified. The Board must review these findings and recommend changes, as specified. The Board must notify the county or city, and may notify the Attorney General (AG), that the county or city is violating state law if the Board determines that the county's or city's findings do not substantially comply with the requirements of this bill, as specified.

Require regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plans to further the objective of reducing development pressure within VHFRAs, and requires the factors used to develop the RHNA methodology to include the amount of land in each jurisdiction that is within a VHFRA. This must be done by allocating a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if it is likely that the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a VHFRA as adequate sites in order to meet its RHNA, as specified.

Create a grant program administered by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to distribute $3 million to small jurisdictions to fund local planning activities necessary to meet the requirements of this bill, as specified. "Small jurisdiction" is defined as a county with a population of less than 250,000 as of January 1, 2019, or a city located in such a county.

COMMENTS:

CAL FIRE provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. The Board designates the State Responsibility Area (SRA) every five years. Within SRA lands, CALFIRE designates VHFHSZs in which CAL FIRE has primary firefighting responsibility. After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CAL FIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA). These maps must be updated every five years (current maps date to 2007).

Property owners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow State Fire Marshal and Board fire prevention standards. These standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures and meeting specific building standards that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. AB 2911 (Friedman), Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018, required the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

If a county or a city has territory in a VHFHSZ, its general plan safety element must include certain information regarding fire hazards, and must articulate goals to reduce fire risk. Before such a county or city approves its safety element, the county or city must submit it to the Board for review and comment. While a county or city is not required to implement the Board's comments, it must explain its rationale for not doing so.

Existing law requires counties and cities to approve subdivision maps before approving new housing developments in their jurisdictions. Before a county or city can approve a subdivision map in an SRA or a VHFHSZ, it must find the map conforms with Board fire safety regulations, and it must provide for fire protection through CAL FIRE or a local fire department.

The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history. Even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California's most destructive and deadliest wildfire, causing the deaths of 86 people and destroying nearly 19,000 structures. The Legislature has responded to this spike in the severity and destructiveness of wildfires in California with a number of bills this year designed to better plan for, and respond to, this continued threat. This bill contains a number of primarily preventive requirements in the local government planning process to protect against future wildfire damage.

According to the Author:

"California's persistent threat of wildfire poses a significant risk to homes and businesses throughout the state. While much is being done to better manage our forests, more must be done to 'harden' existing homes to make them more resistant to wildfire, as well as to improve local land use decisions to minimize this threat, particularly to new communities built in wildland areas. At a March 13th hearing focused on development in fire prone regions, the Senate Committees on Governance and Finance, and Natural Resources and Water, recommended legislation to 'bolster local planning efforts to design more resilient communities; condition development approvals to ensure that structures and communities are adequately protected from fire; or encourage development out of harm's way.' This bill aims to do precisely that."

Arguments in Support:

The Rural County Representatives of California, in support, write, "SB 182 is a comprehensive measure that recognizes the continued need to build in the VHFRA, and therefore, the obligation of the state and local governments to ensure new communities are planned and built to best mitigate for uncontrollable fire. Specifically, SB 182 prohibits local governments from approving permits for housing developments unless the project is in compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards outlined in the bill. This bill also requires increased wildfire risk mitigation planning by local governments through updated local safety and land use elements of that jurisdiction's general plan…SB 182 is a bold, yet reasonable solution to allowing much needed housing production to continue in the most fire prone areas of the state in a manner that aids future developments withstand devastating wildfires."

Arguments in Opposition:

The Humboldt and Mendocino Redwood Companies, in opposition, writes, "Our opposition lies entirely in the provisions that apply to conservation easements. Last year much effort was spent in passing a landmark bill to address wildfire issues, SB 901 (Dodd). This bill contains specific provisions to ensure conservation easements conduct forest treatments to improve forest health through promotion of more natural tree densities and to increase the land’s ability to provide resilient, long term carbon sequestration and net carbon stores as well as watershed functions. Less than a year after the Governor signed this bill, SB 182 would remove this language and replace it with ambiguous terms that are difficult to ascertain if any treatments to the forest will occur. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on conservation easements that should be put to work at least partially to increase the pace and scale of forest treatments. The state has an ambitious goal of treating 500,000 acres per year that will be difficult to achieve without the assistance of organizations and forestland owners who have been awarded state funds. Many co‐benefits, such as greater fire resiliency, greater water quantity and quality, and reduced air quality impacts, could be achieved by retaining the language in SB 901. Additional time is needed to understand the nuances of this bill and we are open to working further with the author to achieve the goals of this bill."

FISCAL COMMENTS:

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

1. Estimated costs to CAL FIRE of $3 million to fund grants to small jurisdictions for local planning activities necessary to meet the requirements of the bill. This bill specifies funding the grants is contingent upon appropriation by the Legislature.
2. CAL FIRE estimates costs of $3.5 million (special fund) in the first year, and $3.1 million (special fund) annually thereafter, for 11 positions to review and update regulations per the bill's requirements.
3. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates costs of $180,000 (GGRF) per year for one position to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system, consult with CAL FIRE and update its annual report, website and outreach materials.
4. The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates costs of $180,000 (General Fund (GF)) per year for one position to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements.
5. The State Fire Marshal estimates costs of up to $2 million (GF) for staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs.
6. The Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) estimates costs of up to $150,000 (GF) annually until 2022 to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas.
7. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates costs of $187,000 (GF) in the first year and $170,000 (GF) ongoing to work with the State Fire Marshal and OPR to develop wildfire risk reduction standards and provide information for the clearinghouse.
8. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Public Rights Division anticipates costs of $660,000 ($330,000 GF) in the first year and $1.15 million ($575,000 GF) ongoing for increased litigation workload. Enforcement actions on behalf of the Attorney General would impact the GF. Enforcement actions on behalf of other client agencies would be fully reimbursable through direct client billings.
9. State-mandated local costs for local agencies to comply with the planning mandates in the bill are not reimbursable by the state because affected local agencies have the authority to charge fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates.

VOTES:

SENATE FLOOR: 27-9-2

YES: Allen, Archuleta, Atkins, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Dodd, Durazo, Galgiani, Glazer, Hill, Hueso, Hurtado, Jackson, Leyva, McGuire, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Skinner, Stern, Umberg, Wieckowski

NO: Bates, Borgeas, Grove, Jones, Moorlach, Morrell, Stone, Wiener, Wilk

ABS, ABST OR NV: Chang, Hertzberg

ASM HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: 7-0-1

YES: Chiu, Gabriel, Gloria, Kiley, Limón, Maienschein, Quirk-Silva

ABS, ABST OR NV: Diep

ASM LOCAL GOVERNMENT: 6-1-1

YES: Aguiar-Curry, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Ramos, Gonzalez, Robert Rivas

NO: Lackey

ABS, ABST OR NV: Voepel

ASM APPROPRIATIONS: 13-5-0

YES: Gonzalez, Bloom, Bonta, Calderon, Carrillo, Chau, Eggman, Gabriel, Eduardo Garcia, Maienschein, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Robert Rivas

NO: Bigelow, Brough, Diep, Fong, Obernolte

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 53-13-13

YES: Aguiar-Curry, Arambula, Berman, Boerner Horvath, Bonta, Burke, Carrillo, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Daly, Eggman, Frazier, Friedman, Gabriel, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Gloria, Gonzalez, Grayson, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kamlager-Dove, Levine, Low, Maienschein, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Petrie‑Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Mark Stone, Ting, Weber, Wicks, Wood, Rendon

NO: Bigelow, Chen, Diep, Flora, Fong, Gallagher, Kiley, Lackey, Mathis, Melendez, Obernolte, Patterson, Voepel

ABS, ABST OR NV: Bauer-Kahan, Bloom, Brough, Calderon, Cervantes, Choi, Cooper, Cunningham, Gray, Limón, Mayes, Smith, Waldron

UPDATED:

VERSION: September 6, 2019

CONSULTANT: Angela Mapp / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958 FN: 0002169

SENATE THIRD READING

STR Bill Id:SB 182

Author:(Jackson)

As Amended Ver:September 3, 2019

Majority vote

SUMMARY:

Imposes additional fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments, requires counties and cities to make specified findings before taking certain development actions in very high fire risk areas (VHFRAs), requires related fire planning and review by multiple state agencies, and creates a grant program for small jurisdictions to implement this bill's requirements.

Major Provisions

Requires, by January 1, 2022, the State Fire Marshal to adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet specified requirements, and standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space, as specified.

Requires, by January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal to update maps of very high fire hazard severity zones (VHFHSZs) and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to public safety personnel who must access the development during a wildfire, as specified.

Requires the Office of Planning and Research (OPR), by January 1, 2023, to identify local ordinances, policies and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFRAs, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, and publish those resources on its clearinghouse for climate adaptation information, as specified.

Requires counties and cities to amend the safety element of their general plans to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy for existing structures, and amend the land use element of their general plans to include specified goals, objectives, information, policies, and implementation measures related to fire hazard planning, as specified. Counties and cities and must adopt corresponding zoning changes, and are subject to specified restrictions on development actions in VHFRAs unless they make findings that the project and all structures in it are protected from wildfire risk, as specified.

Requires counties and cities to make findings regarding their progress in implementing wildfire risk reduction standards and designating lands as VHFHSZs, and submit those findings to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) and local agencies that provide fire protection in the area, as specified. The Board must review these findings and recommend changes, as specified. The Board must notify the county or city, and may notify the Attorney General (AG), that the county or city is violating state law if the Board determines that the county's or city's findings do not substantially comply with the requirements of this bill, as specified.

Requires regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) plans to further the objective of reducing development pressure within VHFRAs, and requires the factors used to develop the RHNA methodology to include the amount of land in each jurisdiction that is within a VHFRA. This must be done by allocating a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if it is likely that the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a VHFRA as adequate sites in order to meet its RHNA, as specified.

Creates a grant program administered by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to distribute $3 million to small jurisdictions to fund local planning activities necessary to meet the requirements of this bill, as specified. "Small jurisdiction" is defined as a county with a population of less than 250,000 as of January 1, 2019, or a city located in such a county.

COMMENTS:

CAL FIRE provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. The Board designates the State Responsibility Area (SRA) every five years. Within SRA lands, CALFIRE designates VHFHSZs in which CAL FIRE has primary firefighting responsibility. After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CAL FIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA). These maps must be updated every five years (current maps date to 2007).

Property owners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow State Fire Marshal and Board fire prevention standards. These standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures and meeting specific building standards that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. AB 2911 (Friedman), Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018, required the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

If a county or a city has territory in a VHFHSZ, its general plan safety element must include certain information regarding fire hazards, and must articulate goals to reduce fire risk. Before such a county or city approves its safety element, the county or city must submit it to the Board for review and comment. While a county or city is not required to implement the Board's comments, it must explain its rationale for not doing so.

Existing law requires counties and cities to approve subdivision maps before approving new housing developments in their jurisdictions. Before a county or city can approve a subdivision map in an SRA or a VHFHSZ, it must find the map conforms with Board fire safety regulations, and it must provide for fire protection through CAL FIRE or a local fire department.

The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history. Even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California's most destructive and deadliest wildfire, causing the deaths of 86 people and destroying nearly 19,000 structures. The Legislature has responded to this spike in the severity and destructiveness of wildfires in California with a number of bills this year designed to better plan for, and respond to, this continued threat. This bill contains a number of primarily preventive requirements in the local government planning process to protect against future wildfire damage.

According to the Author:

"California's persistent threat of wildfire poses a significant risk to homes and businesses throughout the state. While much is being done to better manage our forests, more must be done to 'harden' existing homes to make them more resistant to wildfire, as well as to improve local land use decisions to minimize this threat, particularly to new communities built in wildland areas. At a March 13^th hearing focused on development in fire prone regions, the Senate Committees on Governance and Finance, and Natural Resources and Water, recommended legislation to 'bolster local planning efforts to design more resilient communities; condition development approvals to ensure that structures and communities are adequately protected from fire; or encourage development out of harm's way.' This bill aims to do precisely that."

Arguments in Support:

The Rural County Representatives of California, in support, write, "SB 182 is a comprehensive measure that recognizes the continued need to build in the VHFRA, and therefore, the obligation of the state and local governments to ensure new communities are planned and built to best mitigate for uncontrollable fire. Specifically, SB 182 prohibits local governments from approving permits for housing developments unless the project is in compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards outlined in the bill. This bill also requires increased wildfire risk mitigation planning by local governments through updated local safety and land use elements of that jurisdiction's general plan…SB 182 is a bold, yet reasonable solution to allowing much needed housing production to continue in the most fire prone areas of the state in a manner that aids future developments withstand devastating wildfires."

Arguments in Opposition:

None on file.

FISCAL COMMENTS:

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

1. Estimated costs to CAL FIRE of $3 million to fund grants to small jurisdictions for local planning activities necessary to meet the requirements of the bill. This bill specifies funding the grants is contingent upon appropriation by the Legislature.
2. CAL FIRE estimates costs of $3.5 million (special fund) in the first year, and $3.1 million (special fund) annually thereafter, for 11 positions to review and update regulations per the bill's requirements.
3. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates costs of $180,000 (Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund) per year for one position to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system, consult with CAL FIRE and update its annual report, website and outreach materials.
4. The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates costs of $180,000 (General Fund (GF)) per year for one position to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements.
5. The State Fire Marshal estimates costs of up to $2 million (GF) for staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs.
6. The Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) estimates costs of up to $150,000 (GF) annually until 2022 to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas.
7. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates costs of $187,000 (GF) in the first year and $170,000 (GF) ongoing to work with the State Fire Marshal and OPR to develop wildfire risk reduction standards and provide information for the clearinghouse.
8. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Public Rights Division anticipates costs of $660,000 ($330,000 GF) in the first year and $1.15 million ($575,000 GF) ongoing for increased litigation workload. Enforcement actions on behalf of the Attorney General would impact the GF. Enforcement actions on behalf of other client agencies would be fully reimbursable through direct client billings.
9. State-mandated local costs for local agencies to comply with the planning mandates in the bill are not reimbursable by the state because affected local agencies have the authority to charge fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates.

