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The Same Areas of California Keep Catching on Fire. What About Limits on Home Building? - Los Angeles Times

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The Same Areas of California Keep Catching on Fire. What About Limits on Home Building? - Los Angeles Times 10/28/2019 The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? - Los Angeles Times ADVERTISEMENT URBAN URBAN U-SHAPED REVERSIBLE L- REVERSIBLE D E S K W I T H DESK - 72"W X C O M PA C T L - BOOKCASE Shop Now > $1,025.00 $998.00 $1,149.00 CALIFORNIA The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? A home burns near a vineyard after the Kincade fire burned through the area near Geyserville, Calif. Fueled by high winds, the fire burned thousands of acres in a matter of hours and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) By LIAM DILLON STAFF WRITER OCT 28 2019 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-28/kincade-getty-fire-prone-neighborhood-limit-homebuilding 1/10 10/28/2019 The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? - Los Angeles Times OCT. 28, 2019 3:20 PM The wildfires engulfing California this month have burned some of the same areas where other major fires have destroyed thousands of homes in recent years. But while Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have announced plans that could reign in Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and other utilities since this year’s blazes began, no one has formally proposed robust limits on home building in areas at risk of wildfire. On Sunday, residents of Coffey Park, a neighborhood in Santa Rosa that was leveled in the Tubbs fire in 2017, received evacuation orders over the Kincade fire, which is currently ripping through Sonoma County. The community has yet to see damage from the new blaze, but some areas burned by the Kincade fire overlap with those affected two years ago — and fire officials fear the flames could grow when Diablo winds return to Northern California later this week. Many homes have only just been rebuilt in Coffey Park. But the burnt trees that surround them serve as constant reminders of the Tubbs fire. In June, the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies released a poll that showed that three- quarters of California voters believe the state should restrain home building in areas at high risk of wildfires. The poll, prepared for The Times, revealed bipartisan support for such restrictions after deadly fires wiped out tens of thousands of homes across the state in the last two years. “The voters think there should be limits,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. The Times is offering fire coverage for free today. Please consider a subscription to support our journalism. The survey revealed broad backing across party lines, demographic groups and all regions in California for restricting growth in wildfire zones. Nearly 85% of Democrats support doing so compared with 57% of Republicans and 72% of independent voters. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-28/kincade-getty-fire-prone-neighborhood-limit-homebuilding 2/10 10/28/2019 The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? - Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times) https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-28/kincade-getty-fire-prone-neighborhood-limit-homebuilding 3/10 10/28/2019 The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? - Los Angeles Times SPONSORED CONTENT Ready to Take the Next Step in Revamping Your Floors? Find a Store By Stainmaster At least 66% of respondents in every region backed the idea, including the non-Bay Area northern section of the state. That includes the area surrounding Paradise, which was almost entirely destroyed in last fall’s Camp fire and where many homeowners have said they hope to rebuild and in many cases are doing so. Overall, 37% of voters surveyed said they supported strongly limiting new home building in wildfire areas, with an additional 38% saying they somewhat supported the idea. Despite voters’ willingness to restrict growth in wildfire areas, Newsom and lawmakers have not discussed the idea comprehensively, alongside other options to prevent destructive infernos. State leaders have instead focused their discussions on utility companies’ financial responsibility for the blazes, how to pay for damages from wildfires and cutting back vegetation and other ways to manage the state’s forests. One bill that would have added extra restrictions on cities and counties’ ability to approve housing in high-risk zones was held in a legislative committee earlier this year. Last year Ken Pimlott, the recently retired head of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said that government should consider stopping home building in threatened communities because of the substantial loss of property and lives. But in an interview with the Associated Press this spring, Newsom rejected it. “There’s something that is truly Californian about the wilderness and the wild and pioneering spirit,” Newsom said. “I’m not advocating for” no building. Stanford University’s Michael Wara, who recently served on a state wildfire commission, said the scale of recent fires is influencing how Californians think about development, even those whose property is safe. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-28/kincade-getty-fire-prone-neighborhood-limit-homebuilding 4/10 10/28/2019 The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? - Los Angeles Times “They wake up and go outside and they can’t breathe and there’s ash on their car,” said Wara, who directs the school’s climate and energy policy program. “It’s not something you read about in the newspaper. It’s something you experience.” (Los Angeles Times) But Wara said any decision to limit growth in fire zones remains politically difficult. People who own land or might want to build in those areas strongly prefer to maintain the status quo. “This is an issue where there’s concentrated very powerful interests that have a lot to lose by changing the rules,” he said. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-28/kincade-getty-fire-prone-neighborhood-limit-homebuilding 5/10 10/28/2019 The same areas of California keep catching on fire. What about limits on home building? - Los Angeles Times It’s also possible that voters might support the idea for limiting growth but not the details of what a plan might look like, said DiCamillo, the pollster. A recent Cal Fire report said 1 in 4 Californians live in areas considered at high risk for wildfires, including in suburban Southern California and the Bay Area. People who live in parts of Marin County may not realize they reside in one of these zones when answering that question, he said. “They’re probably thinking about all these rural areas.” The online survey of 4,435 California voters took place June 4 to 10 and had an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5%. CALIFORNIA POLITICS CALIFORNIA LAW & POLITICS FIRES HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS NEWSLETTER Get our Essential California newsletter Please enter your email address Subscribe Liam Dillon Twitter Instagram Email Facebook Liam Dillon covers the issues of housing affordability and neighborhood change across California for the Los Angeles Times. Prior to this assignment, Dillon covered state politics and policy for The Times’ Sacramento Bureau and wrote about local politics in San Diego and Southwest Florida. MORE FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES POLITICS Q&A: What you need to know about the fall of Democrats’ rising star Rep. Katie Hill https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-28/kincade-getty-fire-prone-neighborhood-limit-homebuilding 6/10 10/29/2019 Hiltzik: California fires show it's private enterprise, not government, that can't get things right - Los Angeles Times ADVERTISEMENT A-Advantage The Leak Stops Here! CLICK All Work Guaranteed HERE Plumbing Family Owned BUSINESS Column: California fires show it’s private enterprise, not government, that can’t get things right https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-28/california-fires-private-enterprise 1/12 10/29/2019 Hiltzik: California fires show it's private enterprise, not government, that can't get things right - Los Angeles Times Shopkeepers Sodhi Singh, left, and Navneet Singh prepare to close down their gas station and convenience store in Healdsburg in Sonoma County after the lights went out ahead of an expected high-wind event in the area of the Kincade fire. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) By MICHAEL HILTZIK BUSINESS COLUMNIST OCT. 28, 2019 1:22 PM Critics of public sector inefficiencies have long declared that “government should be run like a business.” A business such as, say, Pacific Gas & Electric? The current wildfire crisis in California should serve as an object lesson in the folly of expecting private enterprise to operate in the service of the public interest. It’s common to hear ordinary taxpayers grousing about the DMV as a proxy for all that’s burdensome and irritating about bureaucracy. [We] reached new levels of reliability and won recognition from our industry for our emergency response efforts. ANTHONY F. EARLEY JR. IN 2015, WHEN HE WAS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF PG&E But the electricity shutoffs across the state, aimed at reducing the chance that a spark from utility equipment will start a fire, are the handiwork of our private utilities, artifacts of their failure to spend more money on their infrastructure rather than shareholder dividends. Federal Judge William Alsup of San Francisco, who is overseeing PG&E’s probation after its criminal conviction in connection with the 2010 gas line explosion that killed eight in San Bruno, implicitly acknowledged as much in an order last January.
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