Proposed fire safe regulations could impact landowners
Those living in communities accessed by narrow, steep, or dead end roads, could face roadblocks to developing
SANTA CRUZ >> Regulations being considered by The State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection could have significant impacts on landowners in Santa Cruz County, and CZU Lightning Complex fire survivors seeking to rebuild.
Communities that do not meet access road, driveway and dead-end road standards laid out in the regulations, could be particularly stifled in developing new residences or rebuilding post-fire, if the rules are formalized, which advocates are calling cost prohibitive.
Those State Minimum Fire Safe Regulations would establish new standards required to develop and rebuild across Santa Cruz County. That includes in areas in State Responsibility Area, such as Felton, Boulder Creek, the Aptos Hills, as well as off the coast in Davenport and Swanton. In those communities, and largely in Santa Cruz County as a whole, the state is responsible for fire suppression and prevention, according to Chris Walters, Santa Cruz County Fire Deputy Fire Marshal.
“These access road and driveway standards… they’re a little more onerous than our local standards,” Walters said.
Property owners who access their community by roads that are at least 14 feet wide, and have more than 13 feet of vertical clearance would likely not be hindered by the regulations, as they stand currently.
The rules would not only impact those who live off of narrow roads, but also communities that do not meet steepness, or deadend road thresholds. The draft regulations would also impact property owners living on a road that is on a slope steeper than 20%, or on one way road that extends more than one mile.
“The Santa Cruz Mountains are steep and there’s not a lot of extra room to build larger roads. We have dead end roads that go for miles,” Walters said.
In Santa Cruz County, Walters pointed to Whitehouse Canyon Road, Bear Creek Canyon Road, Old Woman’s Creek Road, as well as the Last Chance Road and the unincorporated area of Lompico, as places that could be impacted by the rules, if passed.
“It technically could determine if you could develop your parcel,” Walters said. “That’s a significant impact.”
The State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection is holding a fire safe regulations workshop Wednesday, where proposed rules that could have significant impacts on landowners in Santa Cruz County, and CZU Lightning Complex fire survivors seeking to rebuild, will be discussed.
Those who lost their home in August’s CZU Lightning Complex fire may face additional hurdles to rebuild, if the regulations are formalized. In a letter to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, the California State Association of Counties and Rural County Representatives of California said the rules will form “no-build” areas across the state.
“The problem with this regulation is it puts the onus of upgrading these roads, on an individual that is building on one of these parcels, so it’s going to make it prohibitively expensive to even build a home in some of these areas,” Tracy Rhine, a Legislative Advocate with the Rural County Representatives of California, said.
Those infrastructure conditions that some fire victims and property owners would need to meet, according to Rhine and other advocates, could further fuel the California’s housing and homelessness crisis.
The associations are also advocating for the Forestry Board to fully exempt property owners who’ve lost their home in wildland fires, or other natural disasters, from the regulations, despite substandard road conditions, or other infrastructure issues.
“If you happen to be unlucky and your house burned down, and you are on a road that isn’t the required width, then you cannot rebuild,” Rhine said.
It’s unclear how many properties in Santa Cruz County would be impacted by the proposed rules.
Beyond fire victims seeking to rebuild, the regulations could also impact property owners in the Santa Cruz Mountains in other ways, Chris Walters, with Santa Cruz County Fire said. If adopted, the regulations would require 100 ft. or more of defensible space around a home — that’s land specifically cultivated to stop or slow wildland fire. Often cultivating this buffer requires clearing brush and vegetation.
Walters said, the debate on the regulations exemplify a deeper challenge within the Santa Cruz region and beyond.
“You have two competing interests, the Board of Forestry and Cal Fire, who want to make sure development within the State Responsibility Areas deals with minimum access standards, water supply, defensible space,” Chris Walters, with Santa Cruz County Fire said. “And then there’s a push from state state and local planning departments, that more housing is needed… and part of that more housing is developing in State Responsibility Areas and rural areas.”
The proposed fire safe regulations are currently in their third draft. The Board of Forestry is seeking public feedback, and hosting workshops where officials and community members alike are invited to attend.