BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 379|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 379
Author: Jackson (D)
Amended: 7/6/15
Vote: 21
SENATE GOVERNANCE & FIN. COMMITTEE: 5-2, 4/15/15
AYES: Hertzberg, Beall, Hernandez, Lara, Pavley
NOES: Nguyen, Bates
SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 5-0, 4/29/15
AYES: Wieckowski, Hill, Jackson, Leno, Pavley
NO VOTE RECORDED: Gaines, Bates
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
SENATE FLOOR: 23-16, 6/3/15
AYES: Allen, Beall, Block, De León, Hall, Hancock, Hernandez,
Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Leyva, Liu,
McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Pan, Pavley, Wieckowski,
Wolk
NOES: Anderson, Bates, Berryhill, Cannella, Fuller, Gaines,
Galgiani, Huff, Moorlach, Morrell, Nguyen, Nielsen, Roth,
Runner, Stone, Vidak
NO VOTE RECORDED: Glazer
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 55-25, 8/31/15 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Land use: general plan: safety element
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requires cities and counties to review and
update their general plans safety elements to address risks
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Page 2
posed by climate change.
Assembly Amendments:
Clarify the timeline by which a local jurisdiction must comply
with this bill's provisions.
Require that specified general plan revisions mandated by this
bill must include identification of natural infrastructure
that may be used in adaptation projects, where feasible and,
where feasible, must use existing natural features and
ecosystem processes, or the restoration of natural features
and ecosystem processes, when developing alternatives for
consideration.
Allows cities or counties that have an adopted hazard
mitigation plan, or other climate adaptation plan or document
that substantially complies with this bill's requirements, or
have substantially equivalent provisions in their general
plans, to use that information in the safety element to comply
with this bill's provisions.
ANALYSIS: Existing law requires every county and city to adopt
a general plan with seven mandatory elements: land use,
circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, and
safety.
This bill requires cities and counties to review and update
their general plans' safety elements to address climate
adaptation and resiliency strategies applicable to the city or
county. Local officials must act either the next time they
revise their local hazard mitigation plans on or after January
1, 2017, or, if a local agency has not adopted a hazard
mitigation plan, on or before January 1, 2022. Specifically,
this bill:
1)Requires cities and counties to consider the Governor's Office
of Planning and Research (OPR) General Plan Guidelines and
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Page 3
expands the required contents of safety elements to include:
a) A vulnerability assessment that identifies what risks
climate change poses to the local jurisdiction and the
geographic areas at risk from climate change impacts,
including an assessment of how climate change may affect
fire and flood risks addressed elsewhere in the safety
element.
b) Specified information about climate change risks,
including:
i) Information from the Web-based Cal-Adapt tool;
ii) Information from the most recent version of
the California Adaptation Planning Guide;
iii) Information from local agencies on the types
of assets, resources, and populations that will be
sensitive to various climate change exposures;
iv) Information from local agencies on their
current ability to deal with the impacts of climate
change;
v) Historical data on natural events/hazards,
including locally prepared maps of areas subject to
previous risk, areas that are vulnerable, and sites that
have been repeatedly damaged;
vi) Existing and planned development in identified
at-risk areas, including structures, roads, utilities,
and essential public facilities; and
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vii) Public agencies with responsibility for the
protection of public health, safety, and the
environment.
c) Based on that information, a set of adaptation and
resilience goals, policies, and objectives for the
protection of the community from climate change risks
identified in the vulnerability assessment.
d) To carry out those goals, policies, and objectives, a
set of feasible implementation measures, including:
i) Feasible methods to avoid or minimize climate
change impacts associated with new uses of land.
ii) The location, when feasible, of new essential
public facilities outside of at-risk areas, including
hospitals and health care facilities, emergency
shelters, emergency command centers, and emergency
communications facilities, or identifying construction
methods or other methods to minimize damage if these
facilities are located in at-risk areas.
iii) The designation of adequate and feasible
infrastructure located in an at-risk area.
iv) Guidelines for working cooperatively with
relevant public agencies.
v) The identification of natural infrastructure that
may be used in adaptation projects, where feasible.