VOTES:

SENATE FLOOR: 27-9-2

YES: Allen, Archuleta, Atkins, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Dodd, Durazo, Galgiani, Glazer, Hill, Hueso, Hurtado, Jackson, Leyva, McGuire, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Skinner, Stern, Umberg, Wieckowski

NO: Bates, Borgeas, Grove, Jones, Moorlach, Morrell, Stone, Wiener, Wilk

ABS, ABST OR NV: Chang, Hertzberg

ASM HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: 7-0-1

YES: Chiu, Gabriel, Gloria, Kiley, Limón, Maienschein, Quirk-Silva

ABS, ABST OR NV: Diep

ASM LOCAL GOVERNMENT: 6-1-1

YES: Aguiar-Curry, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Ramos, Gonzalez, Robert Rivas

NO: Lackey

ABS, ABST OR NV: Voepel

ASM APPROPRIATIONS: 13-5-0

YES: Gonzalez, Bloom, Bonta, Calderon, Carrillo, Chau, Eggman, Gabriel, Eduardo Garcia, Maienschein, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Robert Rivas

NO: Bigelow, Brough, Diep, Fong, Obernolte

UPDATED:

VERSION: September 3, 2019

CONSULTANT: Angela Mapp / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958 FN: 0001869

Date of Hearing: August 21, 2019

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Lorena Gonzalez, Chair

SBPCA Bill Id:SB 182

Author:(Jackson) – As Amended Ver:July 3, 2019

Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: No

SUMMARY:

This bill imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires counties and cities to make specified findings on fire standards before permitting development in very high fire risk areas (VHFRAs). Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires cities and counties to amend the safety elements of their general plans to address specified wildfire-related issues.
2. Requires, by January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to review and adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet specified requirements, adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space, update maps of the very high fire hazard severity zones (VHFHSZs) and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire and other public safety personnel during a wildfire.
3. Requires OPR, by January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its website a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFRA, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness.
4. Requires Regional Housing Needs Allocations (RHNA) to consider wildfire threats when allocating housing responsibility among cities and counties.
5. Allocates to cities and counties, for wildfire mitigation purposes, an unspecified share of the $165 million annual appropriation made from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).

FISCAL EFFECT:

1. Estimated costs to CAL FIRE, likely in the millions of dollars (GGRF)) annually, to fund grants to cities and counties that contain wildland-urban interface areas for programs and projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. This bill allocates an unspecified amount from CAL FIRE’s $165 million GGRF allocation for this purpose. Depending on the amount shifted, CAL FIRE could incur operational and fiscal impacts.
2. CAL FIRE estimates costs of $3.5 million (special fund) in the first year, and $3.1 million (special fund) annually thereafter, for 11 positions to review and update regulations per with the bill's requirements.
3. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates costs of $180,000 (GGRF) per year for one position to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system, consult with CAL FIRE and update its annual report, website and outreach materials.
4. The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates costs of $180,000 (GF) per year for one position to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements.
5. The State Fire Marshal estimates costs of up to $2 million (GF) for staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs and administer a specified grant program.
6. The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) estimates costs of up to $150,000 (GF) annually until 2023 to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas.
   
7. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates costs of $187,000 (GF) in the first year and $170,000 (GF) ongoing to work with the State Fire Marshal and OPR to develop wildfire risk reduction standards and provide information for the clearinghouse.
   
8. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Public Rights Division anticipates costs of $660,000 ($330,000 GF) in the first year and $1.15 million ($575,000 GF) ongoing for increased litigation workload. Enforcement actions on behalf of the Attorney General would impact the GF. Enforcement actions on behalf of other client agencies would be fully reimbursable through direct client billings.
9. State-mandated local costs for local agencies to comply with the planning mandates in the bill are not reimbursable by the state because affected local agencies have the authority to charge fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates.
   

COMMENTS:

1. Purpose. This bill limits the ability of cities and counties to authorize development in VHFRAs. According to the author:

California’s persistent threat of wildfire poses a significant risk to homes and businesses throughout the state. While much is being done to better manage our forests, more must be done to ‘harden’ existing homes to make them more resistant to wildfire, as well as to improve local land use decisions to minimize this threat, particularly to new communities built in wildland areas.

1. Background. CAL FIRE provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. The State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) designates the State Responsibility Area (SRA) every five years. Within SRA lands, CALFIRE designates VHFHSZs in which CAL FIRE has primary firefighting responsibility. After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CAL FIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA). These maps must be updated every five years (current maps date to 2007).

Property owners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow State Fire Marshal and Board fire prevention standards. These standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures and meeting specific building standards developed by CAL FIRE and HCD that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. AB 2911 (Friedman), Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018, requires the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

If a city or county has territory in a VHFHSZ, its general plan safety element must include certain information regarding fire hazards, and must articulate goals to reduce fire risk. Before such a city or county approves its safety elements, the city and county must submit the elements to the Board for review and comment. While a city or county is not required to implement the Board's comments, it must explain its rationale for not doing so.

Existing law requires cities and counties to approve subdivision maps before approving new housing developments in their jurisdictions. Before a city or county can approve a subdivision map in an SRA or a VHFHSZ, it must find the map conforms with Board fire safety regulations, and it must provide for fire protection through CAL FIRE or a local fire department.

The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures.

1. Arguments in Support. The Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) writes:

Recent wildfires in California have been increasingly catastrophic, with the most destructive and deadly wildfires outpacing the previous year’s statistics… The wildfire risk reduction standards in [this bill] are expansive, however, RCRC believes you have balanced the additional planning burdens on local governments with a sensible implementation timeline.

1. Arguments in Opposition. The California Building Industry Association (CBIA) writes:

The remaining issues of concern to CBIA relate to the proposed reference, in statute, of numerous national wildland fire safety standards which would create conflict with existing, similar regulations already in effect throughout California. For a 3-year period (2020-2023), this would set the stage for unintended confusion in the field. As an alternative, CBIA is suggesting amendments which require the State Fire Marshal and the Board of Forestry to adopt updates to these existing regulations on a very regular basis for the next twelve years.

1. Related Legislation and Chaptering Issues. This bill amends code sections that are also amended by AB 65 (Petrie-Norris), AB 139 (Quirk-Silva), AB 747 (Levine), AB 1486 (Ting), AB 1730 (Gonzalez), SB 99 (Nielsen), SB 295 (McGuire), and SB 672 (Hill). The authors of these measures will need to address chaptering issues should the bills continue to progress through the legislative process.

Analysis Prepared by: Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081

Date of Hearing: July 10, 2019

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, Chair

SBPCA Bill Id:SB 182

Author:(Jackson) – As Amended Ver:July 3, 2019

SENATE VOTE: 27-9

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires.

SUMMARY: Imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires counties and cities to make specified findings on fire standards before permitting development in very high fire risk areas (VHFRA’s). Specifically, this bill:

1. Defines VHFRA’s to be lands located within a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZ) in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) or the Local Responsibility Area.
2. Defines “wildfire risk reduction standard” to mean the following:
3. For a development of any size:
   • 1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, the Building Standards Commission, and the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board);
     2. A wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as described in certain published standards;
     3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance with i), above, and with local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements; and,
     4. Certain published standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards;
4. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units:
   • 1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
     2. A site-specific fire protection plan designed to protect against fire encroachment, including a layout that reduces wildfire risk to the greatest extent possible, identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations, and mechanisms to maintain common areas and open spaces to control vegetative fuels, as specified;
     3. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements;
     4. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire; and,
5. For developments of 100 or more residential units:
   • 1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
     2. All applicable recommendations of the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) “Fire Hazard Planning – General Plan Technical Advice Series” or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect; and,
     3. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal as provided in the bill, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect.
6. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
   1. Review the wildfire risk reduction standards created by this bill and adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
      1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments;
      2. Include successor provisions to the standards identified in this bill that meet or exceed those standards;
      3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire;
      4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures, as specified;
      5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire based upon the best available science and objective scientific methodologies; and,
      6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns;
   2. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space; and,
   3. Update the maps of the VHFHSZ, including identifying areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
7. Requires the wildfire risk reduction standards and associated rules and regulations required by this bill to be reasonable, and to be feasible and achievable for the majority of developments, as specified.
8. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its Web site a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFRAs, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, including any comprehensive retrofit strategies submitted to OPR pursuant to this bill. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
9. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
   1. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or a local hazard mitigation plan (LHMP) on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy to reduce the risk of property loss and damage during wildfires that includes:
      1. A list of the types of retrofits needed in an area based on fire risk;
      2. A process for identifying and inventorying structures in need of retrofit for fire hardening. The strategy shall prioritize the identification and inventorying of residential structures in VHFRAs;
      3. Goals and milestones for completing needed retrofit work; and,
      4. Potential funding sources and financing strategies to pay for needed retrofits on public and private property;
   2. Requires the planning agency to submit the adopted comprehensive retrofit strategy to OPR for inclusion in the clearinghouse established by this bill;
   3. Requires a city or county with VHFRA within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after January 1, 2021. This amendment of the land use element must include:
      1. The goals contained in the most recent Strategic Fire Plan for California prepared by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE);
      2. The locations of all VHFRAs within the city or county;
      3. The data and analysis described in OPR’s most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning – General Plan Technical Advice Series”;
      4. The goals of any LHMP, community wildfire protection plan, and climate adaptation plan that has been adopted by the governing body of the city or county;
      5. Objectives and policies, based on the goals, data, and analysis identified above, for the protection of lives and property from unreasonable risk of wildfire, as specified; and,
      6. Feasible implementation measures designed to carry out the goals, objectives, and policies established above;
   4. Requires, upon each subsequent revision of the housing element, but not less than once every eight years, each city or county to review all of the following:
      1. The implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards established by this bill within the jurisdiction, including making written findings, based upon substantial evidence, regarding whether the city or county has implemented the wildfire risk reduction standards during the preceding planning period, or made adequate progress toward implementing the wildfire risk reduction standards established by this bill; and,
      2. The designation of lands within the jurisdiction as VHFRA pursuant to this bill, including making written findings, based upon substantial evidence, supporting the determinations made in accordance with this bill;
   5. Requires the draft findings required by c), above, to be submitted to the Board and to every local agency that provides fire protection to territory in the city or county at least 90 days prior to adoption by the governing body. The Board shall, and a local agency may, review the draft findings and recommend changes to the city or county within 60 days of its receipt regarding both of the following:
      1. Whether the city or county has implemented the wildfire risk reduction standards during the preceding planning period, or made adequate progress toward implementing the wildfire risk reduction standards as provided by this bill; and,
      2. Whether the designation of lands within the jurisdiction as VHFRA is appropriate;
   6. Requires, before adopting draft findings required by c), above, the governing body of a city or county to consider recommendations made by the Board and any local agency that provides fire protection to territory in the city or county. If the governing body determines not to accept all or some of the recommendations, it must communicate to the Board or the local agency its reasons for not accepting the recommendations. If the governing body proposes not to adopt the Board’s recommendations, the Board may request a consultation with the governing body to discuss the Board’s recommendations and the governing body’s response. If the Board requests a consultation, the governing body shall not approve the draft element or draft amendment until after consulting with the Board;
   7. Requires the Board to notify the city or county, and allows the Board to notify the Office of the Attorney General, that the city or county is in violation of state law if the Board finds that the written findings required by c), above, do not substantially comply with this bill’s requirements or that the city or county has otherwise failed to comply with this bill’s requirements to amend land use elements and zoning ordinances; and,
   8. Allows any interested person to bring a civil action to compel compliance with the requirements of c) through f), above.
10. Changes the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) process undertaken by Councils of Government (COGs) or the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) (where no COG exists) by adding to the list of objectives that the RHNA plan must further. This bill requires these objectives to also include reducing development pressure within VHFRAs by allocating a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if it is likely that the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a VHFRA as adequate sites pursuant to existing law in order to meet its RHNA. In determining whether it is likely the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within a VHFRA as adequate sites, HCD or the appropriate COG shall consider factors that include, but are not limited to, the following:
    1. The percentage of land suitable for urban development, as specified, within the jurisdiction that is located within a VHFRA;
    2. The percentage of the jurisdiction’s housing capacity located on sites identified pursuant to existing law governing the identification of housing sites, as specified, in the prior housing element for the jurisdiction that is within a VHFRA;
    3. Whether it is likely that compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards and the regulations of the State Fire Marshal established by this bill would effectively reduce densities on lands within the jurisdiction that are otherwise suitable for development; and,
    4. Whether suitable alternative sites exist outside the jurisdiction, but within the region, to accommodate the remaining regional housing need.
11. Requires each city, including a charter city, or county that contains a VHFRA, within 12 months after revising the land use element of its general plan as required by this bill, to develop a VHFRA overlay zone or otherwise amend its zoning ordinance so that it is consistent with the amended general plan.
12. Prohibits a city or county with a VHFRA from entering into a development agreement or approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps in VHFRAs unless the city or county finds, based on substantial evidence in the record, that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with the wildfire risk reduction standards established by this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards, as specified. Allows, through December 31, 2025, for a development to be in compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards if the city or county finds that the responsible state and local agencies have made adequate progress towards achieving those standards.
13. Allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to CAL FIRE by SB 901 (Dodd), Chapter 626, Statutes of 2018, to cities and counties that include designated VHFRAs for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, as specified.
14. Clarifies that local governments may impose more stringent standards than those set out in the bill, and clarifies that a local government may issue a final subdivision map without making the findings in the bill if the tentative map or parcel map met the required standards when it was deemed complete.
15. Makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forestlands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Requires every county and city to adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements, including a safety element.
2. Provides that the safety element’s purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires.
3. Requires the Director of CAL FIRE to designate areas of moderate, high, and VHFHSZs.
4. Requires landowners in the SRA and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the Board.

FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown. This bill is keyed fiscal and contains a state-mandated local program.

COMMENTS:

1. Fire Hazard Severity Zones. CAL FIRE provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. To meet this duty, the Board designates the SRA every five years. Within SRA lands, the Director of CAL FIRE designates moderate, high, and VHFHSZs. After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CAL FIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area. These maps must be updated every five years (current maps date to 2007).

Landowners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the Board. These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CAL FIRE and HCD that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. AB 2911 (Friedman), Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018, required the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards to provide for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

1. Planning and Permitting. Every county and city must adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, and safety. Most major land use decisions – subdivisions, zoning, public works projects, use permits, and so forth – must be consistent with the general plan. Development decisions must carry out and not obstruct a general plan’s policies.

The Subdivision Map Act regulates how local officials approve the conversion of larger parcels into marketable lots. Major subdivisions – more than four lots – require a discretionary tentative map and a ministerial final map. Minor subdivisions – four or fewer lots, called “lot splits” – usually require a single, discretionary parcel map. In some communities, minor subdivisions require a tentative parcel map and a final parcel map, similar to major subdivisions.

1. Fire-Specific Planning Requirements. The Planning and Zoning Law provides that the safety element’s purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires. In 2012, the Legislature expanded the safety elements’ contents for fire risks on land classified as SRAs and VHFHSZs. SB 1241 (Kehoe), Chapter 311, Statutes of 2012, required safety elements to contain specified information about fire hazards and, based on that information, a set of comprehensive goals, policies, and objectives to protect against unreasonable fire risks. SB 1241 also required safety elements to contain a set of feasible implementation measures to carry out these goals.

Cities and counties must also submit a draft of any safety element amendments to the Board and to local fire protection agencies at least 90 days before adopting it. The Board must review and recommend changes to the draft safety element within 60 days of receiving it. If the Board provides recommendations within this timeframe, local governments must consider its recommendations. If they do not adopt the Board’s recommendations, local governments have to explain why they did not to the Board. Local agencies must meet with the Board on its recommendations if the Board requests, but are not required to adopt the Board’s recommendations. The safety element must also include similar information about risks due to climate change, and goals, policies, objectives, and implementation measures to protect against those risks.

Many local governments have also adopted a LHMP to identify all of the natural hazards that threaten a community, and strategies to mitigate those hazards. The Federal Emergency Management Agency reviews and approves every LHMP, and the LHMP expires five years after it’s approved, unless amended and recertified. Local governments with a compliant LHMP are eligible for proactive hazard mitigation grants from the federal government, as well as additional post-disaster assistance.

Before a city council or county board of supervisors can approve a tentative map or final map in the SRA or VHFHSZ, it must make findings supported by substantial evidence that: the subdivision is consistent with the Board’s applicable regulations or local ordinances certified by the Board as meeting or exceeding the state regulations; and a local agency or CAL FIRE, under contract, will provide structural fire protection and suppression services to the subdivision. Upon making these findings, the city or county must send them, along with the subdivision maps, to the Board.

To assist local governments with fire hazard planning, OPR issues a technical advisory series that includes best practices in land use and permitting for fire hazard planning.

1. Author’s Statement. According to the author, “California’s persistent threat of wildfire poses a significant risk to homes and businesses throughout the state. While much is being done to better manage our forests, more must be done to ‘harden’ existing homes to make them more resistant to wildfire, as well as to improve local land use decisions to minimize this threat, particularly to new communities built in wildland areas. At a March 13^th hearing focused on development in fire prone regions, the Senate Committees on Governance and Finance, and Natural Resources and Water, recommended legislation to ‘bolster local planning efforts to design more resilient communities; condition development approvals to ensure that structures and communities are adequately protected from fire; or encourage development out of harm’s way.’ This bill aims to do precisely that.”
2. Bill Summary. This bill creates new wildfire risk reduction standards for new housing that must be implemented by local jurisdictions. This includes requiring the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to develop comprehensive wildfire risk reduction standards and to update VHFHSZ maps. It also adds a number of planning requirements for local governments, including:
   1. Developing a comprehensive retrofit strategy to protect existing housing from fires, including funding sources;
   2. Updating each jurisdiction’s land use element in their General Plans to identify all VHFRAs, as well as specify all goals, objectives, and policies for the protection of lives and property from unreasonable risk of wildfire;
   3. Prohibiting cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFRAs unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards.” These standards include requiring, for sites of nine units or more, site-specific fire protection plans and funding mechanisms to ensure that defensible space maintenance occurs in a timely fashion. Larger housing developments (100 units or more) must go further and implement the additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal; and,
   4. Updating subsequent land use elements to make findings related to each jurisdiction’s implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards and its designation of VHFRAs. This process enables the Board to determine if a city or county is out of compliance, and notify the Attorney General if this is the case.

This bill allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to CAL FIRE by SB 901 (Dodd), Chapter 626, Statutes of 2018, to cities and counties that include designated VHFRAs for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. This bill also changes the RHNA process for cities and counties regarding wildfire risk, by requiring COGs or HCD to consider additional objectives when determining a region’s RHNA.

This bill is sponsored by the author.

1. Related Legislation and Chaptering Issues. This bill amends code sections that are also amended by AB 65 (Petrie-Norris), AB 139 (Quirk-Silva), AB 747 (Levine), AB 1486 (Ting), AB 1730 (Gonzalez), SB 99 (Nielsen), SB 295 (McGuire), and SB 672 (Hill). The authors of these measures will need to address chaptering issues should the bills continue to progress through the legislative process.
2. Double-Referral. This bill was heard in the Housing and Community Development Committee, where it passed on a 7-0 vote on July 3, 2019.
3. Arguments in Support. The Rural County Representatives of California, in support, write, “Recent wildfires in California have been increasingly catastrophic, with the most destructive and deadly wildfires outpacing the previous year’s statistics. Last year, the Mendocino Complex fire burned 460,000 acres and destroyed 1,600 structures, followed by the Camp Fire in Butte County that destroyed over 18,000 structures and killed 85 individuals. The increased loss of life and structural damage has intensified the focus on communities existing in VHFRAs and how communities are planned and development in these regions of that state.

“SB 182 is a comprehensive measure that recognizes the continued need to build in the VHFRA, and therefore, the obligation of the state and local governments to ensure new communities are planned and built to best mitigate for uncontrollable fire. Specifically, SB 182 prohibits local governments from approving permits for housing developments unless the project is in compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards outlined in the bill. This bill also requires increased wildfire risk mitigation planning by local governments through updated local safety and land use elements of that jurisdiction’s general plan. Additionally, in order to reduce development pressures in the VHFRA through the RHNA process, SB 182 requires a lower proportion of state housing allocation to jurisdictions that meet specified conditions.

“The wildfire risk reduction standards in SB 182 are expansive, however, RCRC believes you have balanced the additional planning burdens on local governments with a sensible implementation timeline. And though we are supportive of your measure, RCRC would like to see funding included in this bill to offset the increased costs of the new planning mandates. We appreciate the collaborative process of crafting SB 182 that has involved many stakeholders, including RCRC. SB 182 is a bold, yet reasonable solution to allowing much needed housing production to continue in the most fire prone areas of the state in a manner that aids future developments withstand devastating wildfires.”

1. Arguments in Opposition. The California Building Industry Association (CBIA), in opposition, writes, “The remaining issues of concern to CBIA relate to the proposed reference, in statute, of numerous national wildland fire safety standards which would create conflict with existing, similar regulations already in effect throughout California. For a 3-year period (2020-2023), this would set the stage for unintended confusion in the field. As an alternative, CBIA is suggesting amendments to the bill which require the Office of the State Fire Marshal and the Board of Forestry to adopt updates to these existing regulations on a very regular basis for the next twelve years. Also, our proposed amendments will require our agencies to consider national wildland fire safety standards, including those currently referenced in the bill, as they go about adopting updates to the Title 14 SRA Development Standards and the Title 24 WUI Building Standards.

“As the state grapples with the increased risk of wildfires, CBIA has been at the forefront of these discussions for years – working collaboratively to advance cutting edge policy at the state and local level. CBIA has long supported hardening homes and increasing the stringency of fire-resistant building codes. We supported and participated in all the updates to these building codes. We supported the establishment of defensible space laws since they were established in the 1990s and have supported multiple efforts to enforce defensible space rules. We have conducted classes on the laws applicable to the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) for building officials, and we are sponsoring SB 190 (Dodd) – a measure that increases education and implementation of the WUI building standards and defensible space statutes. And, with the inclusion of our amendments into SB 182, CBIA will look forward to continuing its participation in the updating of these important state regulations. We are hopeful our code-related amendments will be accepted, which will enable us to remove our current position of opposition to this bill.”

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Support

Bear Yuba Land Trust (if amended)

California State Association of Counties

Center for Biological Diversity

Eastern Sierra Land Trust (if amended)

Pacific Forest Trust (if amended)

Placer Land Trust (if amended)

Rural County Representatives of California

Sierra Business Council (if amended)

Sierra County Land Trust (if amended)

Sierra Foothill Conservancy (if amended)

Sierra Nevada Alliance (if amended)

Southern California Edison

Truckee Donner Land Trust (if amended)

Opposition

California Building Industry Association

Analysis Prepared by: Angela Mapp / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958

Date of Hearing: July 3, 2019

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

David Chiu, Chair

SBPCA Bill Id:SB 182

Author:(Jackson) – As Amended Ver:May 24, 2019

SENATE VOTE: 27-9

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

SUMMARY: Imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires cities and counties to make specified findings on fire standards prior to permitting development in very high risk fire areas. Specifically, this bill:

1. Defines “very high fire risk areas” (VHFRA) to be the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZ) in areas where the financial responsibility of preventing and suppressing fires is primarily the responsibility of the state [known as the State Responsibility Area (SRA)] or the local jurisdiction [known as the Local Responsibility Area].
2. Defines “wildfire risk reduction standard” to mean the following:
3. For a development of any size, these standards include:
   1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and the Board;
   2. A wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as described in certain published standards;
   3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements; and
   4. Certain published standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards.
4. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units, these standards include:
5. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
6. A site-specific fire protection plan designed to protect against fire encroachment, including a layout that reduces wildfire risk to the greatest extent possible, identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations; and mechanisms to maintain common areas and open spaces to control vegetative fuels;
7. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements; and
8. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire.
9. For developments of 100 or more residential units, these standards include:
   1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
   2. All applicable aspects of the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) “Fire Hazard Planning” series or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect; and
   3. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal as provided in the bill.
10. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
    1. Review the wildfire risk reduction standards and adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
       1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments;
       2. Include successor provisions to the standards identified in this bill that meet or exceed those standards;
       3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire;
       4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures;
       5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire based upon the best available science and objective scientific methodologies; and
       6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
11. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space; and
12. Update the maps of the VHFHSZ and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
13. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its Web site a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFRA, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
14. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
    1. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or local hazard mitigation plan on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy that includes:
       1. A list of the types of retrofits needed in an area based on fire risk;
       2. A process for identifying and inventorying structures in need of retrofit or fire hardening;
       3. Goals and milestones for completing needed retrofit work; and
       4. Potential funding sources and financing strategies to pay for needed retrofits on public and private property.
    2. Requires a city or county with VHFRA within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after January 1, 2021. This amendment of the land use element must include:
       1. the locations of all VHFRAs within the city or county;
       2. The goals of any local hazard mitigation plan, community wildfire protection plan, and climate adaptation plan that has been adopted by the governing body of the city or county; and
       3. Objectives and policies, based on the goals, data, and analysis for the protection of lives and property from unreasonable risk of wildfire.
    3. Requires, upon each subsequent revision of the housing element, a process for the city or county related to the implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards. This includes:
       1. Requirements to update the designation of VHFRAs within the jurisdiction; and
       2. Requirements to make findings related to its implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards and its designation of VHFRAs. The process provides for review, comment, and consultation on the draft findings by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) and local fire agencies on whether the city or county has implemented the standards and/or made adequate progress. If the Board determines that the city or county is out of compliance, the Board must notify the city or county and may notify the Office of the Attorney General that the city or county is in violation of state law.
    4. Requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop VHFRA overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan.
    5. Prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFRA unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards” contained in this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards. Allows, through December 31, 2025, for a development to be in compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards if the city or county finds that the responsible state and local agencies have made adequate progress towards achieving those standards.
15. Allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) by SB 901 (Dodd, Chapter 626, Statutes of 2018) to cities and counties that include designated VHFRA for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, as specified.
16. Changes the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) process undertaken by Council of Governments (COGs), or the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) where no COG exists, as follows:
    1. Requires the amount of VHFRA in each city and county to be a factor used in developing the methodology that allocates regional housing needs;
    2. Enables a lower proportion of housing to be allocated to a city or county if appropriate due to the risk to life and safety from catastrophic wildfire; and
    3. Requires a lower proportion of housing to be allocated to city or county if:
       1. The jurisdiction is composed of a greater proportion of VHFRA than the regional average;
       2. It is likely the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within the VHFRA as adequate sites in order to meet its housing need allocation;
       3. Compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards set forth in Section 65012 and the regulations of the State Fire Marshal adopted pursuant to Section 65013 would otherwise impair development of the amount and type of housing set forth in the jurisdiction’s housing need allocation; and
       4. Suitable alternative sites exist outside the jurisdiction, but within the council of governments’ jurisdiction, to accommodate the remaining regional housing need.
17. Clarifies that local governments may impose more stringent standards than those set out in the bill, and clarifies that a local government may issue a final subdivision map without making the findings in the bill if the tentative map or parcel map met the required standards when it was deemed complete.
18. Makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forestlands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.
19. Requires that the standards, regulations, and rules developed as part of this bill to be reasonable, and to be feasible and achievable for the majority of developments in that size category.

