New bill seeks to limit housing sprawl in fire- and flood-prone areas of California

Over the past half-century, new housing has spread into ever more far-flung parts of California – from luxury estates perched on remote hillsides to tightly packed subdivisions stretched over rural flatlands.

The sprawl has allowed people to live closer to nature and buy homes in more affordable parts of the state where it’s cheaper and easier to build. But it’s also left millions vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires and flooding.

And as destructive natural disasters have become more frequent in recent years, state and local officials have felt increasing pressure: How does California find ways to ease a dire housing shortage without ignoring the harsh reality of climate change?

Now, an unlikely coalition of environmentalists and housing advocates is backing a bill that seeks to slow growth in many parts of the state at high risk of fires and floods while encouraging more multifamily housing in existing population centers.

The proposal wouldn’t outright ban new housing in regions at risk of fires and floods — or prevent people in those areas from rebuilding their homes after disaster strikes. But advocates say it would rein in the kind of large master-planned developments that in recent decades have popped up in the Oakland hills, Tassajara Valley in Contra Costa County, and Morgan Hill and Gilroy in the South Bay.

Chris Ward, a Democratic assemblymember from San Diego who introduced the legislation, Assembly Bill 68, said the goal is “to try and limit, and as a last resort suspend, further sprawl into areas that are putting families in harm’s way.”

Since 2018, devastating wildfires in Lake Tahoe, Wine Country, the Sacramento Valley, the Santa Cruz Mountains and other parts of the state have burned thousands of homes and killed dozens of people. And this year, severe flooding has hit the San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast, damaging hundreds of homes in the Monterey County farm town of Pajaro.

Across California, roughly a quarter of all residents now live in areas at risk of catastrophic fire, according to state officials. One in five of the state’s residents live in areas vulnerable to floods, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Margie Freedman, who lives in the Monte Vista Villas townhome development in the Oakland Hills, is one of them. Freedman, who has struggled to find affordable homeowners insurance as insurers have become increasingly reluctant to cover properties in fire-prone areas, thinks market forces, rather than legislation, will ultimately control where housing is built.

“The reality, as I see it, is that the lack of affordable insurance (if one can get it at all) will be what limits building new homes in high fire-risk areas,” Freedman said in an email.

But housing advocates blame policies restricting denser development in cities and suburbs for pushing new housing farther into wooded foothills and open floodplains where land is less expensive and space is plentiful. That’s not only put more people in danger, advocates and environmentalists say, but distressed local ecosystems and boosted climate-warming vehicle emissions.

“We have to deprioritize building homes in hazard zones and instead prioritize housing closer to jobs and services, so people can spend more time with their families – and less time in polluting traffic,” Melissa Breach, chief operating officer of California YIMBY, said in a statement.

The legislation — co-sponsored by California YIMBY (short for “Yes In My Backyard”) and the Nature Conservancy — would create defined “hazard areas” across the state. It would then require local officials wanting to approve more homes than their general plans allow for in those locations to first show the same number of units couldn’t be built elsewhere in the city or county.

While maps of the proposed hazard areas are still being determined, they could cover wide swaths of the Bay Area, from the East Bay hills to the Santa Clara Valley and much of the Peninsula.

The bill would also require officials to streamline and approve larger “naturally affordable” multifamily homes in specific areas within walking distance of jobs, schools, transit, parks and shopping centers.

The building industry, however, appears poised to push back hard on the bill.

Dan Dunmoyer, chief executive of the California Building Industry Association, said the bill would drive up land values by limiting where new housing is allowed, making construction in rural and urban areas alike even more costly.

“It’s disappointing to have a YIMBY group come out in favor of a bill that says YIMBY, but only in certain places,” Dunmoyer said.

He said building homes anywhere in California comes with an inherent risk, pointing to the threat of earthquakes. But just as newer housing is built to better withstand violent tremors, updated building codes have also made homes more fire resistant, he noted.

And when it comes to large subdivisions, Dunmoyer said, developers can build roads, parks and golf courses around tract homes to shield them from wildfires. “I will contend we can master-plan a community not to burn,” he said.

Despite such assurances, California Attorney General Rob Bonta last year released stricter guidelines for how and where developers should be allowed to build in fire-prone areas. His office has also been part of several lawsuits to block large projects in areas with a history of wildfires.

Still, recent efforts to add more far-reaching restrictions have fallen flat. In 2021, a state bill to ban development in high fire-risk areas stalled out amid heavy opposition from the building industry. Before that in 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a measure that would have mandated more evacuation routes, vegetation management and strict building codes for new developments in fire-prone regions.

Newsom said he shot down the bill because it would have created “a loophole for regions to not comply with their housing requirements.”

Ward, the state lawmaker, said bringing together environmentalists and housing advocates — who have long been on opposing ends of development fights — should go a long way toward mustering the political support to secure a different outcome.

“It’s a really strong starting point,” he said, “for the success of this legislation.”