Where feasible, the plan must use existing natural
features and ecosystem processes, or the restoration of
natural features and ecosystem processes, when
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Page 5
developing alternatives for consideration. "Natural
infrastructure" means the preservation or restoration of
ecological systems, or utilization of engineered systems
that use ecological processes, to increase resiliency to
climate change, manage other environmental hazards, or
both. This may include floodplain and wetlands
restoration or preservation, combining levees with
restored natural systems to reduce flood risk, and urban
tree planting to mitigate high heat days.
2)Allows a city or county to update its safety element by
attaching or making reference to a local hazard mitigation
plan or other climate adaptation plan or document that
fulfills commensurate goals and objectives and contains
information required by this bill.
3)Allows cities or counties that have an adopted hazard
mitigation plan, or other climate adaptation plan or document
that substantially complies with this bill's provisions, or
have substantially equivalent provisions in their general
plans, to use that information in the safety element to comply
with this bill. Requires a city or county to summarize and
incorporate by reference into the safety element the other
general plan provisions, climate adaptation plan or document,
specifically showing how each requirement of this bill's
provisions has been met.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: Yes
According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, negligible
state cost. Local agencies have the authority to charge fees to
pay for the required updates, therefore, local mandate costs are
not reimbursable.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/31/15)
American Planning Association, California Chapter
Audubon California
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California Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation
California Fire Chiefs Association
California League of Conservation Voters
California Professional Firefighters
California ReLeaf
California Urban Forests
City of Oakland
City and County of San Francisco
Climate Resolve
County of Santa Barbara
Environment California
Little Hoover Commission
Local Government Commission
Nature Conservancy
Public Health Institute Center for Climate Change and Health
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
Sierra Club
Tree People
West Marin Environmental Action Committee
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/31/15)
League of California Cities
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: Comprehensive land use planning serves
two purposes. First, it helps public officials avoid problems
when they make decisions about the future. Second, it helps
public officials solve past problems. The Legislature promoted
both of those purposes in 2007 and 2012 when it increased the
local planning requirements for flood and fire hazards.
Legislators required local general plans' safety elements to
present information, set goals and policies based on that
information, and come up with feasible measures to carry out
those goals and policies. That three-part approach helps city
councils and county supervisors make better land use decisions
that avoid or minimize the risks of flooding and fires. This
bill applies the same three-part approach to the risks
associated with climate change. California's 2009 Climate
Adaptation Strategy recommends that "communities with General
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Plans and Local Coastal Plans should begin, when possible, to
amend their plans to assess climate change impacts, identify
areas most vulnerable to these impacts, and develop reasonable
and rational risk reduction strategies." Using the accepted
three-part approach to land use planning, this bill will help
local officials make better land use decisions in anticipation
of climate change's impacts.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION: The Legislature first required cities
and counties to adopt general plans in 1937 (AB 722, Weber,
Chapter 665, Statutes of 1937). Over the last 70 years,
legislators have insisted on increasingly detailed local plans.
The recent trend has been to require general plans to pay more
attention to specialized topics: San Joaquin Valley's air
quality (AB 170, Reyes, Chapter 472, Statutes of 2003), wildland
fires (AB 3065, Kehoe, Chapter 951, Statutes of 2004, and AB
1241, Kehoe, Chapter 311, Statutes of 2012), tribal cultural
places (SB 18, Burton, Chapter 905, Statutes of 2004), military
operating areas (SB 926, Knight, Chapter 907, Statutes of 2004),
and flood hazards (AB 162, Wolk, Chapter 369, Statutes of 2007).
When land use problems hit the headlines, the Legislature
imposes new planning chores on cities and counties. But,
California doesn't invest State General Fund money in
long-range, comprehensive, local planning. The burden of
funding these new state mandated local programs falls on local
general funds and on the property owners who apply for
development permits. This bill is another well-intentioned, but
unfunded, state mandated local program.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 55-25, 8/31/15
AYES: Alejo, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brown, Burke, Calderon,
Campos, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd,
Eggman, Frazier, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto,
Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Hadley, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Lopez,
Low, Maienschein, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Nazarian,
O'Donnell, Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
Salas, Santiago, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Weber, Williams,
Wood, Atkins
NOES: Achadjian, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Brough, Chang,
Chávez, Dahle, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Grove, Harper, Jones,
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Kim, Lackey, Mathis, Mayes, Melendez, Obernolte, Olsen,
Patterson, Steinorth, Wagner, Waldron, Wilk
Prepared by:Brian Weinberger / GOV. & F. / (916) 651-4119
8/31/15 19:58:23
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