Protect our neighborhoods from wildfire: Reject Senate Bill 9

We are writing to urge NO on SB 9, because it is irresponsible about wildfire. SB 9 threatens lives.

Many incorporated cities and towns in the Bay Area contain high-hazard areas. SB 9 offers NO wildfire protection to such areas, yet it offers an exemption for high-hazard areas in state responsibility areas.[1] Wildfire does not respect jurisdictional boundaries. If denser housing is unsafe in state responsibility areas, then it is unsafe in incorporated neighborhoods too.

A bill that worsens fire safety in the cities where we live is unacceptable.

Cities with high-risk areas routinely require defensible space that meets standards like National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) 1141, which take into account vegetation, terrain, road access, etc. NFPA 1141 calls for 30-foot setbacks, but SB 9 would mandate 4-foot setbacks. That is a recipe for structure-to-structure fire spread.

A bill that makes it illegal for cities & towns to enforce fire standards is unacceptable.

SB 9 has an exemption for very-high-hazard in incorporated areas, but offers nothing for high-hazard ones – as if wildfire threatens only very-high-hazard areas. That is head-in-the-sand denial. Climate change and fuel buildup are transforming high-hazard areas into very-high-hazard ones. Coffey Park residents understand this. Their neighborhood was obliterated by the Tubbs fire despite not being in a designated fire hazard zone at all – it was simply a mile from one. Insurance companies understand this, which is why they are cancelling policies in high-risk cities. As stated by the recent housing study by Next 10 and UC Berkeley: "California last updated its fire risk maps in 2007. Consequently, these maps underrepresent the true extent of wildfire risk."

A bill that treats "high hazard" as "no hazard" is unacceptable.

Even SB 9's narrow exemptions are half-hearted, since they are eliminated for "sites that have adopted fire hazard mitigation measures pursuant to existing building standards or state fire mitigation measures." That, too, is denial. Cal Fire reports that half of the homes built to full Chapter 7A standards were destroyed in the Tubbs and Camp fires. High-hazard areas are dangerous even for homes built to the best standards.

A bill that imagines that a location's fire risk disappears with stucco siding is unacceptable.

Fire risk should be central to housing planning in the wildland-urban interface. California has sued to stop housing developments in high-hazard areas like Guenoc Valley in Lake County, even though they would follow stringent fire standards. Yet SB 9 would push dense housing into established neighborhoods built to far-looser standards. We need to be making our neighborhoods safer from wildfire, not double-down on the risk.

Please reject SB 9.

[1] SB 9 (via reference to Section 65913.4) exempts areas that are rated very-high-hazard for wildfire, and it also exempts high-hazard areas within state responsibility areas.  Yet SB 9 offers no exemption, or even partial relief, to high-hazard areas that are within local responsibility areas – which means within incorporated cities and towns.

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