Editorial: California has to rethink building homes in climate-threatened areas (via latimesopinion )
State Farm said it will stop writing new home insurance policies because of climate risks and rising costs. California lawmakers need to be more aggressive in building safer communities., which is generally the first 1,000 yards from the shoreline but extends a couple of miles inland in some areas.
SB 35 sunsets at the end of 2025. The new bill would extend the law to 2036 and remove the exemption for high fire-risk zones and urban parts of the Coastal Zone, roughly 18% of the state’s shoreline. Wiener has argued that the blanket exemption for the Coastal Zone is too broad and excludes whiter, wealthier coastal cities. There are areas along the coast, including Malibu, Santa Monica, Encinitas and San Clemente, that could safely accommodate more apartment buildings.
The California Coastal Commission, which regulates development in the Coastal Zone, opposes SB 423, but is talking with Wiener’s office about amendments. The bill had broad support in the Senate and is expected to pass the Assembly next month.
That scrutiny has been the Coastal Commission’s responsibility for decades and the commission has helped protect coastal access and the environment. Yet all that extra consideration creates uncertainty and delays and raises the already high cost of building in coastal communities. And is it really necessary in existing urban areas that are set back from the shoreline, say, near Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica or the outlet mall in San Clemente? No.
The Coastal Commission and Wiener have gotten close to a compromise that would allow fast tracking in the Coastal Zone except in areas vulnerable to three to five feet of sea level rise by 2100. The commission has urged the more cautious five-foot projection, which is reasonable and would exclude a small amount of developable urban land, according to an analysis by California YIMBY, the pro-housing development that sponsored the bill.
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