EXISTING LAW: Requires every county and city to adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements, including the safety element.

1. Provides that the safety element's purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires.
2. Requires the Director of CAL FIRE to designate areas of moderate, high, and VHFHSZs.
3. Requires landowners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the Board (AB 337, Bates, 1992). These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CAL FIRE and HCD that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown.

COMMENTS:

Purpose of the Bill: According to the author, “California’s persistent threat of wildfire poses a significant risk to homes and businesses throughout the state. While much is being done to better manage our forests, more must be done to “harden” existing homes to make them more resistant to wildfire, as well as to improve local land use decisions to minimize this threat, particularly to new communities built in wildland areas. At a March 13^th hearing focused on development in fire prone regions, the Senate Committees on Governance and Finance, and Natural Resources and Water recommended legislation to ‘bolster local planning efforts to design more resilient communities; condition development approvals to ensure that structures and communities are adequately protected from fire; or encourage development out of harm’s way.’ This bill aims to do precisely that.”

Background: The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures.

The risk from wildfires is widespread and growing. More than three million Californians (about seven percent) currently live in high-risk wildfire areas, and a 2018 study estimates a 77 percent increase in mean area burned by the end of the century, compared to 1961-1990. Thus, even if the state immediately stops building homes in existing wildfire areas, millions of Californians will remain at risk in existing and expanding wildfire areas.

Preparing for Wildfires: Landowners in the very high fire risk areas must follow specified fire prevention practices and standards. These include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CAL FIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

Reflecting evolving and worsening conditions, the Legislature passed a series of bills in 2018 to prevent and protect against deadly wildfires. Additionally, on January 8, 2019, the Governor issues Executive Order N-05-19, which, among other things, directed CAL FIRE to submit a written report to the Governor within 45 days with recommendations of the most impactful administrative, regulatory and policy changes or waivers the Governor can initiate that are necessary to prevent and mitigate wildfires to the greatest extent possible. On February 22, 2019 CAL FIRE submitted the Community Prevention and Mitigation Report to the Governor.

This bill further seeks to protect against deadly wildfires by creating new wildfire risk reduction standards for new housing that must be implemented by local jurisdictions. This includes requiring the State’s Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to develop comprehensive wildfire risk reduction standards and to update their VHFHSZ maps. It also includes a series of requirements for local governments, including:

• Developing a comprehensive retrofit strategy to protect housing from fires, including funding sources;
• Updating its next land use element of the General Plan to identify all VHRFA, as well as specify all goals, objectives, and policies for the protection of lives and property from unreasonable risk of wildfire;
• Prohibiting cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFRA unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards.” These standards include requiring, for sites of nine units or more, site-specific fire protection plans and funding mechanisms to ensure that defensible space maintenance occurs in a timely fashion. Larger housing developments (100 units or more) must go further and implement any of the additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal; and
• Updating its subsequent land use elements to make findings related to its implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards and its designation of VHFRAs. The process enables the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to determines that a city or county is out of compliance, and allows them to notify the Office of the Attorney General if that is the case.

The bill allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to CAL FIRE by SB 901 (Dodd, Chapter 626, Statutes of 2018) to cities and counties that include designated VHFRA for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety.

Finally, the bill changes the RHNA process for cities and counties regarding wildfire risk. Specifically, it:

• • Maintains the same amount of allocation per region, but requires the amount of VHFRA in each city and county to be a factor used distributing the RHNA within the region;
  • For cities with a greater amount of land within the VHFRAs, this bill:
    • Enables a lower proportion of housing to be allocated to a city or county if appropriate due to the risk to life and safety from catastrophic wildfire;
    • Requires a lower proportion of housing to be allocated to a city or county if all of the following are met:
      • The jurisdiction is composed of a greater proportion of VHFRA than the regional average;
      • It is likely the jurisdiction would otherwise need to identify lands within the VHFRA as adequate sites in order to meet its housing need allocation;
      • Compliance with the wildfire risk reduction standards would impair development of the amount and type of housing set forth in the jurisdiction’s housing need allocation; and
      • Suitable alternative sites exist outside the jurisdiction, but within the council of governments’ jurisdiction, to accommodate the remaining regional housing need.

Arguments in Support: According to APA California, “SB 182 ensures proper planning so that

new developments are appropriately designed and/or directed to less-hazardous areas

within a jurisdiction. Communities need to meet their affordable housing needs, as state

law requires and as our communities so desperately need, but they need to do it in a

sustainable way that builds in long-term protection for those very same homes, including

life-safety protections for the future residents of those homes.”

Arguments in Opposition: According to the California Building Industry Association, “We oppose SB 182 and have designated it as a Housing Killer. However, it should be noted that CBIA has been conducting numerous and very productive meetings with the author’s staff and the sponsors of the bill. The remaining issues of concern to CBIA relate to the proposed reference, in statute, of numerous national wildland fire safety standards which would create conflict with existing, similar regulations already in effect throughout California.”

Committee Amendments: California is facing a simultaneous crises regarding both wildfires and housing affordability. Understandably, there is a desire to reduce pressure to build new housing in the state’s substantial – and growing – very high fire risk areas. However, this desire is in tension with the need to build millions of new housing units to help reduce the cost of housing. This tension comes to a head in those jurisdictions with VHFRAs, who face the choice of identifying housing sites to meet their RHNA in VHFRAs or instead choosing to build more densely in other parts of their jurisdiction.

This dynamic of this situation was captured in the language that came out of the Senate Housing Committee’s amendments to SB 182, which stated that “The Legislature finds and declares the need to reconcile the conflicting goals of reducing the number of the state’s residents that face wildfire risk while at the same time addressing decades of low housing construction rates and declares the intent of the Legislature to determine a method of addressing these two goals in the regional housing needs allocation process.” As described above, subsequent amendments were made to the bill intended to complete this reconciliation by specifying when a COG (or HCD, where no COG exists) may or shall reduce a local jurisdiction’s RHNA allocation. The challenge with the amended version of the bill is that its emphasis is on whether or not a jurisdiction has a “greater amount of land” within the VHFRAs. However, for purposes of reducing pressure to build in VHFRAs, the amount of land is just a proxy for the real issue – whether in order to meet its RHNA local jurisdictions would be forced to build in the VHFRAs. There are other challenges with the existing language, including that it:

• Limits the discretion of allocating agencies by providing a limited number of factors for determining whether a city or county must have a reduced RHNA;
• Focuses on total land area instead of developable land;
• Is triggered by comparing the risk in jurisdictions against each other rather than focusing on the impact of that risk itself; and
• Includes language that is difficult to interpret and implement.

To address these concerns while maintaining the intent of the bill, the Committee may wish to consider the following amendments:

• Re-focusing the trigger for reducing RHNA to whether a city or county would need to meet their allocation in VHFRAs;
• Increase the discretion of the allocating agency (be it the COG or HCD) by not limiting the factors they may consider in determining its allocations;
• Adjusting the additional factors that the allocating agency must consider, including:
  • Removing the relative metric of whether a jurisdiction has more or less of its land in the VHFRA than the regional average;
  • Factoring the more definitive risk, via percentage of a jurisdiction’s developable land within its VHFRAs;
  • Factoring in historic precedent, via the percentage of its housing capacity identified in its last Housing Element that is within the VHFRA; and
  • Clarifying the metric regarding how the new standards may affect development capacity by specifying that the allocating agencies should focus on how they may reduce densities on lands within the jurisdiction that are otherwise suitable for development.

As discussed above, the bill also requires that local governments develop a comprehensive retrofit strategy to protect housing from fires, including funding sources. This section lacks some details that would clarify its purpose and facilitate its implementation. As such, the Committee may wish to request the following amendments:

• Clarify that the intent of this retrofit strategy is to reduce the risk of property loss and damage during wildfires.
• Emphasize that the process for identifying and inventorying structures in need of retrofit for fire hardening must include residential structures in VHFRAs.
• Require the planning agency to submit their adopted retrofit strategy to OPR for inclusion in the clearinghouse of best practices established by this bill.

Finally, the bill includes a couple of instances of semantic inconsistency that could create confusion in implementing this bill. For example, the amendments to Government Code Section 65012(a) speak to specific wildlife risk reduction standards, but then speaks to “preparation of” a wildland fire hazard assessment and wildfire hazard mitigation plan, as well as “implementation of” mechanisms to maintain common areas and open spaces. “Preparation of” and “implementation of” describe actions and not definitive standard, and as such the Committee may wish to consider deleting those words.

Related Legislation:

SB 190 (Dodd) (2019): requires the State Fire Marshal to develop a model defensible space ordinance and a training manual on WUI standards for building officials, builders, and fire service personnel. This bill is pending in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

AB 38 (Wood) (2019): establishes a $1 billion fire-hardened homes revolving fund, establishes regional wildfire prevention districts, and requires sellers of buildings in very high fire hazard zones to certify that certain low-cost retrofits have been applied to the structure. This bill is pending hearing in the Senate Government Organization Committee.

AB 1516 (Friedman) (2019): enhances the state’s defensible space requirements and imposes a $500 penalty for failure to maintain defensible space. This bill is pending hearing in the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee.

SB 901 (Dodd), Chapter 626 of the Statutes of 2018): Established a comprehensive framework to address and prevent catastrophic wildfires including prevention and planning by the state’s electric utilities; management of the state’s forests, chaparrals, and other lands to prevent and defend against wildfires; and standards to stabilize electrical corporations in the event of extensive liability resulting from claims under inverse condemnation. SB 901 also appropriated $200 million per year through the 2023-24 budget for forest health and fire prevention.

SB 1260 (Jackson, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2018): Made various changes related to local fire planning, prescribed fire requirements, and broader fire prevention efforts, including to require that: (1) local safety elements reflect best practices contained in OPR’s technical guidance for fire hazard planning; (2) cities and counties meet with the Board on their draft safety elements at the request of the Board; and (3) cities and counties transmit any fire-related findings made under the Subdivision Map Act to the Board.

AB 2911 (Friedman), Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018: Made various changes to fire safety planning, including to: require local agencies to submit ordinances adopting VHFHSZ to the Board; direct OPR to update its technical guidance for fire and land use planning; and require the Board to identify at-risk subdivisions not less than every 5 years.

AB 1956 (Limón), Chapter 632, Statutes of 2018: Requires CAL FIRE to establish a local grant program and establishes the criteria for those grants.

SB 465 (Jackson), Chapter 837, Statutes of 2018: Expands, until January 1, 2029, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing to allow cities and counties in VHFHSZs to allow contractual assessments for property owners to finance wildfire safety improvements.

Double referred: This bill was also referred to the Assembly Committee on Local Government where it will be heard should it pass out of this committee.

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Support

American Planning Association, California Chapter

Center for Biological Diversity

Sierra Club

Support if Amended

Bear Yuba Land Trust

Eastern Sierra Land Trust

Pacific Forest Trust

Placer Land Trust

Sierra Business Council

Sierra County Land Trust

Sierra Foothill Conservancy

Sierra Nevada Alliance

Truckee Donner Land Trust

Opposition

California Building Industry Association

Analysis Prepared by: Steve Wertheim / H. & C.D. / (916) 319-2085

 THIRD READING  

Bill No: SB 182

Author: Jackson (D)

Amended: 5/24/19

Vote: 21

SENATE GOVERNANCE & FIN. COMMITTEE: 6-1, 4/10/19

AYES: McGuire, Beall, Hertzberg, Hurtado, Nielsen, Wiener

NOES: Moorlach

SENATE HOUSING COMMITTEE: 8-3, 4/22/19

AYES: Wiener, Caballero, Durazo, McGuire, Roth, Skinner, Umberg, Wieckowski

NOES: Morrell, Bates, Moorlach

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 4-2, 5/16/19

AYES: Portantino, Bradford, Hill, Wieckowski

NOES: Bates, Jones

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

SOURCE: Author

DIGEST:

This bill imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires cities and counties to make specified findings on fire standards prior to permitting development in the very high fire hazard severity zone (VHFHSZ).

