Climate change

California fires threaten unbuilt housing

Housing developments across California are being sent back to the drawing board due to inadequate planning for the wildfires plaguing the Golden State.

The 40 million people living in California are nearly double the population 40 years ago, and developers have since met the growing demand by building further into dry, windswept canyons.

But as California’s recent past has seen larger and more intense wildfires, local organizations are starting to question what the most prudent course for future housing is.

Peter Broderick, senior attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, believes that wildfires have contributed to public skepticism about building in fire-prone areas, and a sustained drought has only added to concern.

The organization has been instrumental in stopping four proposals for more than 25,000 homes over the past few years due to wildfire-related concerns in California.

"Paradise was certainly a moment of reckoning"

Peter Broderick, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity

The Center for Biological Diversity's legal line of attack, rooted in provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, has become increasingly effective since the 2018 Camp Fire destroyed thousands of homes in Paradise, California. Some of the 85 people killed were engulfed in flames as they were stuck in traffic trying to escape the town.

Photo showing the hills just north of Santee where Fanita Ranch has been proposed.
The hills north of Santee, California, where the almost 3,000 houses in the Fanita Ranch proposal were to be built. Mike Blake / Reuters

In the Guenoc Valley case and two others in San Diego County, the California attorney general has joined to challenge the adequacy of environmental reviews.

"Every year, tens of thousands of Californians are forced to flee their homes as a result of wildfires. Dozens have died — often as a result of insufficient evacuation planning," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement to Reuters.

Statewide wildfire evacuation data is not compiled by the state of California. Evacuation orders are normally issued by the local law enforcement in the area, and they are advised by the organization in charge of managing the fire.

Thomas Cova, a geography professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, notes that wildfires have some unique characteristics that make them harder to plan for than other types of disasters that may require evacuation. Hurricanes for example, are monitored as tropical depressions across the ocean and coastal residents generally know when and where they will land with a good amount of lead time. Many wildfires also start out in the wilderness and move slowly and in predictable ways. “But some fires, the really scary ones, can move really quick, start right near a community and give less warning time than you would ever want,” Cova said.

Eight of California’s ten largest wildfires and six of the ten most destructive have occurred in the last five years, according to Cal Fire. Wildfires are becoming a potentially larger threat to housing as drought continues to create greater amounts of ready fuel, and severe wind events push fire across the landscape with incredible speed.

Fanita Ranch

The Center for Biological Diversity successfully sued to stop Fanita Ranch, a roughly 3,000 home development planned for the undeveloped scrubland northeast of Santee, California, increasing the city’s population of 60,000 by perhaps another 10,000 people.

Fanita Ranch was halted largely on grounds that evacuation plans were inadequate. As part of her April 6 ruling, the judge found one of the project's purported escape routes toward a state highway was a dead-end street.

In response, the developers are revising evacuation plans, said Jeff O'Connor, vice president of community development for HomeFed Corporation, a Jefferies Financial Group subsidiary. They expect to resubmit plans to the city council by July.

Beyond the lawsuit that has halted the Fanita Ranch development, voters in the city will have a chance to reject the development in a referendum set for the November ballot.

The city of Santee said it will comply with the judge's order for now and later "consider taking action with regard to the referendum," Arliss Cates, secretary to the city council and city manager, said in an email to Reuters.

As they watch the lawsuits gain momentum, builders say they are designing fire-resistant homes, wider roads for evacuation, and larger fire breaks.

"There's no perfect place to build in California. And so we mitigate, we build according to the risk," said Nick Cammarota, senior vice president and general counsel for the California Building Industry Association.

The undeveloped area just north of Santee, California, where the Fanita Ranch development has been proposed. Mike Blake / Reuters

Governor Gavin Newsom has promoted a strategy that would inhibit the sprawl into fire zones and promote more building in dense urban neighborhoods through grants and tax breaks to help offset higher land values in downtown settings.

But builders say that's not what homebuyers are demanding. "We try to design and build communities where people want to live," said O'Connor, the HomeFed vice president. "Some people want to live in high-rise buildings downtown. But not everyone wants to do that."

Sources

USDA Forestry Service; Center for Biological Diversity; Reuters reporting

Edited by

Julia Wolfe, Aurora Ellis