Senate Floor Amendments of 5/24/19 instead require the standards to be based on best available science, require the standards to be feasible and achievable for a majority of developments, and change the reference and definition of wildland-urban interface to “very high fire risk areas,” among other changes.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Requires every county and city to adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements, including the safety element.
2. Provides that the safety element's purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires.
3. Requires the Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) to designate areas of moderate, high, and VHFHSZs.
4. Requires landowners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) (AB 337, Bates, 1992). These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

This bill:

1. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
   1. Defines “very high fire risk areas” to be the VHFHSZ in both the SRA and the Local Responsibility Area.
   2. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or local hazard mitigation plan on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy that includes specified contents.
   3. Requires a city or county with VHFHSZ within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after January 1, 2021. This amendment of the land use element must include the locations of all VHFHSZ within the city or county, the data and analysis described in the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning–General Plan Technical Advice Series,” and other specified goals, objectives, and implementation measures.
   4. Requires, after that initial amendment to the land use element, a city or county to review upon each revision of the housing element the implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards, as defined below, within the jurisdiction, and the designation of VHFHSZ.
   5. Provides for review and comment on draft findings by the Board and local fire agencies on whether the city or county has implemented the standards or made adequate progress, defined to mean the city or county is taking concrete steps reasonably calculated to achieve funding and implementation of the applicable standard by December 31, 2025.
   6. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its Web site a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in VHFHSZ, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
2. Requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop WUI overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan.
3. Prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in VHFHSZ unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards” contained in this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards.
4. Defines three tiers of “wildfire risk reduction standards,” based on the size of the development, specifically:
   1. For a development of any size:
      1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and the Board;
      2. Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as described in certain published standards;
      3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements; and
      4. Certain published standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards.
   2. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. Reasonable site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, including defensible structure layout, structure clustering, and use of natural/engineered firebreaks;
      3. Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations;
      4. Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels;
      5. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements; and
      6. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire.
   3. For developments of 100 or more residential units, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. All applicable aspects of OPR’s “Fire Hazard Planning” series or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect; and
      3. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards developed by the State Fire Marshal as provided in the bill.
5. Deems a development in compliance with the requirements for defensible space enforcement, response time, infrastructure sufficiency, and water supplies if the city or county has made adequate progress towards achieving those standards by December 31, 2025.
6. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
   1. Review the wildfire risk reduction standards identified above and adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
      1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments.
      2. Include successor provisions to the standards identified in this bill that meet or exceed those standards.
      3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire.
      4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures.
      5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire based upon the best available science and objective scientific methodologies.
      6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
   2. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space.
   3. Update the maps of the VHFHSZ and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
7. Requires the standards, regulations, and rules to be reasonable, and to be feasible and achievable for the majority of developments in that size category.
8. Allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to CALFIRE by SB 901 (Dodd, Chapter 626, Statutes of 2018) to cities and counties that include designated VHFHSZ for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, as specified.
9. Directs each regional housing needs allocation plan to consider allocating a lower proportion of housing to those jurisdictions that contain a greater amount of land within the VHFHSZ. A council of governments, or HCD for cities or counties without a council of governments, may lower the proportion of housing allocated to those jurisdictions if appropriate due to the risk to life and safety from catastrophic wildfire.
10. Requires a lower proportion of housing to a jurisdiction if the council of governments or HCD determines makes specified findings.
11. Clarifies that local governments may impose more stringent standards than those set out in the bill, and clarifies that a local government may issue a final subdivision map without making the findings in the bill if the tentative map or parcel map met the required standards when it was deemed complete.
12. Makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forestlands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard fire poses to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. SB 182 presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. SB 182 doesn’t say that locals can’t develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, SB 182 provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. SB 182 is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.
2. What’s the real problem? By their very nature, planning requirements and conditions on development are forward-looking. They apply only to new developments, not to existing structures. California has indeed seen significant increases in fire damages, but most of the losses have been of older homes in communities that were founded before today’s requirements for strong building codes—to prevent homes from catching fire in the first place—and subdivision design—to allow for safe firefighting and evacuations—were in place. Recent experience has shown that new homes built after 2008 are less likely to be destroyed than older homes. SB 182 focuses on new developments, when those developments are already safer. By doing so, it imposes new, unknown, and potentially costly requirements on homebuilding at a time when new homes are needed more than ever. Is the solution presented by SB 182 the right one, or would it simply exacerbate today’s housing crisis without meaningfully reducing fire losses?
3. March 13th oversight hearing. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee and the Natural Resources and Water Committee held an oversight hearing earlier this year, titled “Living Resiliently in the New Abnormal: The Future of Development in California’s Most Fire Prone Regions.” Among other topics, that hearing explored changes to land use approvals and permitting that may be needed to reduce the loss of life and property from wildfire. One conclusion from the hearing was that, while defensible space and building standards are incredibly important, community scale interventions, such as community layout and establishment of safe areas for the community to assemble during fires, can reduce the risk of wildfire losses. The hearing also discussed the need for more detailed information on the fire resilience of individual parcels and whether some parcels or areas should be identified as indefensible.

Related/Prior Legislation

In 2018, the Legislature took important actions to improve wildfire planning and safety, such as:

SB 1260 (Jackson, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2018) made various changes related to local fire planning, prescribed fire requirements, and broader fire prevention efforts, including to require that: (1) local safety elements reflect best practices contained in OPR’s technical guidance for fire hazard planning; (2) cities and counties meet with the Board on their draft safety elements at the request of the Board; and (3) cities and counties transmit any fire-related findings made under the Subdivision Map Act to the Board.

AB 2911 (Friedman, Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018) made various changes to fire safety planning, including to: required local agencies to submit ordinances adopting VHFHSZ to the Board; directed OPR to update its technical guidance for fire and land use planning; and required the Board to identify at-risk subdivisions not less than every five years.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:

• The California Air Resources Board indicates that it would require one position and about $180,000 annually to implement its provisions of this bill (GGRF).
• The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection would likely require one PY of staff to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements, at an estimated cost of approximately $180,000. (General Fund)
• Unknown, significant State Fire Marshal costs, likely in the range of $1 million to $2 million in staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs, and administer a specified grant program. (General Fund)
• Unknown, potentially significant OPR costs of up to $150,000 annually until 2023 to the to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas. (General Fund)
• Unknown CALFIRE grant funding, likely in the millions of dollars annually, for awards to cities and counties that contain VHFHSZ for programs and projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. (GGRF)
• Unknown, significant local costs to comply with the planning mandates in this bill. Local costs are not state-reimbursable because affected local agencies have general authority to charge permitting and planning fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates. (local funds)

SUPPORT: (Verified 5/28/19)

American Planning Association, California Chapter

Rural County Representatives of California

Sierra Club California

Southern California Edison

OPPOSITION: (Verified 5/28/19)

California Building Industry Association

Prepared by: Anton Favorini-Csorba / GOV. & F. / (916) 651-4119

5/28/19 16:19:30

**** END ****

 THIRD READING  

Bill No: SB 182

Author: Jackson (D)

Amended: 4/30/19

Vote: 21

SENATE GOVERNANCE & FIN. COMMITTEE: 6-1, 4/10/19

AYES: McGuire, Beall, Hertzberg, Hurtado, Nielsen, Wiener

NOES: Moorlach

SENATE HOUSING COMMITTEE: 8-3, 4/22/19

AYES: Wiener, Caballero, Durazo, McGuire, Roth, Skinner, Umberg, Wieckowski

NOES: Morrell, Bates, Moorlach

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 4-2, 5/16/19

AYES: Portantino, Bradford, Hill, Wieckowski

NOES: Bates, Jones

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

SOURCE: Author

DIGEST:

This bill imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires cities and counties to make specified findings prior to permitting development in the very high fire hazard severity zone (VHFHSZ) and other areas designated as the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI).

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Requires every county and city to adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements, including the safety element.
2. Provides that the safety element's purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires.
3. Requires the Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) to designate areas of moderate, high, and VHFHSZs.
4. Requires landowners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) (AB 337, Bates, 1992). These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

This bill:

1. Imposes new planning requirements on local governments, as follows:
   1. Defines WUI areas to be the VHFHSZ in both the SRA and the Local Responsibility Area, and allows local governments to adopt additional areas designated as WUI.
   2. Requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or LHMP on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy that includes specified contents.
   3. Requires a city or county with WUI areas within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after January 1, 2021. This amendment of the land use element must include the locations of all WUI areas within the city or county, the data and analysis described in the Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR’s) most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning–General Plan Technical Advice Series,” and other specified goals, objectives, and implementation measures.
   4. Requires, after that initial amendment to the land use element, a city or county to review upon each revision of the housing element the implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards, as defined below, within the jurisdiction, and the designation of WUI areas.
   5. Provides for review and comment on draft findings by the Board and local fire agencies on whether the city or county has implemented the standards or made adequate progress, defined to mean the city or county is taking concrete steps reasonably calculated to achieve funding and implementation of the applicable standard by December 31, 2025.
   6. Requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its website a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in WUI areas, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.
2. Requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop WUI overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan.
3. Prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in WUI areas unless the city or county finds that the project and all structures within the project are protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified “wildfire risk reduction standards” contained in this bill, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards.
4. Defines three tiers of “wildfire risk reduction standards,” based on the size of the development, specifically:
   1. For a development of any size:
      1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and the Board;
      2. Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as described in certain published standards; and
      3. An enforcement program established, funded, and implemented to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans, with specified requirements.
      4. Certain published standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards;
   2. For developments of nine or more residential dwelling units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
      2. Site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, including defensible structure layout, structure clustering, and use of natural/engineered firebreaks;
      3. Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations;
      4. Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels;
      5. A condition on the development that all parcels within the development containing structures are subject to an ongoing, permanent fee, tax, or assessment, an assessment through a homeowners’ association, or a similar funding mechanism sufficient to ensure that defensible space maintenance is funded and occurs on a schedule so as to comply with this bill’s requirements; and
      6. A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire.
   3. For developments of 100 or more residential units, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments.
      2. All applicable aspects of OPR’s “Fire Hazard Planning” series or other equivalent standards as adopted State Fire Marshal, or conditions imposed by the city or county that provide the same practical effect.
      3. Additional wildfire risk reduction standards.
5. Deems a development in compliance with the requirements for defensible space enforcement, response time, infrastructure sufficiency, and water supplies if the city or county has made adequate progress towards achieving those standards by December 31, 2025.
6. Requires, on or before January 1, 2023, the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, to do all of the following, subject to the Administrative Procedures Act:
   1. Review the wildfire risk reduction standards identified above and adopt wildfire risk reduction standards that meet all of the following requirements:
      1. Account for differences in the size of proposed developments.
      2. Include successor provisions to the standards identified in the bill that meet or exceed those standards.
      3. Include any additional requirements for fire hardening or similar building standards applicable to structures located in areas with restricted access or service in the event of wildfire.
      4. Establish specified types of community-scale risk reduction measures
      5. Are designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire of any residential structures within a development to an estimated 1-in-100 chance in any given year.
      6. Are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
   2. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification of defensible space.
   3. Update the maps of the VHFHSZ and identify areas where new residential development poses exceptional risk to future occupants of the development and to fire personnel and other public safety personnel that must access the development during a wildfire.
7. Requires standards applicable to small developments to be reasonable, feasible, and achievable for a development of that size in the community in which the development is located.
8. Allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to CALFIRE by SB 901 (Dodd, Chapter 626, Statutes of 2018) to cities and counties that include designated WUI areas for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, as specified.
9. Directs each council of governments, or the Department of Housing and Community Development in areas where it has responsibility under existing law, to include its methodology for distributing regional housing needs to cities and counties the amount of land in each city or county that is within a WUI area.
10. Makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forestlands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard fire poses to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. SB 182 presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. SB 182 doesn’t say that locals can’t develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, SB 182 provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. SB 182 is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.
2. What’s the real problem? By their very nature, planning requirements and conditions on development are forward-looking. They apply only to new developments, not to existing structures. California has indeed seen significant increases in fire damages, but most of the losses have been of older homes in communities that were founded before today’s requirements for strong building codes—to prevent homes from catching fire in the first place—and subdivision design—to allow for safe firefighting and evacuations—were in place. Recent experience has shown that new homes built after 2008 are less likely to be destroyed than older homes. SB 182 focuses on new developments, when those developments are already safer. By doing so, it imposes new, unknown, and potentially costly requirements on homebuilding at a time when new homes are needed more than ever. Is the solution presented by SB 182 the right one, or would it simply exacerbate today’s housing crisis without meaningfully reducing fire losses?
3. March 13th oversight hearing. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee and the Natural Resources and Water Committee held an oversight hearing earlier this year, titled “Living Resiliently in the New Abnormal: The Future of Development in California’s Most Fire Prone Regions.” Among other topics, that hearing explored changes to land use approvals and permitting that may be needed to reduce the loss of life and property from wildfire. One conclusion from the hearing was that, while defensible space and building standards are incredibly important, community scale interventions, such as community layout and establishment of safe areas for the community to assemble during fires, can reduce the risk of wildfire losses. The hearing also discussed the need for more detailed information on the fire resilience of individual parcels and whether some parcels or areas should be identified as indefensible.

Related/Prior Legislation

In 2018, the Legislature took important actions to improve wildfire planning and safety, such as:

SB 1260 (Jackson, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2018) made various changes related to local fire planning, prescribed fire requirements, and broader fire prevention efforts, including to require that: (1) local safety elements reflect best practices contained in OPR’s technical guidance for fire hazard planning; (2) cities and counties meet with the Board on their draft safety elements at the request of the Board; and (3) cities and counties transmit any fire-related findings made under the Subdivision Map Act to the Board.

AB 2911 (Friedman, Chapter 641, Statutes of 2018) made various changes to fire safety planning, including to: required local agencies to submit ordinances adopting VHFHSZ to the Board; directed OPR to update its technical guidance for fire and land use planning; and required the Board to identify at-risk subdivisions not less than every five years.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:

• The California Air Resources Board indicates that it would require one position and about $180,000 annually to implement its provisions of this bill (GGRF).
• The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection would likely require one PY of staff to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements, at an estimated cost of approximately $180,000. (General Fund)
• Unknown, significant State Fire Marshal costs, likely in the range of $1 million to $2 million in staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in VHFHSZs, and administer a specified grant program. (General Fund)
• Unknown, potentially significant OPR costs of up to $150,000 annually until 2023 to the to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas. (General Fund)
• Unknown CALFIRE grant funding, likely in the millions of dollars annually, for awards to cities and counties that contain WUI areas for programs and projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. (GGRF)
• Unknown, significant local costs to comply with the planning mandates in this bill. Local costs are not state-reimbursable because affected local agencies have general authority to charge permitting and planning fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates. (local funds)

SUPPORT: (Verified 5/21/19)

American Planning Association, California Chapter

Sierra Club California

Southern California Edison

OPPOSITION: (Verified 5/17/19)

California Building Industry Association

Prepared by: Anton Favorini-Csorba / GOV. & F. / (916) 651-4119

5/21/19 15:06:08

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SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Senator Anthony Portantino, Chair

2019 - 2020 Regular Session

SB 182 (Jackson) - Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

Bill Summary:

This bill would: (1) impose several detailed requirements for improved planning and zoning for communities in the wildland-urban interface; (2) require the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal FIRE) to allocate an unspecified amount of its $165 million Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) appropriation through 2023-24 to grants for cities and counties that have one or more wildland-urban interfaces for specified purposes; and (3) require the Office of the State Fire Marshal by January 1, 2023 to perform specified tasks related to wildfire risk reduction standards.

Fiscal Impact:

• The California Air Resources Board (CARB) indicates that it would require one position and about $180,000 annually to implement its provisions of the bill (GGRF). See Staff comments.
  
• The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection would likely require 1 PY of staff to provide technical assistance and review local agency safety elements, at an estimated cost of approximately $180,000. (General Fund)
  
• Unknown, significant State Fire Marshal costs, likely in the range of $1 million to $2 million in staff time to review wildfire risk reduction standards, adopt standards for third-party inspections and certifications, update maps in very high fire hazard severity zones, and administer a specified grant program. (General Fund)
  
• Unknown, potentially significant Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) costs of up to $150,000 annually until 2023 to the to coordinate with cities and counties to develop a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices related to land use planning in fire-prone areas. (General Fund)
  
• Unknown Cal FIRE grant funding, likely in the millions of dollars annually, for awards to cities and counties that contain wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas for programs and projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety. (GGRF)
  
• Unknown, significant local costs to comply with the planning mandates in the bill. Local costs are not state-reimbursable because affected local agencies have general authority to charge permitting and planning fees to offset any costs related to planning mandates. (local funds)
  

Background:

CALFIRE provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. To meet this requirement, the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) designates the State Responsibility Area (SRA) every five years. Within SRA lands, CALFIRE designates moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones (VHFHSZs). After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CALFIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA). These maps must be updated every five years (current maps date to 2007).

Landowners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the Board, including maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. Current law requires the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards to provide for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

Every county and city must adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, and safety. General plans must also either include an eighth element on environmental justice, or incorporate environmental justice concerns throughout the other seven elements. Most of cities’ and counties’ major land use decisions, including subdivisions, zoning, public works projects, use permits, must be consistent with their general plans. Development decisions must carry out and not hinder a general plan’s policies.

The Subdivision Map Act regulates how local officials approve the conversion of larger parcels into marketable lots. Major subdivisions (more than four lots) require a discretionary tentative map and a ministerial final map. Minor subdivisions (four or fewer lots, called “lot splits”) usually require a single, discretionary parcel map. In some communities, minor subdivisions require a tentative parcel map and a final parcel map, similar to major subdivisions.

The Planning and Zoning Law says that the safety element’s purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires. In 2012, the Legislature expanded the safety elements’ contents for fire risks on land classified as SRAs and VHFHSZs (SB 1241, Kehoe, 2012), requiring safety elements to contain (1) specified information about fire hazards, (2) based on that information, a set of comprehensive goals, policies, and objectives to protect against unreasonable fire risks, and (3) a set of feasible implementation measures.

Cities and counties must also submit a draft of any safety element amendments to the Board and to local fire protection agencies at least 90 days before adoption. The Board must review and recommend changes to the draft safety element within 60 days of receiving it. If the Board provides recommendations within this timeframe, local governments must consider its recommendations. If they don’t adopt the Board’s recommendations, local governments have to explain to the Board why they opted not to do so. Local agencies must meet with the Board on its recommendations if the Board requests, but aren’t required to adopt the Board’s recommendations.

The safety element must also include similar information about risks due to climate change and goals, policies, objectives, and implementation measures to protect against those risks.

Many local governments have also adopted a local hazard mitigation plan (LHMP) to identify all of the natural hazards that threaten a community and strategies to mitigate those hazards. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reviews and approves every LHMP, and the LHMP expires five years after it’s approved, unless amended and recertified. Local governments with a compliant LHMP are eligible for proactive hazard mitigation grants from the federal government, as well as additional post-disaster assistance.

Before a city council or county board of supervisors can approve a tentative map or final map in the SRA or VHFHSZ, it must make findings supported by substantial evidence that:

• The subdivision is consistent with the Board’s applicable regulations or local ordinances certified by the Board as meeting or exceeding the state regulations; and

• A local agency or CALFIRE, under contract, will provide structural fire protection and suppression services to the subdivision.

Upon making these findings, the city or county must send them, along with the subdivision maps, to the Board.

To assist local governments with fire hazard planning, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) issues a technical advisory series that includes best practices in land use and permitting for fire hazard planning.

Proposed Law: This bill would impose multiple detailed requirements for improved planning and zoning for communities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Specifically, the bill would, among other things, do the following:

• Define “wildland-urban interface” and “wildland-urban interface area” (both hereafter referred to as WUIs) as lands located in very high fire hazard severity zones in both the State Responsibility Area and the Local Responsibility Area, as well as other lands determined by the city or county to be located within an area where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.
• Require a city or county, upon the next revision of its housing element or local hazard mitigation plan, on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update the safety element of its general plan to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy, as specified.
• Require each city or county that has a WUI within its jurisdiction to, upon the next revision of its housing element on or after January 1, 2021, amend the land use element of its general plan with respect to lands located in a WUI, as specified.
• Require each jurisdiction, after the initial amendment of its land use element pursuant to this bill and upon each revision of its housing element, to make specified findings, supported by substantial evidence, regarding the designation of WUIs and implementation of wildfire risk reduction standards, as specified.
• Require each city or county with a WUI to adopt a WUI overlay zone or otherwise amend its ordinance to be consistent with the general plan, within 12 months of adopting a land use element.
• Define three tiers of “wildlife risk reduction standards,” for a development of up to 9 structures, for a development of 9 or more residential units, and for a development of 100 or more residential units.
• Require a common interest development located in a very high fire severity zones to allow the installation or repair of roofs with materials that meet or exceed Class B standards as defined in the International Building Code.
• Provide an unspecified set-aside amount within the annual CalFIRE appropriation for grants to cities and counties that include designated WUIs to fund projects to control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, including but not limited to improved access roads, water supply facilities, remote infrared cameras for wildfire detection, and siren warning systems for wildfires.
• Require the Office of Planning and Research to develop and post on its website a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in WUI, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, as specified.
• Require all developments in WUI areas to meet fire response, water infrastructure, and ignition reduction standards, as specified.
• Require local governments to meet the wildfire risk reduction standards, but allow adequate progress on establishing a defensible space enforcement program, response standards, and water infrastructure until December 31, 2025.
• Require housing developments of nine or more units, as specified, to be subject to an ongoing fee, tax, assessment, or other permanent fund source in order to fund defensible space maintenance and inspections.
• Require the Office of the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to review the wildfire risk reduction standards and specified wildfire risk reduction standards that meet certain requirements, adopt standards for third-party inspection and certifications for a specified enforcement program, and update the maps of the very high fire hazard severity zones, as specified.

Related Legislation:

• SB 190 (Dodd, 2019) would requires the State Fire Marshal to develop a model defensible space ordinance and a training manual on WUI standards for building officials, builders, and fire service personnel. The bill is currently is pending in this Committee.
• AB 38 (Wood, 2019) would establish a $1 billion fire-hardened homes revolving fund, establishes regional wildfire prevention districts, and requires sellers of buildings in very high fire hazard zones to certify that certain low-cost retrofits have been applied to the structure. The bill is currently pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
• AB 1516 (Friedman, 2019) — enhances the state’s defensible space requirements and imposes a $500 penalty for failure to maintain defensible space. The bill is currently pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Staff Comments:

• CARB has general statutory responsibility to provide guidance to administering public agencies on facilitating GHG emissions reductions and reporting on outcomes. This bill would result in new workload that CARB indicates could not be absorbed; specifically, it would require one position and $180,000 annually to revise its California Climate Investments tracking and reporting system. This system would need to be updated and new procedures would need to be developed for projects on road expansion, water systems, monitoring systems, and warning systems. Additionally, the bill would require CARB to consult with CAL FIRE, as specified, and update its annual report, website, and outreach materials. CARB notes that the projects proposed in the bill do not have a clear nexus to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

While this bill is keyed as a state-mandated local program, local costs are not state-reimbursable because affected local agencies have the authority to charge various permit, planning, and developer fees to offset any increased costs associated with the higher level of service imposed by the bill.

Recommended Amendments:

The bill should be amended to fill in the blank amounts to specify the amount of GGRF revenues available to Cal FIRE for grants to local agencies.

-- END --

SENATE COMMITTEE ON HOUSING

Senator Scott Wiener, Chair

2019 - 2020 Regular

Bill No: SB 182 Hearing Date: 4/22/2019

SUBJECT: Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

DIGEST: This bill, among other things, imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments and requires cities and counties to make specified findings prior to permitting development in very high fire hazard severity zones and areas designated as wildland-urban interface.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Requires every city and county to prepare and adopt a general plan, including at minimum a land use element, circulation element, housing element, conservation element, open space element, noise element, and safety element, to guide the future growth of a community.
2. Requires the housing element to identify and analyze existing and projected housing needs, identify adequate sites with appropriate zoning to meet the housing needs of all income segments of the community.
3. Provides that each community’s fair share of housing be determined through the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) process, which is composed of three main stages: (a) the Department of Finance and Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) develop regional housing needs estimates; (b) councils of government (COGs) allocate housing within each region based on these estimates (where a COG does not exist, HCD makes the determinations); and (c) cities and counties incorporate their allocations into their housing elements.
4. Requires the housing element to contain an assessment of housing needs and an inventory of resources and constraints relevant to meeting those needs. Requires a locality’s inventory of land suitable for residential development to be used to identify sites that can be developed for housing within the planning period and that are sufficient to provide for the locality’s share of the regional housing need for all income levels.
5. Requires, where the inventory of sites does not identify adequate sites to accommodate the need for groups of all household income levels, rezoning of those sites to be completed in a specified time period, as specified.
6. Prohibits a local jurisdiction from reducing or permitting the reduction of the residential density, or from allowing development at a lower residential density for any parcel, unless the jurisdiction makes specified written findings.
7. Requires each jurisdiction to submit an annual progress report to HCD regarding its progress in meeting its RHNA allocation and authorizes HCD to notify the Attorney General if it at any time finds a jurisdiction out of compliance with its housing element.

This bill:

Planning requirements

1. Defines “wildland-urban interface” and “wildland-urban interface area” (both hereafter referred to as WUIs) as lands located in very high fire hazard severity zones in both the State Responsibility Area and the Local Responsibility Area, as well as other lands determined by the city or county to be located within an area where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.
2. Requires a city or county, upon the next revision of its housing element or local hazard mitigation plan, on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update the safety element of its general plan to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy, as specified.
3. Requires each city or county that has a WUI within its jurisdiction to, upon the next revision of its housing element on or after January 1, 2021, amend the land use element of its general plan with respect to lands located in a WUI, as specified.
4. Requires each jurisdiction, after the initial amendment of its land use element pursuant to this bill and upon each revision of its housing element, to make specified findings, supported by substantial evidence, regarding the designation of WUIs and implementation of wildfire risk reduction standards (see #8 below), as specified.
5. Requires each city or county with a WUI to adopt a WUI overlay zone or otherwise amend its ordinance to be consistent with the general plan, within 12 months of adopting a land use element.

Requirements for regional housing needs allocation (RHNA)

1. Directs the COG (or the state Department of Housing and Community Development in areas without a COG) to consider the amount of land in WUIs when developing its methodology for allocating RHNA shares, and to allocate lower RHNA shares to jurisdictions with greater amounts of WUIs.

Requirements for approving construction

1. Prohibits a city or county with a WUI, after amendments to the land use element and related zoning ordinances have taken effect, from entering into a development agreement for property located within a WUI unless the city or county finds, based on substantial evidence, one or more of the following:
   1. The property on which the project is located is protected from wildfire risk pursuant to the wildfire risk reduction standards (see #8 below), or wildfire protection standards adopted by the city or county that meet or exceed the wildfire risk reduction standards.
   2. The city or county has imposed conditions on the development agreement requiring the project to meet the applicable wildfire risk reduction standard.
   3. The city or county finds, based on substantial evidence, that the responsible state and local agencies have made adequate progress toward meeting the applicable wildfire risk reduction standards.

Wildfire risk reduction standards

1. Defines three tiers of “wildlife risk reduction standards,” as follows:
   1. For a development of up to 11 structures:
      1. Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification, and materials and construction methods promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and State Board of Forestry;
      2. Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as specified;
      3. An enforcement program to verify ongoing compliance within the jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans.
   2. For a development of 11 or more residential units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments.
      2. Specified standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards;
      3. Site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, as specified.
      4. Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations.
      5. Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels.
      6. A finding that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of a wildfire.
   3. For a development of 100 or more residential units:
      1. All the standards applicable to smaller developments.
      2. A finding that the development complies with all applicable aspects of OPR’s most recent “Fire Hazard Planning-General Plan Technical Advice Series” unless the locality makes a finding that a particular recommendation is infeasible for the development.

Funding and other changes

1. Provides an unspecified set-aside amount within the annual CalFIRE appropriation for grants to cities and counties that include designated WUIs to fund projects to control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, including but not limited to improved access roads, water supply facilities, remote infrared cameras for wildfire detection, and siren warning systems for wildfires.
2. Requires a common interest development located in a very high fire severity zones to allow the installation or repair of roofs with materials that meet or exceed Class B standards as defined in the International Building Code.
3. Requires the Office of Planning and Research to develop and post on its website a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in WUI, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness, as specified.
4. Makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forest lands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.

COMMENTS

1. Purpose of the bill. The author states that the 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, causing the deaths of 86 people and destroying nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard fires pose to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. This bill presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. This bill does not say that locals cannot develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, this bill provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. This is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.
2. Living with wildfires and other hazards. More than three million Californians (about 7%) currently live in high-risk wildfire areas, and a 2018 study estimates a 77% increase in mean area burned by the end of the century, compared to 1961-1990. Thus, even if the state immediately stops building homes in existing wildfire areas, millions of Californians will remain at risk in existing and expanding wildfire areas. Furthermore, as California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment: Statewide Summary Report (OPR, Energy Commission, Natural Resources Agency, August 2018) points out, the state also faces risk from additional events such as sea-level rise. According to the report, “California must continue to evaluate climate impacts as well as to plan for adaptation and resilience.”
3. Where can we build? California is currently experiencing a serious housing crisis and it is essential to expedite construction of critically needed housing units. In order to make this happen, it is important for every jurisdiction to strive to meet its full RHNA obligation and help provide housing to Californians of all income levels. Toward this end, the 2017 housing package, as well as additional bills last year, provided both increased funding and measures to help increase compliance with housing element law. One of these measures, AB 1397 (Low, Chapter 375, Statutes of 2017) significantly strengthened the definition of what a local government may designate as an “adequate site” for housing, to address concerns about designation of sites that were not realistic or available for residential development. By the same token, however, AB 1397 made it more difficult for localities to identify adequate sites. While well intentioned, this bill, by additionally requiring local governments to make findings of adequate wildfire prevention and protection measures before approving construction in a WUI, potentially adds to the difficulty of identifying adequate sites for housing. The state faces a difficult policy question in that it must balance protection of its residents from wildfires, sea level rise, floods, earthquakes, and other risks, against meeting the need for more housing.
4. Allocation of RHNA shares. Existing law requires each city and county in the state to meet its fair share of the total housing need in its region. This bill requires a COG to consider the amount of land within a WUI when calculating a locality’s RHNA share. Further, it requires a COG to allocate a lower proportion of housing to localities within its jurisdiction that contain a significant amount of land in WUIs, in order to “reduce development pressure” in WUIs. This raises a concern that localities with WUIs will be granted permission to escape RHNA obligations entirely, while other localities will have to shoulder the entire burden for the region. The committee may wish to consider amending this bill to prohibit a COG from using a WUI as a reason to lower the RHNA allocation and allow the COG to work with the locality to determine how best to accommodate its RHNA goals outside of WUIs, including increased zoned density in non-WUI areas of the locality.
5. Fulfilling RHNA obligations. Existing law (SB 166, Skinner, Chapter 367, Statutes of 2017) modified the No Net Loss Zoning Law to require local governments to maintain adequate housing sites at all times throughout the planning period for all levels of income. This is intended to help ensure that a locality continues to maintain a supply of available land to accommodate the remaining unmet housing need throughout the eight-year life of the housing element, rather than only identifying adequate sites at the beginning of the cycle. Under this bill, a local government may not approve a development of 11 units or more than is located in a WUI unless it makes a finding that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of a wildfire. This raises a concern that a city or county may use a WUI as an excuse to avoid approving housing permits. To clarify that failure to approve a permit in a WUI does not reduce a locality’s RHNA obligation, the committee may wish to consider adding a provision to this bill to specify that it does not waive or reduce a jurisdiction’s obligation to ensure that its housing element inventory accommodates, at all times throughout the housing planning period, its remaining share of its regional housing need.
6. Governance and Finance Committee amendments. Due to timing issues, this committee will adopt amendments approved by the Governance and Finance Committee on April 10th. These amendments:
   1. Decrease the number of units per development in the middle tier wildfire risk reduction standard from 11 units or more, to 9 units or more.
   2. Require all developments in WUI areas to meet fire response, water infrastructure, and ignition reduction standards that in the current bill only apply to developments of 11 or more structures.
   3. Require local governments to meet the wildfire risk reduction standards, but allow adequate progress on establishing a defensible space enforcement program, response standards, and water infrastructure until December 31, 2025.
   4. Require developments to be subject to an ongoing fee, tax, assessment, or other permanent fund source in order to fund defensible space maintenance and inspections.
   5. Require the State Fire Marshal, by January 1, 2023, to:
      1. Develop new wildfire risk reduction standards that account for differences in the size of proposed developments; meet or exceed the standards established in this bill; establish community-scale risk reduction measures, including but not limited to community design and layout, separation from wildfire sources, and location and construction of infrastructure to reduce ignition potential and ensure availability of water and power supplies during a wildfire; impose conditions on development that reduce the risk of catastrophic loss due to wildfire of any residential structures within a development to an estimated 1 in 100 chance in any given year; are directly applicable to, and account for, California’s climate, weather, topography, and development patterns.
      2. Update maps of very high fire hazard severity zones and identify areas within these zones where new residential development poses an exceptional risk to future residents and to fire and other public safety personnel that must access the development during wildfire.
      3. Adopt standards for third-party inspection and certification.
   6. Allow the State Fire Marshal to develop higher standards for structures that cannot reasonably be accessed in case of a wildfire.
7. Opposition concerns. The California Building Industry Association (CBIA) states that “While the intention of SB 182 is noble…the real issue in local fire safety is how to address threats to our existing built environment.” CBIA cites a number of concerns, including the overly broad definition of WUIs, which could potentially lead to “any place where a structure intermingles with vegetation…[becoming] a tool of housing opponents to stop an approval.” CBIA also notes that the new wildfire fire hazard assessments required by this bill could introduce added uncertainty to the permitting process, which could further delay construction. In addition, CBIA states that lack of clarity in the standards established by this bill, such as “unreasonable risk of wildfire,” could increase the litigation risk against new housing production.
8. Double referral. This bill was passed by the Governance and Finance Committee on a 6-1 vote on April 10th.

Related Legislation:

SB 190 (Dodd, 2019) — requires the State Fire Marshal to develop a model defensible space ordinance and a training manual on WUI standards for building officials, builders, and fire service personnel. This bill is pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

AB 38 (Wood, 2019) — establishes a $1 billion fire-hardened homes revolving fund, establishes regional wildfire prevention districts, and requires sellers of buildings in very high fire hazard zones to certify that certain low-cost retrofits have been applied to the structure. This bill will be heard in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 22nd.

AB 1516 (Friedman, 2019) — enhances the state’s defensible space requirements and imposes a $500 penalty for failure to maintain defensible space. This bill is pending in the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes

POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on Wednesday,

April 17, 2019.)

SUPPORT:

Sierra Club

OPPOSITION:

California Building Industry Association

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SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE

Senator Mike McGuire, Chair

2019 - 2020 Regular

Local government: planning and zoning: wildfires

Imposes certain fire hazard planning responsibilities on local governments, requires cities and counties to make specified findings prior to permitting development in the very high fire hazard severity zone (VHFHSZ) and other areas designated as the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), and makes other fire-related changes to law.

Background

Fire Hazard Severity Zones. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) provides wildland fire protection on non-federal lands outside cities. To meet this duty, the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) designates the State Responsibility Area (SRA) every five years. Within SRA lands, the Director of CALFIRE designates moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones (VHFHSZs). After the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm, the Legislature required CALFIRE to designate VHFHSZs in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA). These maps must be updated every five years (current maps date to 2007).

Landowners in the SRA and VHFHSZs must follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by the Board (AB 337, Bates, 1992). These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing and Community Development that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk. AB 2911 (Friedman, 2018) requires the State Fire Marshal to update these building standards to provide for comprehensive site and structure fire risk reduction by January 1, 2020.

Planning and permitting. Every county and city must adopt a general plan with seven mandatory elements: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, and safety. General plans must also either include an eighth element on environmental justice, or incorporate environmental justice concerns throughout the other elements. Most of cities’ and counties’ major land use decisions—subdivisions, zoning, public works projects, use permits—must be consistent with their general plans. Development decisions must carry out and not obstruct a general plan’s policies.

The Subdivision Map Act regulates how local officials approve the conversion of larger parcels into marketable lots. Major subdivisions—more than four lots—require a discretionary tentative map and a ministerial final map. Minor subdivisions—four or fewer lots, called “lot splits”—usually require a single, discretionary parcel map. In some communities, minor subdivisions require a tentative parcel map and a final parcel map, similar to major subdivisions.

Fire-specific planning requirements. The Planning and Zoning Law says that the safety element’s purpose is to protect the community from unreasonable risks from geologic hazards, flooding, and wildland and urban fires. In 2012, the Legislature expanded the safety elements’ contents for fire risks on land classified as SRAs and VHFHSZs (SB 1241, Kehoe, 2012). SB 1241 required safety elements to contain:

• Specified information about fire hazards.
• Based on that information, a set of comprehensive goals, policies, and objectives to protect against unreasonable fire risks.
• To carry out those goals, a set of feasible implementation measures.

Cities and counties must also submit a draft of any safety element amendments to the Board and to local fire protection agencies at least 90 days before adopting it. The Board must review and recommend changes to the draft safety element within 60 days of receiving it. If the Board provides recommendations within this timeframe, local governments must consider its recommendations. If they don’t adopt the Board’s recommendations, local governments have to explain why they didn’t to the Board. Local agencies must meet with the Board on its recommendations if the Board requests, but aren’t required to adopt the Board’s recommendations.

The safety element must also include similar information about risks due to climate change and goals, policies, objectives, and implementation measures to protect against those risks.

Many local governments have also adopted a local hazard mitigation plan (LHMP) to identify all of the natural hazards that threaten a community and strategies to mitigate those hazards. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reviews and approves every LHMP, and the LHMP expires five years after it’s approved, unless amended and recertified. Local governments with a compliant LHMP are eligible for proactive hazard mitigation grants from the federal government, as well as additional post-disaster assistance.

Before a city council or county board of supervisors can approve a tentative map or final map in the SRA or VHFHSZ, it must make findings supported by substantial evidence that:

• The subdivision is consistent with the Board’s applicable regulations or local ordinances certified by the Board as meeting or exceeding the state regulations; and
• A local agency or CALFIRE, under contract, will provide structural fire protection and suppression services to the subdivision.

Upon making these findings, the city or county must send them, along with the subdivision maps, to the Board.

To assist local governments with fire hazard planning, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) issues a technical advisory series that includes best practices in land use and permitting for fire hazard planning.

March 13^th oversight hearing. The Senate Governance & Finance Committee and the Natural Resources & Water Committee held an oversight hearing earlier this year, titled “Living Resiliently in the New Abnormal: The Future of Development in California’s Most Fire Prone Regions.” Among other topics, that hearing explored changes to land use approvals and permitting that may be needed to reduce the loss of life and property from wildfire. One conclusion from the hearing was that, while defensible space and building standards are incredibly important, community scale interventions, such as community layout and establishment of safe areas for the community to assemble during fires, can reduce the risk of wildfire losses. The hearing also discussed the need for more detailed information on the fire resilience of individual parcels and whether some parcels or areas should be identified as indefensible.

The author wants to improve local land use planning and permitting practices pertaining to wildfire risks.

Proposed Law

Senate Bill 182 imposes additional planning responsibilities on local governments, requires cities and counties to make specified findings prior to permitting development in VHFHSZ and other areas designated as the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), and makes other changes.

Planning requirements. SB 182 defines WUI areas to be the VHFHSZ in both the SRA and the LRA, as well as any other lands determined by the governing body of a city or county to be located in an area where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.

SB 182 requires each city or county, upon the next revision of the housing element or LHMP on or after January 1, 2020, whichever occurs first, to review and update its safety element to include a comprehensive retrofit strategy. The comprehensive retrofit strategy must include, but is not limited to, all of the following:

• A list of the types of retrofits needed in an area based on fire risk.
• A process for identifying and inventorying structures in need of retrofit or fire hardening.
• Goals and milestones for completing needed retrofit work.
• Potential funding sources and financing strategies to pay for needed retrofits on public and private property.

SB 182 also requires a city or county with WUI areas within its jurisdiction to amend the land use element of its general plan upon the next revision of the housing element on or after January 1, 2021. This amendment of the land use element must include:

• The goals contained in the most recent Strategic Fire Plan for California prepared by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
• The locations of all WUI areas within the city or county.
• The data and analysis described in the Office of Planning and Research’s most recent publication of “Fire Hazard Planning–General Plan Technical Advice Series.”
• The goals of any LHMP, community wildfire protection plan, and climate adaptation plan that has been adopted by the governing body of the city or county.
• Objectives, policies, and feasible implementation measures for the protection of lives and property from unreasonable risk of wildfire, based on the above information and consistent with the contents of the safety element that are already required by existing law.

After that initial amendment to the land use element, a city or county must also make the following findings, supported by substantial evidence, upon each revision of the housing element:

• The implementation of the wildfire risk reduction standards, as defined below, within the jurisdiction, and whether the city or county has made adequate progress toward providing protection from wildfire risk to the level set forth in the wildfire risk reduction standards during the preceding planning period.
• The designation of WUI areas.

Drafts of these findings must be submitted to the Board and to applicable local agencies that provide fire protection at least 90 days prior to adoption by the governing body. The Board must review the findings and recommend changes within 60 days, and local agencies may also comment.

Prior to adopting the findings, the city or county must consider the recommendations, if any, made by the Board or local fire agencies. If they don’t accept the recommendations, the city or county must explain why they didn’t, and the governing board must meet with the Board if the Board requests. The Board must then also notify the city or county that they are in violation of state law if it finds that the written findings do not substantially comply with this section, or that the city or county has otherwise failed to substantially comply with the requirements established by the bill. The Board may also notify the Attorney General. SB 182 allows any interested person to file a lawsuit to compel compliance with these requirements.

SB 182 also requires OPR, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and post on its website a clearinghouse of local ordinances, policies, and best practices relating to land use planning in WUI areas, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire preparedness. OPR must also regularly update the clearinghouse.

Findings prior to approving development. SB 182 requires cities and counties, within 12 months after revision of their general plan as described above, to develop WUI overlay zones in their zoning ordinances to ensure consistency with the jurisdiction’s amended general plan. Once those overlay zones are effective, SB 182 prohibits cities and counties from approving any new residential ministerial or discretionary permits, discretionary entitlements, tentative subdivision or parcel maps, or development agreement in WUI areas unless the city or county finds one of the following:

• The property upon which the project is located is protected from wildfire risk in accordance with specified wildfire risk reduction standards, or standards adopted by a local jurisdiction that exceed those standards;
• The jurisdiction has imposed conditions on the approval of the project that requires the project under consideration to meet the applicable wildfire risk reduction standard; or
• The jurisdiction finds, based on substantial evidence, that the relevant state and local agencies have made adequate progress toward meeting the applicable wildfire risk reduction standard.

SB 182 provides that this requirement only becomes effective after the overlay zone has been adopted and the statutes of limitations on challenges to the general plan, zoning ordinance, or environmental documents have run.

Wildfire risk reduction standards. SB 182 defines three tiers of wildfire risk reduction standards, based on the size of the development. First, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards for all residential developments of up to 11 units to include:

• Existing regulations governing defensible space, vegetation management, fuel modification and building standards promulgated by the State Fire Marshal, Building Standards Commission, and State Board of Forestry;
• Preparation of a wildland fire hazard assessment and mitigation plan, as described in certain published standards; and
• An enforcement program to verify ongoing compliance within jurisdiction concerning defensible space, vegetation management, and local fire plan/wildfire hazard mitigation plans.

SB 182 allows a local agency to charge a fee to cover the cost of administering the enforcement program and requires the enforcement program to ensure that compliance is documented for each affected property or structure at least once every three years. SB 182 allows compliance to be verified by any of the following:

• The local, state, or federal fire authority;
• The enforcing agency;
• Third-party inspection and certification; or
• Property owner self-certification.

For developments of 11 or more residential dwelling units, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:

• All the standards applicable to smaller developments;
• Certain published standards for fire suppression, response times and levels, water flows for firefighting, road design for equipment ingress/egress, and for identifying ignition hazards;
• Site-specific fire protection plans designed to protect against fire encroachment, including defensible structure layout, structure clustering, and use of natural/engineered firebreaks;
• Identification of potential on-site shelter-in-place locations;
• Mechanisms to maintain common areas/open spaces to control vegetative fuels; and
• A finding by a city or county that the development can be reasonably accessed and served in the event of wildfire.

For developments of 100 or more residential units, SB 182 defines wildfire risk reduction standards to include:

• All the standards applicable to smaller developments; and
• A finding that the development complies with all applicable aspects of OPR’s “Fire Hazard Planning” series unless a city or county determines based on substantial evidence that a particular recommendation is infeasible.

Funding and other changes. SB 182 allocates an unspecified amount of the funds appropriated to CALFIRE by SB 901 (Dodd, 2018) to cities and counties that include designated WUI areas for projects that control the spread of wildfire and improve life safety, including but not limited to:

• New, improved, or expanded access roads in populated areas within a wildland-urban interface area.
• Public or private water supply or delivery facilities suitable for firefighting in a wildland-urban interface area.
• Remote infrared cameras for detection of wildfires.
• Siren warning systems for wildfires.

SB 182 requires CALFIRE to prioritize this assistance based on the proportion of land in the jurisdiction located within the WUI and on other guidance developed by the Board of Forestry.

SB 182 directs each Council of Governments, or the Department of Housing and Community Development in areas where it has responsibility under existing law, to base its distribution of regional housing needs to cities and counties on the amount of land in each city or county that is within a WUI area.

SB 182 requires a common interest development located in a VHFHSZ to allow the installation or repair of roofs with materials that meet or exceed Class B standards as defined in the International Building Code.

SB 182 makes clarifying changes to state laws governing conservation easements of forestlands, and makes other technical and conforming changes.

State Revenue Impact

No estimate.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in California. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone burned 459,123 acres to become the largest fire in California history, and even more devastating, the Camp Fire in November 2018 became California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfire, which caused the deaths of 86 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures. Even as climate change worsens the hazard fire poses to California communities, new development is increasing in fire-prone areas. SB 182 presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring intelligent, fire-safe development. It requires local governments to do extensive planning to identify fire risks to their communities, consistent with best practices identified by the state. More importantly, it prohibits local agencies from approving developments that aren’t adequately protected from the fire hazard, while requiring local agencies to do their part by enforcing defensible space requirements. SB 182 doesn’t say that locals can’t develop, but it does tell them that they have to do it right. Finally, SB 182 provides local governments with some regulatory relief and funding to support the new duties that they need to perform under the bill. SB 182 is a balanced bill that will ensure that future development in California is fire-safe.

2. Home rule. The California Constitution allows a city to "make and enforce within its limits, all local, police, sanitary and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws." It is from this fundamental power (commonly called the police power) that local governments derive their authority to regulate behavior to preserve the health, safety, and welfare of the public—including land use authority. Local elected officials rightfully guard this power jealously: they are closer to the impacts of new developments and to the concerns from citizens about the safety of their community. They are also on the front lines when disaster strikes. For these reasons, local elected officials are well positioned to make development decisions. SB 182 tells local governments that they must deny certain developments if they don’t meet state standards, and it requires significant new expenditures on firefighting resources, water supply infrastructure to maintain fire flows, and defensible space inspections before new development can be permitted. These costs will likely be passed on to developers and property owners, potentially making some development infeasible and depriving communities of needed economic revitalization in the process. SB 182 replaces the judgment of local officials with that of the Legislature on what developments should be permissible—regardless of what conditions on the ground look like.

3. Just do it. SB 182 requires cities and counties to complete substantial new analyses of fire risk to their communities that were previously only suggestions in technical guidance documents. This fits a pattern that runs through the Planning and Zoning law: tell locals to analyze impacts to the ends of the earth, but don’t tell them how or where to develop. In some ways, SB 182 continues this trend by loading locals down with new planning requirements in the hopes that they won’t approve developments in dangerous areas, instead of putting an outright prohibition on development in those areas. There are good reasons for caution: a development moratorium can potentially be a taking of property under the United States Constitution, which would require just compensation of the property owner and could be very expensive. But a step in the right direction would be to identify areas that, if developed, would pose an unreasonable risk to future residents and the public safety personnel that have to serve those residents. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 to require the State Fire Marshal to update their maps of the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone and in doing so, to identify areas where development would pose an unreasonable risk.

4. Go big or go home. The fire threat that faces California’s communities is large and growing. The Legislature has taken major steps to address many aspects of fire hazards and resilience, but has largely stayed away from imposing restrictions on local government’s land use authority, which cities and counties jealously guard. At the same time, past (and in some cases, present) local decisions have resulted in the approval of developments in risky areas, putting lives and property at risk. SB 182 aims to curtail the worst decisions by putting some guardrails on local approvals of new housing in the VHFHSZ, but it may not go far enough to truly prevent future catastrophic fires. The Committee may wish to consider the following amendments to strengthen SB 182’s provisions and close loopholes that could be exploited to the detriment of public safety:

• Most of the requirements applicable to developments under 11 units are similar to requirements in existing law. However, the standards that SB 182 applies to developments of more than 11 units have flexibility built into them and therefore could reasonably be applied to smaller developments. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 to apply all of the wildfire risk reduction standards to all any development, regardless of the number of units.
• Once a development is approved, it is there for good. But SB 182 allows locals to permit development if they demonstrate “adequate progress” towards meeting the wildfire risk reduction standards that apply to the development. Accordingly, some development could be permitted even if the local government never actually meets the standards. Moreover, the bill already provides local agencies with lead-up time to put programs and infrastructure in place because many of its requirements don’t kick in for several years. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 to remove the adequate progress off-ramp or to more carefully define it and specifically require compliance at a time certain.
• SB 182 requires a defensible space inspection program to be in place and allows local governments to charge fees. Similarly, it requires larger developments to have mechanisms to maintain defensible space. However, history has shown that opposition to fees can be fierce and can limit the ability of a local government to run a functioning program. In addition, property-owner self certification may not adequately ensure the maintenance is carried out. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 to require ongoing financing mechanisms for defensible space maintenance and inspections for new developments and to repeal the ability of property owners to self-certify to ensure that those actions are completed.
• Many of the standards in SB 182 are based off of National Fire Protection Association standards that are developed to be widely applicable across the country. Given the unique geography and climate of California, these NFPA standards may not be adequate in the California context. Standards that account for those specific factors may be needed, and we may learn more about fire behavior that leads to the development of new standards. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 to require the State Fire Marshal to review these standards and adopt new standards that apply specifically to California, account for differences in the size of proposed developments, are more protective of life and property, establish community-scale risk reduction measures and land use practices, and set a performance metric based on the probability that a structure will suffer catastrophic loss to wildfire.
• SB 182 requires large developments to meet all the measures in OPR’s fire hazard technical guidance series, unless the city or county finds that those measures would be infeasible. This clause potentially allows great latitude for local governments and developers to disregard these requirements. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 strip the infeasibility exemption from the bill.

5. Timing is everything. SB 182 requires updates to the safety element and the land use element but requires those updates to be done at different times. Since general plans must be internally consistent, it may make more sense to harmonize the timing of these provisions. The Committee may wish to consider amending SB 182 to require the safety element and land use element updates to both occur upon the next revision of the housing element or LHMP on or after January 1, 2021, whichever occurs first.

6. Charter city. The California Constitution allows cities that adopt charters to control their own “municipal affairs.” In all other matters, charter cities must follow the general, statewide laws. Because the Constitution doesn't define "municipal affairs," the courts determine whether a topic is a municipal affair or whether it's an issue of statewide concern. SB 182 says that its statutory provisions apply to charter cities. To support this assertion, the bill includes a legislative finding that the wildfire protection in WUI areas is a matter of statewide concern.

7. Mandate. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local governments for the costs of new or expanded state mandated local programs. Because SB 182 adds to the duties of local officials, Legislative Counsel says that the bill imposes a new state mandate. SB 182 disclaims the state's responsibility for providing reimbursement by citing local governments’ authority to charge for the costs of implementing the bill's provisions.

8. Do not pass go. The Senate Rules Committee initially referred SB 182 solely to the Senate Governance and Finance Committee. In its amended form, it may touch other committees’ jurisdictions. Should it pass this Committee, SB 182 must be re-referred to Senate Rules to determine the bill’s next stop.

9. Related legislation. In 2018, the Legislature took important actions to improve wildfire planning and safety. Notable bills include the following:

• SB 901 (Dodd, 2018) establishes a comprehensive framework to address and prevent catastrophic wildfires including prevention and planning by the state's electric utilities; management of the state's forests, chaparrals, and other lands to prevent and defend against wildfires; and standards to stabilize electrical corporations in the event of extensive liability resulting from claims under inverse condemnation. SB 901 also appropriated $200 million per year through the 2023-24 budget for forest health and fire prevention.
• SB 1260 (Jackson, 2018) made various changes related to local fire planning, prescribed fire requirements, and broader fire prevention efforts, including to require that: (1) local safety elements reflect best practices contained in OPR’s technical guidance for fire hazard planning; (2) cities and counties meet with the Board on their draft safety elements at the request of the Board; and (3) cities and counties transmit any fire-related findings made under the Subdivision Map Act to the Board.
• AB 2911 (Friedman, 2018) made various changes to fire safety planning, including to: require local agencies to submit ordinances adopting VHFHSZ to the Board; direct OPR to update its technical guidance for fire and land use planning; and require the Board to identify at-risk subdivisions not less than every 5 years.
• AB 1956 (Limón, 2018) requires CAL FIRE to establish a local grant program and establishes the criteria for those grants.
• SB 465 (Jackson, 2018) expands, until January 1, 2029, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing to allow cities and counties in VHFHSZs to allow contractual assessments for property owners to finance wildfire safety improvements.

The Legislature is also considering numerous fire-related bills this year. SB 190 (Dodd) requires the State Fire Marshal to develop a model defensible space ordinance and a training manual on WUI standards for building officials, builders, and fire service personnel. AB 38 (Wood) establishes a $1 billion fire-hardened homes revolving loan fund, establishes regional wildfire prevention districts, and requires sellers of buildings in VHFHSZ to certify that certain low-cost retrofits have been applied to the structure. AB 1516 (Friedman) enhances the state’s defensible space requirements and imposes a $500 penalty for failure to maintain defensible space.

Support and Opposition

(4/5/19)

Support: Unknown.

Opposition: Unknown.

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